Unlocking User Growth: Acquisition & Retention Strategies for C-End Products

Unlock Explosive User Growth: Mastering New & Returning Customer Acquisition

By Mu Yan | July 12, 2024

As user acquisition costs skyrocket, attracting users is just half the battle. Keeping them engaged and coming back for more is what truly fuels growth. Today, we'll delve into the crucial strategies for acquiring new customers (user acquisition) and retaining existing ones (customer retention), focusing on C-end products.

Part 1: Acquiring New Users

1. Product Focus: Create high-frequency, essential, affordable, and universally appealing products that build user stickiness. This is often seen in how large companies initially "lose money to make noise," offering compelling initial experiences. IKEA's famous $1 ice cream is a prime example – attracting customers with value, then guiding them towards other products.

2. Activity Driven: Leverage coupons/red envelopes, physical rewards, experience gold, contests, and exclusive offers tailored to different user segments and preferences. Remember, incentives should directly align with business objectives and encourage key behaviors, avoiding excessive "wool-gathering."

3. Promotion Powerhouse: Employ diverse strategies like content marketing, offline promotions, friend referrals, and strategic partnerships. Content is king in public domains, offering low-cost, high-conversion, and lasting impact. Offline initiatives, such as trendy pop-up shops, grab attention and drive users online while leveraging viral trends to amplify reach.

   Friend referral programs thrive on user enthusiasm, product loyalty, and compelling incentives. Since invited individuals often lack familiarity, the offer's value heavily influences their decision.

   Partnerships should transcend mere advertising; focus on integrating complementary product features or services for deeper mutual benefit.

Part 2: Retaining Existing Users

Retention hinges on understanding customer stages and characteristics – tailoring strategies accordingly is key.

1. Onboarding Stage: Convert new users into loyal platform members by focusing on purchase conversion and growth metrics like frequency, amount spent, product categories, and purchase timing. Utilize the RFM model for in-depth analysis.

2. Growth Stage: Enhance user stickiness through repeat purchases, achieving a 30% retention boost with one repurchase and a 60%+ retention rate when reaching five purchases.

3. Maturity Stage: Maximize revenue per user (ARPU) by increasing purchase frequency and order value or promoting cross-category purchasing. This can be achieved through:

   • Establishing user growth systems and incentives
   • Boosting user activity levels and website visits
   • Deeply understanding user needs and driving growth from the supply side
   • Encouraging purchases across product categories
   • Implementing standardized activities and building a robust event calendar

4. Decline Stage: Implement early warning systems for potential customer churn by analyzing R and F fluctuations to identify at-risk users. Segment customers based on M (monetary value) and tailor marketing strategies accordingly, focusing on service, price, product, or comprehensive marketing efforts.

5. Churn Stage: Analyze churn reasons and implement corrective measures to prevent similar losses. For unavoidable departures, optimize costs; for experience or guidance issues, address them directly. Develop targeted win-back campaigns with specific incentives and communication tailored to individual customer needs.

This post was originally written in Chinese by @沐言 on 人人都是产品经理 (Everyone is a Product Manager). It has been translated into English for broader accessibility. The views expressed are solely those of the author, and the platform merely provides information storage services.