Article introduction: As a designer, thinking should not be limited to the aesthetic level, to improve their own pattern. To provide greater value for products and maximize profits by combining psychology with design techniques.)
Any commercial product, no matter BAT in the traffic era, Weibo, Renren and Douban in the content era, or the order-oriented products such as Didi, Meituan, Dianping, Ofo and Live Broadcasting in recent years, will focus on two core issues: 1. Product form; 2. Profit model.
Profitability is the ultimate goal of almost all commercial products, otherwise how to survive. Therefore, today’s focus is on the product profit model, in simple terms: how to make money products.
In fact, there are many monetization models for products, such as: value-added services, commissions, publishing/advertising fees, API development (licensing open interface), sales, etc…
And the same product can have a variety of profit models at the same time, for example, take Xiami Music for example, the startup of the flash screen (advertising charges), the banner of the new song recommendation (release charges), open members to listen to high-quality music (value-added services)…
Today we focus on how to improve the benefits of value-added services.
What are value-added services?
Value-added services are content/experience requirements that a product provides to users at a higher level than the basic services.
Under normal circumstances, the product obtains a certain user base through free service mode, accumulates users, and then collects fees through value-added services, so as to increase the company’s revenue.
How to increase value-added service revenue?
I divide the path for users to purchase value-added services into five steps: 1. Reach, 2. Choose, 3. Buy, 4. Repurchase, 5. Recommend.
1. Reach – Exposure
In the first phase, users have to “touch” before they have a chance to discover value-added services that can be converted into purchases. Therefore, there is a need to increase the “visibility” of value-added services at this stage.
There are two ways to improve: a. Increase exposure to the paid business; B. Increase the exposure of promotional activities.
A. Increase exposure to paid business
Increase the exposure of paid services and let more users know that the product has these services.
For example: Evernote, when more than three devices log in at the same time, a full page will pop up to guide “Upgrade account type”; Zhihu specially provides a TAB to carry paid services, such as Zhihu Live, bookstore and paid consultation. Live streaming products, payment and reward function entrance, is also particularly obvious.
B. Increase the exposure of promotional activities
Increase the exposure of promotional events so that users who have no intention of paying will have the opportunity to convert when they see them.
To improve the exposure of activities, we need to: expand channels, precise delivery; Guide forward, seek diffusion.
Expand channels, precise delivery
Most products will first advertise in their own products when doing activities, such as: in their own products flash screen, banner, or pop-up advertising.
However, if you want to reach a wider audience, you need to expand the channel beyond the site.
Because the advertising outside the station is either to change the amount, or to give money to the other party, so in order to save costs, it must be accurate to put in, find more overlapping users of the platform to promote.
The suggestion is to find their own upstream and downstream products, so that the conversion rate is relatively high. For example, what do users do before riding Ofo? Search the map. Yeah, so work with maps and advertise.
Off’s 1 yuan monthly activity, the theme is “all the people ride together”, so where are all the people? Yeah, wechat. Put it on wechat.
And if you look closely at their star choices, the range is huge. From the lu Han of fresh meat, to the Huang Bo of ugly meng, still have the big Zhang Wei of variety ka, the big bosom goddess Liu Yan of silk people…. Not just stay in lu Han, Wu Yifan, TFboy this single dimension.
The aim is to appeal to a wider range of fans of different ages, in line with the concept of “all people” in the campaign theme.
Guide forward, seek diffusion.
The above mentioned activities are launched by the product itself. Another way to expand the coverage of activities is to encourage users to forward by themselves.
For example, after Ofo payment, there is an activity of “invite friends, grab 1 January card”, the activity of collecting cards on The National Day of October 1, etc.
2. Choice — Attractiveness
The next step is to make the feature/activity more attractive to users as they make a choice. In simple terms, make it look like a good deal and make the user decide to spend money.
A. Add visual contrast to the price
Experiments have shown that: when you take the initiative to compare two prices, users will subconsciously think that their price comparison process has been successfully completed, no longer deliberate, subconsciously think that the discount is cheaper.
Another useful technique is to visually reinforce the gap between the original price and the current price, such as: spacing, type, color, etc. The difference is larger, the two prices are perceived as very different, and the discounted price is perceived as lower and more attractive. Like the picture below, it looks like 72 is much cheaper than 90.
Netease cloud music on the price of processing, is to use this way.
Therefore, when deciding the size, visual designers should learn to enhance the value of design from the perspective of psychology, not only in terms of visual aesthetics, but also to maximize the benefits.
B. Put prices in descending order
Studies have shown that if prices are listed in descending order, users will be influenced to choose a relatively expensive one.
Suk, Lee, and Lichtenstein (2012) tested this argument in a bar by randomly changing the order of products. They made the most operating profit when they ranked their products in order of price from highest to lowest (right).
Reason 1: Anchor price/reference price
When users evaluate a range of products and services, they tend to use the first price they see as a reference price.
If the price is high at first sight, users will have a higher perception. When consumers use this higher price as a reference, the rest will look like a good deal, so they will buy the relatively expensive one.
Reason 2: Loss aversion
As humans, our instinctive concern is loss. When your price order changes, users will experience different losses when looking at the menu.
When a product is priced in ascending order (left), users feel they are missing out on a cheaper purchase every time they look down. Therefore, they tend to choose lower-priced products to reduce this loss.
However, on the other hand, when we rank the prices from high to low (see figure), consumers will feel that they have lost better quality every time they see an item at a price point, so they will choose a more expensive price to reduce the loss of high quality.
For example: QQ music, get VIP price sort, also according to this way, from high to low rank.
C. Price comparison is more intuitive
Most products will be priced this way, e.g. ¥18.00/ month, ¥148/ year. But not only does this not make users feel intuitively cheap to buy for a year, but users also have to imagine conversion.
The following is the impression note guide to open advanced account payment guide, directly for the user conversion good, more intuitive attractive.
At the cashier desk on the Web side of Evernote, below the annual charge at the lower right corner, it directly indicates that the user saves 68 yuan for a year. Also in the user to make a choice stage, improve the product price attraction.
3. Buy-fluency
If the user has completed the first two steps of “reach” and “choice”, the next step is to spend money.
At this stage, there are two steps to improve the smoothness of the purchase process: a. Shorten the purchase process; B. Help users make purchase decisions.
A. Shorten the purchase process
When a user decides to buy, each additional path creates churn. Therefore, we should shorten the purchase process as much as possible, so that users can spend their money smoothly.
Currently, many products purchase services/functions on the current page, do not need to jump to a new page.
For example: Xiami music, in the purchase of songs, directly pop up in the current page.
For example, when you recharge gold coins, there is no need to jump to the cashier, so you can spend money while watching the live broadcast, seamless connection.
B. Help users make purchase decisions
Users often hesitate before deciding to pay, so the platform can opt for what looks like a better deal by default, saving users time and improving the flow of purchases.
For example: QQ blue diamond default choice is “3 months 45 yuan”, I believe they are also through data presentation to buy 3 months of users is the majority, so just put the first choice.
4. Repurchase – Satisfaction
Repurchase refers to the repeated purchase of paid services by users. The more the repurchase rate is, the higher the loyalty and satisfaction of users to the brand will be, and the higher the product revenue will be.
Therefore, the product should: a. Improve user satisfaction; B. Guided renewal.
A. Improve user satisfaction
Different products have different definitions of satisfaction. For example, for live broadcast products, after users pay, anchors say “Thank you for the yacht XXX sent to you” in public, thus satisfying users’ vanity and making them more willing to pay continuously.
Like Thunder, Baidu network disk, after opening members will have obvious speed or capacity of the promotion, at the same time in the copywriting informed, such as: “honorable members, this upload/download, think you save 34 minutes”…
For example, iQiyi, Youku and other video products, after opening a member to watch the video prompt “dear member, we have skipped the advertisement for you”, this time, there is an indescribable comfortable ah-ha-ha-ha.
Well, increased perception of value-added services, thereby increasing user satisfaction.
B. Guided renewal
When the user’s payment function is about to expire, the expiration reminder is given and the corresponding discount coupon is attached, so that the user can easily pay at this time, which is also a way to improve the re-purchase rate.
You can also set up levels for paid users, such as QQ Yellow Diamond and membership, and the level will rise after renewal. Iqiyi VIP also has a hierarchy, in order to encourage users to continue to pay.
5. Recommendation – Spread
When users buy value-added services and are very satisfied with them, they will recommend them to their friends. This kind of word-of-mouth power is quite powerful.
Therefore, we should shape our own brand better, and value-added services are easy to use and cost-effective, worthy of users to speak for us.
conclusion
In general, there are five ways to increase the revenue of value-added services:
1. Let more users see the paid features/event entry of the product (reach – discovery);
2. Make paid features/activities more attractive and users are willing to pay for them (option-engagement);
3. Shorten the purchase process and help users make purchase decisions (purchase-fluency);
4. Paid products have good experience, enjoy using, can’t do without, and want to pay again (repurchase – satisfaction);
5. Get people around you to pay (recommendation-spread).
I hope this article will be helpful to you.
Author: Da Ya, senior UI designer of Baidu User Experience Department. Wechat official account: Design notes of big tooth.
This article is originally published on UI China by @Da Ya. Reprint without permission is prohibited.