Product Management Series 3: product user group planning

This is the third article in the agile development product management series. (Preface and set up iteration goals, product version planning, product user group planning, new product R & D, prediction meetings, product servant, product owner team, and product line management)

When training the "user story user modeling" exercise last week, someone raised a question: can the user group and user group classification be defined in such a short period of time? The answer is: no.

User Group planning is a task that should be completed in the product concept period. It is a product management task, not a requirement management task.

User Group Positioning

Here, I will only put forward some simple opinions on the Internet industry I am engaged in. These ideas are closely related to the products I am working on. Therefore, they may not be applicable elsewhere and are for reference only.

We divide usersPopular usersAndTwo types of paying users.

This is very similar to the classification method of Internet traffic. I believe many companies classify product users as well. So what can we talk about? BecauseIf you do not carefully describe the user group's positioning ideas, the product will be easy to work out..

In the traditional industry and even the traditional software industry, there is basically one type of user: paying users. If you don't buy my products, you won't use them. We have nothing to do with them. The disadvantage of this classification is that all risks are put on the user, and once the payment proves that the choice is wrong, the consequences are self-paid. This issue caused several problems:

1. Users are hesitant before payment, and the pre-sales and sales costs are high, resulting in sales and pre-sales staff or even more than developers

2. if the user is not satisfied, the loss will cause a great negative effect.

So (limited by the vague description of trade secrets ):

1.Popular users are responsible for free marketing, eliminating pre-sales and sales costs.

This requires you to do some work in the free version for popular users: free, simple, easy to use, interactive comments, dissemination, trial use of paid products ......

2. Some of the popular users will growPaying user, used to provide sales.

This requires paying users to do other work in the version: Upgrade directly from the free version, including functions used by financial decision-makers (motivation for purchasing upgrades), fast contracts and payment channels ......

Too detailed content is not convenient. Here we will comment on "quick contract and payment channels" to effectively reduce pre-sales costs.

How fast is "fast? Click a button, pay the bill online, format the contract electronically, automatically send the license, and end.

"Customers haven't even seen it. Are you willing to pay ?" If you refuse, it means that our free version is not doing well enough, or he has not gained enough confidence as a popular customer. We will do better in the free version to eliminate their concerns, rather than using sales staff.

At the same time, this is to determine what the "free version" will look like. It is no longer just a product with relatively simple functions and limited license, however, they are given the mission of "completing pre-sale Confidence Building". The product positioning under these two objectives is completely different.

Let's talk about the core commercial secrets. Let's get started, huh, huh.

Changes in user groups at different stages

In the 10-year life cycle, different users are exposed at different stages, and another dimension is generated. Roughly as follows:

1. Fan users

Without limitation, we agree with the product concept and even know the users of product developers. Consider the Product Style and connotation, and do not mind ease of use.

A large number of comments or even most of them are put forward by them. However, they do not pursue popular functions, but have strong value-oriented functions.

To treat these users, they should respond positively in the early stage to form influence; to avoid product extremes, they should be treated with caution in the middle.

2. Trial users

New things will be attempted, but in the spirit of pragmatism, there is a lack of patient users.

Therefore, the usability and accessibility of mid-term products are very important, otherwise they will not be able to pass the trial.

3. Public users

I don't like to try it. I have been influenced by users more than my own experience. It is a practical tool.

Ease of use and standards are very important. The so-called standard is that products have relatively consistent usage, so it is easy to search, it is easy to train a large number of users.

As the number of mass users is huge, the knowledge of fans and exploratory users must be used for marketing, sales, and support activities.

What does this sentence mean? Go to the game website and you will know that the BBS zones of major game websites are not answered by game companies, but are widely used to launch fans and test users to provide support to the masses.

As a result, the product itself is integrated with its peripheral support system, such as QQ, such as 360, and you have no idea whether you are in the product, or the Product Support System (that is, the "Help document" in the old concept.

Similar processes exist in non-Internet industries. For example, Microsoft has performed dos for fans (which is quite difficult to popularize because of complicated operations, but is definitely useful ), I made windows3.1/3.2 (very easy to use) for trial users and made Windows95 for public users (since then, the interface has not been significantly changed ), completed the Business Plan of "installing the MS operating system in each person's computer". However, with the increase in the number of Win95/98 hosts, the subsequent products became increasingly available to the cloud. Because "everyone ......" The user group plan has been completed. What is the new user group plan? No, so there was a civil war like Windows 7 vs. XP.

Supporting Business Model

To cooperate with such a product plan, many supporting business models will also emerge.

It is not convenient to say too much here, but nothing else: free, long tail, collector, producer and consumer combined into one, half-product thinking, no heavy economic ...... These common Internet policies. Of course, every enterprise must make great efforts to put these contents into practice.

Aside from talking about user groups, product planning is empty talk,User Group planning is the starting point of agile product management.

There are many methods for user group positioning, including space and time. HoweverThere is only one purpose: to understand what products and versions should be made in order to win these users for commercial purposes.