Small programs are the same as investment. If you want lasting and long-term returns, you should uphold the long-term philosophy when operating.
It’s time to make this point straight.
The mini program was born four years ago. Whether it is on WeChat, Alipay, Douyin, or Kuaishou, it should no longer be used as a tool only to gather platform traffic, but rather a piece that requires patience and will be given to merchants. Rice fields and positions that bring long-term rewards.
In the past, WeChat Mini Programs provided developers with technical services for opening apps, but after receiving a large number of complaints recently, it was announced that in order to optimize user experience, the platform will no longer provide “mini program opening App technical services” after May 20 . What the big platform hopes is to cooperate with merchants for a win-win situation. While providing traffic for merchants, it also requires merchants to stay within the platform ecology and continue to refine operations.
Long-termism is a concept that has spread from the investment circle to the entrepreneurial circle. But its concept is not new. The “hundred-year-old shop” and “value investment” are all in the same line. Why are these concepts being discussed more and more now? Because in the current environment, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to look around for so-called “dividends” with a speculative mentality. Any industry’s survival and development will inevitably require us to take a longer-term view and make long-term investments.
The “small program”, a new species of mobile Internet, has gradually returned to rationality after being born in 2017 and being overestimated in 2018. The small program at this time is more suitable for the concept of long-termism.
The choice of platforms coincidently
Almost at the same time, some new changes have taken place in the Alipay applet.
As the number of Alipay Mini Programs exceeded 3 million, on May 20, Alipay upgraded the entry of “My Mini Programs” from “My” to the prime position on the homepage. When users open Alipay, they can click to enter directly on the first screen without clicking or pulling down. The use path is shortened. This means that for high-quality mini programs, the difference between the front and rear entrances will greatly change the frequency of user activation, and the value of the mini programs will increase significantly. Moreover, “My Mini Program” is only open to third-party merchants, and first-party services will no longer participate in the competition for this traffic pool.
This product revision of Alipay clearly tells third-party merchants that as long as users of your Mini Program like it enough, you can directly get the golden position on the homepage of the user’s Alipay App. It will improve the effectiveness of user retention and revisiting by businesses.
In addition, Alipay also revealed a core rule: the user’s collection of Mini Programs, that is, the number of Mini Programs entering the user’s “My Mini Programs”, has become Alipay’s evaluation of the quality of the Mini Program and determines the Mini Program. One of the standards of public domain incentives that can be obtained.
You must know that Alipay neither does not set up public domains at all like WeChat, and does a completely “decentralized” social distribution, nor does it provide public domain bidding rankings like other platforms to fully commercialize public domains. In Alipay, public domain traffic must be thought of with private domain traffic, and the mechanism of “centralization + decentralization” is used. In summary, the platform will make good service = good traffic.
Now Alipay has directly told us its goal. The user collection index that reflects retention and reuse is where the business shows its self-operation ability. According to data from Alipay, Yifeng’s mobile Alipay applet relies on self-operation, which has spurred the centralized traffic in Alipay and greatly increased its search and life account traffic. In one month, its applet’s monthly activity has increased. Increased by 5 times, daily activity has increased by 10 times.
It can be said that by improving the entrance of “My Mini Program”, Alipay will make a lot of effort to further the closed-loop path of public domain traffic and private domain traffic on the platform. through.
This concept of Internet black talk sounds difficult to understand, but it’s actually very simple.
The more popular merchants’ mini programs are for old users, the more Alipay as a platform will guide new users to merchants. Merchants only need to do a good job of private domain, let users like their own mini programs, and bookmark their own mini programs, then the mini programs in the public domain traffic areas such as the Alipay homepage will be promoted by the recommendation weight. Using long-term operating concepts to improve user retention and activation can back-feed new efficiencies and reduce traffic costs. Regardless ofLong-tail merchants with good experience but lack of early users, merchants who want to be promoted from the long tail, or large merchants who want to further develop new channels, this model can give long-term sustainable boost.
This is what Alipay wants, and it is what Alipay wants to accomplish with ecological merchants.
The long-termists will win eventually
Maybe you remember that before the mini program, some H5 marketing pages made by companies represented by NetEase had been blasted in the Moments of Friends; when the mini program first came out, it was caused by small games developed with the mini program like Jump One Jump. After the popular craze, both young and old can easily start a simple game and compete for ranking in social circles; and many individual game developers can also rely on simple and creative gameplay to quickly capture a large number of players.
The scope of application of small programs is very wide, especially in some scenes where the update is fast or the function requirements are light. According to QuestMobile data, the WeChat mini programs with a compound growth rate of TOP1000 in Q1 in 2021 will be concentrated in five areas: mobile games, life services, practical tools, education and learning, and mobile shopping, accounting for 77.3% of the total.
However, whether it is H5 in the pre-mini-program era or mini-games in the mini-program era, how many cases of the year can last to this day? The advantage of small programs is that they are easy to develop, but they are extremely explosive. Once they are detonated, they can easily scan the entire network, which is very conducive to product innovation; but the disadvantages are also obvious: due to the stability, comprehensiveness, and functionality of small programs Sex and other aspects are not comparable to the App. If you use the inherent thinking to do it, no matter how good a small program project is, it will only be a flash in the pan. After a round of communication, no one will open it.
In pursuit of advantages and avoiding disadvantages, many people choose to use only the advantages of small programs and avoid its “disadvantages.” Once various products use small programs to attract new users, they will find ways to export users from the large platform traffic pool to their own App, thinking that this is more “safe”.
This concern of the business is also understandable, so is it that small programs are destined to only develop with such a lame leg?
Alipay’s solution is to further enhance the strategic position of the mini program, give better entry, clearer distribution rules, and make retention and pull new form a positive cycle.
The intention to open up this cycle is very obvious. Alipay, like WeChat, does not want merchants to treat Alipay as just a place to collect a wave of traffic. Alipay has traffic. That’s right. After all, it is a super platform with more than one billion global users. It is definitely a traffic rich mine.
But Alipay is more than just data.
As a super platform derived from a simple payment product, Alipay has already combined various attributes such as catering, wine travel, travel, finance, etc. Users can invest in Alipay, buy funds, and use Alipay. Order takeaways, book hotels, and take taxis. In March last year, Alipay launched a round of “the most important revision since its establishment 15 years ago”, determined to become a digital life service platform and provide infrastructure for the digital upgrade of the entire service industry.
Also, Alipay is naturally close to merchants, so it is not surprising that Alipay’s strategy is to be a friend of merchants, “serving merchants well, and ultimately serving consumers.” The continuous opening of applets is the strategy of Alipay’s “merchant-friendly” strategy. one.
It is foreseeable that all high-traffic platforms will increasingly strictly regulate platform policies to combat the gray and black production of wool and wool traffic. This is the reality, so all businesses have to do is to respond in a targeted manner.
In the business world, there is nothing wrong with the platform expecting merchants to stay and be active. The key question is how to make the platform and the ecosystem win-win. The merchant’s anti-risk ability is not as strong as the platform, and will not pay too much resources for uncertainty. Therefore, Alipay has been working hard to promote the openness of the platform. For this purpose, it has provided various merchant self-operation tools to lower the threshold for merchant operation. But this time, I directly raised the entrance of “My Mini Program” to the highest level.
The signal is very clear. Alipay believes that the promotion of small programs is definitely not a wave of hot spots, creativity, and explosiveness. It requires long-term deep cultivation, so that merchants are more concerned about and assessing retention and activation. Operational indicators to promote sustainable innovation. Not only Alipay thinks so, but any big platform thinks so.
So, here comes back to what we said. Mini programs are the same as investments. If you want lasting and long-term returns, you should uphold the long-term philosophy in your business. Don’t speculate, don’t squeeze your wool, Mini programs are also regarded as their own positions like apps. The users of mini programs are your own users. Learn to communicate and communicate with your users continuously. This is the requirement of long-term value and long-term return.