All traditional business models are basically simple: I sell things to others and if he takes my services and products, he will pay me. This is a binary relationship. Many enterprises will write this concept as customer first, and customers are God, because customers give money to enterprises and are their parents.
Why emphasize the difference between customers and users?
Traditional enterprises enter the internet, of course, customers still have to make money. Why emphasize users?
In the internet environment, the most important thing to emphasize is the difference in viscosity. It used to be sticky to customers. Due to information asymmetry, customers will not be exposed to the massive information under the Internet, so the customer churn rate will not be so fast due to improper use of information and other reasons.
With the breadth and depth of interconnection and the speed of iteration, customers' attention has been greatly diluted. In the Internet age, the most expensive currency is people's attention and time. People are not loyal to their times. Convenient, fast and cost-effective, service has become the weather vane of purchase. Where is better, where to turn.
The difference between customers and users
1 in the internet age, the environment has changed and the rules have changed. Now, users are people who use your products or services, but they may not pay you. Wechat users are free. Wechat has gathered hundreds of millions of users for Tencent and has a huge user base.
You sell things or give them away, and users are just beginning to deal with you. You can't wait to let users feel your existence and feel your every day through your products and services.
It is very important to make users aware of your existence.
Definition of user
According to Zhou's view:
The definition of users is those who can provide a service for a long time, let him feel your existence for a long time and keep in touch with you for a long time.
For example, you used to sell mobile phones, and after you sold them, the buyer had nothing to do with you. He paid to be your customer, not your user. If your mobile phone sells 20 million yuan today, they are using the software you provided every day and contacting you every day. Then, you are a mobile phone manufacturer with Internet thinking.
Business model of internet
The first model is particularly traditional, that is, using the Internet to sell things. Selling real goods, we call it e-commerce; Selling funds, stocks and other wealth management products is called internet finance; If you sell SPA, virtual services and discount coupons for restaurants, you can call it O2O. In fact, this is all a model, that is, using the Internet as a platform to do traditional business, but giving full play to the characteristics of the Internet, that is, the power to gather people online.
The second mode is to rely on advertising revenue. That is, when your service is not profitable, if you have enough eyeballs and enough users, you can recommend some other products and services to them. In fact, this is an advertisement, just like watching TV for free, except that there are advertisements on TV.
The third mode is the value-added service represented by online games. You can charge value-added service fees to users who provide additional services. For example, an online game, 1000 diaosi is playing for free. Suddenly, a man from Gao Fushuai came. He thinks he's different. He wants to be a big brother, spend a lot of money on horses and swords, and pay diaosi. Making money from these people is a value-added service. People who don't want to spend money can continue to work hard as miners or people who grow food in games.
Even the best Internet companies can't escape these three modes. You must find a way to get the largest user base.
Users are the foundation of Internet business model.
This is the rule of the Internet game, which determines that if you want to establish an effective business model, you must have a huge user base. 360 didn't rely on selling antivirus, but gained a huge user base through free antivirus. Until today, 360 antivirus still doesn't make money, it's all about losing money. However, because we recommend the use of 360 browser to users, we also have a huge user base. Services such as navigation, search and web games are all built on browsers, so today's revenue of more than 36 billion yuan is not sold by antivirus, but by services such as browsers.
360, Tencent is to gather a huge user base for free, and then either advertise or provide value-added services to make money. Therefore, users are the basis of the Internet business model.
The essence of Internet products is to serve users.
Good internet products are not just about selling products to users. The essence of internet products is service, and the products themselves, including the mobile phone you use today, are all behind telecom services. Behind QQ chat is also a whole set of services. So since it is a service, software and websites are both carriers, bridges and windows. Through this carrier, this bridge, this window, you deliver the service to the users. The needs of users are constantly changing. You can feel it and adjust it at any time. The method of adjustment can be continuous improvement of products and services every day, such as releasing new versions, which belongs to this narrow sense of continuous improvement. However, continuous improvement in a broad sense also includes some operation methods, such as the improvement of service mode and service quality. Therefore, a good Internet product has two characteristics: first, it must be able to impress users at one point; Second, it must be in continuous improvement and continuous operation. This is a charm of Internet products.
Your product must be used by people. When users use it every day, there will be a lot of feedback, and you will continue to absorb feedback. Today, if Microsoft is still using this idea of grinding a sword for several years to make software, instead of using the idea of operation, it is tantamount to not following the rules of Internet products, then the products will naturally not succeed. You can't do it with your own original culture. Don't expect a certain version to bring revolution, it depends on many small versions to realize the revolution.
Therefore, users in the Internet age are not defined by payment, but by the frequency and quantity of interaction with you. Therefore, it is time to re-examine your service model for Internet users.