Thoughts on User Growth at Fan Shi: A Standardized Process Approach

There is always a standard process when it comes to user growth. After reading numerous articles on the topic, I’ve found that everything ultimately comes down to two core stages: awareness and conversion.

In short, if you optimize these two essential elements—awareness and conversion—you can effectively drive user growth.

Awareness (essentially your traffic entry points)
How should we understand “awareness”? Whether you’re running an e-commerce platform, a WeChat public account, or an app, any kind of conversion—sales, follower gains, downloads, registrations, or investment in financial products—rests on one fundamental prerequisite: being seen and being known.
Here’s a simple principle at work: the larger your base, the greater your potential for conversions. This logic mirrors China’s market dynamics and startup investment—the size of your user or consumer base determines your market space.
Even with a 1% conversion rate, 1 million people still yields 10,000 conversions.
Conversely, even with a 100% conversion rate, just 1,000 people reach you means only 1,000 conversions at most.
(Conversion rate = converted users ÷ users who saw the product)

Key takeaway:
Awareness involves two distinct types of traffic: channel traffic (usually paid or short-tail traffic) and organic traffic (users who find you naturally).

① Channel traffic; short-tail traffic channels (once you stop investing time, effort, and money, this traffic disappears almost immediately):
Choose the channels that best fit your product to support user growth. For example, if you run a value-driven WeChat public account, knowledge-sharing platforms like Zhihu are strong channel options because they attract high-quality traffic. Other media channels include Sohu, Toutiao, various WeChat accounts, and apps.
Channel traffic typically comes through partnerships or paid advertising. No matter the method, the goal is the same: getting seen by more people.
② Organic traffic; long-tail traffic channels (long-tail traffic continues bringing users long after you stop actively investing time, effort, or money):
The most common form of organic traffic is search traffic. Users find your product through search engines. Take Zhihu as an example: when you search a question on Baidu, Zhihu’s answers often appear at the top. This search traffic is organic—Zhibu gains visibility without needing to invest heavily in active promotion.
Many creators focus on Zhihu traffic for the same reason. Once you build sufficient authority, you can capture search traffic, and Zhihu’s long-tail content will keep delivering users steadily over time. Unlike paid ads, which vanish the moment you stop spending, long-tail content keeps working for you.

Conversion (essentially turning a massive traffic base into truly effective, revenue-generating traffic)
Conversion is where the real results happen, yet many overlook it. Most people know they need to focus on awareness but rarely put in the effort at this critical stage. The essence of this phase is improving your conversion rate.
If 1,000 people see your product and your conversion rate is 10%, that’s 100 conversions.
What if the conversion rate jumps to 15%? Then you get 150 conversions.

There are really only two key considerations at this critical stage. Whether you’re designing a poster, a QR code landing page, an H5 page, or any other conversion format, you need to address two core questions.
① Why choose you? (Remove user hesitations and build trust.)
Two approaches come to mind. The first is providing concrete evidence to support your credibility—similar to the examples used in persuasive essays. The second is giving users a reason to convince themselves, which then makes them easy to convince others. Consider the popular “Yanxuan” (curated selection) model: it subtly tells buyers, “You’re someone with refined taste who pursues a high-quality life.” People want to believe that, don’t they?
② What do you deliver? (Emotional benefits outweigh rational ones—after all, women drive much of the consumer market and tend to respond more to emotion):
Although this overlaps with point ①, the distinction is clear. The first point is about eliminating doubts and building trust. (The earlier Yanxuan example wasn’t quite right for that question.)
The second point is about inducing action through unique value, especially emotional appeal.

A classic example is Brain Platinum: “When giving a gift, give Brain Platinum.” Just think about how that line works.

The conversion stage is essentially sales closing. What two things must you solve? First, remove hesitations. Second, motivate action.

Follow my personal account: lixuehanoffice, where you can access the original mind map as well as more standardized thinking frameworks and patterns.

I’m a science student at heart, so I’m always trying to get to the essence of things.