Xminder Le Ge shared: Xminder went to sea for twelve years.

This article is the result shared by XMind Le Ge in the group of "Internet going to sea". Deleted and arranged for easy reading.

Thank you very much for your invitation. Sharing for the first time, insufficient preparation, throwing bricks to attract jade. The following figure is the outline of this sharing:

First, introduce yourself.

I am the product manager of XMind, and I am also responsible for the maintenance and optimization of international websites. In addition, I am also responsible for product growth. The content of this sharing is also a summary of my work.

Our company was established in 2006 and has a long history in the Internet industry. XMind is the masterpiece of our team 12 years. Now many colleagues think that XMind is a foreign team work, which is actually related to our distribution strategy: we prefer to do it abroad. Our focus has always been on overseas editions. Generally, English editions are made first and distributed in overseas markets, so people will think that XMind is a foreign product. This inadvertently brings us a cognitive advantage: people will think that XMind is more advanced or willing to accept foreign products, and will also have a more positive evaluation of the quality of XMind products and maintain such a competitive advantage for a long time. At the same time, when we interviewed users overseas, they were very surprised to learn that XMind was made in China.

Second, products are king.

XMind has been operating for 12 years, but in this 12 years, except for a short period of time, there are almost no advertisements and no attempts to buy traffic for users. To sum up, the main reason why we can achieve good results overseas is that we have targeted foreign markets from the beginning of R&D and marketing promotion. Besides, we entered the foreign market at the right time. At that time, MindManager was the only field of mind mapping in foreign markets, and there were various problems in use, so XMind was the only choice. I call this model "non-traffic-driven growth", but in fact, it is simply "product is king"

"Product is king" can be simply understood as "We attach great importance to product experience". Of course, there is no end to perfection, and you may find many places worthy of optimization in the process of use. But I have interviewed many users (user surveys): they will install several or even dozens of mindmanager models and finally choose XMind. This proves to some extent that whether it is natural traffic or paid traffic, whether it is to maintain the user's update rate or to maintain the user's conversion rate and activity, the most important thing is the product itself.

Third, mainstream channels.

In addition to product experience, publicity channels are equally important. As the outline shows, the mainstream channels of XMind include Google, Apple and media relations.

1, Google

The promotion method of google channel is search engine optimization, which is seo. We have rich experience in Google's seo, and the PR value of XMind International Station has reached 7. People who know something about seo should know what this means: such a high PR value is generally achieved by media websites, such as new york Times. The main reason for the high weight is that we have long adopted the operation mode of "encouraging sharing" and "UGC"-encouraging users to share their mind maps to our website, and at the same time providing a rendering engine for individual bloggers to display on their blogs.

In this process, when bloggers with high PR value share mind maps and cooperate with XMind, "sharing behavior" is equivalent to high-quality blog websites voting for our website, which makes XMind International Station gain more trust from google. Of course, now google is weakening the concept of PR value, and the constant adjustment of the algorithm makes it impossible for us to maintain the height of 7.

At present, the ideas of "UGC" and "encouraging users to share" are very popular. In fact, we started earlier than many of our peers and gained a great competitive advantage. The Internet in China is a bit bad in this respect: people don't want their websites to pass on trust to each other, and many websites have added the nofollow mechanism, but foreign users don't.

2. Media relations

Different from the domestic situation, there is a very strong independent blog culture abroad, including software evaluation, product recommendation and so on. An Apple blogger who is still writing a blog can invite Apple's vice president as a guest to share Apple's dynamics, which can reflect how powerful the blog is abroad. Therefore, we attach great importance to these blogs with strong traffic and influence so far in the process of announcement, and will communicate with bloger very frequently and sincerely. At the same time, when operating foreign media relations, it is found that it is slightly different from domestic ones: the domestic KOl is clearly marked, but the foreign media (high-quality KOL) is not necessarily.

In addition, emerging social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and China are no exception. Durex, a well-known representative of social marketing in China, and foreign pornographic websites are also very successful on Facebook.

There are also some emerging content sharing platforms different from domestic ones, among which the product Hunt is the representative. Product hunting can publish information without registering an account casually, and commercial accounts can publish their own products only after reaching a certain authority, which is higher than that in China. Some emerging recommendation platforms abroad will ask you to "operate", not just spend money on things.

3. Apple

Apple is an important channel that we are very good at. XMind's series of products have been recommended in various places in the App Store, such as today, list, efficiency classification and so on. Of course, the recommendation I'm talking about here is not just China. In fact, we have been recommended by App Store in dozens of countries around the world. In terms of App Store recommendation, we can maintain a good frequency to get recommendations, and we can also sum up some experience to help you get higher exposure.

The first factor is "product experience", which is divided into two aspects: first, whether the product is innovative and worth recommending to Apple; Second, we attach great importance to Apple's human-computer interaction guide and keep an eye on Apple's latest developments at WWDC conference to keep up with the product level.

During the recruitment process, we often talk to candidates about the native interactive guide. In the process of product design and R&D, we don't consider the stacking of function points, but understand what Apple wants to praise from the perspective of publicity. Including some new hardware functions and software level updates supported by Apple, will appear in the human-computer interaction guide, such as the recently launched security zone, settings and so on.

After completing the product level, you can try other methods to increase the probability of being recommended by Apple editors. The experience is summarized as follows:

In addition, the review and recommendation editor of the App Store are not the same person, and there is an obvious time period. The team meets every Sunday to discuss and update on Friday. Every editor will have his own recommended projects, even need to prepare his own Keynote, and need to give a speech and bid at the recommendation meeting. We have received phone calls and emails from Apple editors, asking us to prepare product introduction videos and keynote speeches. Ta said that she would recommend us on the editorial board, hoping to get more product highlights and gain more exposure opportunities for us.

Fourth, cultural differences.

"Respect for cultural differences" is a very important point in the process of going to sea. Different cultural backgrounds in different regions will lead to different product operation and publicity strategies. I divide the mainstream countries participating in XMind into Europe, America, Southeast Asia and Chinese mainland. The degree of Internet development varies greatly among countries. Before going out to sea, we must evaluate what stage of Internet development the product is suitable for and whether it matches the degree of Internet development in the target area. For example, efficiency tools like XMind have no market in areas with low Internet level, so we have not done well in Southeast Asian countries.

A friend of mine put "white people behind black people" when making a game announcement and shooting material for a game. After submitting it to the App Store, he has been rejected. The reason is vague-it is incorrect to go against politics. In the discussion, we talked about "whether there is disrespect for blacks/whites" and "racial discrimination", which were passed after amendment. Therefore, European and American countries have many hidden rules of "political correctness". Their internet level has already surpassed the internet, and the terms and regulations are extremely sound. Politics and culture must also be considered.

Regarding the hidden rules of culture, we can take Europe as an example first. We found an interesting thing: XMind initially only provided official website in English, and then Germans and French responded, hoping that we could provide official website in German and French, even if they could understand English. Germans and French people don't want or like others to put English first, especially in French-speaking countries (common sense: if you add French words to English, it will be very advanced, but if you use English in French-speaking areas, you may be beaten ~). Therefore, we offer localized products in all regions of Europe. If the English version is submitted in Germany and France in order to save costs, it will cause resentment and negative evaluation of the product.

In addition, they care about privacy, but because XMind is a small team, we are very embarrassed. The popular strategy in China is "barbaric growth first, then standardization", but in Europe and America, we should respect privacy, culture and law from the beginning.

The United States and Canada are also our main markets. As I said above, they are all in the middle and late stage of Internet development. First of all, the customer base is very good, and there is a very good software foundation and payment rate. Secondly, the customer acquisition and activity rate is not as high as that in the early morning. Taking out China's fire protection products may not have much effect, and the search volume of mind maps in these countries is also very small (the demand has been met, and there is no new traffic).

Fifth, the market is different.

Some time ago, we held a sharing meeting in the United States. After it was released in official website, thousands of people signed up. During the investigation, we found a very interesting thing: they don't want to hold a large-scale symposium, but expect the scale to be less than ten people, not just sitting below and listening, but expressing and participating.

In fact, the economy of Southeast Asia lags far behind that of Europe and America. XMind focuses on Korea and Japan, and has agents in both countries. We will adjust R&D and publicity for Korean and Japanese markets, and we will also support local language versions. Japan, South Korea and other Southeast Asian countries are very good springboard for China's Internet to go out to sea, with similar cultural backgrounds and very close degree of Internet development.

China market, we are latecomers, I believe you are more experienced than me.

Sixth, enterprises.

In order to be a European and American market, enterprises must attach great importance to honesty. China counterparts always start with quantity and occupy the market before standardization, but this method is difficult to work in European and American markets, that is, it is difficult to work in the later stage of whitewashing, and you will not be tolerated because you are a big company now. From the beginning, we should pay great attention to corporate integrity, including our commitment to users, the difference between free and paid functions, the duration/cycle of use, and the operation strategy/rules. For example, I used Tencent's network disk to accumulate a lot of files, promised how much space to use for free, and later directly announced that these spaces were cancelled and needed to be paid, which is a very serious dishonesty abroad.

Secondly, foreign countries have a very perfect software certification system, which is also very credible. If your product can improve the communication and transformation effect through certification, we can make preparations in advance before entering the market.

Supplement:

1, contact information of Apple

@ Apple

Developer DevProframs@apple.com//contact.

AppReview@apple.com//APP comments related.

ITunesConnect@apple.com//ITC correlation

2. Apple promotion (self-recommendation)

Use your Apple ID//App Store to promote consultation login.

Introduce yourself 6~8 weeks in advance, and it will explode after the new product launch in September.

3. Contact Apple for the information you need when recommending yourself.

4. Apple App Store

Software products are strongly recommended to go to Mac App Store if conditions permit. You can put a shell like Terreiro. The Mac version of XMind: ZEN is much higher than the 5% share of Mac in the pc market. When the installed capacity of Mac App Store version is lower than that of official website version, the absolute value of Mac App Store activity and even net activity is higher than other versions. Therefore, it is worthwhile to invest in Mac App Store in overseas markets.