Chapter 89

Zhao Kang had experience in public relations in Yanjing, so Li Mu entrusted him with the task of publicizing the DJ of the Haizhou Music Radio.

To his surprise, after just one dinner, he had the matter settled. At nine o'clock in the evening, he called Li Mu and asked him to listen to the radio.

Li Mu found his father's radio, tuned to the right frequency, and heard a male voice say after the opening music: "Welcome to our 'I Love Pop Music' program. The first song of today's 'I Love Pop Music' is recommended by Xiao Hu. It's from the Simple Plan band, who recently won first place in the Nanjiang Province band competition. I'm sure many of our listeners have seen Simple Plan perform this song live on TV. However, today, Xiao Hu brings you the official recorded version. This song was just released on Yiting.com at midnight. If you like Simple Plan's music, remember to follow Yiting.com, www.eting.com. Simple Plan's second single, 'Sunflower,' will soon be globally released on Yiting.com."

Immediately after, the music of "Li Bai" began to play.

In a city with a population of several hundred thousand, at this time, there were at least a few thousand people listening to the radio.

Li Mu had been listening to this song so much over the past two days that he was almost sick of it. He turned off the radio and called Zhao Kang back.

"Good job, Kangzi. How did you manage to connect with them?"

"Hey, it's nothing. I have a classmate who lives in the same neighborhood as Xiao Hu. This guy earns only a thousand yuan a month. I treated him to a meal and gave him two hundred yuan, and the deal was done."

Li Mu was both amused and exasperated; it was actually that simple.

Zhao Kang then laughed and said, "I just finished dinner with him and am on my way back. The driver's radio is broken. Did you hear it? Are you satisfied?"

"Very good, it's exactly as expected."

"Great." Zhao Kang laughed. "I bought two cell phones for my parents this afternoon but haven't had the chance to give them yet. I'll go home later and then come to your place."

"Alright."

After hanging up, Li Mu was about to ask Kong Lingyu about the traffic when Kong Lingyu's call came in.

"Boss, there was a new peak in traffic around eight o'clock tonight. Over 150,000 users were listening online simultaneously. Where did you get such a huge amount of traffic from?"

"Search for Simple Plan on a search engine and look at the results. Also, don't you listen to the radio?"

"I don't have time for that... I'll go search for Simple Plan right away."

"Okay." Just as Li Mu was about to hang up, Kong Lingyu added, "By the way, Boss, the number of unique visitors today has already approached 300,000, but our registered user ratio is a bit low, only about 5,000."

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "A low number of registered users is a common issue for this type of website. Here's what you should do: purchase three cell phones and three MP3 players, with a total budget of no more than 8,000 yuan. Use these as prizes for a registration promotion. Have the graphic designer create a promotional banner and place it at the top."

"Huh? Why?" Kong Lingyu was confused. Most people in the internet industry were thinking about how to make money from users, or at least use their traffic to earn money. He had never heard of anyone spending money on users.

However, Li Mu understood this marketing model well. In the future, every app would offer subsidies and red packets, spending money in the millions or even billions to attract users. The internet industry of the time had not yet entered the intense competition of the future and did not understand the concept of rewarding users.

But Li Mu believed that a small investment could provide a strong incentive for users to register. Why not do it? For current internet users, cell phones and MP3 players were still considered luxury items. If they had a chance to win them by registering, the conversion rate would likely be very high.

Li Mu didn't answer Kong Lingyu's question but instructed, "Remember, the duration of the promotion should be long enough but not too long. Let's set it to one week. Every week, one cell phone and one MP3 player will be drawn as prizes. The system will randomly select winners, and every registered user will have a chance to win. The winners will be announced on the website."

"Additionally, during the one-week promotion period, users who sign in every day will have their chances of winning doubled. Users who sign in and listen for more than one hour each day will be considered to have signed in twice, further doubling their chances. If they don't win this time, their chances will accumulate for the next draw."

The core of Li Mu's strategy was to increase user engagement and indirectly boost user retention. Whether Kong Lingyu understood it or not didn't matter. It was more important to implement it and see the results.

Kong Lingyu, puzzled and surprised, accepted Li Mu's task and arranged for the graphic designer to work overtime to create the banner. He planned to go shopping for the prizes the next day.

After hanging up, Li Mu thought about how to grow Yiting's user base. Once the user base reached a certain scale, he could upload his two songs to test their effectiveness. If users liked them, Yiting would have another unique content source.

...

When he had some free time, Li Mu also went to the driving school to practice, and to see Su Yinxue. However, after performing three impressive reverse parking and garage maneuvers, the instructor waved him off: "You don't need to come and compete for practice time. Just go home and wait for the exam."

Li Mu didn't have time to visit the driving school every day, so he let down Su Yinxue and Zhao Kang.

The renovation of the store was progressing well. Li Mu visited the site every day, and the changes were noticeable. The large billboard he hung outside the store was also very effective. Many young people in Haizhou already knew that the local Metersbonwe store was under renovation and would be quite upscale.

Unlike the Guo Tianwang of 2015, who went lowbrow to become an internet celebrity, the current Guo Tianwang was still a true king with significant influence.

The store renovation was expected to be completed around August 15th. Li Mu needed to time his order with the headquarters. According to the current official pricing, the cost of stocking the store for summer was about 800 yuan per square meter, and for winter, it was 1,000 to 1,500 yuan. Li Mu's store was 165 square meters, and with the upcoming seasonal change, the stocking cost would be about 1,000 yuan per square meter, totaling less than 200,000 yuan, which he could easily manage.

Yiting.com was also doing well. Due to the registration promotion, the number of registered users had already exceeded 300,000, which made Kong Lingyu extremely impressed with Li Mu.

Now, radio stations across the province were playing "Li Bai" in a loop. This was partly due to public relations efforts and partly due to the song's inherent appeal. In any case, the song was a hit, at least in Nanjiang Province.

On the third day of Xue Guilan's detention, "Li Bai" finally made it to the Shanghai music radio. Upon its first broadcast, it immediately gained a passionate following among young people. Simple Plan's first appearance in a major city, along with Yiting.com, brought the website's daily traffic to over 500,000, with promotional efforts spreading like wildfire.

Li Mu called Kong Lingyu and told him that he had found an independent singer and planned to publish his work on Yiting. He asked Kong Lingyu to have the graphic designer create a banner, to be placed second after Simple Plan, with the content: "Yiting.com Exclusive Singer Muzi's Single 'Zebra Zebra' - 'A Confession of a Niche Folk Singer.'"

There was no photo, just a blurry silhouette of someone playing the guitar with their back to the camera.

Li Mu had no intention of becoming a star, so he used the stage name "Muzi" to publish the songs, aiming to increase user engagement on Yiting.

Li Mu wasn't very confident about the two songs he had recorded, as they were somewhat niche folk songs with rough production. However, they were unique to the internet, and uploading them would only bring benefits.

Kong Lingyu was naturally delighted. The rapid development of Yiting.com made him even happier than Li Mu, who, as a reborn person with years of internet experience, was more composed.

After "Zebra Zebra" by Muzi went live, it didn't immediately gain high popularity. Li Mu analyzed the user behavior on Yiting and found that most users came to listen to Simple Plan and then searched for currently popular singers like Jay Chou, Michelle Wang, Nicholas Tse, and Faye Wong.

However, Li Mu wasn't concerned. He would give it some time to ferment.

Zhang Kexuan had been closely following Yiting.com, especially the data for "Li Bai." In just a few days, the song's play count had exceeded one million, which was unexpected for all four members of Simple Plan.

While checking the data, Zhang Kexuan accidentally noticed the banner for Muzi's "Zebra Zebra" and was surprised. He remembered that Li Mu had recorded a song with the same name before. Curious, he clicked and listened, and it was indeed Li Mu.

However, Li Mu had used the stage name "Muzi" instead of his real name, which piqued Zhang Kexuan's curiosity.

"Hey, Kexuan."

Li Mu, who was inspecting the renovation progress at the store, received a call from Zhang Kexuan.

"I saw 'Zebra Zebra' go live on Yiting. Why didn't you use your real name?"

"I don't want to be famous," Li Mu said.

Zhang Kexuan said, "Actually, being famous isn't so bad..."

Li Mu laughed and said, "I prefer to do my own thing quietly. The entertainment industry is too superficial for me."

Zhang Kexuan chuckled, "If Muzi becomes famous, you'll be famous too. There's no such thing as a completely secret wall these days."

Li Mu said, "Only you four and Wan know that Muzi is me. You must keep it strictly confidential. If it leaks, you four will be responsible."

Zhang Kexuan quickly assured him, "Don't worry, I'll tell them not to reveal anything about you."

"Alright."

Zhang Kexuan hesitated for a moment and said, "By the way, we're planning to go to Yanjing two days early for the final, to get acclimated."

Li Mu checked the time, "That's tomorrow, right?"

"Yes," Zhang Kexuan said, "We really hope you can come with us, but I know you probably won't."

"Indeed, I'm very busy and can't spare the time."

Zhang Kexuan said seriously, "Don't worry, we four will do our best. Wait for our good news in Haizhou!"