Practical methodology for community operation!

This article is a review article. The main task was to review a community project that I was previously responsible for, and how to build a community of 10,000 people in half a year with a revenue of nearly 10 million.

1. Why do we want to build a community

1. Company Introduction

Simply put, the company's main business is to be the domestic general agent of a brand under a certain high-end cycling sports category. Responsible for the brand promotion and sales of XX brand in China.

The company had stable Taobao sales at the time.

2. Why does the company consider building a community?

2.1 Avoid user churn and strengthen user relationships

No matter how big the store is or how much traffic it has, it is always on someone else's territory. I think all Tmall/Taobao store owners have anxiety. Building a community can help retain users and transform weak relationships into strong relationships, greatly reducing user churn rate.

2.2 Increase the frequency of repurchase

Through social networks, users can be labeled and operated in layers, effectively increasing the frequency of repeat purchases and raising the average order value.

2.3 Using social media to enhance brand influence

Due to the particularity of the industry, we need to communicate with KOLKOC from all over the country and use their energy to promote the brand and sell products, and the community is a very good medium.

2.4 Our products are suitable for community

Our users are a group of enthusiasts in the cycling sports category, who are very precise and segmented. Our products have the characteristics of high frequency of new products, high repurchase rate and high gross profit . The high-end cycling sports category has good content dissemination . For example, we have a lot of advanced cycling experiences from abroad to share.

Based on the above, our products are very suitable for building communities and extending services through communities.

2. What type of community do we want to build?

1. What type of community should be established?

Our goal at the beginning was very simple, which was to retain users, increase stickiness, and increase sales.

We do not plan to create some very professional communities, but we are preparing to create a more relaxed and active sales community.

Our initial plan for the community was very simple, dividing it into core groups and ordinary groups.

1.1 General Group

The main purpose of ordinary communities is to gather cycling enthusiasts, accumulate Taobao user traffic, cultivate core users, and convert sales.

At first, our classification was very rough, but later we found that our business needed to be connected offline and our users had the need to communicate and exchange ideas offline. So we started to build local communities. For example: East China group, South China group, Northeast China group, etc.

By operating local groups, we effectively held a large number of offline events in the later period, which enhanced user stickiness and had a great effect on brand promotion and sales conversion.

1.2 Core Group

The core group, as the name suggests, is the core group of people in the community.

We separate high-value users, users with high brand identification, and active and cooperative users into a core group and give them priority in service and operations.

2. Set a small goal for the community

When I first started building a community, I had no idea what I was doing. I don’t know if it can be done, and I don’t know to what scale it can be achieved. Fortunately, my boss didn't put too much pressure on me and just let me do it.

But at the beginning, I still set some small goals for myself and my team.

- Build 10 communities with more than 400 people

- Develop and accumulate 50 local KOCs

- No loss

- Cultivate a loyal user base

3. How to build an orderly and active community

1. Set group rules

There is no order without rules. If a community does not have group rules, it will definitely not survive.

On the one hand, group rules make the community more standardized and allow group owners to manage the community with reason and evidence. On the other hand, they can also effectively eliminate some invalid users. After all, people who do not abide by the rules will definitely have a negative impact on the community.

Another benefit of group rules is that they can create a sense of ritual for joining the group.

So what does a complete group rule include?

It generally includes two aspects: one is the introduction of the community, and the other is the specific rules of the community.

The purpose of the community introduction is to prevent people who join the group for the first time from being confused. The main introduction includes: who we are; what benefits will you get from joining this group.

The specific group rules are to inform what needs to be done or what cannot be done to stay in the group, mainly including: guiding the modification of group business cards; explaining prohibited matters.

2. Community Organization Structure

Community operation is actually a very heavy job, especially when the community grows larger. So how can we ensure that every group operates normally, is effectively active, and produces value? It is necessary to build the organizational structure of the community.

From the company level, they are divided into general group owner, group owner, and administrator.

The chief group owner is responsible for the overall operation of the community and is responsible for the overall data of the community, including community activity, growth, conversion rate, etc.

The group owner is responsible for the operation and management of a single group , which is equivalent to the boss of each group. On average, a full-time community operator can be responsible for 5-10 groups.

The number of administrators for each group is 1-3, depending on the number of people in the group. Mainly responsible for group management, inviting people or kicking out those who violate the rules; guiding topics within the group; publishing information about group activities, following up on the progress of activities, etc.; sales conversion and guidance, answering user questions, etc.

From the perspective of community members, it is generally composed of group owner + administrator, and the chief group owner cannot be contacted.

3. Community output

To ensure the activeness of the community, stable content output is essential. Stable content is the best catalyst to keep a community active.

After continuous adjustment and optimization, we will use a large number of resource integration activities as community content output to enhance the sense of participation of community members.

We divide activities into fixed activities and non-fixed activities.

Regular activities include: introductions of famous foreign drivers, video sharing, new tastings, invitations with prizes, etc. Through continuous activities, the community atmosphere is enlivened and users are trained to share and invite each other.

Non-fixed activities include some offline cycling activities, competitions, etc., which can improve user activity and stickiness through offline competitions and activities.

4. Community Development Process

1. Preparation

Maintain an account. Buy a few mobile phones, apply for a few WeChat accounts, and maintain the accounts for a month according to normal user habits.

2. Offline activities

Our community started with offline events.

Due to the uniqueness of our business, we began to invite the first batch of seed users to the community by sponsoring and participating in offline events.

Why adopt this heavy mode? Mainly for accuracy . At the event, the users you meet and the friends who join you are definitely accurate fans, otherwise they would not come to join in the fun.

We participated in 10 offline events, attracting an average of 100 fans per event. The cost of each event was around 10,000 yuan, and the cost of attracting new fans was 100 yuan per person.

In fact, this calculation is not quite correct. After all, we have a lot of brand marketing and promotion activities at the event, and a large part of these expenses should be counted as marketing expenses. But it doesn’t matter, we won’t worry too much about it here. Because later we effectively reduced the cost of attracting new customers through online activities.

By participating in the competition, we have set up 10 groups, each with about 100 people. These are our first batch of seed users , and they are very precise users.

3. E-commerce accumulation

In addition to offline activities, we also continue to retain e-commerce users.

There are mainly two methods used.

The first one is SMS traffic diversion.

By continuously optimizing SMS copy, we eventually stabilized the conversion rate at around 8%. (i.e. send 100 messages and add 8 WeChat friends)

The cost of SMS is 0.05 yuan per message, the average rebate red envelope is 1.5 yuan, and the cost of acquiring customers is 2.1 yuan per person.

The second method is to use package cards to attract traffic.

After shipment, traffic is directed through the small card in the package.

The conversion rate of package card traffic was as high as 15%, and later stabilized at around 10%.

The card costs 0.1 yuan per card, the average rebate red envelope is 1.5 yuan, and the customer acquisition cost is 2.5 yuan per person.

We have summarized several points to pay attention to when creating package cards with high conversion rates.

-The material should not be too bad, it should be placed together with the product to avoid being ignored, and it should be attractive for users to pick it up and take a look;

- The benefits are clear, and it would be best if you could explain it in one sentence: what are the benefits of adding me on WeChat?

-The card name, QR code avatar, and WeChat avatar after scanning the QR code should be unified, which can dispel user concerns and make it easier to build trust.

4. Activity fission

Once you have a certain number of seed users, using activities to achieve fission is an essential step.

We also used a lot of gameplay at that time.

- Invite X people to give gifts

-Group buying activities

- Show your driving skills in the circle of friends and like the activity

- Invite people to join the group to get discounts

No matter which method you choose, the most reliable approach is to test it in one group first. Once the process is running smoothly and all data are relatively stable, copy it to other groups.

5. Telephone traffic diversion

For high-value users, we generally let customer service communicate directly by phone (appropriate time, appropriate content).

How to define high-value users? It is still determined by order frequency and average order value.

This group of users is extremely rare, so we directly call customer service to communicate with them and invite them into the core group.

V. Conclusion

Let’s summarize this review case here.

1. In the initial stage, you can choose to establish a general direction of the community based on the business model and product attributes ; after it develops to a certain scale, you can make adjustments and optimizations based on the specific situations encountered during the operation.

2. Focus on content and services to drive the continuous growth and activity of the community.

Although we have built a community for sales conversion, it still relies on content and services to drive it. Sending advertisements, links, and coupons in the group every day is not the optimal solution. The long-term solution is to use content and services to narrow the distance with users, awaken user needs, and achieve natural conversions.

3. Whether it is attracting new customers or promoting activation, you must focus on data and use data to guide operations . I won’t say much about this, as everyone knows that the key is whether it is taken seriously enough and whether it can be implemented effectively.

4. Communities also need to be operated in layers. Core users and high-value users should be given special attention, and at the same time, core members of each group need to be cultivated. These core members will generate tremendous energy in the process of managing the community.

Author: T Brother

Source: User Operations