The core tactics of selling courses with private traffic in 2019

If we talk about the hottest term in 2019, it must be "private domain traffic".

We know that "private domain traffic" is not a new concept, and it still needs to follow marketing rules in essence. But whether it is KaiYan English, a subsidiary of the giant VIPKID, or the emerging Fengbian Programming, the educational and training institutions with "private domain traffic" as their core gameplay have indeed performed very well this year. Can they prove that the "private domain traffic" model is indeed desirable?

This article will explain in detail the core logic of private domain traffic and how educational institutions should apply it from three parts.

(The most popular cases of fission in online education products at present, left: Fengbian Programming; right: Kaiyan English)

Before defining private domain traffic, I have to say that although I personally don’t like to regard every real person and real customer as so-called "traffic" - a line of cold data on a computer. However, for the sake of convenience and consensus, this article still calls it "private domain traffic."

But it should be noted that behind every traffic is a real person and real needs.

1. What exactly is private domain traffic? Here is a scientific definition

Let’s first define “private domain traffic”. My understanding is that “building private domain traffic” is the process of establishing the closest possible relationship with users and potential users.

Private domain traffic refers to users who have a close enough relationship with the merchant or the merchant’s products.

We know that the essence of marketing is to establish a long-term close relationship with customers (as defined in Kotler's classic "Marketing").

Therefore, establishing close relationships with users (customers) is more than just a short-term or sales strategy. Obviously, once a close connection is successfully established, it is easier to complete the closed loop of products and services in terms of user value; in terms of commercial value, it is also easier to complete the conversion of sales/renewal.

So, the first question we might ask is, what is this "close connection" that can constitute a win-win situation?

Close connection depends on different products, scenarios and fields, and can usually be determined by the frequency of demand.

For low-frequency products or services , it is difficult for us to establish relationships such as personal WeChat friends, friend circles or WeChat groups, because the closer the relationship, the more frequently unique value needs to be provided. For example, for a certain hospital, a certain photo studio, a certain water park, etc., for such products or services, if users actively follow the official account, it is already considered a good "close relationship", which means that users are willing to pay attention to the latest developments of products and services that they do not need for the time being.

For some high-frequency products , it is relatively easier to establish closer relationships such as WeChat groups or personal friends. For example, the community group buying groups that are very popular now take fresh food, vegetables and fruits as the entry point for high-frequency consumption. It is natural to add the group leader as a WeChat friend and join the group buying WeChat group.

Therefore, the core strategy of "private domain traffic" is to use various methods to strengthen the relationship with users as much as possible, and ultimately make good use of this relationship to achieve commercial value.

Is private domain traffic really just marketing tactics like adding WeChat, browsing Moments, and posting advertisements?

2. The education and training industry is the most suitable industry for playing with "private domain traffic", no doubt about it

From the essence of marketing, the fundamental reason why enrollment and marketing are difficult, and why it is difficult to convert user traffic is that in most promotion scenarios, user value and commercial value are not in line.

In other words, in most promotion scenarios, the interests of users and merchants are inconsistent. Usually we can only bring in a large number of users to "wash" them to screen out potential users whose values ​​are relatively compatible.

Take the familiar “adding a group” as an example.

As businesses and organizations, the core purpose of establishing a group is to gain the attention of users, to hope that information about products and services can be read by users, and ultimately to convert potential users into paying users.

From the user's perspective, in the current scenario, they may not have corresponding needs and ideas for the product, or they may want to "exchange ideas" with other real users, or they may want to kill their free time.

The real needs of real users are complex and changeable. Once the degree of fit is below a certain point, users will choose to leave or ignore it. This is why many businesses try to create their own WeChat groups, but they often end up becoming dead groups.

For the education and training industry, there is a natural fit between marketing needs and user service needs: supervisors. It is precisely this unique feature of the education and training industry that provides education and training players with a new bonus opportunity today when traffic costs are high.

As an ancient industry, almost everyone agrees and understands that learning is difficult, boring and inhumane, so we need teachers' supervision, urging and guidance.

When we say, "Add your class teacher on WeChat to help you learn and grow together," real users very much recognize this value - this means that the user value and business value we mentioned above are perfectly matched.

The class teacher's WeChat can supervise students' study and guide them to answer questions and problems; the class group can facilitate students to communicate with each other, encourage each other, and share their orders with each other; WeChat public accounts can facilitate the acquisition of after-class materials and answers to exercises...

During the entire "supervision" process, institutional merchants can realize the commercial value of building "traffic pools" and "private domain traffic" on the basis of meeting user needs.

What’s important is that the way to play with private domain traffic can not only well meet the needs of students and merchants, but also is a typical high-frequency to low-frequency conversion method: whether it is homework tutoring, student communication, or extracurricular materials, they are all high-frequency and rigid-demand scenarios, combined with the marketing of course renewal and ordering new courses, it is very natural and efficient.

3. How to use private domain traffic? Combine course content to open up a closed loop of traffic

To be more specific, how to combine course content to play with private domain traffic?

Start by designing these 3 points.

1. Design courses to provide unique value to users

Providing user value is a prerequisite for meeting commercial value.

Taking English speaking courses as an example, the value that can be provided to users in the after-class session usually includes but is not limited to: tutoring/Q&A, short oral videos (which can be posted in conjunction with TikTok, for example, “How are you supposed to answer to be authentic?”), daily quiz scores (need to be combined with course design), daily study check-ins (by duration or by class), and discussion topics (introducing controversial or topical discussion topics).

After designing all the value points, think about the most convenient form.

For example, student communication relies on UGC and timeliness, and is usually completed in a group. If the average order value is relatively high, teachers can provide one-on-one private tutoring. If the average order value is relatively low, it is recommended to create a group and conduct Q&A and homework tutoring in the group. If the course content is relatively serious, more interesting and relaxing related videos can be added and posted in the group. Course materials and answers to exercises can be placed in the public account menu in the form of public account tweet links.

It should be noted that it would be best if you can create "unique value". For example, we can tailor learning reports to the users and regularly provide them with entertainment-oriented knowledge that may be of interest to them.

2. Guide users to the WeChat ecosystem and build traffic pool relationships

By using services such as tutoring, communication, and supervision of learning as "unique user value points" and using trial classes, experience classes, 9.9 yuan class activities, etc. as content forms, it is possible to attract a large number of potential students to add the teaching assistant/class teacher's WeChat.

For old students, you can also attract them to add the teaching assistant’s WeChat through activities and other means.

This completes the first step of the traffic pool: acquiring and aggregating traffic.

After directing users to the WeChat ecosystem's "traffic pool", what needs to be considered is how to carry different types of users in different ways. For example, students and parents have different concerns, students at different levels have different needs, and potential students and old students also have different needs.

What we need to do is to label each student as accurately as possible to facilitate query and follow-up. Then try to pull similar users into a group.

(The class groups of Fengbian Programming and Kaiyan English have a very good atmosphere because of the precise crowd)

3. Use private domain traffic to conduct user operations that are targeted for growth

User growth is the core goal, but if we always focus on it in all our operational strategies, it is easy to ignore the medium and long-term value.

After users are layered and graded, the core things that need to be done can be summarized into two points: high-frequency, continuous daily maintenance to improve user stickiness and recognition of services; relatively low-frequency, carefully planned periodic fission activities to "monetize" user value, convert users into paying students, and attract more potential students.

For some specific methods and cases of daily maintenance, please refer to the first point above. It should be noted that since different users have different needs, different content and services should be provided to different users as much as possible. This is the idea of ​​"fine-grained operation" that we often mention.

For the monetization and conversion of students/potential colleges, the core gameplay is "gradient conversion". In simple terms, let users who are willing to pay pay, let users who are unwilling to pay forward the message, let users who are unwilling to forward follow the official account/join the group, and let users who are unwilling to follow the account browse the message.

How to achieve “fine-grained gradient transformation”?

Through the above logic and operation model, referring to the cases of Kaiyan English, Fengbian Programming and other cases with the fastest growth in private domain traffic, it is divided into two parts: the first part is experience class + sales conversion + traffic pool accumulation; the second part is to achieve viral fission growth through the traffic pool

1. Promote new users by offering trial classes for 9.9 yuan: promote through advertising or public accounts, WeChat groups, Weibo, Toutiao and other own channel resources, and complete the transaction payment process in the landing page developed by yourself; the key point is that after payment, users cannot directly attend the class, but are guided to copy the WeChat account and add the teaching assistant to attend the class.
2. Students who participate in the trial class during a period of time are added to a WeChat group, and the group is operated through check-in, communication, interaction, extracurricular knowledge, Q&A, tutoring, etc. The group is also responsible for chatting with students privately and urging students who have not checked in in the group to study. The more students participate in learning and experience the course after the course is over, the higher the sales conversion rate of full-price courses will be.
3. After the trial class is over (it can be 7 days or a certain number of classes), @all users in the group and promote the first round of conversions with limited-time discount promotions; you can see the level of student participation and disband the "course experience group" after the 24-hour or 72-hour activity is over.

Steps one to three form a simple promotion-conversion closed loop, which can be promoted continuously.

Since students have a considerable understanding of the value of the course, the services provided and the atmosphere of the entire communication community during the experience course, the course conversion rate will be much higher. More importantly, in addition to the students who are directly converted, we will also gain a large number of potential students among our WeChat friends. We will follow up with them through private chats, asking them why they ordered the course. After the students reply (indicating a certain willingness), we will add corresponding labels to facilitate the release of fission activity tasks next time.

Such a process has now become standard. In addition to the various online education products we are familiar with, many well-known online education SaaS platforms have begun to provide a complete set of functions. For example, the implementation plan for short books is to add a permission judgment before studying the course. Students must add the teacher’s WeChat before they can start studying.

In addition to one-stop education SaaS, this can also be achieved through many third-party tools.

The advantage is that if you don't use short books, but self-developed systems or other platforms, you can also achieve it through tools, such as Star Glory Mission Treasure, Group Building Treasure, Explosive Fission, Little U Butler, etc., all of which can complete such a closed loop. However, the conversion rate will vary in some details, because simple tools can only jump to personal accounts through QR codes and cannot be directly integrated into the course learning page.

There are many things to note about the growth of fission viruses, which will not be elaborated on due to space limitations.

To sum up, for the marketing of educational institutions, enrollment, course renewal, and old customers bringing in new customers (that is, fission) are the three core sales conversion points.

The advantage of the private domain traffic gameplay centered on personal WeChat accounts and WeChat groups is that it matches the value of students and merchants through the "supervision" link. While completing one conversion, it accumulates traffic pool resources to facilitate fission growth.

Finally, I still have to add that any gameplay and tools cannot be applied mechanically. Only by understanding the core logic behind the private domain traffic model and combining the characteristics of the course and users can you truly grow your course.

Author: Jiawei Oscar

Source: Jiawei Oscar