Analyze community operation strategies from 4 aspects!

How can we trigger community group buying? In this article, the author has conducted a detailed analysis and introduction of the factors and key points that trigger community group buying for your reference and study.

In 2019, community group buying remains the hottest track in the capital winter.

Up to now, more than 20 community group buying enterprises, including Xiaoqule, Songshupinpin, Linlinyi, Meijiayouxiang, Shihuituan, Shixianghui, and Niwonin, have obtained a total investment of nearly 5 billion yuan.

At the same time, giants such as Pinduoduo, JD.com, Taobao, MissFresh, and Suning are also waiting for the opportunity and have launched their own community group buying projects, making the entire track continue to heat up.

Since the "Thousands of Group Wars" ten years ago, business models based on group buying have rarely appeared, until the rise of Pinduoduo, which exposed the people in the sinking channels, ignited the trend of social e-commerce, and derived community group buying.

Of course, Pinduoduo does not have the energy to fully give birth to community group buying. It also needs changes in traffic channels and marketing models. The birth of WeChat, to be more clear, is the combination of community and micro mall .

However, the micro mall is just a tool here, and the role of the community is the most core, because the community means circles, and only users who are connected and together can be converted in large numbers .

In fact, any business is a process of converting traffic into users. The community is the transit station between the two, and community group buying is no exception.

According to survey data, Chinese consumers spend up to 100 minutes on WeChat every day. Community group buying based on WeChat groups can take advantage of the huge WeChat user base.

In addition, product and promotional information is released instantly, providing a more convenient shopping method for consumers in the lower-tier markets.

After seeing this data, everyone must be thinking, "How can we make good use of community group buying?" Today, the author analyzed how to trigger community group buying from the aspects of the community’s natural advantages, community content, and community operations .

1. Micro Mall + Community - Operation Conversion Logic

As mentioned above, the online operational conversion of community group buying is completed through the community, and the specific form is the combination of micro mall and WeChat group.

WeChat groups are usually established by group leaders, who are usually recruited and are mainly full-time moms who are at home or have relatively free time. A small number of group leaders are owners of convenience stores in the community.

After the group leader establishes the WeChat group, he or she begins to be responsible for the daily operation and management of the community to ensure that the atmosphere of the group is normal. Of course, because the group members and the group owner are from the same community and have a deeper social relationship as neighbors, it will be easier to manage.

The next step is the most important task: recommend products to group members and guide conversions.

This is actually a relatively natural process, because group members join the group through the relationship with the group leader and have great trust in the group leader. Naturally, they do not need to make excessive decisions when buying things recommended by the group leader, and they will basically buy them.

In addition, group leaders use WeChat Mall to recommend products. After all, WeChat Mall is based on WeChat, and its experience is light, easy to spread, has low development costs, and is easy to iterate quickly. There is no need to register, only user authorization is required, which greatly reduces user behavior costs.

The above is the community operation conversion logic of community group buying.

2. The natural advantages of communities - traffic, user stickiness, and user feedback

Wu Xiaobo once proposed that in the sense of community, the Internet = connection + values ​​+ content. Qibao believes that communities inherently possess the following advantages, making them an important carrier for community group buying and social e-commerce.

1. The community is where traffic is concentrated

Whether it is because of the same interests and hobbies, or the same geographical area, the gathering of people is the essence of communities and social groups, and the traffic is highly concentrated.

Traffic is what the e-commerce industry is pursuing with all its might. Only with traffic can there be user activity and transactions. As traffic costs continue to increase, the cost for Internet companies to acquire new users remains high, and community groups are natural gathering places for traffic.

Currently, the total number of WeChat users has exceeded 1.1 billion, and one of China’s largest social traffic pools has been born.

2. The interactions and content generated by the community enhance user stickiness

Communities and groups that focus on user aggregation and content production naturally have better appeal and stickiness. Users are willing to spend time on Douyin, WeChat public accounts and Moments, and are willing to devote more time and attention to community and community-based products.

3. Communities can quickly collect user feedback

Paying attention to user feedback is a must for all e-commerce companies to establish brand reputation and credibility.

Positive feedback from influential customers can help spread word-of-mouth for a brand, while negative feedback is a direction for future product improvements.

In the past, most platforms chose user surveys as a way to collect user feedback. By establishing communities, platforms were able to quickly obtain user feedback.

3. Community moat - product recommendation + lifestyle sharing

For community group buying, WeChat groups are the "main battlefield" and their core competitiveness and barriers. The scale, activity and purchasing power of WeChat groups are the main goals and directions of their operations.

So what are people talking about in these WeChat groups?

1. Product recommendations

In the community group buying model, each group has one or two "group leaders" who push product links to the group every day, attach edited product information, and guide group members to purchase.

Some of the product information comes from templates provided by the head office, some comes from the group owner’s own experience, and some comes from screenshots taken from third-party content platforms.

The more products a group leader recommends, the better. There was once a community group buying brand that pushed all product categories to the group at once, which eventually caused group members to lose interest and the number of group purchases was very small.

On the one hand, micro-mall is more suitable for one-time small-quantity purchases; on the other hand, too many SKUs make it difficult for group leaders to have a say, which is not conducive to promoting a long-term and stable cooperation model.

2. Lifestyle Sharing

In addition to product recommendations, some social e-commerce companies also plan regular topic discussions for group members, spontaneously or by inviting KOLs to exchange and discuss topics such as group members’ lives, relationships, work, travel and leisure, thereby extending the service scope of WeChat groups and using topics to stimulate connection and sharing among members.

The first thing to build a community is emotional resonance, because the people in the community actually have common attributes, so it is necessary to directly hit their emotional resonance and real needs, which is the most important thing;

Secondly, it is to set the tone and agenda of the group. The tone is shaped by the topic, and the topic is led by people, so the tone of the kol who leads the topic will continue to amplify.

4. High-quality group leaders in the community - "training + distribution" to release the KOL effect

The WeChat group for community group buying is mainly composed of three groups of people: group leaders, active buyers and inactive buyers.

For the platform, the group leader is the brand's tentacles extending to the user group, active buyers are the core revenue generators, and providing personalized services is one of the most advantageous features that distinguishes social e-commerce from ordinary e-commerce in user operations.

From the above analysis, we can find that the group leader is very important for the community conversion of community group buying. It can be said that he is in a particularly critical position, because for a group, the group leader is their opinion leader. If the operation of the group leader is strengthened, the KOL effect can be significantly released.

1. Training - Team Leader Training Class

Let’s talk about training first. Why do we need to provide training to team leaders? This is because most group leaders are recruited, and many are even part-time with varying levels of skill.

For example, some may be managers of community convenience stores or have worked in micro-business and have some knowledge of marketing, while others are complete newcomers with no experience and can easily run into problems.

Faced with this situation, it must be solved through training. The most common approach is to launch a "team leader training class" to enhance the activity and loyalty of team leaders through standardized management and step-by-step incentives.

The training in the "Group Leader Training Classroom" has a specific process. First, a group of group leaders must be established to facilitate centralized management. Then there is specific training and assessment. Common methods include group training, sales training and skills training about twice a week, and targeted coaching for head, middle and tail group leaders.

2. Distribution - Mall Partner

Another aspect related to group leader operations is distribution incentives, which will usually be explained during recruitment and training. The main purpose is to clearly tell the other party: being a group leader can make money, and a lot of money.

However, this is just publicity. How much you can actually earn depends on the group leader's own sales ability and personal connections. As long as the personal connections are wider and more groups are created, and the marketing and operational capabilities are strong enough, it is possible to earn more than advertised.

In addition, the distribution ratio also determines the income of the group leader. The higher the ratio, the higher the income will be. Looking at the entire community group buying industry, the distribution level is around 10%, and a few players will have a higher level, around 15%-25%.

In fact, the purpose of training group leaders and joining the distribution mechanism is to stimulate the group leaders' execution and conversion capabilities and make the business model run quickly and successfully.

If you sort out the community group buying community gameplay, you will find that it roughly follows this path: recruitment - training - group building - operation - promotion - commission - dissemination.

In the process of operating a community, whoever can efficiently reach and satisfy users, while efficiently delighting users, will be able to lead the market.

Grasping the pain points of core users, cultivating users' purchasing habits and brand loyalty, and providing precise services to users are the golden rules for operating social e-commerce and community group buying.

Author: Bei Mi

Source: Beimi