5 key points to build a private domain community from 0-1

Nowadays, private domain operations have gradually become a standard or even a necessity for enterprises. As one of the main carriers of private domains, communities are also the focus of enterprises' private domain operations. People often ask me: How to build a private domain community? How to create content? How to plan?

Next, I will summarize how to build a private community system from 0-1 from five aspects based on the common problems encountered in community building.

1. Determine the type of community

Before building a private community, you must first decide what type of community you want to build. Different product categories and operational purposes also determine the different focuses of the community. Common social group classifications are generally divided into three categories:

• Traffic generation group: The purpose is to increase fans, mainly undertake traffic, and transition from low-priced products to high-priced products;
• Welfare group: With transaction and repeat purchase as the main purpose, according to the user's life cycle, label attributes, habits and hobbies, we will find people who can be converted in the community;
• Flash group: With rapid conversion as the main purpose, it guides users to complete designated actions and complete the product experience in a short period of time.

1. Drainage group

The traffic group can use low-priced products to attract users. After users purchase the low-priced products and enter the community, they can test the products and services within the community and then convert to high-priced products.

For example, when making educational courses or paid knowledge products, you can first use low-priced courses to attract users, or you can invite friends to join a group to get free learning materials. Based on the type of course selected by the user, you can then recommend corresponding high-priced courses to increase the average order value.

This type of community needs to set up bait and quickly establish links with users. The community content can play a fission role. The following content can be sent in the group:

• Welfare activities: sign-in, flash sales, group buying, lucky draw, etc.;
• Daily topics: morning news, classic quotations, etc.
• Fun ways to play: share video accounts, recommend gifts, etc.

2. Welfare Group

A welfare group is a group that adds users to and provides free benefits in the group. For example, providing coupons, exclusive flash sales, etc., there is no need to design overly complicated operational processes.

For example, Luckin Coffee will set up QR code billboards in stores, and will provide community traffic entrances in its APP and mini-programs. It only took 4 months to build a private traffic pool of 1.8 million. By distributing coupons in the group, it was possible to sell 35,000 cups of coffee a day in the private domain of the community .

Therefore, welfare groups are suitable for categories with large user bases and low product prices. They do not require too much operational manpower and can also be converted and monetized. In addition to sending activity rules and exclusive offers, the group can also send the following content:

• Welfare activities: sign-in, group buying, lucky draw, etc.
• Task activities: sharing and forwarding, old employees bringing in new employees, etc.
• Content sharing: product gameplay, knowledge popularization, etc.

3. Flash mob

A flash group gathers consumers into a private traffic pool in a short period of time through an event to complete monetization. The community will be disbanded after the event ends.

This type of community is suitable for promotional festivals or events organized by brands, such as the 618 promotion group, Double 11 promotion group, etc. In addition to publishing platform and store promotion rules, the group can also send the following content:

• Gameplay mechanism: solitaire game, grabbing red envelopes, etc.
• Promote orders: post orders to win free orders, money-saving tips, prize-winning guessing contests, etc.

Before the community is disbanded, you can send out some red envelopes to thank everyone for their trust, and announce customer service after the event, such as telling everyone that the event is over and that they can consult customer service for after-sales issues, to give users the best experience.

2. Establishing the Community Organizational 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.

Generally speaking, there are three roles in a community: general manager, group owner, and community operator:

1) General Responsibility

Responsible for the overall operation of the community and the overall data of the community, including community activity, growth, conversion rate, etc.

2) Group owner

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.

3) Community Operation

The number of administrators for each group is 1-3, depending on the number of people in the group. Mainly responsible for 3 aspects:

First, user operation. This includes attracting new users, attracting traffic, and screening users, such as inviting people or kicking out those who violate the rules, sales conversion and guidance, and answering user questions.

Second, content operation. Including the production and release of group content, topic guidance within the group, and copywriting for transaction fission, etc.

Third, event operation. It includes the process of the event, event introduction and warm-up, and answering questions about the event.

In addition, depending on the size of the community, as well as the type and needs of the brand, you can also set up two roles: "KOL" and "atmosphere group":

KOL: It is difficult for a community to build user recognition just by offering red envelopes and discounts. Gain everyone's recognition and following through professional sharing by KOL, and use his personal charm and influence to drive the group atmosphere.

Atmosphere group: Several "atmosphere groups" can be arranged in the community, especially during the cold start phase of the community. By actively responding to questions from the group owner or other "group members", they can boost the group atmosphere and guide the topic direction of group members.

3. Establish community rules

There is no order without rules. After a community has formulated detailed rules, it can not only make users understand the value of the community at the first time, but also regulate user behavior and improve the efficiency of community management.

Usually community rules include four aspects: rules for adding members, rules for joining the group, rules for speech and behavior, and rules for punishment.

1. Rules for adding people

Before inviting people, you also need to have a clear positioning. You can't invite everyone. This is what we often call "setting a threshold" to avoid occupying group resources and spending energy to screen them out later.

There are several commonly used methods:

• Invitation-based (only administrators and above can invite you to join the group)
• Recommended (recommendation from group members is required to join)
• Activity-based (you need to participate in some kind of activity to join the group)
• Paid type (need to pay a certain fee to join).

2. Group entry rules

Group entry rules include welcome message, group format, group announcement, etc.

1) Group format

Most communities have such rules. One reason is to allow new members to intuitively feel that they are part of the group and establish a sense of belonging. The second reason is to facilitate mutual recognition among group members. The last reason is to facilitate management.

2) Group welcome message

A good welcome message can add a lot of points to the community, allowing newcomers to feel the enthusiasm and friendliness of the group, fully experience the humanization, and be more likely to impress people.

3) Group announcement

It is used to publish notices and announce rules and regulations, so that all members in the group can see it and be the first to know the latest activities and rules and regulations in the group.

3. Rules of conduct

The purpose of setting rules of speech and behavior is very simple, which is to regulate the words and deeds of group members, prevent things that are not conducive to the development of the group from happening and causing damage to the group. The rules of speech and behavior can be established mainly around the following points:

• Advertising in the group
• Verbal violence, disruptive behavior
• Continuous or large-scale screen swiping behavior
• Frequent discussion of topics unrelated to the brand

4. Penalty Rules

For group members who violate the group rules, the severity of the punishment will be determined based on the severity of the situation. Those with serious violations will be kicked out of the group without mercy.

Appropriate punishment must be given promptly and fairly, and group owners and administrators must take the lead and set a good example so that group members will strictly abide by the rules.

4. Community Content Planning

To ensure the activity of the community, high-quality content output is essential and is also the best catalyst to keep the community active.

According to the content production path, it can be divided into 4 steps: content classification - material library construction - content production - content optimization.

Here we take Cotton Times as an example and explain in detail how these four steps should be carried out.

1. Content Classification

Content classification mainly focuses on three aspects: activation, conversion, and brand promotion:

1) Promote activation

The main thing to consider is the user portrait and develop corresponding content. What age range do most users fall into? What is the gender ratio? What value can it bring to them?

The user profile of Quanmianshidai is as follows: the age range is concentrated between 25 and 35 years old, and female users account for 85%. This group of people pursues a higher quality and healthier life, so you can post some popular science and welfare content.

2) Conversion

Mainly considering the product's usage scenarios and the user's potential needs can better promote the product and improve conversion.

For example, many of Quanmianshiji’s users are mothers, who have great needs and pain points in childcare. Publish content about "mindfields in raising children" on the official account of Quanmianshidai, forward it to the community to attract users to watch, and finally drive traffic for the product.

3) Brand promotion

Mainly consider the brand's advantages and highlights to enhance user awareness and trust.

For example, Quanmianshidai will release some brand collaborations, fashion week cooperation and other content to enhance the brand's influence.

2. Build a material library

There are three aspects to building a content library:

1) Title library organization

The title is a critical factor for search engines to include your content, so the title is very important. Generally, our titles are named with long-tail keywords.

For example, the relevant keywords of All Cotton Era include: mother and baby, pure cotton, baby, high quality, parenting, etc.

You can use 5118, Baidu marketing keyword expansion tools, etc. to mine keywords for your industry or products, remove some weakly relevant or irrelevant keywords, leaving only highly relevant long-tail words and demand words, and create a document for easy access at any time.

2) Collection and organization of content library

The easiest way to collect content is to collect questions related to your industry and products, find the answers, and create a document so that you can find it whenever you need it.

For example, Pure Cotton Times can search for questions like:

• How to use pure cotton towel?
• What kind of milk powder is good for newborn babies?
• What skills are suitable for mothers to learn at home?
• …

Once you have a question, look for relevant answers and create a document for future use.

3) Collection and organization of pictures

Most of the pictures can be collected from online photo libraries. If you want to have your own exclusive pictures, you can use software such as Band-Aid and Picture Monster to create them.

Product-focused brands like All Cotton Times will have dedicated photographers and artists to process images.

3. Content Production

There are several main ways to produce content: original, reprinted, and collected.

1) Originality

Originality has the highest requirements for content operation. Not only does it require a certain level of writing skills, but it also requires sufficient time and energy. At the same time, it also requires finding a convenient and sustainable content production model that suits you, just in case.

2) Reprint

Reprinting requires content operators to use their search and screening capabilities to find high-quality content suitable for their own users, and then apply for authorization from the original creator to publish it on their own platform.

For example, Quanmianshidai will reprint Dingxiang Doctor’s articles, and their audience groups are relatively similar.

3) Collection

Soliciting manuscripts means making an appointment with a specific person to submit a manuscript. One low-cost way to commission articles is to cultivate your own users and select those users who are willing to participate in your content production. Generally, they will be willing to actively participate if they are given some benefits.

For example, Quanmianshidai will collect some member stories to increase user engagement and identification.

4. Content Optimization

Content optimization is the analysis of content that has already been sent.

1. Select the content with the highest user opening rate, the highest comment rate, and the most interactive interest, and increase the frequency of such content;
2. Analyze the content with low user interaction rate and dislike, find out the reasons, and reduce the frequency of such content.

After having a specific content plan, you need to formulate a corresponding community SOP.

SOP, also known as standard operating procedure, is to record the experience gained in a unified format to guide and standardize daily work. Substituting it into the community SOP will standardize our community operations work.

For example, the content sop of a community in Quanmianshidai:

With such a content planning process and operational SOP, not only can the efficiency of operational personnel be improved, but also new employees can be guided so that they can quickly understand the work content and master work skills.

5. Community Data Analysis

The key recommendations of data analysis are to focus on 5 user stages and 9 key indicators , review the effectiveness of community operations in a timely manner, enhance control over each link of the user cycle, gradually improve community operations, and achieve user conversion.

1. Customer acquisition period

The key to operations at this stage is how to acquire customers effectively. Merchants usually adopt various methods such as event fission and content diversion. The main data of concern are the two indicators of "entry rate" and "withdrawal rate" .

Group entry rate = number of people joining the group / exposure of the group entry channel

If the group joining rate decreases during the operation, what operational actions can we take? First of all, we need to think about how to improve the efficiency of users joining the group. There are two main points:

• Expand promotion channels: For example, promote the community through official accounts, self-media, WeChat Moments and other channels to allow more users to join the group and learn more;
• Enhance interest drive: attract users to join the group through benefits, such as: enjoy 20% discount when joining the group, receive gifts when joining the group, etc.

Quitting rate = number of people quitting a group in a certain period / total number of people in the community

It mainly reflects whether the community has the value to retain people. Based on the withdrawal rate, we can further analyze the reasons for withdrawal. At what time should I quit the group? How to reduce the rate of withdrawal from the group?

2. Activation period

The key to operations at this stage is how to increase customer activity. Generally speaking, the higher the activity of the community, the greater the value of the community, and vice versa. The main data of concern are "interaction rate" and "message volume" .

Interaction rate = number of effective speakers on the day / total number of group members

Community activity is an important indicator to measure community quality. Generally speaking, high community activity means high community quality, and conversely, low community activity means low community quality.

What should I do if I encounter a drop in interaction rate? There are many specific methods, here are some general ideas:

• Cultivate the role of KOL to liven up the community atmosphere
• Set up a chatbot in your group
• Build a points system to improve the enthusiasm of group members, such as the sign-in function

Total messages/average messages per person

The total number of messages refers to the total number of messages in a community within a certain period of time; the average number of messages per person is the data obtained by dividing the total number of messages by the number of people in the community.

The number of interactions can be used to analyze how many users participate in the activity and how many users participate deeply. A large number of times indicates a high level of participation, so we can further analyze user preferences and group interaction characteristics. Strategies can be iterated and optimized in subsequent activities to improve operational efficiency.

3. Retention period

The operational challenge at this stage is how to improve the retention rate, because the cost of retaining old users is much lower than the cost of acquiring new users, and the main data of concern is the "retention rate" .

Retention rate = number of users retained during the period / number of new users

When operating a community, it is inevitable that users will churn out. We cannot achieve 100% loss prevention. We can accept the churn, but we must deeply analyze the reasons for the churn: is it the product, service, or experience? Then think about whether you can recall customers by offering coupons or high-value content.

4. Monetization period

The key to operations at this stage is how to achieve conversion. It is necessary to analyze users’ willingness to place and pay for targeted product advertisements, as well as to analyze the conversion effects of different product categories and price ranges, in order to provide a decision-making basis for further targeted marketing. It is recommended to pay attention to three data: "conversion rate", "average order value" and "input-output ratio" .

Conversion rate = number of orders / total number of group members

Different business types have different community conversion rates. For example, social e-commerce is around 10%, while group buying may be slightly higher. There are many main factors that affect conversion rate, such as product quality, price, service, promotional articles, member quality, etc.

There are many ways and techniques to improve conversion rates. I have summarized the following points:

• Create scarcity, limit time, quantity and crowd. For example, issuing community-exclusive coupons;
• Make promises, such as "free shipping", "authenticity guarantee", "7-day money back guarantee", "instant payment", etc.
• Positive customer feedback enhances trust.

Average order value = total order amount / number of people in the order

Average order value is an important indicator to measure the marketing situation of a community. When the traffic conversion rate remains unchanged, a high average order value means high returns. However, the higher the average order value is, the better it is. It needs to be determined based on the actual situation of the community.

Community ROI (return on investment) = cost/sales

It is mainly used to balance the equilibrium point of input and sales to avoid excessive subsidies and excessive investment. If the ROI can be greater than 1, it means that you can continue to increase your investment.

5. Transmission period

This stage mainly measures user loyalty and satisfaction, distinguishes the proportion of different types of users, and designs different activities, paying special attention to "user classification" .

According to the level of satisfaction and loyalty, users are divided into four types:

• Loyal users (high satisfaction, high loyalty): repurchase every month and successfully recommend friends to purchase more than once
• Woven users (low satisfaction, high loyalty ): will buy because of the affordable price, will not make product recommendations, the average customer unit price is less than xx yuan
• Demand-based users (high satisfaction, low loyalty) : strong demand for products, low brand loyalty, no repurchase within 3 months
• Low demand users (low satisfaction, low loyalty): users who only purchase once or never purchase

Then, we classify and count the users in the community and adopt different operation strategies accordingly, such as:

For communities with many free-to-use users, you can launch combination discounts to increase the average order value, or promote sales by inviting friends to bargain and increase activity traffic. For communities with many loyal users, you can recommend some items with high average order value and provide more thoughtful service.

6. Final Thoughts

Finally, here are 5 key points to building a good community: determine the type of community - establish a community organizational structure - establish community rules - plan community content - analyze community data.

Of course, don’t forget the purpose and significance of building a community. The most important thing is to maintain good user relationships, which is the core link of the private domain.

Knowing is easier said than done. I hope this article is helpful to you.

Author: Yan Tao Sanshou

Source: Yan Tao Sanshou