Who is suitable to be a player in private domain traffic?

1. What is a private traffic pool?

When it comes to "private domain traffic pool", everyone has a different understanding. Some people understand it as a new way of traffic, while others understand it as a user pool.

We have given a relatively broad definition of the "private traffic pool": the users in the private traffic pool are our own, can be used repeatedly, and can be reached for free. In contrast, users on public traffic platforms such as Baidu, Taobao, and JD.com are just passing through, and they need to spend money to buy them, and the price is getting higher and higher.

Generally speaking, private traffic pool platforms include official accounts, WeChat groups, personal accounts, Toutiao, Douyin, Apps, etc. For example: Kidswant has built a very good private traffic pool through the App, and can even do instant communication and group management in the App.

Analysis of the Private Domain Traffic Pool Market

Based on the above picture, we can analyze the various platforms of the private domain traffic pool.

In terms of new markets and mature markets, the user acquisition cost and maintenance cost in new markets are lower than those in mature markets. For example: When mobile Internet was just developing in 2011, Apps were once popular and everyone was making them.

Its advantage is that you can master all the data and have a lot of initiative, but if you are a startup company, making an App now is not only a long process but also very costly. WeChat official accounts have also become a "mature market", with traffic and opening rates getting lower and lower. If a company or a brand only has official accounts as a channel for importing users, it will actually encounter many problems.

The most important difference between open markets and closed markets is whether the data is your own.

It is generally difficult to obtain data on open markets (such as Weibo, Toutiao, Douyin, and official accounts); in closed markets, we can control all the data and customize many tools and functions to obtain more user data.

As for the platform for building private domain traffic pools, I personally recommend the three types in the upper right corner: WeChat personal account, WeChat group, and QQ. The most recommended one is the personal WeChat account. The life cycle of WeChat groups is becoming shorter and shorter. There is a data that says the life cycle of a WeChat group is only three days.

(The trend of building private traffic pools in personal WeChat accounts)

As far as personal WeChat accounts are concerned, 2015~2017 was the early bonus period, and some leading players began to make their plans. For example, some e-commerce companies on platforms such as Taobao began to import users into personal WeChat accounts, which was a way of “making a fortune in silence.”

From 2017 to 2019, influenced by WeChat e-commerce platforms such as Youzan and Pinduoduo, a large number of players entered the market to test the waters. For example, when we buy things on Taobao, we will receive more and more small cards with QR codes printed on them. Adding WeChat can give a 10-yuan red envelope. These are mainly people in the e-commerce field.

From the end of 2018 to 2019, the investment market began to follow up on tools for private domain traffic pools. For example, through the WeChat personal account customer service background, you can see the user's order data on the e-commerce platform, all the label data that the merchant has given to the user, the merchant's notes on the user portrait, etc.

The narrow concept of private traffic pool is bound to the personal WeChat account. More and more people want to use their personal WeChat account to build their own private traffic pool. But when everyone is discussing something widely, the chance of it happening often becomes very small.

Some e-commerce professionals optimistically estimated that the window period for the private domain traffic pool is two years, but judging from the popularity in recent months, I think it will almost end this year. After all, there are limits to the number of merchant accounts a user can afford. When everyone is doing this, it is important to quickly occupy that position. It’s still not too late to do it now, but the time window is getting smaller and smaller, and you also have to see if you are suitable for doing this.

2. N Major Problems Solved by Private Domain Traffic Pool

Why build a private traffic pool? In other words, what problems can the private domain traffic pool help us solve?

1. From customer acquisition to retention

(AARRR model and RARRA model)

In the past, in various courses or theories related to growth and fission, the AARRR model we heard the most was Acquisition-Activation-Retention-Revenue-Referral .

This model was actually proposed in 2007. At that time, the entire Internet was on the rise and had a huge demographic dividend. There was no need to do much, and traffic was growing naturally. At that time, acquiring customers was the most important thing. As long as users came in, they could be guided down layer by layer using the funnel model.

Why is everyone talking about private domain traffic today?

Because the demographic dividend disappears, traffic becomes more and more expensive, and fewer and fewer new users can be obtained. The more important thing to do now is to make good use of existing users. Someone proposed a new model - the RARRA model (Retention-Activation-Referral-Revenue-Acquisition), which is an optimization of the AARRR model.

The RARRA model highlights the importance of user retention. It is no longer about buying users in by using traffic and then letting users leak out layer by layer.

In the new model, the first thing to consider is to retain users, then activate them, and find ways to get them to recommend and monetize. The final "customer acquisition" link refers to old customers bringing in new customers. In the process of starting our own business, we used the AARRR model, but we couldn’t continue after running it for a year and a half because the marketing costs were too high.

2. From traffic to user relationships

For the users we have already acquired, we need to accumulate label data to help us have a deeper understanding of the users, such as: basic data such as the user's gender, region, the user's purchasing behavior data, and historical data on our interactions with the users.

In the user pool link, we need to create an IP, which is not a simple brand logo plus brand name, but should include avatar, nickname, content output to the outside world, image displayed to users, etc.

Finally, conversion is achieved in the process of operating user relationships. This is the fundamental purpose of our user relationship building. After all, no matter how good the relationship with users is, it is meaningless if users don’t buy into the business.

Conversion includes four steps: one is to let users know about my services; two is to keep in touch with users; three is to stimulate users' interest; and four is to promote transactions.

3. Reconstruct the relationship between brand and users

(Relationship between brand and user)

For potential users, we can help them realize the process from planting seeds to closing deals - that is, through the operation of private traffic pools, we can turn potential users into transaction users.

Next we can consider: how to make trading users become member users, that is, to bring more sharing fission through user recognition, improve the user's lifetime value, and even let users grow into partners.

We need to think about what kind of relationship we want to establish with users in the process of developing users? If you want to reconstruct the relationship between the brand and the users, what level do you hope to achieve?

4. Increase customer lifetime value (LTV)

Creating a private traffic pool cannot solve the problem of new traffic. New traffic is still mainly on large platforms such as Taobao, Baidu, and Douyin, so the marketing expenses still need to be spent. The private traffic pool is mainly used to reuse existing stock users. What needs to be considered is how to increase the lifetime value of users after spending money to acquire new traffic.

Improving user lifetime value mainly includes three aspects:

1. Increase the repurchase rate of old users;
2. Increase the average order value and gross profit of old users;
3. Old customers bring new customers.

Keeping users after they come in is equivalent to extending the time of interaction between us and users.

In the funnel model, the interaction with users is only a moment, but in the private traffic pool, we can reach users more times for free, and through IP creation and content operation, we can "plant grass" for users, enhance trust relationships, and thus increase user repurchases.

For example, an e-commerce company’s personal WeChat account can achieve a turnover of 1 million per year, which is comparable to that of an ordinary Taobao C store.

The users added through personal WeChat accounts are not randomly picked from the street, but are carefully selected, so we can target them with products with higher gross profit margins and higher average order values.

For example: Zimeitang is a brand of health care products and women's skin care products. It also has a store on Tmall. They spent four years building a private traffic pool system, using low-profit, low-unit-price products to divert traffic from Taobao to their own WeChat personal accounts. By selling products with higher gross margins and higher average order values ​​through WeChat, gross profit has been greatly improved, and transactions conducted through WeChat account for a large proportion of the annual turnover.

5. Improve your return on investment (ROI)

There is currently no way to reduce investment in building a private traffic pool, but when the interaction time between enterprises and users is prolonged, the conversion rate of new users will increase, the average order value will increase, and the revenue and output will definitely increase, and the ROI will naturally be improved.

3. Who is suitable to be a player in the private domain traffic pool?

1. Who is doing it?

Currently, there are three main types of entities working on private domain traffic pools:

1) E-commerce:

E-commerce itself is a logic of traffic leasing. For many stores, they need to advertise on platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com to purchase traffic in order to obtain more orders and more store exposure. It is logically feasible to build a private traffic pool, deposit the purchased traffic, and then reuse it later.

In addition, by building a private traffic pool and pulling some core users into your own pool for deeper interaction and relationship maintenance, you can move from low-gross-profit hot-selling products to high-gross-profit, high-unit-price products, and even recommend other categories of products to users after obtaining user consumption data.

2) Traditional traffic method

Private domain traffic is actually a user concept, which means treating users as real people and establishing relationships with them.

Traditional traffic providers also want to do this. On the one hand, their traffic is getting more and more expensive, and they are also thinking about how to make their traffic more valuable. On the other hand, traffic growth is getting slower and slower. For example, many WeChat self-media accounts are also traffic providers. With the opening rate of public accounts getting lower and lower and traffic continuing to decline, they are also looking for a way out. Many people who run public accounts have also begun to direct users to private traffic pools.

3) Offline entities

For example: some offline stores ask their store managers to add customers on WeChat and import their personal WeChat accounts, but it is not easy to monetize after the import. How to connect online and offline data at a lower cost is an important issue.

In addition, the offline store can be said to be the store manager's store. If the store manager can be used well, it is equivalent to letting him own two stores, online and offline, and the store's efficiency may double.

2. What categories are suitable?

Each category has different characteristics. Taking insurance as an example, categories suitable for private domain traffic operations usually have some common features:

High gross profit and high average order value: Private traffic pool is an operation-intensive business, which means you must deploy people to do it. For example, Kidswant has 6,000 professional childcare consultants, and doing insurance also requires deploying more people. When it is necessary to deploy more people and focus on operations, the product categories are generally high-gross-margin and high-unit-price.

Long service period: Building a private traffic pool generally requires long-term interaction with users. If it ends with a one-time transaction, it would be a bit strange to interact with users again. Therefore, suitable categories generally have a longer service period. For example, for insurance, it takes several months for users to learn about it and make a decision, during which time there will be many communications. After the purchase, users also need after-sales service, or even lifelong service.

Low consumption frequency: The operating cost of the private traffic pool is very high and is more suitable for categories with low consumption frequency. If it is a category with high consumption frequency, it is more suitable to go through ordinary traffic channels, such as going through Juhuasuan to buy a large amount at one time.

Long decision cycle: For categories that require a longer time to make decisions, there is a high possibility of interaction with users, and the possibility of building trust with users is greater.

Based on relationships: Categories suitable for building private traffic pools are often related to relationships between people, that is, they need to gain the trust and recommendations of users. For example, the younger generation will make careful decisions when buying insurance and look for trustworthy professionals.

As far as personal WeChat accounts are concerned, every circle of friends or every group message is actually planting seeds. Users do not need to make a decision immediately, just leave a seed in their hearts. According to e-commerce data, the conversion rate of WeChat Moments is usually 10%, but during the Double 11 promotion, the conversion rate may be 4 to 5 times higher than usual.

3. What kind of users are suitable for importing?

(What kind of users are suitable for importing into the private domain traffic pool)

I often hear some people say, "I now have hundreds of thousands of users and I want to import them into the private traffic pool," but they ignore whether hundreds of thousands of users need to be classified.

For example: When a company has 200 million users, it will definitely not want to import all users into the private traffic pool, but only the most core, highest-value users who need to be focused on maintenance and operation.

Even if you only have 200,000 users, it is best to classify and stratify them. The time window is limited, and our costs are also limited. Only by bringing in the most core people can we achieve positive promotion and get more positive feedback. If you bring everyone in, it actually becomes a matter of traffic, not users.

Related reading:

1. Product operation and promotion: How to compete for traffic?

2. Community Operation丨The essence and gameplay of "private domain traffic" in 2019!

3. Product operation: 2 major ways to get started to accurately capture private domain traffic!

4. Promotion and marketing: A brief discussion on vlog’s brand marketing and traffic monetization!

5. User operation: user growth in the post-traffic era!

6. Online marketing promotion: How to spend big money? Fine-tuned operation of large traffic!

Author: Participate in

Source: Participating Colleges