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

Last year, every time I attended a marketing industry summit, as soon as I saw the speech title "How XX Brand Can Grow", I would turn to my companions and say, "I bet you, the concept of "growth hacking" will definitely be mentioned." "The next second, the other party really took out the growth hacker model... It works every time and it's easy to show off. The term "growth hacker" has thus become the Internet jargon of 2018.

Recently, a new term "private domain" has emerged, surpassing "growth hacker" and becoming the hottest Internet jargon in 2019.

Congratulations, you will be able to see it at various summits next...

Despite the high popularity, many people still have only a limited understanding of "private domain" and there are many different opinions, such as:

• “Isn’t the private domain just a brand membership group? Can you just package it with a new concept and go out and fool Party A?”
• “It’s just like WeChat business posting advertisements in WeChat Moments.”
• …

So, what exactly is private domain?

The definition of private domain is traffic that is independently owned by a brand or individual, can be freely controlled, is free, and can be used multiple times. The private domain is usually presented in the form of personal WeChat account, WeChat group, mini program or independent APP.

Behind the rise of private domains is the growth anxiety of enterprises. At the same time, it represents a signal that companies are beginning to shift their mindset from harvesting traffic to managing users.

Whether it is a large company or a small company, being able to master private domain thinking can greatly promote user connections, increase fan loyalty and sales.

Today, the private domain game has just begun among brands and there is a lot of room for growth. In this article, I will give you a brief introduction to the essence and core gameplay of private domain traffic for your inspiration.

1. Private Domain Phenomenon: Perfect Diary

In addition to the most common education industry playing in the private domain (studying and checking in on WeChat Moments), consumer brands have also quietly entered the market.

For example: Perfect Diary, the "cosmetics dark horse" that broke out from the Double 11 online promotion in 2018, started playing with private domain traffic last year.

People outside only see Perfect Diary’s Xiaohongshu operations and Weibo fan marketing, but ignore Perfect Diary’s “little tricks” in utilizing private domain traffic. For example: Perfect Diary opened two offline experience stores in Guangzhou, with a daily traffic of 2,000 people. In addition to being a walking cash register, each saleswoman also guides customers who come to the store to add a WeChat account as a friend.

Not only offline, but also after placing an order online, when the buyer receives the product, he will also receive a WeChat QR code with some benefits to guide the buyer to add WeChat.

When I added this WeChat account, I thought it was just an ordinary customer service WeChat account, but it turned out to be a small IP called Xiao Wanzi.

Xiao Wanzi actually has a real-life image, and that's this girl

She manages her circle of friends carefully, with 2-3 posts a day, as if it is the daily life of a girl who likes to wear makeup.

This is not a customer service number, it is better to say that it is cultivating "amateur bloggers KOC"

KOC (Key Opinion Customer) is another very popular word recently. Amateur bloggers do not have a large amount of traffic like KOLs. KOC is like a friend you trust and she can influence you to make purchases.

From Xiao Wanzi’s automatic reply, we can see the various traffic-generating operation methods set up by Perfect Diary.

After Xiao Wanzi invited me to join the community, there were activities in the community every day, such as promotions, holiday draws, live broadcasts, etc. The most terrifying thing is that Xiao Wanzi also has her own mini program named “Wanzi Says”, which creates a personal beauty butler.

In this way, perhaps Perfect Diary’s online advertising could only get users to place an impulse order on the spot. After establishing private domain traffic, "Perfect Diary" can repeatedly reach customers through WeChat Moments and communities, and generate conversions or repeat purchases through live broadcasts, big promotions, and lucky draws.

2. What is the essence of private domain? Your previous contacts

What is the essence of private domain? To put it bluntly, they are the group of people whom you can repeatedly "harass" and sell Amway to.

In fact, the concept of private domain is not new. Do you remember the time when social media was not yet popular?

At that time, private domain traffic was your customer’s contact information, such as phone number, email address or home address.

When you want to contact them, you can just call them, send them a text message, email, or even send samples to their home. You can also send him different advertisements multiple times to achieve "multiple uses", for example, after buying the toothpaste you sell, he can also buy your pillow.

So, in the past, when the Internet was not popular, your address book ≈ private domain traffic.

In the past, this was called CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which is to record the data and contact information of various customers, and send you text messages or make phone calls during festivals to encourage you to place orders.

The form of CRM is constantly evolving with the emergence of the Internet, email, telephone, and WeChat. For example: In the United States, many CRMs are still completed through telephone, mail and email, but in China, social relationships mostly occur on WeChat, so a complete set of WeChat SCRM (Social Customer Relationship Management) was born.

When WeChat first emerged, brands would use service accounts to bind member information to help with business operations. But later it was discovered that the opening rate of the service account was getting lower and lower, and the manpower operating costs were also quite high, requiring at least one editor to update it regularly. But now, like the Perfect Diary example just now, you can connect to the CRM system by creating a character setting and recommend products through interactions in Moments and window chats.

This kind of interaction is more like talking with friends and feels intimate.

A report from Tencent and BCG shows that since the CRM of many offline stores has shifted from traditional telephone + store + text message to social private domain operations, the number of effective interactive customers can be increased by 1.5-2 times, communication efficiency can be increased by 3-4 times, and the average single interaction time can be increased by 2-3 times.

Source: Tencent-BCG joint report

In the past, you had to call and beg the other party to talk to you, but now you can just post a circle of friends and the other party will come to you on their own initiative. From "500 calls, 20 responses" to "300 friends, 30-50 regular interactions", from "hanging up after a few words every time I call" to "flexible time, chatting about everything, in a variety of ways"

Therefore, the private domain is different from the previous address book. It is given personality and is a sign of the transformation from traffic thinking to user operation thinking.

The core of private domain traffic is user relationships. Users trust you and are willing to read your circle of friends. They know that you truly care about them and feel that you are a person who understands them, rather than a cold-blooded machine. The highest level of private domain traffic is an expert + friend with flesh and blood, life, and emotions.

What about Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and official accounts? I also have my own fans and positions. Are they considered private traffic pools?

It doesn’t count and it doesn’t count.

Take Weibo as an example. Although I can accumulate my Weibo fans, the distribution of Weibo traffic is still largely controlled by Weibo, so it cannot be completely regarded as a "private domain".

As for WeChat official accounts, they are not actually private domains. Many people’s official accounts do not have many active fans, and the opening rate is less than 1%. Such users cannot be actively reached at all, and they are not considered private domains.

I call these "hybrid domains".

3. Why is private domain traffic so popular? Because public domain traffic is too bad

Why has the term "private domain" suddenly become popular? Because it is opposed to the decline of "public domain traffic".

Public domain traffic, as the name suggests, is public traffic.

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of public traffic? department store. Everyone has been to a department store. The biggest problem with department stores is that it seems like they have a lot of traffic and many people pass by your store, but in reality it is useless.

For example: A certain brand has a counter in a department store. Assume that the daily traffic of this department store is 5,000 people, and 10% of them will pass by this brand counter every day, which is 500 people. Among them, 30% (150 people) will stop and ask, but in the end only 10%, or 50 people, may actually buy something and leave their customer information.

So even though the department store has a lot of traffic, you can only keep customer data for 50 people.

Public domain traffic may seem huge, but you need to put a lot of effort into getting others to stay and consume.

Therefore, large-scale brands have to come up with different ways every day, such as discounts, promotions, and events, just to get a piece of the pie during the days with the heaviest traffic.

Businesses are increasingly finding that these public domain traffic cannot be controlled by themselves, does not belong to them, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce. There are many public traffic platforms similar to department stores in our current business environment. For example, typical online public domain traffic platforms include Taobao, Tmall, search, or information flow advertising.

As online competition becomes increasingly fierce, the price per thousand impressions is getting higher and higher.

Taobao's customer acquisition cost in 2013 was still around 30 yuan per person. By 2017, this figure had skyrocketed to 250 yuan per person.

Many of my Tmall/Taobao operators would complain to me: "Although my Taobao store has a lot of fans, if I don't buy various through trains, there is still no traffic. The traffic actually belongs to Jack Ma, not me."

Under such circumstances, merchants all hope to have a traffic pool that they can truly control, so that they can reach the customers when they want, and can also achieve multiple conversions and repeat purchases. Therefore, the call for "private domain" is growing.

Let’s go back to the previous example of the department store. What would it be like if we used private domain traffic?

Suppose that for the 150 customers who consult you every day, the salesgirl can say to them: You can scan the QR code to add my personal WeChat and I will give you a small sample. You can also check out my circle of friends, which shows the results of other customers’ applications, and decide whether to buy it later.

So although these 150 people did not place an order on the spot, they would continue to see the salesgirl’s various carefully designed circles of friends in the next 7 days, such as other customers’ facial effects, promotions, etc., and they would silently place an order.

Not only that, when new products are launched later, you can repeatedly reach them through WeChat Moments and stimulate their consumption.

Therefore, at a time when public domain traffic is becoming increasingly expensive, doing a good job in the private domain is not only about operating existing users, but also about reaching and operating potential customers.

4. How to use private domain traffic? Companies of all sizes should try

Many people believe that the way to play with private domain traffic is only suitable for small startups, and large companies cannot operate it at all. In fact, this is not the case. Regardless of the size of the company, private domain can be played.

At present, there are usually three ways to play private domain traffic:

Source: Tencent-BCG joint report

The first type, shopping assistant, is usually applicable to sales end, department stores, salesgirls, etc. This customer group is relatively broad and is suitable for consumer goods that focus on cost-effectiveness and high-frequency shopping.

For example, offline stores such as Watsons should completely adopt the shopping assistant approach to help users know the latest arrivals and complete after-sales services. It is even possible to provide users with personalized recommendations or friend circles by connecting with the original CRM data.

The user relationship of a shopping assistant is usually one-to-many, and there is no need to establish a community.

This method is very suitable for small brands. In the early stages of entrepreneurship, shopping assistants can be used to help early users understand the brand and achieve conversion.

The second type, topic experts, is suitable for the operation of consumer groups with very obvious characteristics. This group has common needs and high group willingness, such as the "professionalism/lifestyle" category.

For example: there are brands (advertisers), bloggers KOL (traffic masters), MCNs, and advertising companies in the community, which opens up the upstream and downstream demands of the industrial chain. There are also entrepreneurs and investors, which can form a connection between investors and those seeking investment.

Big brands, especially those with core cohesion, such as Dove, SKII, Nike, Lululemon, HEYTEA, Neiwai... can completely gather the brand's super fans, form interest communities, organize activities in the communities, and combine them with offline running, yoga and other activities, turning the communities into brand communities and acting as amplifiers for the brands.

The third type is private partners , which are usually applicable to luxury goods or education and fitness industries with very high average order value. Loyal customers are of high value, have high privacy, and have high personalization requirements, while large companies can set up private partners for VVIPs who spend the most.

A personal partner provides all-round guidance and help, becomes a part of the client's life, and gives exclusive advice. You are the client's personal stylist, nutritionist, etc.

Today, many high-end education industries should adopt this form of tiered management for users, assign one-to-one services, and establish offline high-end experiences rather than directly building communities.

Source: Tencent-BCG joint report

5. Blind spots of private domain traffic: harvesting vs. cultivating

We see the benefits of private domain traffic, but it also hides many invisible blind spots.

Creating a personal account, forming a group...these things are not difficult. The difficult part is how to truly provide services to users without interfering with them?

The private domain is definitely not a simple circle of friends, but the cultivation of long-term relationships. This is a job that requires great "online emotional intelligence".

Private domain operations may seem simple, but in fact they require a balance, just like the delicate balance between brand and growth. Although Perfect Diary has established the private traffic pool as mentioned above, after my observation, I found that there are very few people speaking in the community. The endless promotional and operational activities in the group are obviously controlled by robots. How many active users can they really retain? Will it harm the brand?

Instead of doing this, Perfect Diary Xiao Wanzi should choose to be a shopping assistant rather than building a community and becoming a topic expert.

If you really want to run a community well, you must start from refined operations and insight into human nature, and segment the community according to interests and groups.

At the same time, community is also a double-edged sword. Those who are good at it know how to leverage the power of the community and co-create with super users. For example, the electric toothbrush brand "Dr. Bei" that I interviewed told me that several of their toothbrush packaging were created by fans in the community.

The community is like a window between the brand and the users. By absorbing the opinions of loyal fans in the community before the product is launched, it is highly likely that the product will not be too bad. But the community is also a decentralized platform where everyone can speak. Once a negative voice arises, it will pollute the entire group. For example: A company once divided the users who paid the most to the company and spread the most into several super user groups and operated them carefully.

However, a change in the group rules turned people in the group from fans to haters, and the loyal fan group instantly turned into a rights protection group, which was a terrible sight.

In addition to the above, there are many questions about private domain that need to be answered:

• How far should the distance between a brand and its users be?
• What categories are suitable for private domains and what are not?
• If everyone starts operating private domains and establishing personal brand accounts, it will definitely be a huge disruption. Will anyone still use WeChat Moments in the future?
• If that day really comes, where will we go to get new traffic?
• …

Related reading:

1. Demonized growth, fission and community!

2. Community operation: How to create a good community atmosphere?

3. Community operation: 6 thoughts on community operation!

4. Community operation: How to use the community to achieve a daily turnover of one million?

5. Community operation: Why are more and more communities dying?

6. Community operation: How to increase the conversion rate of fission communities by 10 times?

Author: Daojie Doris

Source: Daojie Doris (ID: doriskerundong)