Training institution-user activation gameplay!

It is an indisputable fact that the customer acquisition cost of educational and training institutions is getting higher and higher.

Not only is the cost of acquiring customers getting higher and higher, but the number of students enrolled has also remained low.

At this time, many educational and training institutions began to explore the gameplay of "private domain traffic" as if they were grabbing a life-saving straw.

However, many educational institutions are more like drinking poison to quench thirst for private domain operations. They claim to conduct refined operations on users and introduce public domain users into private domain operations.

The result is just changing the scene to clean the limited remaining traffic at a higher frequency, and the users attracted at a high price will eventually "sleep" in their own pond. This practice of changing the soup but not the medicine is doomed to be unsustainable.

So, how should educational institutions operate private domain traffic?

Next, we will analyze the private domain operations of educational institutions from five aspects: new user activation , user stratification operations, user retention, traffic pool user conversion, and recall and awakening of old users.

1. Why should we pay attention to user activation?

In the entire life cycle of students, new user activation is the first and most crucial stage, because it is at the beginning of the user cycle, and the quality of this stage is crucial to the subsequent impact.

Data shows that most apps lose more than 75% of their users within three days, and for educational institutions, after a series of conversions, less than 5% of users may remain.

This is a cruel fact that we have to face when competing in a highly competitive market full of homogeneous products.

To put it bluntly, if you don’t provide a good experience for new users, no matter how good your subsequent courses are, they will all be in vain.

I have come into contact with many teaching and training institutions, no matter whether they are subject-based or quality-based, online or offline, and basically no institution can ensure that my courses have no substitutes on the market.

This forces us to face a harsh reality: the attention span that users can give you is very short. Once they decide to try it, you only have a limited time to make them feel the value and convert them into long-term users.

If they try it, but lose sight of the course because they don’t understand what it is or its value to their child, it may be harder to win them back than to acquire a new user.

2. Three steps to activate new users

1. Clear activation goal: reaching the Aha moment

The Aha moment is when users first become aware of your organization or your course and blurt out “Aha!”

That “ah!” moment is a crucial one that differentiates the users who discover the value of the course from those who don’t.

This is also an "emotional" moment. The user feels that the promises he saw in the advertisement have been fulfilled at this moment, so he feels satisfied or even surprised.

Taking "children's programming" as an example, suppose a parent has never heard of the concept of "programming". He purchased a trial class at a low price or for free, and vaguely knows that programming is related to the "high-paying industry" of programmers, but does not know what specific use it has for his children.

During his first experience class, he learned about the national policy support for programming, and that after learning, children can not only write their own programs to complete games, websites and other applications, but it will also help improve their academic performance.

At this moment, she realized for the first time that the course brought value to her child, that is, he seemed to be "activated" and had a feeling of sudden enlightenment, so it is called the "Aha moment."

For new users, this Aha moment experience is crucial.

Because if parents only receive/purchase a course but never let their child attend the class, then they have no idea what the value of the course is to their child, and unactivated users will eventually be lost.

Specifically, we need to follow some rules to define the Aha moment - that is, it should be clear, specific, measurable, occur early in the user experience, and meet the following descriptions:

It is not difficult to see that to find the above information to define the Aha moment, three steps are required:

The first step is to define a key behavior.

For example, the activation behavior for community group purchasing can be “placing an order for vegetables for the first time.” The activation behavior of a certain live broadcast software can be watching the live broadcast for 10 minutes and interacting with the anchor for the first time... and for an educational institution, it can be the first class, or the end of a trial class.

We can even use some academic management systems, such as School Manager, to accurately determine that only when the duration of each class exceeds a certain value can it be considered an activation behavior.

The second step is to find the key behavior completers.

What makes us different from most 2C businesses is that institutional users are dual users: the buyers are parents and the users are children. Therefore, in the early stages, we must take into account the needs of both parties at the same time.

The third step is to clearly define how long early rising refers to and how many key behaviors need to be completed during this period.

2. Find the activation behavior

After clarifying the activation goals, we will officially start activating new users.

So how do we define user activation behavior? You can start with the following two methods:

Step 1: Propose a behavior that may lead to user activation

The main purpose of this step is to clarify the long-term value of the course. Usually, you can use the following two methods to preliminarily list several potential user activation behaviors.

Method 1: Through key questions

Taking programming courses as an example, let’s apply the formula.

• who: parents & children;
• what: Improve children's competitiveness;
• Why: To allow children to grow in all aspects.

Possible actions to activate:

• Attend class;
• Complete the post-course test;
• Write code;
• Improve academic performance.

Which ones can be completed quickly? The first 2.

Then we can preliminarily determine that attending class and completing and saving the post-class test are possible user activation behaviors.

Method 2: Through user research

Simply put, it is to compare different user answers, discover the actual effect of the course on users, and find alternative activation behaviors.

• Long-term most active users: Why do you think you should continue your child's classes?
• Users who leave quickly after registering: Why do they leave?
• Active users after registration: Why enroll your child in classes?

Tip 2: Find the most critical user activation behavior

After finding some alternative activation actions, we need to further implement them.

Step 1: Find the activation period for new users and assess how quickly activation occurs.

Step 2: Compare the early retention curves to find the behavior that has the greatest impact on early retention during the activation period of new users.

3. Select activation method

After clarifying the activation goals and finding the key behaviors, we need to choose appropriate activation methods to intervene and influence the user's behavior at key links, so that they can experience the Aha moment better and faster and reach the activation state.

We can think about specific means based on the user conversion formula:

1) Increase motivation

Because users need to take action and expend energy to activate new users, we need to help users increase their motivation in a timely and effective manner.

Specifically, user motivation can be enhanced through the following methods:

① Use social connections

Social connections are the best way to build trust and personalize the experience for new users.

Pinduoduo is a typical case. When users open Pinduoduo, they can see how many of their friends are using it.

② New user bonus

Red envelopes and incentives must be related to core business goals, efforts must be rewarded, and users should be prevented from taking advantage of the situation.

For example: For a 9.9 trial class, we can set it up to refund the tuition fee if the student attends full attendance, thereby increasing the student attendance rate.

③ Explain why

When making a request to the user, tell him why and what benefits it will bring to him.

For example, adding the teacher’s WeChat, joining a study group, etc.

④ Influence users through user psychology

Increase users’ motivation to act quickly by creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, and gamification.

For example, a common tactic used in e-commerce is to offer a special promotion for the last 100 pieces.

2) Reduce resistance

① Remove unnecessary steps and information

In the conversion process, one more step means one more loss. Optimizing the process can reduce the loss. Do not arrange for the front desk, academic affairs, and teaching assembly line to contact parents. It is best for one teacher to be consistent from beginning to end.

② Avoid user cold start

Cold start is a less obvious but more negative barrier to new user activation.

After the user receives or purchases a trial class, parents must be contacted as soon as possible.

③ Highlight key behaviors and paths

Rather than trying to overwhelm new users with all of your course content, clearly highlight key features and downplay the rest.

Let’s continue with the example of programming classes. If you try to explain the underlying logic of programming to students and parents in just three or five classes, it will definitely not work.

At this time, we have to break down the students' parents one by one, talk to them about policies and development, and talk to the students about games and interesting things.

3) Timely boost

Sometimes, even if users are motivated, they may still fail to complete key behaviors due to interference from various external and internal information.

At this time, we need to remind users in various ways, and we can consider the following factors:

• How quickly do users make decisions?
• How long is the time window to win back users? (New user activation period)
• If the user is not activated, is there any channel to reach the user?

① Newbie guide

It is important to provide guidance to novices at the appropriate time through various means, so that parents do not worry about where and how to take classes, or whether the courses they buy are from scammers.

②Private customization

The last principle is customization. Personalizing the product experience and giving users what they want is also a way to increase motivation.

For example, we often use the entrance test. After the test, the teacher will provide one-on-one tutoring, and the subsequent teaching will be more in line with the students' level.

For example, after we register for English Fluency, there will be a systematic test that will not only generate a learning report, but also tell you the time required to achieve your goals based on your goals.

There is an American proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Meaning: It takes a village to raise a child. Although raising a new user is not as difficult as raising a child, it is also one of the most difficult and critical links in private domain operations.

Successful new user activation not only requires helping users complete the basic course experience, but more importantly, it requires enabling users to complete “key behaviors” that are closely related to long-term retention, so that they can appreciate the value of the course.

Clarify goals, identify behaviors, develop strategies, and influence behaviors. I believe that this step-by-step, top-down activation approach will be suitable for most organizations.

Author: Wangzai1563

Source: Wangzai1563