How did Panda Mini Class gain nearly one million fans through fission?

Knowledge payment has been very popular in recent years and has become a major trend. Many players have joined the market, including big players such as Tencent and NetEase; medium players such as Duoduo , Himalaya , and New World ; platform players such as Qianliao , Lizhi Microclass , Xiaoetong , as well as small players everywhere; it is truly a thriving sunrise industry.

With so many players, the competition is extremely fierce. If you want to stand out, you must have unique products and positioning, and Panda Mini Class seems to have such a possibility.

This article will try its best to analyze the product form and operation model of Panda Mini Course, hoping to provide some inspiration for those who want to get into knowledge payment or have already made knowledge payment products.

Product form of Panda Lesson

Panda Lesson is a paid knowledge product based on a service account. It was officially launched on July 31, 2017 and is a very new product. After only one month online, the course has received 88% positive reviews. Currently, it has nearly one million fans, making it a promising new player.

In order to better understand Panda Mini Class, we need to study its products, mainly analyzing them from the two dimensions of content and form.

1. Course Content

First of all, in the course display of Panda Mini Class, there are four classification entrances: "Recommendation", "Life", "Workplace", and "Self"; it includes excellent mini-courses such as effective communication, parent-child education, consumer psychology, mind mapping, speech, writing, and financial management .

The “recommended” display gives priority to the courses that users choose to purchase.

It can be seen that the content of Panda Mini Class covers multiple professional fields such as workplace, economics, management, psychology, etc., and is specific to a certain skill in a certain field, which is very suitable for adult user groups such as students and white-collar workers.

Secondly, each course in Panda Mini Class is systematic, with a complete outline and learning objectives; it progresses step by step, in line with the principle of starting from the shallower to the deeper, from entry to mastery.

For example, the course objectives of "PPT Training Camp" are divided into elementary and advanced levels, clearly stating the ratio of students and the standards that can be achieved, so that learners have certain expectations.

In the course outline, "1 major plot line, 4 core knowledge points" are used to summarize the content features of the entire course; and the approximate content to be learned every day and the specific content of each lesson are listed, making it easier for learners to understand whether the course has content that they are interested in or want to learn, thereby affecting their purchasing decisions.

2. Class format

The teaching format of Panda Mini Class is very novel, and it is said to be the first "dialogue" learning model it has pioneered.

What is "dialogue"? In fact, it is a content learning mode of dialogue between two people. Most of the time, the lecturer role sends text, PPT pictures, questions, etc., while the student role occasionally sends text and answers questions.

In fact, the "dialogue style" has been quietly popular recently. For example, the NetEase Jung test that was all over the screen some time ago adopted the dialogue style creativity.

Now, the dialogue mode is no longer unique to Panda Mini Courses. Some mini-program service providers (such as Whale Check-in) have developed similar modes, called "immersive reading mode", which is said to provide a very good experience.

It can be seen that this type of course format will become one of the mainstream models in the future.

In addition to the dialogue style, each class will have in-class explanations and homework. The former is to cooperate with the case interpretation of the course, so that learners can better understand the course content. The latter is a knowledge test after learning the entire class, which serves as a self-examination effect and facilitates review.

In general, the course model of Panda Mini Class is composed of objectives + outline + dialogue-style teaching + case interpretation + after-class testing . This is actually very close to an educational product, which shows the ambition of Panda Mini Class.

The operating model of Panda Mini Class

For paid knowledge products, it is not enough to focus only on the course itself, operations must keep up; because only good operations can generate customer acquisition, activation, retention , monetization, and dissemination.

In order to systematically explain the operation of Panda Mini Class, I will interpret it through the following picture.

According to the above picture, the operation of Panda Mini Class can be divided into three parts: registration stage, fission stage and activation stage.

1. Registration

The basic logic of course registration at Panda Mini Class is very simple: first activate the course, then take the entrance test, then divide into classes, and finally register, that is, activate-test-class division-register.

However, in practice, because different courses have different fission methods, the detailed registration process of different courses has slight differences, which can be divided into four types:

1. Register for courses - take entrance exams - attend classes - apply for study groups - review by the class teacher - join the class group;
2. Friend invitation - activation - admission test - group assignment - class group entry;
3. Register for the course - register - postpone or attend the class on time - group instructions - complete registration - enter the class group;
4. Register for courses - wait for registration - take entrance test - be assigned to a group - join the class group.

The picture below is one of the registration and group joining processes. It can be seen that the guidance is very good and the entrance test is also well-organized, but is it effective? In fact, I feel that it is just a decoration, just to make it look formal.

1. Fission link

This is the part that needs to be emphasized because it is the core link in solving customer acquisition and dissemination. In this segment, Panda Little Class performed many amazing actions.

There are four main means of fission of Panda Mini Class: direct invitation, one-for-one gift, free class rewards, and step-by-step invitation.

The logic of direct invitation is very simple. The courses that have been registered can generate invitation posters. Users can directly send posters to friends, and friends can pay to purchase them. There are no incentives here, and you can only rely on the quality of the course and whether it matches your friends' needs.

The "give one, get one" method is currently being vigorously promoted by Panda Mini Courses . It allows users to actively give courses to their friends, and their friends can directly sign up for free. After their friends sign up, the user will also be eligible to sign up for the course for free.

Free course rewards and tiered invitations are fission behaviors that require user participation after purchasing a course. The former requires inviting a certain number of friends to sign up for the same course (generally there will be discounts) in order to obtain benefits related to the course. The latter has the same requirements, but there are tiered rewards. The rewards obtained are different depending on the number of invitations.

It is through the above four fission methods that Panda Mini Class has relatively effectively solved the problems of customer acquisition and dissemination.

1. Activation

Each course of Panda Mini Class will be equipped with a corresponding WeChat class group, in which the class teacher will provide maintenance and answer questions. It can be said that it adopts the standard community operation routine in the industry, which will not be elaborated here.

In addition to community activation, Panda Lesson has added a post-class activation sharing function at the product level, mainly in the following ways:

• My Notes - Share what I learned today
• Learning Challenge - Improvement Challenge - Contribution Sharing/Invite students in the group who have not participated in the challenge
• Course Check-in

What I like most is the "Learning Challenge", which is tied to the course and the class. There are several challenge groups in the class, and rankings are conducted within and between groups. Users who participate in the challenge can share through "Contribution Challenge" or directly invite other students in the group who have not participated in the challenge to participate, which can both activate the activity and attract new students .

In addition, there is a points function in the entire activation system of Panda Mini Class; points can be obtained through attending classes, checking in, challenges, invitations, etc., and can be exchanged for physical items. The author has used points to exchange for an officially produced commemorative pen, which is very valuable .

Summarize

In general, Panda Mini Class is a very excellent knowledge-based paid product that the author is very optimistic about . It has a novel course format, reasonable course settings, rich fission methods, and a complete activation system. These are all things that other knowledge-based paid players need to learn.

Finally, let’s summarize the course model and operation methods of Panda Lesson for readers’ reference:

1. The course mode of Panda Mini Class is: objectives + outline + dialogue teaching + case interpretation + post-class test;
2. The registration process for Panda Mini Class: Activation - Testing - Class Division - Registration;
3. Panda Class’s fission methods: direct invitation, one-for-one gift, free class rewards, and step-by-step invitation;
4. The activation system of Panda Mini Class: community, notes, challenges, check-ins, and points.

Source: Dugushang