Private Domain Traffic Quick Start Guide

1. What is private domain traffic?

We have to face the fact that the Internet is gradually becoming less "interconnected" and is becoming more closed.

More than ten years ago, we were more accustomed to using browsers to surf the Internet and find the content we needed through search engines, navigation websites, and portals. Nowadays, we are more accustomed to downloading individual APP applications, and the content of each APP is always closed and independent, which leads to the isolation and circleization of the Internet. It is difficult to see content from Tencent or Toutiao on Baidu, and it is difficult to see content from Baidu or Tencent on Toutiao. Competition among Internet giants has increased the difficulty of acquiring and operating public domain traffic. And traffic, in this isolated and segmented environment, represents vitality.

Whether it is a to b company or a to c company, or even the internet celebrities and stars under the spotlight, they cannot do without traffic. In the Internet age, whoever has traffic wins the world. Only with traffic can the next step of conversion be carried out. "Traffic" represents the public's attention and represents the specific value on the Internet. Without traffic, it means becoming a deserted island that no one pays attention to and no one knows about.

Traffic gradually gathers, with most of it held by a few giants and then further distributed. They have become public domain traffic platforms on the Internet.

In the past, there was nothing wrong with this model centered around public domain traffic. But now, the cost and difficulty of obtaining traffic through this model are increasing. Because people now access the Internet through mobile apps, the number of mobile apps downloaded by each person and the attention they pay to apps are limited, and they may only use two or three frequently.

According to the "2020 China Mobile App Industry Analysis Report", in 2019, the installation volume of apps owned by the top 10 companies in my country by market value showed a growing trend, from 23.3% in Q4 2018 to 27.5% in Q4 2019. In terms of customer time, in Q4 2019, the leading companies accounted for 70.7% of customer time.

As a result, more and more people began to try to retain, manage and expand the traffic they obtained from public domain traffic, and build a traffic pool with their own voice. Private domain traffic is beginning to rise.

The term private domain traffic is relative to public domain traffic. Public domain traffic needs to be obtained with the help of a platform, while private domain traffic is owned by enterprises or individuals. Private domain traffic is more closed, purer and more direct. If public domain traffic is rivers, lakes and seas, then private domain traffic is your own pond. In the former, anyone can fish, so there will be more people fishing, which will lead to competition and a shortage of resources; in the latter, you raise fish in your own pond and catch them, and you have to raise, maintain and use them yourself.

Comparison between public domain traffic and private domain traffic

Compared with traditional public domain traffic, private domain traffic has unique advantages

Controllable

If public domain traffic is equivalent to borrowing traffic from a traffic platform, then private domain traffic is equivalent to being the dealer yourself. No matter how many customers or resources a traffic platform has, we can only obtain them according to their rules, which are affected by many factors and restrictions. Private domain traffic can be controlled and managed in our own way. It is naturally much more difficult than borrowing traffic from traffic platforms, but compared with public domain traffic, the possibilities and operating space brought by it are much greater.

High cost performance

Only continuous investment in public domain traffic can lead to continuous acquisition, but investment and acquisition are not necessarily proportional. Once the cost stops, you have to say goodbye to the traffic. The most important thing is that the customers brought in are actually public domain traffic, and the customer recognition and conversion rate are relatively low.

In our own private traffic, we face our own customers. We don’t need to consider the “face” of the traffic platform and “there are no middlemen to make a profit from the price difference”. We just need to concentrate on “serving” our customers. Many of our operations on private domain traffic may have far-reaching impacts. The cost requirements are not high, and our investment may produce long-term fission and have a positive effect on cultivating customer loyalty and reputation.

Shorten the level of contact with customers

Shorten the levels with customers, reduce the threshold, time and cost of communicating with customers, serve customers more efficiently, and achieve high conversion and efficiency. We can meet with customers face to face and solve their problems one-on-one. For customers, their voices can be heard in a timely manner, and they can get more value faster than other customers, which makes them feel closer and more loyal.

Brand Building

Just like the slogan of WeChat official account: No matter how small an individual is, he or she has his or her own brand. In the past, building a brand required using traditional public platforms such as television, newspapers, and offline advertising, and it required a lot of investment to establish it. In the Internet age, everyone can speak and show themselves, everyone can build their own traffic pool, and everyone can create their own brand image.

Exploring extended value

If the customers coming through public domain traffic are mostly just passers-by, the customers coming through private domain traffic will be repetitive and long-term. It has more room for exploration and maintenance, and can further expand fission.

Although private domain traffic is more difficult to obtain, it can break free from the shackles of public domain traffic and reduce dependence on the platform. Only by establishing your own traffic diversion-operation-monetization-fission system can you operate more healthily, independently and in the long run.

2. How to operate private domain traffic

Anyone can generate private domain traffic, but few can persist and achieve results. The focus of private domain traffic is not on the private domain or the traffic, but on the customers. The starting point should not be how to obtain more value from customers, but how to provide more value to customers more efficiently and accurately.

If the starting point is wrong, the destination will definitely be the opposite of what it should be. What we need is a system and mechanism to reach out to customers and gain an in-depth understanding of them, and operating private domain traffic "may" be a very suitable opportunity.

First of all, you need methods and tools to obtain traffic and reach customers. Then cultivate and operate to retain customers. Then, traffic monetization and traffic fission are carried out through the value provided to customers in exchange for more customer traffic.

Acquire traffic - operate traffic - realize traffic - split traffic

1. Multi-platform and multi-channel traffic diversion

There is no fixed pattern for traffic generation. Different traffic generation tools are suitable for different industries, different products, and different types of customers. What we need to do is multi-platform + multi-channel + multi-form traffic diversion.

Main drainage methods:

Public Domain Drainage

Traffic is directed through some public domain platforms, which is divided into paid traffic and free traffic. The advantage is that traffic is easy to obtain, and the coverage and exposure are high.

Content diversion

Attract relevant groups of customers through high-quality content. The advantage is that the customers obtained are more accurate, the recognition is higher, and the conversion effect is better.

Streaming

Through App push, SMS group sending, email group sending and other methods. The advantage is that it is delivered actively and directly to the user end.

Offline traffic

Direct traffic through offline methods, such as placing advertisements offline, holding offline events/participating in exhibitions, etc. The advantage is that customer traffic can be acquired more directly at more levels.

Fission drainage

Traffic is generated through customer-initiated fission, such as group buying, assistance, bargaining, etc. The advantages lie in high cost-effectiveness, active customer participation, and precise and direct traffic flow.

This approach has received widespread attention in recent years and can attract customers to actively acquire, actively participate, and actively fission. It can even achieve the effect of using only a small amount of force to achieve a great result.

Pinduoduo is a model of fission drainage:

By means of group buying, cash back, low-price flash sales, bargaining assistance, mutual red envelope sending, shared withdrawals, etc., we allow customers to participate spontaneously and actively split, rapidly expand traffic, and achieve explosive growth in customers.

Before obtaining traffic through various drainage methods, we need to first establish our own private traffic pool. Think about a question: why should users join your private traffic game?

To create a private traffic pool and allow customers to enter actively, the prerequisite is to give customers a reason to enter, provide value, and meet their needs. Customer thinking is constantly changing, and consumption concepts are shifting from monotony - pursuing famous brands, authority, and trends - to personalization, precision, and customization.

In the early days when we used the Internet, search engines and portals, we obtained more ranked, authoritative and unified information. Now when we use the Internet, such as Weibo, official accounts, Moments, Tik Tok, etc., we pay more attention to things based on our own preferences and receive push notifications through algorithms. It is no longer the same for everyone but different for everyone. This model will undoubtedly lead to higher customer satisfaction and stronger stickiness. ByteDance and Netflix came from this.

2. Establish a personal upgrade relationship

Private domain traffic is currently divided into weak relationships and strong relationships. Weak relationships intervene between public domain traffic and strong relationship private domain traffic. Weak relationship private domain traffic is relatively more dependent on public domain traffic platforms, while strong relationship private domain traffic is completely private domain traffic, but it is more difficult to operate. Before operating traffic, we need to be clear whether to choose a weak relationship private domain or a strong relationship private domain.

Weak relationship private domain traffic

Including WeChat official accounts, Weibo, Douban, Tik Tok, Kuaishou, Zhihu, etc. It still has to rely mainly on the platform to operate, and there is a certain distance from customers. Compared with strong relationship private domain traffic, it will be subject to more restrictions.

Strong relationship private domain traffic

The complete form of private domain traffic allows you to build your own community and fully construct your own rules and gameplay. Timely and direct communication can be achieved through tools such as WeChat, Moments, and communities, making customers more active and loyal, and they can use them freely and repeatedly without paying any cost. However, it also faces the disadvantages of being difficult to operate and easy to lose customers.

Based on your own positioning and the needs of your target audience, you might as well establish a persona for yourself.

There are three basic personalities for operating private domain traffic:

assistant

Provide convenient services and solve problems for customers in a timely manner

expert

More professional and authoritative, focusing on providing high-quality content

partner

Be more friendly and build closer relationships with customers

After establishing a persona, develop ways to operate traffic and manage customers based on your own products and services and the needs of your target audience. This approach can bring customers the value they need and can be used to "upgrade the relationship" with customers.

First, it is clear that private domain traffic may not require payment during the traffic acquisition stage, but it does not mean that there is no cost when operating private domain traffic. Only by investing appropriate costs in an appropriate manner to attract customers and bring value to customers can private domain traffic be put into operation in a healthy manner.

So what is valuable to customers? Why should customers join your private domain traffic? Is it the small gift worth a dozen dollars that you gave during the lead generation stage? The answer is no.

If you want to keep them and make them your fans, petty tricks are useless.

We thought about the star-chasing phenomenon in society and some corporate fan culture, and conducted an investigation and analysis. Combined with private domain traffic, we summarize five reasons why customers become your fans (loyal customers):

Efficient and convenient access

Conveniently and promptly obtain value without worrying about it, reducing the threshold and time/energy consumption

Maximize benefits

Ability to obtain more benefits (material/knowledge/information/connections) than before

Resonance/identification

Through the love of brands and products, we can gain identity resonance and value recognition

Gaining respect

Able to communicate feedback in a timely manner, solve their own problems, and gain more respect

Pursuit of authority

People always like to pursue the "best", "strongest", "more authoritative" circles/information/titles/status

Finally, in actual operations, it is necessary to do a good job of user segmentation, which can be based on activity level, repurchase, fission, joining time, specific needs, etc.

According to user segmentation, establish a user awakening/activation mechanism to recover as many customers as possible who are about to be lost. This requires regular surveys and communication with users, and timely collection of user experience and feedback.

We can also use the thinking of gamification marketing to help us operate private domain traffic efficiently. Many companies and platforms are applying gamification marketing, but most of them are just doing the same old task check-in. Instead of attracting users, it will discourage them. We can learn from good examples of gamification marketing, such as Pinduoduo’s bargaining and cash withdrawal, Alipay’s scanning and tree planting, and the 100-day reading and free reader/mobile phone campaign that was popular in recent years. Why do they attract people to participate spontaneously and actively?

Five elements of gamification marketing:

1. Clear and intuitive goals

2. Sufficiently attractive and clear values ​​and rewards

3. Simple rules, challenging and achievable

4. Periodic feedback, accumulation and rewards

5. Set up a competitive ranking mechanism

3. Traffic monetization

There are many ways to monetize. When monetizing traffic, you need to pay attention to the activity rules. It is best not to be too complicated or too frequent, and to appropriately create a sense of urgency and scarcity.

Monetization method:

Service Monetization

Knowledge Monetization

Fans Benefits

Top-up Activities

Limited Flash Sale

Order rebate

Pre-sale reservation

Points redemption

Membership Upgrade

Exclusive coupons

4. Traffic fission

After the private domain traffic pool is stabilized, what needs to be done is traffic fission. The premise for effective fission is that traffic operation and traffic monetization are done well so that customers can actively attract new customers. Therefore, it is not recommended to put too much emphasis on this step, but to concentrate on the first three steps.

Fission method:

Assist

Group Buying

Bargaining

Red envelope

Pull new players to advance

Invitation courtesy

3. Don’t “drown” in private domain traffic

In private domain traffic, what is really important is not private domain traffic. It should not be a sickle for quickly harvesting "leeks", but a system for maintaining loyal customers and providing value efficiently, meeting customers' more personalized, precise and customized needs, and solving companies' pursuit of improving users' lifetime value and communication fission capabilities.

We must not lose our way due to private domain traffic, nor can we "drowned" in it. We must not be impatient for quick success, as such private domain traffic is doomed to not last long. The era of blind harvesting has passed, and the correct approach is to cultivate the land carefully and adapt to local conditions.

Private domain traffic should become a win-win operation method for enterprises and customers, otherwise it will become a derogatory term that will be quickly abandoned.

Thanks for reading.