Why can't you create a knowledge carnival in the Himalayas?

For the platform, creating a nominal "festival" and using it as a gimmick to enhance the brand and promote consumption is the most effective marketing method. But not everyone can create a festival. In addition to Alibaba's Double Eleven and Double Twelve and JD.com's 618, Himalaya 's 123 Knowledge Carnival is one of the more successful festivals. How did Himalaya create the Knowledge Carnival from 0 to 1? What details should be paid attention to when creating the platform's own festival?

Double 11 and Double 12 have become shopping festivals for the entire industry, 618 is no longer exclusive to JD.com, and 818 is no longer exclusive to Suning . In addition to New Year's Day, Christmas , National Day and other festivals, each platform is creating its own festival , allowing users to predict the upcoming activities in a certain period of time just like Double 11.

In 2016, Himalaya created the first "Content Consumption Festival" in the industry. They named the event "123 Knowledge Carnival", and the sales in the first year reached the total sales of 50.88 million on Taobao Double 11 in 2009. This year's "123 Knowledge Carnival" has just passed, and the total sales exceeded 196 million, with a growth rate of 300%.

How did Himalaya create the Knowledge Carnival from 0 to 1? What details should be paid attention to when creating the platform's own festival?

1. How did Ximalaya break through the “ pay for knowledge ” market?

Closed-loop advantages of business model

Mimi Meng's paid knowledge course sold over 30,000 copies within 12 hours of its launch. Ma Dong's paid boutique "Speak Well" sold over 5 million copies within 12 hours of its launch, and eventually reached 10 million copies. Luo Zhenyu, who is at the first echelon of paid knowledge, appeared at the 2017 Internet Conference and even stole the limelight from NetEase's Ding Lei and Xiaomi's Lei Jun . Paid knowledge has indeed exploded this year.

According to the "White Paper on the Development of China's Knowledge Payment Industry 2017" released by iResearch, the peak effect of diversified content led by top content is becoming more prominent. Niche demands such as luxury goods and red wine are gradually becoming popular, and career development and education categories continue to lead sales.

The knowledge payment platform needs to build a complete system by deepening professional content and strengthening community relationship maintenance. Ximalaya FM now has platform communities, live audio broadcasts , Q&A interactions , and supports refunds, providing users with a complete service system for paying for knowledge.

Among the many knowledge payment platforms, Himalaya continues to lead in terms of user numbers.

Himalaya's model is "joint production + anchor settlement" . On the Himalaya platform, user payment is just the beginning. The key is how to provide users with in-depth knowledge absorption scenarios.

Advantages of user group diversity

According to Aurora data, Himalaya's user base tends to be younger, with strong ability and willingness to pay, and is evenly distributed in first- and second-tier cities and third- and fourth-tier cities . Users in different regions have different demands for knowledge, and the benefit of a balanced distribution is that Himalaya is like "Taobao" in the payment field.

Experts in various fields can cooperate with Himalaya to make audio courses, or apply to become anchors and publish their own free works on the platform. Once the subscription volume reaches the requirement, they can make paid subscriptions .

The age distribution of Himalaya users is concentrated between 20 and 32 years old, with those born after 1985 and 1995 becoming the main user groups . They are able to accept new ways of acquiring knowledge, have a high thirst for knowledge, and have a strong tendency to learn in their spare time and when doing chores.

The user groups are evenly distributed across cities, including working elites in first-tier cities as well as relatively comfortable white-collar workers in third- and fourth-tier cities. This is the basis of Himalaya's 12 paid categories, and diverse needs have led to diverse products.

Humanized product design

The paid knowledge product - Pinjing Course is just one module in Himalaya's product functions. In addition to paid products, there are also a large number of free products. What we are talking about here is the paid knowledge module, so we are just experiencing the product design of the premium courses.

The entrance to the premium courses is not directly made into a bottom tab button in the APP , but it is given enough exposure in the homepage carousel, opening screen, homepage discovery and premium recommendations . After entering the premium course page, it is " read the course introduction - try it out - pay to purchase (you can use coupons, if the account balance is insufficient, you need to bind a card to recharge) - if you are not satisfied after purchase, you can apply for a refund - you can make an evaluation" . In the process of the above path, you can also share it with friends, or let your friends share it with you, and both parties earn a 5% commission. This commission is very similar to the Taobao customer model.

With the continuous operation of high-quality courses, Himalaya has developed multiple categories and multiple derivative product functions based on transaction volume, evaluation system, course development, etc.

The ranking list can help users judge the popularity of courses. The membership model allows users to watch more courses for less money. Audiobooks solve the anxiety of people who cannot read paper books continuously. Filtering and viewing purchased items can help users better manage the courses they are interested in and have purchased. These categories and functions are constantly iterated as the product develops.

2. How did Himalaya create the “123 Knowledge Carnival”?

The sedimentation of the label “knowledge payment”

If users don’t think you have a good “knowledge payment” product, no matter how many resources you spend, you will not be able to create a category festival.

I randomly opened the tweets and comments about the Himalaya event and captured a few of them. I can see that users’ perception of Himalaya is already a “knowledge sharing platform”: there is nothing wrong with a knowledge sharing platform holding a knowledge carnival . If knowledge-based paid products are just one category, such as JD.com, you can hold many category day activities, which will be more frequent, richer and more diverse.

The activity rules are designed to be easy to understand

The types of activities are diverse to meet the various needs of users.

Discounts on top of discounts plus new member gift packages can attract new users to register, and membership discounts can satisfy users who have multiple course needs to purchase annual fees; recharge rebates are the same as offline stored value cards, which do not support cash withdrawals. Once recharged, it is equivalent to the money having been transferred to the platform account; flash sales can stimulate users who are greedy for bargains and have a speculative mentality to participate; lottery entertainment activities increase the fun of the activities, and can be used to promote courses in a disguised form.

The promotion method of event marketing is worth studying

The promotion goal must be clear. Himalaya’s main goal is course sales, followed by brand promotion, so that users can recognize Himalaya’s leading position in the field of audio knowledge.

Get all the entry-level resources in one go, carefully connect with the promoters of each platform, clearly indicate the needs of the platform, have multiple channels but the placements must be segmented, and try to reach the population between 25 and 23 as accurately as possible. In social media , word-of-mouth is the main approach, and advertisements with good reputation are placed to users who match the product's tags to achieve dissemination and conversion .

Attract top tutor resources and invite a small number of celebrities to the platform. Based on the previously accumulated community, let the celebrity tutors actively share their invitation pages and actively promote their paid courses by taking advantage of the platform's 50% discount.

3. Why can’t you create a popular shopping festival?

There are two prerequisites for a hit shopping festival: first, the user base must be large enough. The number of Himalaya users has exceeded 30 million , the user groups are sufficiently hierarchical and diversified, and the proportion of paying users is large enough. Himalaya has announced that the average monthly AR PU value has exceeded 90 yuan since 2017.

Second, the shopping festival is built to fit the product form , the rules are simple and easy to understand, and the promotion methods are extensive and precise. It mainly targets the platform's existing paying users, incentivizing them to stock up on courses, encouraging free users to try paying, and encouraging the platform's core experts to actively cooperate with official activities.

The author of this article is @Eric|Wang Liang. It is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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