How did MINISO grow its membership from 0 to 30 million?

During the development process over the years, when MINISO was facing transformation and upgrading, the point that impressed me most was that our competitors are not our peers, but our users.

How do you understand this sentence? If you only see your peers, the result will be homogeneity, imitation and price competition. However, market competition is not price competition among homogeneous products, but rather it revolves around market demand, satisfying demand, or guiding demand. So, who determines market demand? Of course it is the consumers, that is, our users.

Today's consumers are no longer simply product buyers and users. They become co-builders and advocates of brands, or promoters, distributors, and even innovators of products.

Once we regard the brand as a community of enterprises and users, then all the actions of the brand, whether it is product development, marketing promotion, fan activities, or media strategy, are a process of communication and co-creation with consumers.

Therefore, the core logic of a brand lies in operating users, and brand building is the process of enterprises co-creating value, resonating with content, and communicating in sync with consumers. The success of a brand depends entirely on whether consumers buy into it, and whether the evaluation is valuable depends on the users.

This is also why in recent years MINISO has begun to pay attention to the users’ voice in the brand, shifting its focus from attracting new growth to vertical operations that focus on existing users, that is, refined user operations.

So, what is the key to MINISO’s successful user operations over the years? There is a very important handle here: refined operation of private domain traffic.

1. The essence of private domain traffic is people

The concept of private domain traffic emerged in 2018. In the past two years, it has been an area and topic that major brands cannot avoid in order to achieve growth. Especially during the black swan "new coronavirus" epidemic in 2020, many companies began to accelerate their online transformation, which brought an unprecedented awakening to the awareness of the explosive private domain traffic.

At present, the industry generally defines private domain traffic as: traffic that is independently owned by a brand or individual, can be freely controlled, is free, and can be used multiple times, including personal WeChat accounts, WeChat public accounts, WeChat groups, Moments, or APPs and mini-programs independently developed by the brand.

The corresponding to private domain traffic is "public domain traffic", that is, this traffic is not the brand's own, but is purchased from other platforms. Specifically speaking, for example, Tmall, Taobao, Baidu, JD.com, Toutiao, Pinduoduo, etc. There is no threshold for these traffics. You can enter the market by spending money, and you can quickly attract customers at a high price.

Why is private domain traffic so popular?

My understanding is that during the Internet dividend period, people use large nets to catch fish, and they can catch whatever they want with just one cast and one scoop. There are too many fish to catch, and it is impossible to catch all the fish in the wild pond (public domain), so who cares about private domain traffic?

At present, many companies are collectively betting heavily on private domain traffic, which obviously reflects a problem, that is, the cake is no longer getting bigger, but more and more people want to have a piece of it, coupled with the high cost of low customer acquisition conversion. Faced with the new reality, companies have to re-examine the value of users. In the past, they only sought conversion and purchase. We are also considering whether we can encourage users to repurchase our products again and again, or even allow old users to bring in new users.

However, in the past few years, when communicating with some companies, I found that many brands have fallen into several misunderstandings in private domain traffic operations:

First, private domain traffic = community + personal account.

The point I want to emphasize is that when dealing with private domain traffic, you must have matrix thinking. In order to find the contact point entry of the private domain, the first step is to know where the traffic comes from.

Many people have a narrow view that private traffic only exists online, such as social groups and Moments are private traffic, while some huge offline traffic is ignored.

In fact, every potential consumer who walks into the store and has the intention to buy is also the brand’s private traffic. If it is a retail chain brand, such as MINISO, UNIQLO, and Perfect Diary, which have offline stores, then the customers who come to the store every day are the brand's largest natural private traffic.

When consumers enter the store, how can companies facilitate transactions, make them become our fans and join as members? And after they leave the store, how can we effectively reach and manage these consumers through digital connection and turn them into high-value users? This is the core.

Similarly, brands also have a large amount of user data on major social platforms and Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo and their own shopping malls, as well as accumulated data in CRM. These are what the brands actually have in their own hands and are also the source of the brand's private domain traffic.

Second, users are treated as traffic, without creating warm emotional connections around "people".

Currently, when dealing with private domain traffic with many brands, most of them still use the original e-commerce thinking, which is the concept of conversion rate and harvesting leeks.

For example, when building a community, many brands simply let the customer service team set up a large number of personal WeChat accounts, draw in users like wooling the wool, and then bombard the group with all kinds of advertising information. The result is that most communities quickly become "zombie groups" and it is difficult to sustain long-term operations.

To empower brands with private domain traffic, what they need to do is to manage the lifetime value of users, and transform the selling logic (traffic harvesting) into a logic that focuses on user value (customer lifetime value).

Selling goods means selling products to 100 or 1,000 people, while managing customers means screening out "trust traffic" and letting him/her buy 100 products or letting this person recommend 100 people to buy. It is a trust relationship.

Third, it focuses more on price drive and less on content output.

There is a serious shortage of high-quality content. This problem has been present since the beginning of the social media era and has become increasingly evident in private domain traffic operations.

It is very important that the content conveys to consumers the product selling points, brand values, and event appeal. If you only use discounts and offers to attract fans crazily and let users be completely driven by price, it will continue to overdraw and dilute the brand's already weak power.

From the bottom up, the essence of private domain traffic is not traffic, but people. People are not simply representations of data; there are intricate emotional connections behind them.

Therefore, what can truly help brands realize the value of private domain traffic and widen the gap between different brands is to insist on refined operations, take users as the core, design every detail of the operation path, and do a good job in every communication and interaction with users. This is the pursuit of higher operational efficiency, and this is private domain traffic.

Precisely because it saw the essence of traffic earlier, at a time when private domain traffic was still far from being widely discussed, MINISO was fortunate enough to take advantage of the Internet to integrate and connect traffic from various channels, and developed a combination of online and offline private domain traffic strategies of "stores + in-depth membership operations + new community marketing".

2. 30 million member growth strategy: user lifetime value management

We can get a glimpse of MINISO’s membership strategy starting from 2017.

Like most brands, MINISO faced three pain points during its development:

At the data level, we have huge traffic both online and offline, but the data from various channels (stores, e-commerce, and online new media) are scattered and cannot be connected, and the data has little driving force for marketing activities. A better way to understand it is that we cannot clearly know the user's gender, age, occupation and identity, what he/she likes, which brands he/she is keen on, which current affairs he/she cares about, and what kind of content will attract him/her.

At the operational level, there is a lack of a systematic operating system, high operating costs, and an inability to provide differentiated services based on different users and scenarios, resulting in a failure to form brand competitiveness and brand characteristics.

At the store level, it is impossible to effectively empower terminal stores. Specifically, there is a lack of store marketing empowerment tools; activities and operations rely on store staff, and there is a lack of means to effectively operate for consumers within 3 kilometers.

2017 was the first year of the explosion of mini programs. Mini programs, which are dependent on the WeChat ecosystem, are not only a sales channel for offline new retail, but also a very good platform for brand exposure and in-depth communication between brands and users.

In order to connect data from various channels and improve user experience, MINISO launched a membership mini program, officially becoming the vanguard and front-end carrier for the refined operation of private domain traffic.

Figure 7-1 MINISO SCRM architecture

So, where do members come from?

In the initial stage, MINISO mainly attracted new customers through the following methods:

Online: After years of hard work, MINISO’s official account with 30 million fans has formed a natural private traffic pool, providing a good soil for us to convert fans into members. This is why I recommend that brands pay attention to official accounts. Because the official account is now the brand’s official website for private domain traffic, combined with the online mall, the official account can become a link point for private domain traffic.

Offline: We continued to use the method of scanning the code to follow MINISO’s WeChat official account. Store cashiers guided consumers to scan the code to register as members and receive shopping bags.

Figure 7-2 Scan the QR code in the store to register as a member and get a shopping bag

Because it is all their own traffic, the original accumulation cold start-up cost of MINISO members is very low. As of now, through online and offline dual-channel traffic, the number of MINISO mini program members has reached nearly 30 million, and the repurchase rate has increased by more than 3 times.

What does 30 million people mean? This number is almost equivalent to the population of a megacity (Shanghai’s permanent population in 2019 was 24.28 million). So, when we talk about the MINISO membership system, what we are actually talking about is a traffic city.

In order to realize such an "army" operation, how does Miniso operate and activate this huge membership system?

1) Organizational structure is the “skeleton”

Because membership operations will mobilize various departments of the company, including online, offline, e-commerce, stores, products, logistics, brands, markets, and technology, the brand center, as the leading department, jointly established the MINISO membership group with the information technology management center, operation center, product center, and e-commerce division.

2) Data capability is the “blood”

User insight is not a subjective and emotional term, but a vast "math problem". Behind it is the collection of data analysis to fully understand user portraits and behavioral habits, turning users from "cold numbers" into "living individuals", and continuously interacting with them based on their needs.

In user analysis, data can be used to accurately predict user preferences. For example, through the analysis of MINISO's customer base, we found many interesting data conclusions: the main consumer group is characterized by a love of beauty, which accounts for 27% of the total population, with the highest consumption frequency and contribution; the group that hoards multiple items, IP enthusiasts, snack lovers, and the weekend baby-walking group (taking babies to buy toys on weekends) are also major consumer characteristics of MINISO's customer base.

After interpretation, these data can further guide brand decisions. Like the IP enthusiasts mentioned above, this reflects the preferences of young people today. For this reason, MINISO responded quickly by introducing major international IPs, and has explored a mature IP cooperation system. It has launched peripheral products in cooperation with multiple IPs such as Pink Panther, KAKAO FRIENDS, Marvel, and the Forbidden City, capturing the trendy tastes of young people and providing original designs.

3) Operational mechanism is the “meat”

Speaking of operating users, it is not a new concept in fast-moving consumer goods retail. However, there is still much room for improvement in terms of how to operate effectively and achieve true maintenance and transformation.

In this sector, MINISO’s core is all about users and human value, and it has mainly adopted three strategies:

1. Product frequency increase

High-frequency, in-demand products can be made into traffic-generating products to attract members to the store. For example, MINISO’s DNA categories are daily necessities, beauty products, and snacks, which have a relatively high penetration rate in consumers’ minds.

Figure 7-3 Miniso Snack Festival

MINISO has launched activities for its members such as redeeming facial masks for an additional RMB 1, promoting hot-selling beauty eggs, and the Foodie Festival (members who purchase more than 5 food items can get coupons worth RMB 100-15 for all food items).

Among them, by cooperating with the hot-selling promotion activities of beauty eggs, we can reach members who have a high probability of visiting the store and purchasing beauty tools. The consumption rate of members reached 24%+ in one week, and one-third of them purchased beauty tools.

In addition, we have a 1-yuan facial mask exchange activity. After participating in the activity to receive facial masks, members’ trust in MINISO facial masks has increased, and more members will choose to consume facial masks when shopping.

Therefore, the products that MINISO uses to attract members to repurchase in stores are generally very attractive hot-selling products, mainly to create a connection between consumers and stores, and then deepen the connection with consumers through member-exclusive activities, stimulating consumers' secondary consumption and forwarding fission.

2. Equity increase

Member benefits are mainly designed to enhance users' sense of value and user experience, reflecting the differences between members and non-members, and allowing members to see them in prominent locations in stores to enhance their sense of dignity. The common equity dimensions of MINISO are mainly the following:

• Product category: new product priority experience, free trial, limited purchase
• Activities: Membership Day, member birthday benefits, priority participation in marketing activities
• Welfare: discounts, coupons, double points, gift exchange
• Service: Additional services, such as eyebrow shaping, free shopping bags, etc.
• Cross-industry alliances: Enjoy products/services from other cross-industry alliances

Here are some simple examples of the rights and interests of MINISO:

Implement the points system: earn points for shopping, 1-2 points for 1 yuan, which can be exchanged for free gifts.

Each of our users has some points, but they are not aware of it and don’t remember to use them. The point system is to let consumers know that they still have money in MINISO stores, thereby increasing the frequency of user repurchases.

Create "MINISO Wednesday Member Day": Create a carnival shopping festival exclusively for MINISO members. Different membership levels can enjoy discounts of 10/8/6 yuan for purchases over 68 yuan every week.

Figure 7-4 MINISO Membership Day on Wednesday

The benefit of creating festivals is that, in addition to the weekend consumption peak, we can increase the frequency of consumers visiting stores through festivals. At the same time, the "Wednesday Miniso Day" has a mechanism of 10/8/6 yuan discount for purchases over 68 yuan, which also effectively increases the average order value of consumers.

Exclusive member benefits: By managing user expectations, we create a series of member-friendly benefits.

Such as priority purchase rights for some IP products, celebrity concert ticket benefits, double member birthday points and exclusive 8 yuan no-threshold coupon for birthdays, free shopping bags, in-store eyebrow trimming services, etc.

3. Refined operations

The essence of refined operation is the operator. Based on deep exploration of user needs, the operation strategy and experience chain are optimized for different user groups. The right time, channel and method are used to give the right users what they want, thereby exchanging value with users and facilitating transactions.

3. Manage User Lifecycle

One thing I have always believed is that future competition will be a competition for user lifetime value.

Based on the consumption behavior data of MINISO users, we proposed the concept of "user life cycle". Based on the users' recent purchasing behavior and comparing it with the changes in historical purchasing trends, the user population is segmented and different marketing strategies are matched to the characteristics of users in different periods.

Figure 7-5 MINISO user life cycle path

As shown in the figure, in the user life cycle curve, the horizontal axis is the cycle of interaction between the user and the brand, and the vertical axis is the value that the user contributes to the brand. Along the user life cycle curve, we can divide users into three stages and four periods:

1) Customer acquisition stage

Introduction stage (first visit to the store): Users at this stage are potential customers, and they are guided to place orders online or in offline stores by registering but not consuming.

2) Appreciation stage

Growth stage (initial consumption): Although users have made purchases at this stage, they have just learned about the brand and their trust in the brand is not very strong.

MINISO issues coupons after payment via WeChat, seizing the golden period (within 2 weeks) after members’ first consumption, and issues coupons to guide repeat purchases, in order to cultivate their purchasing habits.

For example, between May 23 and May 29, 2020, MINISO members who spend RMB 35 or more in stores and use WeChat Pay will receive a 12% discount coupon after payment. We found that the probability of repurchase within one week after consumption increased by 20%-30%. Coupons with relatively short validity periods are more helpful in striking while the iron is hot and promoting repeat purchases.

Mature stage (stable repurchase): Users in the mature stage are the best, with strong stickiness and good repurchase. They have already formed a certain understanding of the brand and products and are the core users of high-value products in offline stores.

At this time, MINISO's strategy was to regularly organize some exclusive activities and provide them with a better service experience through offline stores, focusing on the user's sense of participation and honor.

For example, the Foodie Festival I mentioned above (members who purchase more than 5 food items can get a coupon worth 100-15 yuan for all food items), Miniso Wednesday Member Day, etc., through these operational actions, we can keep this group of users' consumption high in frequency.

3) Recovery stage

Decline stage (pre-churn/recovery): For pre-churn members who have made 4 or more orders in the past year and whose last order was within 120 days, we prioritize recovering high-frequency historical members and try to reach out and awaken them through multiple waves of large-discount coupons.

After being retained through outreach, more than 25% of members will return to MINISO for consumption within the next half month.

4) Hierarchical management to build customer relationships

In the book "Kotler Marketing Thinking", it is mentioned that once a company understands the customer lifetime value, it can use the information to conduct precision marketing, thereby establishing close, profitable, and long-term customer relationships.

Among them, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers proposed a marketing method for customer relationship management:

• Identify your prospects and customers and don’t blindly chase after everyone.
• Differentiate customers based on their needs and their value to the brand, and give more attention to valuable customers as appropriate.
• Customize products, services and information for each customer and create personalized service plans. Customers have become more powerful, and they can decide the direction of a brand and even how it is marketed.

Based on this concept, MINISO will adopt different strategies for members at different levels. Members at higher levels are often more deeply bound to MINISO and enjoy different rights and interests.

Currently, MINISO members are divided into three membership levels, which are mainly divided based on growth values.

General card members: 0-2999 growth points

Silver card members: 3000-5999 growth points

Gold Card Member: 6000 or above Growth Points

What is growth value?

Growth value is a numerical value used to calculate membership level. Currently, growth value can be obtained by visiting MINISO stores and MINISO WeChat mini-programs that participate in membership activities. 10 growth points can be accumulated for every RMB 1 spent.

The different benefits set for membership levels are intended to stimulate different behaviors of consumers, and behind this is our goal consideration.

Ordinary cards are intended to stimulate high-frequency consumption and cultivate consumption habits; silver cards are intended to stimulate new customers and high customer orders; and gold cards stimulate retention, high frequency and high customer orders at the same time.

For example, on the MINISO membership day every Wednesday in the store, gold card members can enjoy a discount of RMB 10 off for purchases over RMB 68, silver card members can enjoy a discount of RMB 8 off for purchases over RMB 68, and ordinary card members can enjoy a discount of RMB 6 off for purchases over RMB 68.

Figure 7-6 Gold Card Member Exclusive Coupon

We all know the 80/20 rule, which states that 80% of a company’s sales are contributed by 20% of its important users.

When it comes to managing high-value consumers, the focus is not on how many people you reach, but on whether you reach the important people. Here, MINISO focuses more on communicating with loyal users first, and then using the influence of loyal users to influence core users and mass users.

4. Combine store marketing promotion activities

Figure 7-7 MINISO membership marketing activities

The store’s brand marketing activities are the key to MINISO’s overall membership operations. On the one hand, we will increase the brand awareness among members through large-scale marketing activities, such as joining hands with popular stars and IP cooperation to activate existing members and take on new traffic brought by new customers; on the other hand, we will maintain stickiness and increase member activity through high-frequency small and medium-scale activities and regular activities. For example, the Member Day and Foodie Festival I mentioned above are our daily activities to maximize the optimization of user experience, thereby increasing the long-term attention of members.

The MINISO x TFboys fifth anniversary project that I shared in the fourth chapter of the book is a marketing promotion activity combined with membership. We will give 300 tickets as a benefit to members, and members can participate in a draw to win tickets when they make a purchase. The value of membership operations includes not only activating paying fans to realize purchase conversions, but also allowing fans to settle into long-term consumers of the brand.

In the end, all 350,000 posters of MINISO x TFboys 5th anniversary artists were sold out during MINISO’s 6-day promotion, bringing in 370,000 new members and greatly improving store sales conversion.

5. New social marketing: Give users a reason not to delete you

The initial prototype of MINISO’s community operation was the experience officer community.

For this group of users, MINISO operates a very small core user group. We will maintain frequent communication with this group of users in the group, including new product launches and the latest event updates. In this way, seed customers can feel the progress and changes of MINISO.

In a sense, this group of core users is the driving force of the MINISO brand. In the beginning, they served as our seed users and spread word-of-mouth and fermented the brand on social media.

So what is new social marketing?

New community marketing is a store-centered new community marketing launched by MINISO during the epidemic in early 2020. It is based on chain physical stores and relies on building groups and mini-programs on social media. Through live broadcasts, online ordering, and 020 delivery, it radiates and serves consumer groups within a three-kilometer radius, allowing store employees to become consumers' life managers.

During this period, MINISO experienced a crisis in which more than half of its stores were closed and its revenue dropped by 95%. There is no offline traffic and no income, it’s difficult! For brands, the onlineization of products and services is imminent.

To this end, MINISO took advantage of the WeChat ecosystem, relying on its 30 million members and 25 million WeChat public account fans, and took the opportunity to launch a social e-commerce project and launched a mini-program mall. It used the community as the main channel to communicate with members and fans, and used the combination of "community + mall mini-program" to provide sales of urgently needed products in the group, conduct social fission and divert traffic.

It is worth mentioning that MINISO’s community operation has gone through two iterations:

During the epidemic, the layout of private domain e-commerce was mainly based on selling goods, and five core strategies were adopted:

Improve the Mini Programs such as MINISO Premium and MINISO Premium Mall (launched in 2018) to provide underlying support for fission distribution;

Relying on more than 2,000 stores in China, MINISO brings consumers within three kilometers into the private traffic pool by scanning codes to join the group, providing instant product recommendations and delivery services. At the same time, MINISO has cooperated with Ele.me, Meituan, JD.com and other platforms to launch "contactless delivery" services, and has cooperated with SF Express to launch "same-city express delivery" services, ensuring that the goods can be delivered to consumers as soon as possible.

Mobilize all employees of MINISO Group to strongly support social e-commerce business and carry out full-staff marketing. MINISO has nearly 30,000 employees, all of whom have become distributors, helping the brand quickly make up for the scarce offline traffic.

Figure 7-8 During the epidemic, MINISO launched internal home shopping for employees

Create a group of MINISO’s own internet celebrities, KOCs, to endorse and promote products through online live broadcasts.

MINISO has also established multiple MINISO preferred promoter groups, which allow community fans to bring their own traffic to the platform through a commission-sharing and fission mechanism.

Figure 7-9 Miniso's promotion mechanism

With the help of this original model, MINISO's online business grew by 300% month-on-month during the epidemic. Not only did it offset the loss of offline performance to a certain extent, but it also allowed MINISO to find an opportunity to expand its online territory and enter a new track of physical retail.

This model can be successful largely because: compared with most e-commerce brands in the past that did not have physical stores, Miniso's model does not rely on third-party platforms, but is based on its own stores and provides services directly to customers. Compared with previous e-commerce or WeChat businesses, this has a higher degree of brand trust. Its biggest benefit is that it helps to strengthen the stickiness of MINISO's offline members, thereby increasing the repurchase rate.

After the epidemic, MINISO changed its operational strategy and established a community operation project team at its headquarters. It incorporated the loyal fans accumulated through official WeChat public accounts, memberships, Weibo, Douyin and other channels into the private traffic pool and established group management.

MINISO's growth model is mainly through the means of welfare and traffic diversion, guiding customers to add a WeChat account to become friends. This WeChat friend is the MINISO shopping consultant/MINISO general shopping consultant who has been built into a small IP. This shopping consultant will further invite users to join a "MINISO shopping group".

Figure 7-10 Miniso community traffic diversion

The core of community operation is user relationship. It is not enough to just attract users. This requires brands to stand in the user's perspective and have goals, methods and strategies, so as not to end up in a thankless task and make community operation a mess.

Therefore, a brand should be like a person, with ideas and personality. It should make users trust you, be willing to read the content you post, know that you truly care about them, and feel that you are a person who understands them, rather than a cold-blooded machine.

How does MINISO do it?

1) Emphasis on the value of long-term operations

There is a very important link here, which is to provide users with long-term value rather than short-term benefits.

The "MINISO Shopping Group" has a lot of useful content to share, such as MINISO Morning Express, new product launches, live broadcasts and the recruitment of new product experience officers to attract users' attention.

At the same time, users will also share in the group the good things they recently purchased from MINISO, triggering interaction among fans in the group.

Figure 7-11 Community content and fan interaction

2) Create fan benefits

What long-term value does it have that attracts users to stay, accept brand advertising, interact with you, and not delete you? If it is just about short-term benefits, many users will delete you after receiving the benefits. They cannot see the value of the brand's existence in the future.

Therefore, MINISO's strategy is to frequently launch fan-pampering activities in the group, with the frequency of these activities almost reaching the point of being seen every day, such as discounts on new products, 29% off for 2 items in the special zone, 99-20 coupons, etc.

Figure 7-12 Community welfare activities

3) High-quality content is nourishment

The highest level of community operation is to communicate with users heart to heart. The user trusts you, knows that you truly care about her, and feels that you are a person who understands her, rather than a vampire who only eyes her wallet.

Therefore, nourishment is very important, and this nourishment is the brand's content capabilities, product system and service system.

For example, product selection before official sale: should it be a hot-selling product, a traffic-generating product, a promotional product, or an image-enhancing product? Miniso has planned and designed in advance the proportion of event products, poster design, event time, division of roles among group staff, how to attract traffic, etc.

In terms of content output, MINISO has carefully designed and conceived everything. For example, whether it is the copywriting in the circle of friends of the little consultant of Douzhu or the language used in the group, a "partner-type" personality is created, focusing on being friendly and using an equal perspective to narrow the psychological distance between users, making users feel that they are communicating with a real person.

Figure 7-13 Miniso Consultant’s Circle of Friends

What I want to say is that the private traffic system built around "deep membership operation + new community marketing" is not only a channel or a way to increase sales for MINISO, but more of a connection between consumers and the brand's fan base. It is also an accelerator for MINISO's digital transformation.

Behind it is the strengthening of online promotion and application of new tools, accelerating the integration of online and offline, fully tapping into member data, online shopping malls, official WeChat public accounts, WeChat mini-programs and other proprietary online platforms, focusing on users, leading them, using products to continuously generate links, and using high-quality content to influence them, thereby achieving in-depth operations.

In other words, the ability to generate private domain traffic = the operational capability to build a brand and face consumers directly is an essential internal skill for an enterprise.

It is never achieved overnight, and there is no universal methodology. Trial and error, improvement, iteration, optimization, and achieving growth through refined operations are the eternal tasks for brands.

The following are 5 suggestions for private domain traffic operations that I have summarized for your reference only:

1. Private domain traffic is definitely not a simple way of making money, but the cultivation of long-term relationships.

When operating private domain traffic, you cannot think about "squeezing all the users" from the beginning. This is a long-term job that requires time and energy.

There is no reward without hard work. We must attach importance to the long-term value of operations, and short-term benefits are just the finishing touch.

2. Private domain and public domain traffic are not in an antagonistic relationship, but a synergistic relationship.

The core of private domain traffic is to build a deeper relationship between users and operators and reduce transaction costs through trust. Public domain traffic, on the other hand, is obtained through platform endorsement, cost-effectiveness and operational means to obtain transaction opportunities. For enterprises, they need to deal with private domain traffic with the left hand and public domain traffic with the right hand.

3. Content output is the core.

It requires strong content power to deliver persuasive and attractive brand information and selling points to segmented target groups in different scenarios. For example, if you want to attract high-end users, you need practical knowledge and deep insights, and you cannot post content that is too superficial and lacks nutrition.

4. At present, private domain operations under the WeChat ecosystem are still the mainstream.

WeChat public accounts are used to create content; personal accounts are used to retain users, strengthen relationships, and deepen conversions; WeChat groups are used to manage user revenue and promote interaction; and mini programs can be used to graft products and carry out user fission.

5. It is difficult for only one department to activate a mature private traffic pool.

The operation of private domain traffic must be coordinated across departments on a wider scale and maintained together. It is difficult to activate a private traffic pool by relying on a single department alone.

Author: Sister Mulan

Source: Mulanjie (ID: mulanjie-)