How can online education attract new users at low cost for the five types of users?

After years of technological development, and with the boost from the 2020 epidemic, the online education industry has seen rapid growth in user scale. More and more traditional education and training companies have also begun to expand their online business with the help of live streaming platform DingTalk and technology service provider Maker Artisan. The "Research Report on the K12 Education and Training Industry in the Downstream Market" shows that 95.6% of K12 education and training institutions agree that "the future education model must be OMO (a combination of online and offline)", and 77.14% of institutions want to have the ability to launch online courses.

By transforming online, a large number of education and training companies have successfully reduced marketing costs and expanded their enrollment scope. However, acquiring new customers remains the key to success for education and training companies in 2021.

1. How does online education achieve customer acquisition and new invitations?

At present, there are four common methods of acquiring customers in online education: advertising, event, word-of-mouth and private domain.

1. Advertising type: mainly based on advertising and brand marketing, with higher costs, but also large customer acquisition scale. It is more commonly used by leading companies with strong capital. Specific operations include Douyin advertising, variety show sponsorship, subway advertising, etc.

2. Activity type: mainly based on fission activities, with diverse gameplay, a wide audience, lower costs than advertising, and a considerable customer acquisition scale. It is suitable for most companies that do not have sufficient funds for advertising, such as friends helping to get gifts, inviting to get red envelopes, group buying at preferential prices, sharing to get coupons/gifts, etc.

3. Word-of-mouth type: Through the high-quality experience of the product itself and proper guidance, users can actively spread the word on social media. This method can be combined with the activity type to form an exponential communication effect.

4. Private domain type: By operating private domain traffic, it can achieve continuous fission growth, great customer acquisition potential and low cost. It is the most suitable low-cost growth method for the long-term development of enterprises.

For the current online education industry, advertising and event-based methods contribute the most to customer acquisition and invitation, but the former is too expensive, while the latter is more suitable for education companies of different sizes.

In the long run, most companies will tend to cultivate private traffic and create word-of-mouth marketing. For example, they can use Maker Artisans to build public accounts, mini-programs, APPs, PC online schools and other online education platforms, accumulate online and offline users on their own platforms, manage private traffic, and use high-quality content as the basis, combined with event tools, to spread word-of-mouth, which will be more conducive to long-term development.

2. 5 types of users, how to operate?

After an education and training company has its own online platform, how can it use activity tools to spread word of mouth?

Because promoting word-of-mouth communication through activities has low costs, a larger customer base, and is more likely to stimulate user participation and has high user acceptance, especially since the activities are diverse in form and can be well targeted at different types of users.

Below, we will look at the five types of users in the customer acquisition and conversion process of education and training companies and see how to achieve the best results.

1. New user: A newly registered user who has not consumed any courses.

For this type of users, the primary goal is to guide them to purchase courses and experience them.

Therefore, during the critical conversion period, education and training companies can use low-threshold interactions such as group buying among three people and bargaining for courses/materials to guide these new users to participate in activities and actively share and spread the word through the dual incentives of gifts and courses.

2. Trial class users: users who receive a free trial class.

The conversion cycle of trial class users is relatively short. During and after class, you can use community, check-in and other supervision tools to enhance the learning experience, use services to promote conversion, and increase exposure in your circle of friends through check-ins.

3. Low-price course users: users who purchase low-price trial courses at 9.9 yuan, 19.9 yuan, etc.

This type of user is different from users who take free trial courses. They are already basic paying users. What companies need to do is to demonstrate the value of the course, stimulate users' internal motivation, convert them to full-priced courses, and at the same time encourage users to share.

For users of low-priced courses, gifts can be given for recommendations and payments , so that users can receive gifts, coupons for high-priced courses, etc. after purchasing the courses. During the learning process, as users' recognition of the courses upgrades, live streaming and limited-time discounts can be used to stimulate users to convert to full-priced courses through "limited-time offers."

While converting, encourage users to share. For example, a merchant may set up gift-giving for payment of a low-priced course. After users purchase the low-priced course, they will be eligible for a free trial class, which incentivizes users to give the class to their friends to study together. Or users may invite friends through gift-giving for referrals, in which case the users themselves will receive coupons for the full-priced course, while their friends will receive a free trial class.

4. Full-price course users: users who purchase full-price courses, have long course periods, are the most valuable users, and can participate in long-term activities.

On the one hand, education and training companies can use referral gifts and follower-boosting tools to encourage users to share specific content (event posters, etc.) to social circles, such as "Invite 5 friends to follow the official account to enjoy free learning of the course "How to Manage Financial Management"" or "Recommend 3 friends to follow and get points. After accumulating points, you can redeem physical prizes such as notebooks and learning kits in the points mall";

On the other hand, based on the users’ performance and willingness in the activities, we screen out users with strong ability to continuously invite new users and have high recognition of the courses. We can invite these users into the “ promoter exclusive community” and provide them with special recommendation copy and posters to continuously motivate these users to become promoters and share a large number of invitations. The promoter, user A, shares the course with friend B, friend B buys the course, and user A receives the corresponding bonus.

This type of users have a high degree of brand recognition for education and training companies and are loyal users. By actively tapping into their social circles, good word-of-mouth communication can be achieved. After all, the effect of "endorsement by acquaintances" is far greater than bombardment-style advertising.

5. Silent users: new users who have not been converted and users who have taken courses but have not renewed their registration.

It is difficult to convert this type of users. Through low-threshold reward activities, such as bargaining for courses/materials, gifts for recommendations , etc., their final value of attracting new users can be maximized and their retention period can be extended. In addition, teaching assistants can be arranged to visit users one-on-one to understand their real thoughts.

By analyzing different types of users, carrying out targeted activities, continuously directing traffic to the private domain traffic pool, and then conducting word-of-mouth marketing, the education and training companies can form a healthy customer acquisition matrix and drive user growth in a sustainable manner.