Why do large education companies operate private domain traffic in QQ groups?

Since WeChat has taken over every aspect of our lives, many people have lost the habit of using QQ. QQ has become a memory of the young people born in the 80s and 90s, but it seems that QQ's daily active users are still very high, and its monthly active users are comparable to WeChat.

At the same time, QQ has won the favor of more young people because of its sensitive nose for new things. Therefore, the overlap between its target users and those of major K12 education companies is very high, especially among junior and senior high school students. One of the main reasons why they use QQ is that they are unwilling to use the same social software as their parents.

From this point of view, while various brands and industries are focusing on WeChat marketing, K12 education has expanded its marketing position to QQ, hoping to achieve the effect of 1+1>2 by cooperating with WeChat communities.

This has been confirmed by the QQ group fission activities of Gaotu Classroom and Zuoyebang Live Class, which can achieve good results in attracting fans and conversions. Below I will share what I have seen and thought in the QQ group in the past few days.

The article outline is as follows:

1. Why QQ?
2. QQ operating model dismantling
3. Comparison between Gaotu Classroom and Zuoyebang
4. How to make good use of QQ?

1. Why QQ?

In fact, there are still great disadvantages in doing fission in QQ groups. The biggest problem is that if users want to take free classes, they still need to join WeChat's free class group, which requires jumping from QQ to WeChat. However, jumping from QQ to WeChat requires at least eight clicks (including one long press), and the operation path is very long. The user churn rate is as high as 50%.

So, in this context, why do we still insist on using QQ groups to operate private traffic pools? QQ and QQ groups must have functions that cannot be replaced by WeChat.

From the functions of QQ and QQ groups:

1. QQ community has a high user capacity limit of up to 2,000 people, which can significantly improve operational efficiency compared to the 500-person limit of WeChat groups.
2. QQ can initiate temporary conversations, and operators can reach users through private chats without adding users as friends, increasing the probability of information exposure;
3. QQ groups can be muted, which can effectively distinguish learning exchange groups, information distribution groups, and activity participation groups. Information distribution groups generally do not allow users to send messages to avoid important information being overwhelmed by a large number of messages. Therefore, this function can effectively improve user experience. As long as users can always obtain valuable information from QQ groups, the probability of them leaving the group is extremely low.
4. QQ groups can add multiple administrators to facilitate operator management of users and improve operational efficiency through division of responsibilities. For example, Teacher A distributes learning materials, Teacher B publishes group announcements, Teacher C sends discount information, and so on.

From the company's perspective, many large companies' community operations now rely on the company's internal systems or third-party tools to implement group management operations.

Therefore, many WeChat accounts are robots. The frequent operations of robots will trigger WeChat’s risk control system, causing the account to be banned. After the account is banned, the user assets under the WeChat account will be difficult to maintain, causing great losses. However, compared with QQ and WeChat, companies can recharge QQ membership for QQ robot accounts, which will significantly reduce the probability of QQ accounts being banned.

Therefore, conducting fission activities in QQ groups to obtain traffic is a feasible way.

2. Taking Gaotu Classroom as an example, we will analyze the specific process and methods of QQ group operation

The author joined the first QQ group through the banner bar for receiving materials in the Gaotu Classroom APP, and then joined another five groups through this QQ group. We call the first group the diversion group, and the next five groups are activity groups. The active managers in the six groups are the same teachers.

1. Analysis of the operator’s role

There are seven main operator roles in the Gaotu Classroom QQ group, and their responsibilities are issuing welcome messages, checking user invitation progress, issuing invitation information, issuing group announcements and inviting friends to join the group, sending learning materials, directing traffic to personal QQ accounts, and directing traffic to WeChat groups. We divide the above seven responsibilities into three types: information release, invitation activities, and traffic diversion.

1) Teacher Jiabing

• Role: Send a welcome message (the welcome message is the prompt message sent when a user joins the group, usually @ a specified user);
• Number of groups and group types: 5 active groups;
• Frequency of message delivery: Under normal circumstances, a welcome message is sent once for every five people who join the group.
• Existing problems: There are cases where the reach is not timely and accurate, that is, when a user joins the group, the corresponding welcome message is not sent within one minute, which will reduce the efficiency of the fission activity.

2) Teacher Xiaoshuai

• Role: Post group announcements and invite people to join the group;
• Number of groups and group types: 6, diversion group + activity group;
• Message frequency: A pop-up window will be displayed when you first join the group to remind you of the group announcement content, which is updated once every morning.

3) Teacher Zhili

• Role: Send invitation progress within the group, some groups will send information;
• Number of groups and group types: 5 active groups;
• Frequency of message delivery: Normally once a day;
• Discovery: This teacher’s account should be operated by a real person (because the time and frequency of sending messages are not fixed, and additional information will be issued depending on the situation).

4) Teacher Momo

• Role: Send learning materials in the form of documents or links;
• Number of groups and group types: 6, diversion group + activity group;
• Message delivery frequency: 1-2 times a day, usually multiple files (ranging from 2 to 8) are sent at a time.

5) Teacher Chen

• Role: divert traffic to other QQ groups and personal QQ accounts;
• Number of groups and group types: 6, diversion group + activity group;
• Message reach frequency: A message is generally sent only once at night (between 21:00 and 23:00). This reduces disturbance to users and ensures that more people receive the message.

6) Teacher Xiaoxiu

• Role: divert traffic to WeChat;
• Number of groups and group types: 6, diversion group + activity group;
• Frequency of contact: 1-2 times a day.

7) Invite detection robot

• Role: Remind specific users of the invitation progress in the group;
• Number of groups and group types: 5 active groups;
• Message reach frequency: The reach frequency is high. Under normal circumstances, a message should be sent to remind the corresponding user every time a user invites a certain number of friends to join the group.
• Existing problems: ① The contact is not timely and the delay is serious, which will be delayed by about an hour. The message reminder should be sent immediately after the user invites a certain number of friends. Otherwise, it will give the user a feeling of being deceived, affecting the user experience and user retention; ② The number of reminders for reaching the standard is not fixed. For example, the set invitation threshold is 7. Sometimes a reminder will be sent when the user invites 5 friends, and there will also be a reminder when the user invites 6 friends. The irregular message reminders will cause trouble to users, and they don’t know what the rules of the activity are.

2. Observation Summary

1) Activity patterns

• I joined five other groups from the Summer Counterattack Study Plan group. There was no invitation activity in this group. I guess this group was a diversion group, and the other groups were activity groups.
• The main function of the diversion group is to carry out fission activities. The common form of activity is "invite xx people to join the group to get xx information";
• Activity groups generally include electronic information sharing groups and physical material collection groups. The activity format is still "invite xx people to join the group to get xx". Generally speaking, the collection of physical materials requires users to invite more friends to join the group, but physical material activities are more popular to a certain extent.

2) Problems

• There is no private welcome message after joining the activity group, and there is no timely reminder of the invitation progress after inviting friends to meet the requirements. After meeting the requirements, users need to actively add the corresponding teacher's QQ to obtain learning materials, which increases the difficulty for users to obtain materials and affects the user experience;
• Users in a group can add other users as friends through the group, and the cheaters in the group can invite other normal users through the group, affecting the quality of community operation;
• In general, the frequency of reaching out to users is low, as evidenced by inaccurate/untimely reminders of invitation progress, and there is basically no private chat contact.

3) Advantages

• In the activity group, only [Collection of Political Science, History, Geography and Biology Materials] had a "material sending teacher" actively add friends after joining, and send an activity to jump to WeChat to receive materials, which increased user touchpoints;
• After adding the teacher’s personal QQ number, a set of learning materials was immediately sent to me, and I was told that I could consult the teacher at any time if I had any learning questions.

3. Comparison between Gaotu and Zuoyebang

The fission activities of Gaotu Classroom and Zuoyebang Live Class on QQ are similar, both of which involve inviting friends to join the group to obtain the corresponding information.

• Generally speaking, Gaotu Classroom has a lower invitation threshold and more physical materials (stationery, physical books, etc.), so more users participate. Each group can basically reach nearly 1,000 people. Second, there are few QQ groups in Zuoyebang that can reach 1,000 people.
• At the same time, the quality of users participating in the fission activities of Gaotu Classroom is higher, that is, there are fewer brushes and they are all real users. This can be judged by observing the nicknames and QQ homepages of friends in the group.

But in terms of operational strategy, Zuoyebang is better.

First of all: the welcome message is sent more timely and accurately, and there are two access paths: group chat and private chat. However, Gaotu’s welcome message sending delay is very serious and many users do not receive the welcome message reminder when joining the group, and there is no private chat access path. So why is it so important for the welcome message to reach you instantly and accurately?

1. Users can be reminded at the first time how to stay in the group and how to obtain information. If users do not know what to do after joining the group and do not know the value of the group, they may quit the group after helping their friends complete the invitation task, which will damage user retention. The best effect of fission is that users invited to the group can immediately invite their friends to join the group, so it is very important to send a welcome message in a timely and accurate manner.
2. Private messaging doubles the chances of users seeing important information, but it cannot be used frequently, as it will disturb users. Therefore, the current operation strategy of Zuoyebang is to only send a welcome message after users join the group, which is more appropriate. At the same time, private messaging provides users with a way to find the corresponding operator when they need it, because the group is banned from talking, and there are many administrators in the group. When users have questions, they need to find the administrator, which will increase the user's operation cost.

Secondly: the user invitation progress information is clearer. When a user reaches the invitation target, a reminder will be sent in the group, which will also stimulate other users to actively participate;

Finally: The information of the invitation will be automatically sent after the requirement is met. Zuoyebang will send it directly through private chat. The user does not need to remember whether the number of people they invited has reached the requirement. This is the key to improving user trust and user experience. If the user is not sure how many friends he is short of, he can send "invitation progress" in private chat to check his invitation status.

On the contrary, this is also the biggest pain point of Gaotu Classroom's fission activity. After the author invited a sufficient number of friends to join the group, he did not receive the corresponding information, and privately chatting with the administrator also resulted in no results.

The specific operating strategies of the two platforms are shown in the following table:

4. How to make good use of QQ?

Compared to WeChat which is occupied by various industries, QQ is to some extent a pure land and is currently only used by the education industry. Since people's work and life are inseparable from WeChat, few people are willing to frequently post posters or share links in their own circle of friends, and the execution cost of users has become higher. Therefore, making good use of QQ and giving full play to its value may be one of the ways for major education companies to overtake others.

Next, we will explain how to make good use of QQ for fission marketing based on the six elements of conversion.

1. Reciprocity

To make users feel the value, we need to push learning materials that the junior and senior high school user groups really need and which are difficult to obtain under normal circumstances.

2. Commitment and Fulfillment

Clarify the rules of fission activities and the method of reward redemption to ensure that users can obtain the corresponding information smoothly.

3. Letter of Trust

The purpose of the certificate of trust is to transfer trust and allow users to establish a connection: the content provided in the group is of high value, and the courses and other content of this brand must also be good. Therefore, we need to continue to provide valuable materials and learning information in the QQ group to retain users and make them trust the Zuoyebang brand. We also send discount information for full-priced courses in the group from time to time to increase the conversion rate of full-priced courses.

4. Best-selling and well-received

The number of people participating in the event and the number of users who actually receive rewards should be announced in the group every day to create an atmosphere of popularity for the event and use the herd mentality to attract more users to participate.

5. Stimulate pain points

It is necessary to conduct long-term and in-depth research to clarify the problems encountered by junior and senior high school students in their studies, and to understand what content and form of information can be sent in the QQ group to help students solve certain learning problems at a low cost. For example, the summary of real questions from the senior high school entrance examination in xx province is difficult for users to obtain through search, but it can be obtained for free in the group. This is the best way to solve user pain points.

6. Scarcity

The number of users who can receive free rewards every day is limited. The group can send messages from time to time that there are only xx places left to receive the rewards on that day to create a sense of scarcity.

Finally, how to solve the problem of long path from QQ to WeChat? Currently, WeChat mini programs support direct activation in other apps. Operators can make full use of mini programs to send learning materials, retain users, and reduce user operation steps.

Author: Bean

Source: Beans