How can user operations improve referral rates?

Today I would like to talk to you about some thoughts on referrals in the online education industry.

If you are unfamiliar with the term referral, then I believe everyone must be very familiar with the term fission. In 2018 and 2019, the whole nation was experiencing fission. The well-known Mission Bao also became popular from that time. At that time, every public account started to do fission to increase fans. Pinduoduo and Qutoutiao even used their own fission to attract new users, allowing everyone to see more possibilities of fission.

Starting from 20 years ago, this method of fission began to be improved by educational institutions, ushering in an era of universal referral. Because this referral method is low-cost and the leads obtained are of good quality, it is being used by more and more online education institutions.

Let’s take a look at a set of referral data to understand the important role referrals play in acquiring customers for online education institutions:

Duozhi.com reported that in terms of referral data, among the 300,000 users of Spark Education, over 85% are referrals; the referral rate for Pea Education is also over 85%; the referral rate for Banyu Children's English is 70%; and over 20% of the students of Early Years Baby Playing English are from referrals, 100% of which are from referrals. As of the end of 2020, the number of users of the Zebra AI course system has exceeded 1.5 million, covering more than 400 cities. As of February 2021, Duozhi.com learned that Zebra AI classes have grown from an initial 100 referrals per day to 10,000 referrals per day today, with referrals and organic traffic accounting for more than half of the student population.

So what is a referral? What is the difference with fission? What are the common methods of referral?

Generally speaking, if A finds a product good after using it and B happens to have the same need, A may recommend the product to B for experience and use. This kind of scenario often occurs in communication between parents. No parent wants their child to fall behind, so after Parent A signs up for a course and sees good learning results, he or she recommends it to more parents. The psychology of comparison and fear of children falling behind is fully demonstrated here. Here, Parent A plays more of a KOC role.

Fission is a broader behavior that brings more traffic, but the accuracy is still effectively improved. It can be said that fission includes referrals, which are essentially ways of using existing users to bring in more new users. However, because online education has higher requirements for the leads it brings, the best result is to be able to form conversions and purchase advanced system courses. The average customer price is generally in the thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, so the accuracy and quality of the traffic are required to be higher.

There are also some differences among different companies in terms of referral methods and gameplay. Generally speaking, referrals include distribution, group buying, sharing tasks and other methods.

Referral is a way to obtain leads and also a systematic means of operation. It is inseparable from productization, user stratification and systematization of referral methods.

1. Productization of referral methods

I believe that many offline institutions started doing referrals a long time ago. If you introduce clients to me, I will give you a commission after the transaction is completed. The prototype of referrals by early offline education institutions was when salespeople communicated with parents, they would always say something like: How is your child doing in school? If your child is doing well in school, please recommend me to other parents.

However, this method is unlikely to have any practical effect. There is no commercialized product to follow up, and it is difficult to detect whether the parents actually make the referral. The binding relationship is entirely manual, and errors are inevitable.

Online education institutions are born with the genetic advantage of productization. Children’s learning is completed online, and actions such as sharing and recommendation are carried out through online productization mechanisms, truly forming referrals that can be monitored, measured, and seen.

On the other hand, online productized matrix traffic also provides more productized and operational space for referrals. Traffic flows between public accounts, mini programs, apps, H5, personal accounts (corporate WeChat accounts) and even video accounts, spreading referral activities through diversified product distribution channels:

Learn on the App, participate in sharing activities, share posters with the mini program, and the invitees can scan the code through the mini program to complete the specified actions, follow the official account or add a personal account (corporate WeChat account) to provide the next step of service. Traffic flows well between the product matrix, ensuring that users can be reached through multiple product touchpoints.

Spark Education has an invite friends and get gifts activity through the App section. The poster with the mini program code is shared to the circle of friends or WeChat group. The invitees scan the code and use WeChat to bind their mobile phone number to authorize and receive the trial class reward.

After successfully receiving the gift, the user will be prompted to join a group purchase for free. The group purchase for three people can be completed within 24 hours. Anyone can participate as a group leader, and group members must be users who have registered for the Spark Thinking Mathematics Live Class. After successfully joining the group, follow the "Spark Thinking Mathematics Classroom" official account to receive the course.

A traffic circulation loop is formed between the matrix products, and the traffic is amplified again through sharing, group buying and other methods, bringing in more traffic.

2. User tiered referrals

There are two key elements in referrals: one is the inviter, and the other is the invitee.

Therefore, in terms of user stratification, we also combine these two key points to design:

The user stratification of the inviter, what kind of users can participate in what kind of referral activities, what kind of actions the inviter needs to complete, and what kind of rewards can be obtained

What actions do the invitees need to complete?

Birds of a feather flock together. If the user is high-value, the likelihood that the leads he or she brings will be of high quality is greater, and the likelihood of eventual conversion is greater. The entire chain of online education is relatively long, and there are many key points involved in the middle, so there are also referral methods based on the behavior of invited users.

1) Invite users to stratify

This refers to what kind of users can participate in referral activities. Generally, the classification is based on the user's final purchase behavior.

For example, all users can participate in the activity of sharing course gift packages to the group. If the invitee completes the specified actions, the inviting user can get certain rewards.

For trial class users, there are tasks of sharing the trial classes and inviting friends to purchase the trial classes. Certain rewards can be obtained by completing certain actions.

For users of advanced courses, there are advanced course weekly sharing tasks and friend invitation tasks (purchase trial courses, purchase system courses). Completing the actions can get certain rewards.

As users progress from low value to high value, their behaviors also progress from simple to complex, from the initial sharing and clicking actions leading to purchasing behaviors, to purchasing behaviors of high value.

2) Behavioral stratification

Certain rewards are given to the invitees for completing designated actions, with the actions ranging from easy to difficult and the rewards ranging from low to high.

The business process of online education can be divided into five stages: registration, reservation, experience, transaction, and renewal. Users in these five stages have different needs.

Registration and reservation period: Tell friends that I have chosen a good trial class and need someone to learn with me

Trial period: The children's learning effect is quite good, and they have won awards, small red flowers, certificates, PK competition medals, etc.

Transaction period: Help me to bargain for a discount, the child's experience is not bad, recommend it to you

Renewal period: Help me cut the price and get a discount. The experience for my child is not bad. I recommend it to you.

3. Systematization of referral methods

The referral methods should be a complete systematic whole and should not be independent of each other. The referral methods guide each other and the traffic forms a flow. Just as traffic flows between product matrices, traffic should also flow between referral methods.

Fission brings more mass traffic, and low-conversion users who join the group for 0 yuan or 1 cent can experience the product for the first time; subsequently, users are gradually converted through experience classes. After the users are converted, they can participate in the experience class weekly sharing tasks. They can get certain rewards after completing the sharing tasks and passing the review. At the same time, they can also participate in the distribution of experience classes and get cash rewards by inviting friends to buy.

In general, referral as a way of acquiring leads cannot be separated from the product matrix, user stratification and systematization of referral methods to form a certain flow between traffic.

Author: Wang Ting

Source: Operation Wang's Growth Diary (yunyingwang001)