Do educational and training institutions need to develop private domains?

It is an indisputable fact that the customer acquisition cost of educational and training institutions is getting higher and higher.

Not only is the cost of acquiring customers getting higher and higher, but the number of students enrolled has also remained low, causing some small and medium-sized education and training institutions to barely survive.

If you don't spend a lot of money to recruit students, you will face bankruptcy and closure; if you spend a lot of money to recruit students, it will be a thankless task and you will not make any money after deducting the cost.

In the absence of fundamental changes in course prices, educational institutions must either work hard to reduce customer acquisition costs or try every possible means to increase their enrollment numbers.

However, it is obviously unrealistic to try to solve these two problems using the traditional methods, otherwise we would not have reached this point today.

At this time, many educational and training institutions began to explore the gameplay of "private domain traffic" as if they were grabbing a life-saving straw.

The rise of private domain traffic is actually a shift from the traditional mindset of harvesting traffic to the refined operation mindset of retaining users.

However, for many educational and training institutions, private domain operations are more like drinking poison to quench thirst. They shout that they want to carry out refined operations on users, but the result is just changing the scene to clean up the limited remaining traffic at a higher frequency. This practice of changing the soup but not the medicine is doomed to be unsustainable.

So, do educational institutions really need to operate private domain traffic? And how should we operate private domain traffic?

Next, we will make an overall analysis based on the characteristics of the private domain, the target customer portrait of educational institutions, and the construction of private domain traffic.

Characteristics of private domain

The private domain is naturally relative to the public domain.

The public domain usually refers to Internet platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., where companies need to spend money to buy traffic.

The private domain refers to the company's own APP, WeChat public accounts, personal WeChat accounts, WeChat communities, mini-programs, etc., which are the company's "privatized assets" that can be used freely and repeatedly and accessed at any time without paying.

Moreover, as the main consumer groups in society become increasingly internet-based, private domain traffic has begun to become an important way to influence user consumption behavior.

Either you have been tempted by a product in a social network or you have placed an order impulsively in a live streaming room. Consumption is no longer a one-way buying and selling behavior.

Among them, the increasing influence of private domain traffic is mainly manifested in four aspects:

1. High user penetration rate

Research data shows that the user penetration rate of private domain touchpoints such as the WeChat ecosystem and corporate self-operated apps in China has reached 96%.

In other words, 96% of Chinese people can be reached by the private domain, and the coverage is almost close to 100%. As long as users have mobile phones, they cannot do without the private domain.

2. Strong user stickiness and easy to develop habits

Domestic consumers spend an average of 6 hours a day on their mobile phones, and an average of 1.5 hours a day on private touchpoints.

It can be seen that many people around us, especially young people, are accustomed to watching live broadcasts, browsing social networks, or seeking consultation from professional vertical communities before consumption.

3. Great influence on consumer decisions

74% of users said in the survey that their consumption decisions would be influenced by private content, among which word-of-mouth promotion and practical information had the greatest impact.

Whether users are enrolling their children in a course or buying something, their decision can easily be influenced by useful information shared in a community or recommendations in a live broadcast.

4. High transaction frequency

Finally, users’ transaction frequency in private domains is also higher. 79% of users have consumed in private domains in the past year, and 45% of them said they would increase their consumption frequency, and 80% said they were willing to have their own consumption experience in private domains.

This is actually related to the user's sense of trust. In the past, users were willing to continue purchasing products from the same brand because they trusted the brand.

Now the brand has simply been replaced by a certain community or corporate WeChat friends. Users trust the recommendations of this community or corporate WeChat friends, so they consume frequently.

It is precisely because of the above characteristics that the private domain quickly stands out from many consumer channels. If the refined operation can be done well, the private domain will almost become the first choice for many users.

Target customer profile of education and training institutions

Then, let’s take a look at the characteristics of the target customer portraits of educational and training institutions.

First of all, it needs to be made clear that course products are high-frequency and high-priced among all categories.

Taking K12 education as an example, a child will not only sign up for various regular subject courses in a semester, but also various interest classes.

If you think the course quality is good, you may choose this institution again in the next semester or in the next few years. Moreover, courses that cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars are not cheap.

This high-frequency, high-unit-price product attribute makes the target customer profile of educational institutions have the following characteristics:

Long initial decision cycle

Parents who enroll their children in classes tend to be more cautious when choosing an education and training institution for the first time, fearing that they will spend money and still delay their children's growth.

Therefore, parents' initial decision-making cycle is generally longer, and they may collect relevant information through various channels to support their decision-making.

At this time, private domains such as corporate WeChat, communities, and public accounts have become the best channels for parents to obtain information.

Focus on quality and service

When choosing educational institutions and courses, in addition to paying special attention to the quality, parents are also more concerned about a series of subsequent services.

To achieve these, educational institutions need to use the private domain, because in the private domain, operators can repeatedly reach users anytime and anywhere, which makes it easier to perform more refined operations for users and provide better services.

For example, it can track and provide feedback on children’s learning situation to parents at any time, promptly notify parents of changes in courses, etc., which can improve parents’ service experience.

High product loyalty

Although the decision-making cycle of parents will be longer during the first selection process, once the selection is made, the subsequent repurchase rate will be very high.

This is also what makes the education and training industry different from many other industries. Parents are relatively loyal. If it can be combined with private domain operations, the repurchase rate will be raised to several levels.

More dependent on recommendations from others

Another characteristic of parents enrolling their children in classes is that they rely more on word of mouth, especially recommendations from people around them.

If a friend or relative recommends that this educational institution is good, then the parents will be very likely to enroll their child in this institution.

The private domain is the place that is most conducive to word-of-mouth communication. Whether out of pride or a competitive mentality, parents will often share some of their children's excellent learning performance in it. This will have a good demonstration effect for those parents who are still on the sidelines.

In addition, parents who think that this educational institution is good are also more willing to share relevant institution information with their friends.

In short, combining the characteristics of the private domain and the portrait characteristics of the target customers of educational and training institutions, private domain traffic operation is undoubtedly one of the best ways to achieve growth for educational and training institutions that are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain traffic.

Of course, because the private domain pays more attention to refined operations rather than simply changing the traffic carrier, educational institutions still need to find a way that suits them to bring out the true value of the private domain.

Private domain traffic construction for educational institutions

Finally, from the perspective of the entire operation process, let us look at how educational and training institutions should build and operate private domain traffic.

Traffic carrying

As to how educational and training institutions attract customers, we will not go into details here. After all, educational and training institutions in different situations have their own different methods, such as door-to-door promotion, old employees bringing in new ones, online promotional activities, etc.

The important thing comes later. After the traffic comes in, the educational and training institutions should build their own private traffic pool to ensure greater value in subsequent conversions.

First of all, it is certain that the best choice is centered around the WeChat ecosystem, because with more than 1.2 billion monthly active personal WeChat users, no other app can surpass it in terms of usage rate.

So should we use personal WeChat, WeChat public account, or corporate WeChat account? We recommend WeChat for Business because:

1. The upper limit of the number of personal WeChat friends is relatively low, only 5008, and the restrictions on adding friends are strict, and the risk of being blocked is high; the number of corporate WeChat friends has almost no limit and can be continuously expanded. The limit on the number of adding friends is several times that of personal WeChat, and there is no risk of being blocked.

2. The opening rate of WeChat public accounts has dropped to less than 2%, and there are restrictions on posting and sending messages; since corporate WeChat is fully connected with personal WeChat, friends can be added to each other, and the opening rate is above 95%.

3. Enterprise WeChat also has many functions that personal WeChat does not have, such as "conversation archiving" and "resignation inheritance", which can help educational institutions to improve their private domain operations.

Of course, Enterprise WeChat has many advantages in private domain traffic operations, which will not be described one by one here.

Operational transformation

After the educational and training institutions have built their private traffic pools, the next step is to conduct refined operations on these private users. There are many specific methods, but they mainly include the following three aspects.

First, professional character creation and one-on-one intimate private chat.

When carrying out refined operations in the private domain, the first task is to create a good personal image for the operators, that is, to shape the corporate WeChat account that is to be added as a user's friend into a more specific and recognizable professional image.

For educational institutions, this kind of professional personnel seems even more necessary. When parents enroll their children in classes, they often expect professional teachers or educational consultants to answer the various questions they raise.

The purpose of creating a professional persona for a corporate WeChat account is to allow users who add you as a friend to know what you do at a glance. If they have relevant needs, users will think of you first.

The common professional persona of educational institutions is usually "XX teacher from XX institution", and because the corporate WeChat nickname is followed by the company's official logo, it adds to users' sense of trust.

On the personal information introduction interface, you can add "Focus on XX subject teaching for 10 years", "Won XX Outstanding Teacher Award", etc. to further highlight your professionalism.

In addition, there are corporate WeChat avatars and job title profiles, which can help you create a better professional persona.

After you have established a professional persona, when you have one-on-one private conversations with parents, they will not treat you as an insignificant customer service staff.

Second, manage the circle of friends to consolidate user trust.

The Moments of Enterprise WeChat is also a private domain scenario that cannot be ignored. Currently, Enterprise WeChat can post 4 Moments for each user per month, but different content can be pushed based on different user tags.

This way, we can achieve refined operations based on user stratification while ensuring that too many Moments ads do not cause inconvenience and disgust to users.

However, you can’t just post activity advertisements on Moments every day. You also need to cooperate with the professional personality of the operators to carry out targeted operations, such as sharing some knowledge or pushing some content related to children’s learning, which is more meaningful and valuable.

Third, enterprise WeChat community operation promotes conversion in multiple ways.

When there are enough users attracted and it is impossible to ensure one-to-one reach for all of them, the community becomes the best way to conduct operational conversions.

Before this, educational institutions could pull users into corresponding communities based on different regions, children’s age groups, and subject enrollment needs, making operations more efficient and accurate.

When it comes to social networks, there are more ways to conduct operations and conversions. You can publish course discount information, hold quiz events with prizes, conduct live Q&A sessions to increase user interaction, and guide users to sign up for trial classes by giving away free materials and books, etc.

Zuoyebang private domain community operation

There are many ways to convert a community. The important thing is to ensure the user's service experience in the community, rather than to circle the users in another place and continue to do the job of washing volume. This is not private domain operation.

User growth

Finally, after building a private traffic pool, it does not mean that you no longer need to increase users. You still need to add to your private traffic pool.

How to increase user growth based on private domain traffic? In fact, the method is similar to the previous one, but because the users of the private traffic pool are more accurate, the cost is lower and the effect is better.

For example, the most common referral activity is to let old users in the private domain forward the exclusive link to their friends, so that the incoming users still flow into the private domain traffic pool.

Beijing Lebo Lebo Private Domain Growth Activities

In addition, you can also launch various support and group buying activities in the enterprise WeChat circle of friends and enterprise WeChat community by sending learning materials, free courses, physical books, etc., to achieve self-fission of the private domain traffic pool.

In short, various growth methods can be combined with private domains to achieve better results.

Conclusion

In addition to keeping users in the private traffic pool, the more important thing about private traffic operation is the subsequent refined operation. Each user should be regarded as a unique individual, and the needs of the other party should be understood through data, so as to improve the quality of each contact.

The ultimate goal is to output our own services and value to users, establish long-term trust relationships, and thus achieve product conversion. This certainly requires more investment, but only in this way can we reap long-term value from users.

If we still use the public domain traffic thinking to clean up users in the private domain, we will soon fall into the same dilemma. By then, even if the education and training institutions are willing to transform and save themselves, the market may not give them this opportunity again.

Author: Seeding sales

Source: Seeding sales