2021 WeChat Private Domain Growth Handbook for Enterprises

2021 is worth looking forward to for everyone.

• We hope that the epidemic will disappear this year
• We expect China's economy to continue to grow rapidly this year.
• We expect the digitalization of enterprises to be faster this year.
• We look forward to new traffic sources and more effective growth methods this year.
• We look forward to...

Today I would like to share with you our thoughts on 2021, about corporate WeChat , private domain traffic , and growth.

1. WeChat for Business

In the past year, within the WeChat ecosystem, in addition to the video account that made us feel the vitality of the ecosystem, what made us most ecstatic was the continuous iteration and openness of WeChat for Business.

I remember that I was extremely anxious and couldn't sleep throughout the first half of 2020. Since the release of version 3.0, WeChat for Business has released so many interoperability capabilities. We clearly know that this capability will bring about earth-shaking changes, but we are not sure in what form and with what kind of applications it will subvert the original traffic strategy.

We have seen many brand owners quickly enter the enterprise WeChat and replicate the private domain traffic matrix on individual WeChat accounts at an extremely fast speed. We also see that many entrepreneurs are afraid to invest all and bet on WeChat for Business, fearing that the input and output will not be proportional.

We have previously pointed out that there are two reasons why companies are reluctant to fully go all in on WeChat for Business:

• First, the private traffic pool that WeChat has worked hard to build cannot be smoothly migrated to WeChat for Business to conduct secondary value mining of existing users.
• Second, the functions of WeChat for Business are not enough to establish a company's determination to bet on WeChat for Business for marketing and customer acquisition, and to achieve a replicable strategy for incremental users.

Looking back at the development of WeChat for Business this year, the above two concerns have been broken. The capabilities released in the iterative process again and again, and the changing trends in the industry round after round, give us enough confidence that the time is ripe for brands to go all in on WeChat for Business.

1. WeChat for Business is evolving at a rapid pace

WeChat for Business is expected to be the Internet tool with the largest number of users in 2020. Through WeChat for Business, enterprises have currently served and connected more than 400 million users.

The number of real companies and organizations on WeChat for Business exceeds 5.5 million, and the number of active users exceeds 130 million. In the past 366 days, 27 versions of iterations have been completed and nearly 1,128 features have been released.

Especially on December 23, 2020, at the second press conference of Enterprise WeChat, in order to help companies accumulate and serve customers more efficiently, Enterprise WeChat upgraded its intercommunication capabilities.

500-person customer base: Enterprise WeChat has comprehensively increased the upper limit of the number of customer base members, from the original 200 to 500.

Within a customer group, you can comprehensively utilize community management functions such as customer group anti-harassment, anti-advertising, and removal from group chat to better maintain customer resources and improve service efficiency.

The red envelope function supports one-to-one private red envelope sending, and also supports one-to-many red envelope sending within a customer group, providing the best solution for improving customer activity and retention rate.

And much more…

This amazing iteration speed makes us clearly feel the determination of WeChat for Business to win. The most common thing that happened in the past year was that right after we finished researching a new function of WeChat for Business, we immediately released an updated function. The combination of the new and updated functions made us extremely excited.

2. WeChat for Business is the best tool for private domain operations

On the one hand, judging from the iteration of functions and the release of related open capabilities of WeChat for Business over the past year or so, WeChat for Business has gradually become the underlying tool for operating private domain customers.

On the other hand, the operation of existing private domain carriers has become increasingly difficult. For example, the opening rate of public accounts is getting lower and lower, and the fan loss rate is getting higher and higher. Mini programs have difficulty in retention, low opening rate, and poor interactivity. Personal WeChat faces problems such as inability to acquire customers on a large scale and serious account blocking.

The customer contact capabilities of WeChat for Business integrate multi-dimensional operational capabilities, including the quick service capabilities of personal WeChat 1-on-1 private chat communication, community batch operation and management capabilities, and service account group content push capabilities.

The most critical point is: use corporate WeChat to operate private domain customers. Customer assets belong to the company and will not become personal assets of employees.

Through the resignation inheritance function, you can take back the customers operated by employees at any time. Furthermore, the on-the-job inheritance function can be used to recover and redistribute customer assets from employees who are not diligent in operating and serving customers. Customer assets are online and can be managed in real time.

Therefore, enterprise WeChat will gradually become an indispensable tool for private domain operations, and it is also the most important tool, without a doubt.

3. WeChat for Business is one of the basic infrastructures for digitalization

In 2020, the epidemic accelerated the digitalization process of domestic enterprises. Everyone has discovered that the integration of online and offline service methods has become particularly important, and this integration has gradually made service capabilities the core competitiveness of the enterprise.

Since the launch of WeChat for Business, it has been continuously improving its internal office capabilities, but it still lags far behind DingTalk. In order to help enterprises digitize, Tencent realized that it is far from enough to only do the internal office half. Enterprise WeChat must rely on the WeChat ecosystem, connect WeChat's 1.2 billion users, and unleash the ability of enterprises to connect with WeChat users.

Directly connect the relatively complete digital marketing infrastructure built with multiple capabilities such as official accounts, mini-programs, WeChat payments, and video accounts, making it possible for enterprises to transform digitally based on the WeChat ecosystem.

We all know that the core of private domain operations is refined operations, and the support point of refined operations is digitalization. In the future, it will be difficult for digital enterprises to be not based on the WeChat ecosystem. If you want to release the digital business value of the existing WeChat ecosystem, it is imperative to make good use of WeChat for Business to manage customer assets.

Enterprise WeChat helps companies connect with employees internally and customers externally, and is one of the essential infrastructures in the process of enterprise digitalization.

4. WeChat for Business is not just a tool but also an ecosystem

We believe that WeChat for Business will form a unique ecosystem.

Enterprise WeChat is more open than WeChat, both in terms of open development interfaces and the attitude of Enterprise WeChat towards ecological partners. Enterprise WeChat wants to build a domestic digital ecosystem to allow developers to participate. Based on Enterprise WeChat, it can develop SCRM management tools, CDP data middle platform, MA marketing automation tools, ERP systems and other diversified applications needed by enterprises internally and externally.

Enterprise WeChat will connect 1.2 billion WeChat users while connecting upstream and downstream suppliers to create a value network that helps companies achieve digital growth. While continuously enriching the capability of “people are the service”, we gradually build a healthy ecosystem that is conducive to the growth of third-party applications.

2. Private Domain Traffic

In the second quarter of last year, Tencent included "private domain" in its financial report for the first time, which caused a huge stir. Everyone is guessing what "private domain" means to Tencent. My personal opinion is that since Tencent has determined the strategic direction of industrial Internet, "private domain" has become a breakthrough point for unleashing the huge value of the WeChat ecosystem.

Most of the existing businesses rely on the centralized traffic platforms of the Internet. They have customers but no data, no reach, and no stickiness. This is the case with Taobao, Baidu, JD.com, TuanTuan, and DuoDuo. As merchants pay more and more attention to the importance of independent brands and traffic ownership, decentralized private traffic platforms that are completely controlled by customers are becoming more popular.

The multiple traffic touchpoints within the WeChat ecosystem have gradually evolved into carriers of private domain traffic. Official accounts, mini-programs, communities, personal accounts, video accounts, corporate WeChat, and Moments all play a very important role to varying degrees. Especially as Enterprise WeChat is the best tool for private domain traffic operations, we will see that the operation of private domain traffic will become more standardized and methodical.

1. More importantly, traffic and retention

How many private domain customers are customers willing to become?

The essence of Internet business is traffic business. Whether it is the PC Internet era, the mobile Internet era, or the WeChat Internet era, everyone needs traffic. Whether it is the transfer from offline to online, or now the transfer from online to offline, online and offline are blended together. Everyone is looking for traffic, cheaper traffic.

In the original centralized platform, merchants knew that the users acquired through various operational techniques were essentially traffic belonging to the platform. The platform's traffic is extremely mobile, which leads to merchants treating users as traffic, acquiring and harvesting them in batches.

However, we gradually discovered that in the private domain, merchants must no longer adhere to their original traffic thinking. While acquiring customers in various ways, how to retain users is one of Super Invincible’s core operational capabilities.

The same private domain customer acquisition methods, the same marketing budget, the same promotion channels, and ultimately the same number of customers. If your competitor's retention rate is 80% and yours is 60%, this is the difference in private domain efficiency, which will eventually be reflected in the growth difference.

Therefore, the point we insist on again and again is: we need private domain traffic, but we also need private domain retention. Retaining customers is the right way.

2. Build a small private domain for frontline employees

When it comes to retaining customers, we cannot avoid the carriers that carry private domain customers.

Weak private domain relationships include fans of public accounts, users of mini programs, fans of video accounts, etc., while strong private domain relationships include friends of one front-line employee after another on corporate WeChat.

Whether customers can be retained depends on the small private domain operation capabilities of front-line employees.

The original user retention emphasizes unified content marketing, activity capabilities, and unified output of operational strategies. This logic applies to the APP, official accounts, and mini programs. The operation team only needs to standardize the output according to the operation SOP to maintain a relatively stable retention rate.

However, this is not the case with private domain retention based on corporate WeChat. Whether a customer deletes you or not depends on whether you have made him unhappy and whether you are truly valuable to the customer.

Therefore, front-line sales, shopping guides, consultants and other roles must have operational output capabilities in addition to their original conversion capabilities. It is not only reflected in the output of valuable content and insightful ideas to customers, but also in the management of one's own image with warmth and professionalism to create a living IP image. Rather than remaining in the customer service role in the customer's mind.

So this is what I meant when I proposed sales operationalization in my article last year. The company should uniformly build small private domains for front-line employees, with unified training, unified image, unified content output, and unified value provision.

3. The essence of private domain is service

So, talking about this, everyone will find that private domain operation is not a simple matter of "adding friends".

To operate a private domain well, we must return to the essence of the private domain: service. Private domain is a comprehensive operational strategy that continuously connects customers through services. People are service.

As a service window for enterprises to connect with customers, we want to empower every employee with service capabilities. Since we know that the advantage of private domain is that it can be reached repeatedly, the image and content of the people reached are particularly important.

It's time to test your organizational skills. Every front-line employee represents the company's brand and its values. Whether it is education or buying fresh fruits, if you don’t serve customers with an altruistic mindset, it will be difficult to answer all their questions and meet their requests.

To operate the private domain well, companies must convey the importance of every private domain customer to every employee, empower the team with operational capabilities, and ensure that every front-line employee is an expert in their field, an expert with warmth and service awareness.

3. Growth

Let’s get back to the specific playing method.

We divide private domain operations into four steps, namely fission customer acquisition, retention and activation, sales conversion, and customer management, to build a complete private domain growth closed loop based on WeChat for Business.

1. Fission customer acquisition

Acquire customers through large-scale fission and rapidly grow the private traffic pool.

Most private domain players remain at the first level, and the inability to acquire customers on a large scale is a common problem they all face.

Over the past year, our small fission team has focused on helping companies quickly acquire customers and scale up fission acquisition based on WeChat for Business.

We have continuously explored a series of super effective customer acquisition gameplay combinations, including task fission, friend fission, test holiday signature, red envelope fission, etc.

First, take the friend fission gameplay as an example. The principle of WeChat friend fission is: using WeChat customer service number as fission carrier and customer carrier, all communication carriers display WeChat customer service number, attract users through prize benefits, course discounts, book products, etc., let users scan the code to add WeChat customer service number as a friend, and then continue to spread fission.

The specific user participation path is:

• Users see the event poster
• Users scan the QR code to add the corporate WeChat customer service number, and the customer service number automatically pushes the activity rules + user-exclusive sharing poster
• Users share posters to invite friends to help, and they can receive rewards after completing the task.
• Lower-level users
• Continuous sharing, continuous spread of fission

Currently, friend fission is the most effective way to acquire customers after our small fission team has served more than 2,000 corporate WeChat customers, making it possible for companies to acquire customers on a large scale based on corporate WeChat. Coupled with the marketing strategy, whether it is a new brand or a well-known brand, it is worthwhile to make the fission customer acquisition of corporate WeChat a standard private domain customer acquisition method.

The process of large-scale customer acquisition involves how to manage customers in layers and how to distinguish customer source channels. At this time, we must track the channels and automate labeling for each activity.

Our small fission team also provides functions such as automatic labeling and channel tracking based on customer acquisition activities. Customers in each event can be automatically labeled based on multiple dimensions such as the depth of participation in the event, the breadth of fission propagation, and the frequency of participation in events, which greatly facilitates the subsequent tracking and management of private domain customers.

During the fission customer acquisition stage, not only scale growth is required, but also smart customer tracking and analysis.

2. Retention and activation

Public domain deployment and private domain fission, retain loyal customers through services.

Retention is meaningful only when it is active, and retention is valuable only when it involves consumption. After we have achieved growth in fission customer acquisition through various creative techniques, a more critical question arises: how active are the new users? What is the retention rate? How to refine marketing?

First, write a welcome message to your friends. For customers from different channels, in different scenarios, and who purchase different products, pre-set welcome messages will be automatically sent, allowing customers to enjoy super warm service as soon as they become private domain friends.

It must not be a unified welcome message, otherwise what’s the difference between it and a robot? Different welcome messages can be set for different departments, different stores, different employees, different festivals, etc.

Secondly, establish a high-quality content library. Because if there is no support from high-quality content, even if you acquire accurate users in a short period of time through fission activities, users will start to know your brand with expectations and hope to have a deeper understanding of the products and services behind the brand. Once there is no content that matches user expectations, disappointment will follow and loss will follow.

How to build a high-quality content library? Accumulation can be divided from the following dimensions:

• Company introduction: company background, investment and financing information, external cooperation information, product dynamics, etc.
• Practical knowledge: professional skills, methodology, study manuals, public sharing classes, learning materials packages, etc.
• Industry information: industry hot spots, trend interpretation, in-depth analysis, policy interpretation, etc.
• Operational activities: creative activities, user rewards, fan activities, new product activities, etc.

The corporate speech library function that assists small fission can synchronize the high-quality content library uniformly established by the enterprise to the chat work column of each front-line employee with one click. It can be used on both the computer and the mobile phone at any time. Improve the efficiency and accuracy of private domain operations.

Finally, an iterative SOP is formed. Once a high-quality content library has been established and precise user classification has been formed with labels, it is time to consider the SOP for promoting activation. When is the best time to push what content? What kind of users need high-frequency activation? What kind of user should not be disturbed all the time?

If you blindly carry out promotional activities, users who should have been retained are likely to be lost in vain. Having a set of internal activation SOPs can not only keep users active and appear in front of users at the right time to push the right content, but also quickly screen accurate paying users and provide data reference for shortening the sales monetization path in the later stage.

The most important thing is that it can activate users, allow them to participate in secondary fission, bring in new users, and maintain high-frequency interaction with users. But don’t forget to continue iterating this SOP.

3. Sales Conversion

A private domain customer pool with high conversion is meaningful.

Whether it is through online operations, fission activities to acquire customers, or sales staff’s offline promotions to acquire private domain customers, ultimately we are responsible for the conversion. How to convert private domain customers and allow them to further fission and spread during the conversion process?

The answer is to make good use of distribution and group buying methods. Friends who have done offline sales know the power of "referral", especially in 2B business model. The sales granularity of each order is very large. Whether the customer is willing to continue to cooperate with you and whether he is willing to introduce his friends to cooperate with you depends largely on the customer relationship. So it is often said that customer relationship is the primary productive force of sales.

Distribution is a killer tool for online sales, just like “referral” for offline sales. Distributor profits are immediately visible and available, allowing every customer to become a salesperson in the private customer pool.

The group buying method is more suitable for conversion in improving customer interaction rate, allowing every private domain customer to participate in the group buying and feel the exclusive welfare preferential policies. This will then encourage customers to forward and share, bringing in more accurate and convertible potential customers.

Break up the products or even combine them into good products with distribution and group buying attributes, set up a commission mechanism and group buying discount mechanism for users to participate in distribution, and match them with good copywriting throughout the product sales process. Each product can be sold in a way that makes it a hit.

Every private domain customer is both a consumer and a seller of product services.

The most critical point in converting private-domain customer sales based on WeChat for Business is to connect the customer ID, accumulate the customer's consumption behavior data in a unified background, and automatically tag the customer and conduct subsequent customer operation management.

Such clear customer consumption data allows every front-line salesperson to understand the consumption behavior habits of the customers they serve at any time, greatly improving conversion efficiency. It’s like giving salespeople a “third eye”.

4. Customer Management

Strategic management and methodical management are the keys to the continued growth of private domain operations.

Most private domain players are still relatively extensive in their operations. Especially in the era of micro-businesses, key operational indicators such as the number of new customers, customer interactions, and customer churn each day can only be counted manually. The efficiency is extremely low and the accuracy is not high.

Private domain customer management based on enterprise WeChat, combined with refined customer service and management of customer behavior data, can achieve data visualization and data-guided decision-making.

For example, we can unify customer IDs, record customer behaviors and build comprehensive customer information. From the moment a customer becomes a private domain friend, a series of customer behavior paths, such as how many times the customer has participated in fission activities, what products he has purchased, whether he is in the private domain customer group, and which employees of the company he is friends with, can be recorded in real time and presented to front-line sales, effectively stratifying customers and formulating different customer interaction strategies.

You can also define the stage of the customer life cycle through automatic labeling and active labeling by sales staff, track the customer's life cycle stage at any time, track changes in purchase and renewal rates, and gain insights into key indicators based on dimensions such as conversion time. This allows data to intelligently analyze customer conversion success rates and follow up with customers efficiently.

You can also send targeted messages to groups based on customer tags, regions, gender, and other dimensions. Analyze customer interaction frequency, predict churn rate, determine customer brand loyalty, further stratify customers, and focus on service conversion. Check customer churn in real time, the customer churn rate of different employees, analyze the reasons for churn, find the best retention method, pay timely attention to customers who have not interacted with consumers for a long time, and reduce the churn rate.

For decision makers, customer management can be used to gain insights into customers from multiple perspectives, discover the number of effective customers, and the distribution of customer groups in different industries, types, and delivery stages, thus guiding the company's business development direction.

For market operators, customer management can be used to analyze the frequency of customer participation in market operation activities and retention rate, guide the adjustment of online and offline operation strategies, and optimize operation processes.

For front-line sales personnel, customer management can be used to determine customer spending power, customer conversion rate, and an overview of opportunities and risks of recent renewal customers, thereby driving sales conversion quality and upgrading sales conversion processes.

Based on the above content, it is extremely important for every enterprise to build a private domain growth closed loop that integrates fission customer acquisition, retention and activation, sales conversion, and customer management.

Online marketing, online customers, online sales, online management, and private domain operations on WeChat for enterprises have improved efficiency while generating visible growth.

4. Final

As I write this, I get more and more excited. Say goodbye to the anxiety of 2020. Perhaps we will still have many questions in 2021.

• Will WeChat for Business become more open?
• Will the corporate WeChat Moments function be more open?
• Will private domain traffic continue to be popular?
• Will there be new ways to play in private domain operations?
• What will the totem of the private domain growth closed loop based on WeChat for Business look like?
• Will growth continue to happen?

With a series of questions, we might as well make good use of the open functions of WeChat for Business, combine them with the service capabilities of private domain operations, and look forward to a new round of growth.

Polish the products and services. We firmly believe in the power of technology for good to bring growth.

As the great master said: The only way forward on this long journey is struggle.

Author: Zhang Dongqing

Source: Small Fission