KEEP product analysis

During the Spring Festival, Keep Live Class launched a series of special programs centered around the Spring Festival, allowing users to complete their training in a cheerful atmosphere by following the rhythm of the live class. According to incomplete statistics, by the end of the event, the total number of participants in the live classes exceeded 250,000, and the number of people practicing with others exceeded 500,000. Among them, "Keep Move Fat Burning Party·New Year Special Edition" became the most popular live course among users during the Spring Festival. Why has this company risen so quickly? Become the first in the industry? What is the development status of the entire industry?

This article will analyze KEEP from your perspective and give you an in-depth understanding of the operating logic of this company and the online fitness industry.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

1. Industry Analysis
2. Competitive product analysis
3. User Value Analysis
4. Business value analysis
5. Product Iteration Analysis
6. Product structure analysis
7. Operational Analysis
8. Summarize

1. Industry Analysis

At present, China's sports and fitness industry is in a development period with policy incentives, favorable situation, and technology driving industry development and upgrading. However, there are also development pain points such as unbalanced development of the industry structure, poor reputation management of traditional fitness companies, and insufficient innovation in business models in the sports and fitness field. The sports and fitness industry is an industry that is affected by macro factors. Next, we will start with the PEST model to analyze why the fitness industry can develop so rapidly.

1.1 Politics

• In 1995, the State Council first promulgated and implemented the "Outline of the National Fitness Program", which was a major decision made by the country to develop social sports and a programmatic document for the development of national fitness in my country in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
• In 2014, the State Council issued Document No. 46, “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Sports Industry and Promoting Sports Consumption”, which clearly elevated national fitness to a national strategy.
• In 2016, the General Administration of Sport of China issued the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Sports Industry", proposing goals such as achieving a total sports industry scale of more than 3 trillion yuan, the proportion of industrial added value in GDP reaching 1%, and the added value of the sports service industry accounting for more than 30%. The "Healthy China 2030" Plan adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed to achieve the goal of average life expectancy of 79.0 years by 2030.
• Under the protection of national policies, it can be foreseen that the development of my country's sports and fitness industry will maintain a growth trend in the short term, which will also bring more opportunities for online fitness.

1.2 Economy

In recent years, the living standards of Chinese residents have improved and their consumption capacity has increased year by year. Emerging consumption such as culture and sports has begun to show strong growth trends, becoming a new driving force for economic development. Per capita disposable income has increased year by year, and the public has a strong awareness of health and pays more attention to sports and fitness.

With the development of communication and network technology and the urgency of working hours, people's requirements for sports and fitness experience have also increased. The way of sports and fitness has gradually expanded from tool-free fitness to a combination of "online + offline", making full use of fragmented time and being more comfortable and convenient.

1.3 Social and environmental aspects

From the overall social level, the health awareness of Chinese residents has gradually improved, and their willingness to consume has gradually increased.

In the investment and financing market of the sports and fitness industry in 2018, the proportion of investment in smart technology companies and mature sports and fitness companies increased, and mature smart fitness services and fitness venues were increasingly favored by cautious investors.

According to the resident health survey of the 2019 National Health Insight Report, 93% of residents believe that physical health is the most important thing in life! Among the health knowledge that residents pay most attention to, 65% of residents pay attention to physical exercise and sports health, which to a certain extent reflects that our country’s residents pay considerable attention to sports and physical fitness. The deepening awareness of health and wellness among Chinese residents has promoted the growth of health spending. From 2015 to 2019, my country's per capita healthcare consumption expenditure continued to increase, and its proportion of total consumption expenditure continued to rise, from 7.40% to 8.80%. The increase in residents' spending on health may bring more possibilities to my country's fitness industry.

According to iResearch's 2018 overview of the scale of China's sports and fitness industry, it can be concluded that the scale of the sports and fitness industry continues to expand.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, the development of new consumption habits such as online fitness and home exercise has gradually become a new growth point in the sports consumption market, driving the recovery of society and the economy.

1.4 Technology Environment

my country's sports and fitness industry has development pain points such as unbalanced industry structure development. The development of Internet intelligent technology has greatly improved the industry's service efficiency and provided a driving force for industry upgrading.

With the rise of Internet technology, the sports and fitness industry has been upgraded. Big data technology provides continuous support for the development of the sports industry, while also bringing a more accurate experience to users. The increasing maturity of 5G and the rapid development of wearable devices, smart hardware and sensors have made the collection of user body data more portable and low-cost. Multi-angle image capture and full-view applications have made fitness more accurate and efficient.

Summary: Therefore, in the short term in the future, the online sports and fitness industry will continue to rise, and with the maturity of technology, online sports and fitness will usher in a new turning point in development.

1.5 Future Industry Outlook

1.5.1 Smart hardware is more closely integrated

The integration of sports and fitness apps with various smart sensors will become closer, such as fitness equipment, smart wearable devices, etc., providing data support for fitness apps through data collection from smart hardware.

1.5.2 Content Diversification

Mobile fitness courses have become more targeted as user usage scenarios change. Fitness courses are no longer limited to gym settings, and the purpose is not necessarily to lose weight or gain muscle. It can be to relieve driving fatigue or wake up morning sleepiness, etc.

1.5.3 Fitness nutrition and diet management

With the continuous improvement of sports and fitness big data capabilities, recommendations on nutrition and diet after fitness and the related e-commerce monetization methods derived from them will become an important part of the development of mobile fitness in the future.

1.5.4 Combining with entertainment to form a brand

The combination of sports and entertainment is the best way to spread sports, especially since Chinese residents’ exercise habits have not yet been fully formed. The rational and effective use of technology, events, and content to create entertaining sports and fitness experiences will become an important dimension for the brand development of sports and fitness application manufacturers in the future.

2. Competitive Product Analysis

Fitness software in the APP STORE is mainly divided into the following categories:

• Comprehensive fitness: keep, Gudong, Hot Fitness, FITime, Instant Sports…
• Running: Ledongli, Yuedongquan, Yuepaoquan...
• Exercise + Weight Loss: Mint Health, Daily Yoga….

In order to better screen out keep's competitors from numerous mobile apps, this article refers to the top ten sports app brand rankings selected by the CN10/CNPP brand data research department. We screened out one product of the same type as Keep, which is Gudong, a direct competitor.

2.1 KEEP

Judging from the industry monopoly trend in the sports and health industry, Keep currently occupies a dominant position in the sports and health industry. Leading in industry monopoly means higher recognition and trust.

Slogan: Self-discipline gives me freedom

Product Positioning: Based on fitness video teaching, we provide online fitness training services for white-collar workers, especially those who are new to fitness, to meet users' fragmented fitness needs anytime and anywhere. (Mobile fitness tools + social networking + value-added services: vertical e-commerce + offline fitness)

2.1.1 Development History

• October 2014: Keep team established
• In November 2014, it received RMB 3 million in angel investment.
• In March 2015, it received a US$5 million Series A funding from Ventech (Yintai Capital) and BAI (Bertelsmann);
• April 2015: Keep Android version launched
• In July 2015, it received US$10 million in Series B financing led by GGV (GGV Capital), with BAI (Bertelsmann) and Ventech (Intime Capital) following suit.
• In May 2016, it received a $32 million Series C funding from Morningside Venture Capital, GGV Capital, and Bertelsmann;
• In August 2016, it received a strategic investment from Tencent in its C+ round;
• On the morning of July 10, 2018, Keep announced the completion of a US$127 million Series D financing round, led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from old shareholders including Tencent, GGV Capital, Morningside, and BAI (Bertelsmann Asia Investment Fund).
• In May 2020, Keep completed an $80 million Series E financing round.
• On January 11, 2021, Keep completed its Series F financing of US$360 million with a valuation of US$2 billion. SoftBank Vision Fund led the investment, followed by Hillhouse Capital and Coatum Capital. Old shareholders such as GGV Capital, Tencent, 5Y Capital, Times Capital and BAI Capital continued to make additional investments.

2.1.2 Development Path: From Fitness Tools to Content Platform

• In 2014, the state issued "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development and Promoting Sports Consumption", which marked that national fitness has become a national strategy and the concept of national fitness has thus emerged. Keep was founded and launched in 2014. Just three months after its launch, it had more than 2 million users.
• In August 2017, Keep announced that its number of registered users exceeded 100 million, making it the first sports application in China to have over 100 million users. This means that Keep has completed the original traffic accumulation in the online sports and fitness industry, surpassing other similar apps.
• In March 2018, Keep held its first strategy and new product launch conference in its three years of existence. Wang Ning announced at the meeting that Keep will create a new sports ecosystem that is interconnected by technology in the future. Taking Keep as the strategic starting point, Keep began to expand its product categories horizontally, targeting two scenarios: cities and homes, namely the urban sports space Keepland and the home smart hardware KeepKit. In the following two years, it quickly built a basic profit model, namely using advertising, paid content services, consumer product sales and offline venues as revenue sources, and Keep's business model gradually became clear.
• The sudden outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 has rekindled the public's enthusiasm for online fitness. This also brought a new turning point in the development of Keep. Driven by the epidemic, in July 2020, Keep launched 36 live courses including cycling, yoga, and aerobics classes, and in August launched live courses linked to its spinning bike product. The purpose is to bring in new users and motivate old users.
• In May 2020, Keep made bigger changes, from the original PGC (completely self-developed) to the newly introduced PUGC content (fitness KOL open to third parties), and reached a strategic cooperation with the international fitness content brand Zumba. In August 2020, super sports expert Pamela joined Keep and launched more than 80 sports courses. In more than 4 months, the site has accumulated 2.124 million fans, and the monthly number of followers has reached 4.242 million.

Business model:

Keep is committed to providing "one-stop sports solutions" including fitness teaching, running, cycling, making friends, fitness diet guidance, equipment purchase, etc., and has added professional customized content, connecting "online courses + offline guidance", and developed its own offline sports space Keepland and smart hardware to provide users with more complete sports and health services.

summary:

As a vertical fitness platform, keep mainly has a complete course system and PGC, that is, self-developed content (currently keep has more than 1,200 self-developed courses). Live classes and PUGC (fitness KOL open to third parties) are the contents expanded by keep in pursuit of the horizontal development of PGC, and these contents make it easier for keep to differentiate.

2.2 Gudong

Slogan: Smart sports are all in Gudong

Product positioning: Smart sports platform + professional equipment shopping guide, committed to encouraging people to form good exercise habits and lifestyles through gamification, socialization and fragmentation, so as to achieve physical health.

2.2.1 Development History

• In 2011, Shanda Group raised RMB 22 million in angel round
• In 2012, Gudong's hardware product lines were gradually improved, and the "Gudong Sports+" APP was officially released. Gudong began to transform and move towards the path of "software + hardware";
• In 2013, the first domestic smart wearable sports devices "Gudong Bracelet S" and "Gudong Bracelet 2" were officially released;
• In March 2014, Shenzhen Capital Group led the A round of investment, and CITIC Capital followed with RMB 60 million.
• In May 2016, Focus Media FountainVest Sports Fund led the C round of investment, followed by SoftBank China and SIG Haina Asia with a total investment of US$50 million.
• In August 2017, the Gudong Smart Sports Strategy and New Product Launch Conference was held in Beijing. Shen Bo, founder and CEO of Gudong, announced that Gudong’s slogan has changed from "Use Gudong for exercise" to "Smart sports are all in Gudong", officially launching the new smart sports strategy, entering the field of smart sports equipment, and releasing its second smart sports equipment - Gudong smart walking shoes.
• In September 2017, Gudong released two new products, the smart running shoes 2.0 and the smart sports BRA, to enter the smart sports equipment market.
• In December 2017, Gudong, together with 1MORE and Tencent Dingdang, launched the iBFree2 smart Bluetooth heart rate sports headset.
• In February 2018, Gudong received C+ round of financing, led by Fuding and Yujian Fusion, and followed by SoftBank China with a total investment of US$20 million.

2.2.2 Development Path

• Gudong was founded in Chengdu in 2010 and launched fitness tracker products and the Gudong.com platform.
• In 2012, the "Gudong Sports+" APP was launched, and products such as the Gudong bracelet were introduced, transforming to the "software + hardware" path.
• In 2017, Gudong’s slogan changed from “Use Gudong for exercise” to “Use Gudong for smart exercise”. It can be seen that Gudong started out with running, and in the face of increasingly fierce competition, Gudong chose to develop smart equipment. Collect user data through smart hardware and use big data to tailor exercise plans for users.
• In 2018, Gudong moved into the field of fitness courses and launched Gudong Fitness 3.0Alive, which focuses on the model of sports big data + live broadcast, moving the real-person teaching service online and focusing on refined services for users. Gudong has been deeply engaged in the exploration of the fields of smart hardware and sports big data, and has developed from an initial single running tool into an industry APP that integrates circle social networking, smart equipment, and sports big data services.

Business model:

• A social circle formed by events, activities, and sports groups;
• Sports big data services focusing on sports data, free sports fields and customized training;
• An e-commerce system whose main business is smart equipment hardware.

summary:

As a pioneer in the online fitness industry, Gudong has a good running experience, helping many users develop the habit of running, and scientific and intelligent guidance helps users fall in love with running. However, as Gudong continues to grow and develop, some problems have gradually emerged. The pursuit of rapid and comprehensive development will inevitably lead to insufficient efforts in certain areas. For example, many users have reported too many advertisements, poor service on good goods platforms and many other problems.

2.3 Summary

The two apps, keep and Gudong, have a lot of overlap in business and development direction. From a functional point of view, both keep and Gudong are comprehensive development apps. Why is Gudong not as developed as keep?

From the above, we can see that when facing the homogenization of the sports and health field, Keep and Gudong made different choices. Keep paid more attention to the development of outdoor sports, offline sports spaces, Keepland and Keepkit, and achieved comprehensive and differentiated development. Gudong chose to develop smart hardware, but currently there are other large manufacturers developing hardware in China that are more well-known and have more loyal users, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, so Gudong faces considerable obstacles on the road to smart equipment. Moreover, when forming its business model, Gudong only considered commercial monetization, over-exploited advertising revenue, and ignored user experience, making it easy for it to become a "hodgepodge" of poor product experience and accelerating the product cycle. Compared with Keep, which now focuses on fitness, a complete curriculum system and PGC, and develops horizontally with core competitiveness, Gudong only has a good running experience when it first entered the industry as its core competitiveness, which is slightly weak. The smart hardware has not yet matured, making it insufficient to become Gudong's new core competitiveness. Keep's position as the industry leader remains unshakable for the time being.

3. User Value Analysis

In the market of online sports and fitness industry, the main participants are users and platforms, and the platforms are divided into mobile platforms consisting of resource supply side, third-party service providers, and APP operation and smart hardware development companies. Taking APP operating companies as an example, keep is a platform that directly connects with users. As the platform closest to users, keep needs support from the resource supply side and services from third parties. If the platform wants to achieve rapid growth, it must meet the needs of users and resource providers. Let’s explore who the users of the fitness platform are, what their needs are, and how Keep can better meet the needs of all parties.

3.1 Users of the fitness platform

As can be seen from the figure, the number of female users on the fitness platform is slightly higher than that of male users, and 85% of them are under 40 years old, and 69% are under 35 years old.

3.1.1 Fitness methods

With the need for fitness, users who want to exercise usually take the following methods (not limited to online fitness):

3.1.1.1 Offline gyms

Offline gyms can be roughly divided into three categories based on their business models: comprehensive commercial gyms, community-based private training gyms, and smart and convenient gyms. The main business models of gyms are: 1. Apply for membership cards and use indoor fitness equipment. As well as various types of group classes open to card users 2. Private training mode, one-on-one guidance.

3.1.1.2 Comprehensive Commercial Gymnasium

Advantages:

• Distance is a key factor in whether one can continue to exercise, and this type of gym has an advantageous location as a commercial gym, usually covering more than 100,000 potential users within a radius of 3 kilometers.
• There are often promotions. If you exercise more than four times a week, the average price per session is still very favorable.

Disadvantages:

• Business targets are high, and they will take turns to promote annual memberships and private lessons
• The coach turnover rate is high and the fitness experience is poor

Summary: This type of gym does not have much appeal to users except for its convenient location. However, due to its convenient location, it is likely to attract a large number of novices who do not understand fitness.

3.1.1.3 Community-based private training gyms

The model of private training gyms is an important supplement to traditional commercial gyms.

Advantages:

• Since private gyms are usually located in residential areas or office buildings, the distance often has a great advantage for surrounding users.
• It pays great attention to results and systematicity, and is particularly suitable for user groups with clear goals such as fat loss/muscle gain/body shaping/rehabilitation.
• 3. The overall price is lower than that of private training services in commercial gyms, and the stability of coaches and service quality are higher than those in commercial gyms.

Summary: Private training gyms are a better choice for fitness users, but because private training fees are higher than those of ordinary gyms, it is not the best solution for users who consider the economic aspect.

3.1.1.4 Smart Convenient Gym

Smart and convenient gyms have at least two major features: online class booking and a low entry threshold for fitness novices. For example, Keepland, Leke, Super Monkey, Liking Fit, etc. Although the business models of these institutions are different, they all have a common goal, which is how to attract fitness novices. As offline smart gyms, Leke (Advantages: flexible card application time, Disadvantages: small offline space, old facilities and tight facilities when there are many people, etc., the online start is late and the development is relatively backward), Super Monkey (Advantages: 24-hour unmanned self-service gym, beautiful venue layout, Disadvantages: user-centric details are not in place, the method of scanning the code to take classes leads to tight facilities and crowded people), Liking Fit (Advantages: 24-hour gym, easy to use, Disadvantages: poor service, few equipment, poor ventilation)

Take Keep's offline gym Keepland as an example: the first offline gym Keepland opened in early 2018; in Keepland, all your training data is visualized and can be synchronized to Keep in the cloud, just like online training dynamics, to form a behavior report. Keep strengthens the stickiness of the online community and the barriers of Keep by going offline, which is a value-added service of Keep. Moreover, keepland has a large number of users accumulated by keep. From the perspective of a single offline physical store, keepland has more advantages in offline and online linkage.

In summary, online fitness apps are not restricted by geography or location, and users can exercise anytime and anywhere, making it easier to accumulate a large number of users than offline entities.

3.2 Pain points of fitness platform users

Fitness platform users can be divided into four main categories based on their fitness needs: muscle gain, fat loss, body shaping and multiple needs.

According to the user analysis of the Keep product, Keep's main user group is fitness novices who have just started or have not yet started. So what fitness-related needs do this type of users have?

Pain point 1: Want to exercise but don’t know where to start

• In the Internet age, there is a lot of information available. It is difficult for fitness novices with no fitness experience to obtain high-quality and effective information from a variety of information to form the fitness plan they need.
• Fitness is a long-term, phased form of exercise that requires reasonable planning. It is difficult for fitness novices to develop a reasonable and effective plan without the guidance of professionals.

Scenario:

Pain point 2: There is a need for fitness but the economy is limited. Fitness novices: want to exercise but don’t want to go to a gym that charges a lot of money.

• You need to apply for a membership card to use the gym, which is subject to financial constraints.
• The annual membership fee of a gym is relatively high, and fitness novices usually give up halfway and are unable to persist for a long time. Therefore, buying a membership will result in a certain degree of financial waste.
• Most of the people who stick to working out in the gym are already in good shape, and some people with average shapes will feel the pressure.

Pain point 3: Fitness novices with busy work schedules: not having enough time to go to the gym

• Modern people live a fast-paced life and are busy at work, so they rarely have free time to go to the gym to exercise.
• I go between the company and home every day, so I have certain requirements for the venue.

Pain point 4: The need for fitness-related information (fitness-related information, fitness-promoting social activities, and fitness equipment, etc.)

• After having the need for fitness, people are not familiar with the relevant knowledge, such as fat loss, muscle gain, body shaping, reasonable diet, and various major fitness-related activities.
• Exercising alone can lead to adverse consequences such as difficulty in persisting and giving up halfway. Online fitness promotes social interaction and gains a sense of pride by showing off training and results, which makes it easier to encourage people to continue exercising.
• There are many pieces of equipment needed for fitness, and it is difficult for fitness novices to choose suitable equipment. It is a waste of time to look for reviews and purchase each one.

3.3 Resource suppliers and third-party service providers

Keep's resource supply side mainly includes professionals (fitness coaches, nutritionists), and third-party service providers mainly include application markets that provide download and update services and payment platforms that support its mall services. Keep's main fitness service is still associated with professionals.

3.3.1 Professionals

Fitness coaches mainly shoot fitness training videos for the platform and provide fitness technical support. They also act as online fitness coaches for users as anchors to help users better achieve their target needs. Nutritionists provide technical support for diets for the platform, and fitness coaches and nutritionists have a cooperative relationship with the platform.

In the offline Keepland launched by Keep, efforts will be made to promote the professionalization of fitness coaches, explore the development path of the coaching profession, and form a complete ecosystem of coaching management and services. In terms of coach management, we not only consider a complete salary system and welfare system, but also design a more professional coach management system. On the one hand, coaches who join Keepland can receive "internal training + external training" in skills. They can not only learn different types of the most cutting-edge training models and different types of training styles, but also have access to relevant training in cooperation between Keep and authoritative organizations in the global fitness industry. On the other hand, coaches will receive very professional ability assessments and evaluations, and have a fair and open job promotion mechanism to match them. In addition, Keepland coaches also have more options in career planning. In addition to becoming coaches, they can also develop into Keep's course designers and internal trainers.

3.4 Platform (keep) Function Analysis

How does Keep meet the needs of users? According to the Keep functional structure diagram, combined with Keep's strategic direction and user analysis, it can be seen that sports and fitness are the core functions of Keep, and the product function classification is composed of program planning, social platform and user management. Next, we will analyze the Keep functions by category into sports and fitness, program planning (mall, information, diet), social and personal.

3.4.1 Sports and Fitness

3.4.1.1 Various types of sports selection function

The platform provides a comprehensive range of sports classifications, guiding users to choose the projects and courses of their interest.

The platform focuses on fragmented training, so there are various time periods for courses to choose from. And most of the courses are free.

3.4.1.2 Sports recording function

Visualize the results of your fitness training.

Such as a map of your walking or cycling route and an estimate of the calories you burn. Moreover, the visualization results can be shared through social media to meet the social needs of fitness people.

And through GPS positioning, social functions are integrated into fitness, enhancing the social fitness experience.

3.4.2 Solution Planning

The program planning function is derived from fitness training as the core. It includes members' customized training plans (based on the customer's own situation and characteristics, such as age, work situation, weight, cardiopulmonary capacity, etc.), diet plans, and equipment plans that can be purchased in the mall.

3.4.3 Social Platforms

By introducing the dynamics of fitness experts, users are guided to output their feelings after exercising. Improve the community platform and form a complete closed loop of user self-production.

From the user's perspective, social functions meet the user's needs to communicate with each other, express themselves, and gain a sense of pride.

From a product perspective, the social function has achieved the effect of tap-water-like traffic diversion (i.e., experience sharing through third-party apps). By utilizing social interactions among acquaintances, it not only promotes the software, but also saves costs and increases user stickiness.

3.4.4 Personal Module

The personal module carries the user's personal information and the background data storage formed by the use of various functions, such as sports data, health data, activity data, course participation data, etc. It records the user's growth in a concrete form. The designed badges and amusement park functions can bring a sense of honor to users and better motivate users to stick to fitness.

Summary: Keep has targeted the pain points of its target users and adopted corresponding solutions. In terms of product process (user participation, experience) and product functions, it is already relatively complete and can fully meet the fitness needs of its target users. The additional social, consulting, shopping mall and offline linkages provide users with a more optimized experience.

4. Commercial Value Analysis

The core content of KEEP is the scientific breakdown of various fitness courses and online video teaching. The progressive fitness training features guide users to practice in fragmented ways, record training data, and check in to share training results, so that they can gradually persist and develop habits.

As an Internet platform, GMV (gross merchandise volume) is the core indicator to measure the platform's competitiveness (market share). The key indicators that affect GMV are nothing more than traffic indicators (number of users, etc.) and conversion indicators (first order rate, repurchase rate, etc.). Breaking it down, we get: GMV = number of registered users X conversion rate X average order value.

4.1 Number of registered users

4.1.1 Improve functions

When Keep was first launched, it was in the cold start-up phase, focusing on improving the basic functions of the product, enhancing the user experience, and attracting users. At the same time, it cultivated a unique KOL product series, produced high-quality content, and led ordinary users to exercise together. Attract registered users through the product itself.

4.1.2 Cooperative Promotion

• Collaboration with sports brands: Keep has teamed up with Puma and other sports brands to launch large-scale online and offline experience activities, where users can complete their training and check in to sign up for the activities. The top few participants in the event will receive sports brand equipment and prizes.
• Traditional media promotion: Choose traditional media such as "Happy Camp" and use advertising placement to convey products and brands through the expressions and presentations of guests such as Lu Han, Zhu Yawen, and Du Haitao.
• Advertising and promotion: produce brand promotional videos, conduct offline marketing, and simultaneously link up with multi-level online activities. Place advertisements in crowded places such as city light boxes and stadiums

4.2 Conversion Rate

The platform will only create value if users consume on it. In order to promote commercial realization and increase conversion rate, the Keep platform has launched membership and mall sections. So how does keep promote the improvement of conversion rate? Because the mall section of keep is not yet fully developed, the membership section will be explained in detail below.

4.2.1 Member Function Section

Membership usually means a better user experience. With the basic functions in place, what privileges does a keep member have? And how does Keep promote user conversion and repeat purchase?

4.2.1.1 Membership Functions

In terms of product functions, in order to distinguish itself from ordinary users, keep has added additional functions for members: customized training plans, smart training plans that support leave, the ability to adjust goals in the smart training plan settings page, diet recording tools only available to members, member-exclusive live classes, and member-exclusive prices in the mall.

4.2.1.2 Promote user conversion

Eye-catching membership reminder: after entering from the homepage, users will find two major sections, the recommendation section and the membership section, which visually guide users to pay attention to the platform members.

Superior membership functions: For example, the private customized plan can generate a more tailored training plan based on the user's more detailed information. Compared with purchasing private lessons at the gym, the price of a keep membership is more like a bargain. Even if it does not reach the level of private lessons, it is still very cost-effective for fitness novices. In addition, the customized time is more flexible and the fitness part selection is more diverse. Users can choose the exercise part, time, cycle, goal, etc., and can modify it at any time. Compared with ordinary users, members have a better experience.

Compared with the training camp, the courses of the smart training plan are no longer keep's daily courses, but have added daily fitness classes. Even on rest days, there are videos for the keepers to learn. In addition, there are members' detailed lectures on some movements, with video introductions. The course schedule basically also includes warm-up and formal training. For a novice, the keep smart plan takes into account almost everything that can be thought of.

Special membership prices:

First-time preferential membership price: Attract new users to purchase with low promotional prices.

Combination discount: Combined with other products to form a combination discount, to provide more favorable prices for those who need to purchase other products.

4.2.1.3 Promote user repurchase

Excellent membership benefits:

For members, the platform has cooperated with Yinge to launch free creative canvas bags, cooperated with KLOOK to give members a national theme park gift package worth 888 yuan, cooperated with Zhizhi and Shouyue Auto to launch free membership cards, and cooperated with Shan Taiyi to launch free physical examination packages.

Giving coupons to members is not only a benefit, but also encourages members to go to the mall to make purchases.

Membership level features:

Based on the membership purchase, experience is accumulated continuously to upgrade the membership level. For example, when the membership level reaches KG.2, the user can replay the running record track. . When the membership level reaches KG.11 and above, the platform will issue corresponding physical gifts to motivate customers.

Summary: Members of the platform can enjoy more privileges and a better interactive experience. Keep attracts users to purchase memberships by upgrading user functions, and promotes users to repurchase memberships through system upgrades and various welfare activities.

4.3 Average Order Value

The average order value is affected by two factors: the single purchase amount and the purchase frequency. What measures has Keep taken to increase the average order value of its member users?

4.3.1 Member Points Method

Members can upgrade their levels based on their accumulated points and receive some small physical gifts from the platform as incentives. After becoming a member, if they reach a certain amount of exercise per week, they will get one more day of membership. While promoting commercial monetization, we will not forget our original intention and will always promote user fitness and increase user favorability.

4.3.2 Bundling Sales Methods

This method is actually a variation of price reduction promotion, such as launching joint memberships with other platforms and activities that give away memberships for free with discounted purchases. These can all increase product sales.

Summary: While promoting commercial monetization, Keep always puts promoting user fitness first and focuses on good user experience, which is conducive to better expanding the platform's reputation and increasing its influence.

5. Product Iteration Analysis

In order to deeply analyze the version iteration rhythm of KEEP and explore the product iteration logic, all core version iterations of KEEP from V1 to V6.133 are summarized as follows:

After sorting out the content of each product iteration of Keep, for better analysis, the cumulative downloads of the corresponding version of Keep on KuChuan were sorted out, as shown in the figure:

According to the curve distribution of the cumulative download volume of keep on KuChuan, it can be seen that the user growth curvature of keep increased in V2.0.0 (that is, before April 15, 2016), but the growth was relatively slow. From V3.0.0, the user growth curvature rose sharply. It was not until V6.127.0 that the user curvature gradually slowed down. Therefore, keep was divided into three stages for analysis. By corresponding with the product life cycle, it is found that the three stages of keep's development are: start-up period (V1.0.0-V2.0.0), growth period (V3.0.0-V6.45.0) and maturity period (V6.127-V6.133.0).

5.1 Start-up period

Before April 15, 2016, Keep was in the cold start phase. The main goal of the current phase is to improve product functions, increase user stickiness, and achieve the effect of retaining users.

The first step is to improve product functions, use the product itself to attract new users, and continuously polish the user experience, such as making users' exercises accumulative and visual, increasing user activity, and adding KOL product lines to produce high-quality content and lead ordinary users to exercise together. When users use fitness apps, adding a "data center" function to display daily/weekly/monthly training status can visualize users' efforts and better enhance their sense of accomplishment.

In terms of user retention, interpersonal relationships will better promote user retention. The function of "find Weibo friends and address book friends" can allow users to no longer be in the loneliness training stage. The connection of social relationships can increase the user stickiness of keep. In addition to synchronizing the user's existing social circle, the "Expert List, Recommended List and Newcomer List" functions can expand the user's social circle in Keep and seek more like-minded people; the "Share data and courses to third-party platforms" function can encourage users to train and share results. It also helps in promoting the platform. The establishment of the "group" module transforms independent fitness into collective fitness and enhances the user's sense of use.

At this stage, Keep mainly focuses on polishing core functions, improving products, introducing new users, and retaining users through the product itself.

5.2 Growth Stage

From April 15, 2016 to July 25, 2020, keep is in the growth stage. The goal of this stage is to attract new users, acquire user growth and improve user retention. When the number of users reaches a certain base, in order to promote commercial monetization, member functions will be launched and mall functions will be improved.

In terms of product functions, we will continue to optimize basic functions and increase user stickiness, including data centers, achievement system personal pages, etc., and further improve user experience. As well as improve membership and mall functions to increase conversion rates.

At the same time, keep has added functions such as step growth system, training camp, training plan, running event calendar, clock in team, intelligent private training plan to add functions such as cycling, walking, cycling, yoga exercise, etc. to meet the needs of more users, further maintain user activity, and enhance user stickiness. At the same time, in order to promote commercial monetization, member functions have been launched and a series of optimization functions have been customized for members, such as taking leave in the training plan, adjusting goals, and prioritizing access to customer service.

In order to seize market share, at this stage, keep has added operational strategies and combined with products to stimulate users to share achievements and gain social communication. At the same time, use WeChat mini-programs to continuously obtain traffic from your circle of friends. In order to obtain more traffic, various activities, live broadcasts, etc. are launched, and social sharing such as Weibo check-in are promoted. In addition, in order to attract more new users, keep has established a game mechanism to improve daily active users and improve user stickiness.

Judging from the data, at this stage, the number of product downloads has increased explosively.

At this stage, in addition to continuing to improve product functions, keep has added more interesting functions in combination with operations, attracting many users. At this stage, the number of users has increased sharply and reached a certain scale. The launch of member functions and the optimization and improvement of the mall have accelerated the commercial monetization process of the keep platform.

5.3 Maturity period

Since December 28, 2020, keep is in its mature stage. At this stage, the overall functional system of the keep platform has been built and the number of users has been accumulated. What we need to do next is to promote stable user growth while ensuring the improvement of user retention rate.

At the product function level, we will continue to optimize the user experience of existing functions, such as the optimization and upgrading of the homepage section, adding circles and other functions, and upgrading member functions. For example, in the live class section, a new member-only class section will be added.

Overall, keep's main rhythm is to start cold in the early stage, focus on polishing product functions, combine operations in the medium term, and continuously optimize basic functions, add interesting functions, and gradually improve the product system, improve the comprehensiveness of product categories, optimize user experience, and promote user retention. Later, the product system architecture was completed, and keep optimized some small functions and improved the user experience through user feedback.

6. Product structure analysis

In iterative analysis, we analyzed the iteration steps of keep product functions. Next, let’s take a look at what users’ needs these functions meet and how they are distributed throughout the APP. The following figure is the product structure brain diagram of keep V6.133.0:

For the convenience of analysis, the following table is obtained by re-examining the product structure of keep according to users, scenarios, needs and functions:

The main user of keep is positioned as a fitness novices, and there are three main scenes when using the APP: perform relevant preparations for exercise before exercise, always understand your own exercise results and exercise with others during exercise, and share feedback after exercise.

Scene 1: What needs does fitness novice have before exercise, and how does keep platform meet these needs?

Before exercising, fitness novices need to know about fitness-related information, formulate fitness plans, compare fitness costs, and purchase corresponding fitness equipment. First of all, after entering keep, users can find that in order to meet different fitness goals, such as: belly slimming, legs slimming, etc., as well as different fitness forms, such as running, yoga, walking, etc., users can click in to view various fitness types and determine the purpose of fitness and fitness forms. In addition, for the purpose and form, relevant information is filled in, and the platform recommends appropriate training courses for training based on user information. Before training, users want to purchase relevant training equipment, but they don’t know how to choose. Before this, users have determined the fitness form. In the keep mall section, according to the sports scenes recommended by the mall, keep users can choose products under the corresponding scene category to purchase.

At this point, the user has completed the preparations for determining the purpose of fitness, the form of fitness, and the purchase of fitness equipment.

Scene 2: What are the needs of fitness novices in exercise and how does the keep platform meet these needs?

When users are in exercise, they cannot understand their own sports results, which can easily lead to giving up. In order to help users persist in exercise and visualize exercise data, the Keep platform can see their own exercise results at all times, thus having a sense of accomplishment and promoting the subsequent exercise.

Compared with gyms, online fitness is a single-person exercise method. For users with poor self-discipline, single-person can easily make users give up halfway. In order to optimize the user experience, the keep platform has added functions such as running teams, running events, GPS positioning and live broadcasts, so that users have the opportunity to exercise together, supervise and inspire each other, and persist in fitness.

Scene 3: What needs does fitness novice have after exercise, and how does keep platform meet these needs?

After performing a complete exercise in the initial fitness stage, the fitness novice is full of accomplishment, hoping to let friends in the social circle know. Therefore, the platform provides support for third-party dynamic sharing functions to help users better share. After exercising for a while, users hope to communicate with each other, understand their exercise level and learn from people with excellent fitness. In order to meet these needs of users, the platform provides dynamic functions, expert sharing and weekly ranking functions to better help users understand their own level and provide direction for how to make progress.

7. Operational Path Analysis

With the product, how did keep operate this product to promote its rapid growth? According to the AAARR model, the main activities of operations are sorted out as follows:

7.1 A (News)

In order to attract new products, keep mainly uses the following methods:

Method 1: New media promotion

Keep was officially launched in February 2015. During the launch, keep opened Weibo and official accounts, with the updates being fitness, fat loss, etc., and accumulated the first batch of followers for keep.

In addition, keep has also found a batch of target KOLs, focusing on Zhihu, Douban, and Tieba, and publishing articles on fitness and weight loss. The most popular one is the case of successful weight loss. It is very convincing with photos before and after weight loss.

Method 2: Recruiting high-quality users

Before the keep product was officially released, keep began to look for internal testing users. keep targets users as novices who want to exercise but lack professional fitness knowledge.

On January 22, 2015, keep began to recruit "chief experience officers" on Weibo, and used large prizes to attract users' attention. Users can sign up by just betting and forwarding on Weibo. According to the official release, the first recruitment attracted thousands of people and more than 400 forwarded it. According to online data, there were more than 4,000 users in the internal testing.

This means that before keep went online, it had more than 4,000 registered users. They experienced the product, gave official product improvement directions, and helped the product to be better launched.

Method 3: Celebrity promotion

On October 31, 2015, Zhu Yawen recommended keep to audiences across the country on the Happy Camp program. The star effect prompted many users to discover keep and download it.

7.2 A (Promote Activity)

When a user downloads and registers an APP, he needs to activate the user to open the APP, thereby improving the daily and monthly active users. In order to improve user activity, keep mainly uses the following methods:

7.2.1 Targeted content online

Keep's content has distinctive features. In addition to general training courses, keep also "prescribes the right medicine" to meet the user's segmentation needs. For example, the student group uses it very frequently during the winter and summer vacations, but it will not be used until the start of school. Keep found through research that it turned out that students used keep most of them at night, but the course movements were large, and the noise generated was easily affected by others, so the number of training was less. Therefore, keep developed a zero-noise series of content in response to such needs. After it was launched, more than 17 million users participated in the training.

7.2.2 Develop rich activities

Keep has a wealth of activities, with 5 online activities in February alone. Keep's activities are mainly divided into three categories: the first is seasonal activities, such as the "Run to Welcome Spring" and the "March Running Volume Challenge" activities launched. The second type is activities jointly launched with brands, such as the "Sleeping Ba Cultivation" co-branded with Musi Bedding and the "Chaoxiang Poly KEEP Plan" co-branded with Poly South China. In addition, the corresponding activities also set up prizes to encourage users to participate.

7.2.3 Shaping product value

What product is easy for users to uninstall? That is a product that is often not used and meaningless. Therefore, improving product design and shaping product value are the cornerstones for retaining users. So what product value does keep have?

Value 1: There are many categories of training courses, professional and authoritative and free

Keep's training courses include many major sectors such as exercises, running, yoga, walking, cycling, meditation, and dynamic bicycles, and there are many sub-items under each sector. Before these courses are launched, the official will evaluate them from several aspects such as professionalism, ease of use, and user's actual training experience. Only after the review is approved can it be launched. These courses are professionally authoritative and can be used for free at keep.

Value 2: No time and place restrictions and low learning costs

Professional movements are usually difficult and have certain learning costs. In order to reduce the learning costs of users, keep splits complex training into movements one by one. For example, abdominal training is divided into 5 movements. As long as you watch the video and learn, it is easy to learn without limiting time and place. To a certain extent, the fitness costs of users have been reduced.

7.3 A (retention)

After promoting user activity, it is also necessary to improve user retention rate in order to continuously create value for the platform. In order to improve user retention, keep mainly does the following:

7.3.1 Establish an incentive system

As we all know, fitness is a beneficial activity, but it is also an activity that is difficult to stick to. Therefore, keep needs to enable users to persist in product design and achieve fitness goals, so there is an incentive system. When a user insists on completing a certain task, he can obtain the corresponding badge. Collecting is a pleasure, and users will continue to persist in collecting.

7.3.2 Establish a social system

Keep creates social links to allow users to invest more time and emotions, and is unwilling to leave the platform. After all, exercise alone is painful. Only by exercising together can you have fun and make it easier to persevere.

Keep relies on UGC to accumulate community and reputation, and promotes users to share fitness information and experience through rich topics. These high-quality content attracts users to like, comment, and attention. In order to encourage users to share more, a lot of experience optimization has been done, such as adding topics and providing users with sharing directions.

7.3.3 Build a user growth system

Keep builds a growth system, and through gamified settings, upgrades step by step, and receives timely feedback every time you exercise, providing a driving force for users to persist. Keep's user growth system is divided into 20 levels, KG1 to KG20, each level corresponds to different privileges. The more you go, the more scarce the privilege you are, and attracts users to explore continuously.

7.4 R (Get Income)

We have introduced in detail the methods to increase revenue in the business value analysis section, so we will not repeat them here.

7.5 R (autopropagation)

In order to guide users to spread spontaneously, keep mainly uses the following methods:

7.5.1 Acquaintance communication

When the user completes the exercise, keep will generate a sports picture to remind him to share your exercise records with his acquaintances to satisfy the user's psychological feelings of desire to be recognized after hard work.

7.5.2 Marketing Communication

After having 30 million users, Keep filmed its first commercial - "Self-discipline Gives Me Freedom".

In this advertisement, keep breaks through the shackles of fitness apps and conveys a healthy, young and self-disciplined lifestyle to young people. After the advertising film was released, Keep's users increased from 30 million to 50 million.

In 2019, keep launched the latest advertisement "Just Just Being Afraid", using the camera to face everyone's fear in sports, using the real stories of champion riders, fitness madmen, visually impaired runners, etc. to present the courage to overcome "fear", and set corresponding topics in keep, calling on users to challenge "fear" and clock in to grow.

Keep evokes a stronger and more self-disciplined side of everyone, prompting self-dissemination among users.

8. Future Outlook

Through the above analysis, we understand the reasons for keep's rapid rise. So how will keep's future develop? Next, the SWOT model will be used for systematic analysis.

Through the above analysis we can see:

First, keep must work hard to change its current profitability and discover exports that promote its commercial monetization. Keep has accumulated a large number of users, and focusing on developing offline should be a good choice. At this stage, keep offline already has Keepland and smart hardware treadmill Keepkit, and these two products do not have a great advantage compared to similar products. How to integrate the advantages of keep online products, transform them into the driving force for the rapid growth of offline products, and completely connect online and offline? Keep needs to open stores of different types and themes in the short term, accumulate experience from them, and quickly explore the business model of offline fitness.

Judging from the offline user classification of gyms, users in each area will give priority to nearby gyms, so gyms in one area will have a stable source of nearby users. In this case, what are the advantages of keep? Keep has a large number of online users. Online keep can divide users based on the region, obtain user data, and customize the opening of offline stores in the region based on the user needs of the region. In this way, the number of users is first guaranteed.

For users, differences in fitness content are not necessary, and prices and environments can attract users more. First of all, Keep can create different scene atmospheres to a certain extent on the basis of ensuring the clean and tidy environment, and can also achieve the effect of attracting users. Secondly, in terms of price, how to make a reasonable and large profitable, the price level cannot be increased. Then, you can start from the scale of magnitude and invite celebrities or fitness Vs to work together to offline gyms, and open fitness hours from time to time. Make a preview on the APP in advance to tell users which star may appear in which broad time period and which region offline Keepland will appear, which will encourage users to insist on offline Keepland exercises, and when they really meet stars, they will provide rewards such as signatures and photos to create a sense of joy for users to draw blind boxes.

In addition to focusing on improving offline development, can keep seek profits from multiple aspects? For example, targeted investment in fitness-related projects is also a good choice. Instead of investing huge costs from scratch, it is better to acquire or invest in some products that have already done well. Get quick commercial monetization.

Author: Wang Zai6642

Source: Wang Zai 6642