Case analysis | Analysis of Lagou education event promotion!

As customer acquisition costs continue to rise, public domain traffic has gradually peaked, advertising channels have limited delivery, policies have been tightened, conversion rates have dropped and other external factors have combined to explore various ways to play with private domain traffic. This event is precisely Lagou's exploration and attempt at private domain gameplay.

1. Disassembly Object

Lagou Education

2. Background Research

Lagou Education is a brand under Beijing Lagou Network Technology Co., Ltd. It helps Internet professionals communicate and improve their technical capabilities, and is a "practical university" for Internet people.

Based on Lagou's experience in the Internet talent service industry, we have jointly developed a series of courses and services to provide learning opportunities for Internet people. Lagou Education has opened two learning methods: "Column" and "Training Camp". The courses cover R&D, products, design, operations, marketing and other fields.

3. Analysis of the three elements of business (product, traffic, and monetization)

3.1 Products

3.1.1 Core Business

3.1.1.1 Trust in Products: [Column Course]

Suitable for users with light learning plans. Courses in R&D, product, operation, marketing, operation and design have been launched online.

Column features: The total duration is about 300 minutes, and each lecture is 10-15 minutes long. Users can use fragmented time to study. Multiple viewing methods such as video, audio, live broadcast, pictures and text can meet users' needs in different learning scenarios.

3.1.1.2 Profitable product: [Training Camp]

Lagou Education and other enterprises have jointly launched a series of [training camps], which allow students to acquire practical experience that would take others 3-5 years to accumulate through 4-6 months of online learning. The training camp offers several major subjects, including [High-paying Training Camp for Java Engineers], [High-paying Training Camp for Big Data Development], [High-paying Training Camp for Big Front-end Development], [High-paying Training Camp for Data Analysts], and [Direct Recommendation Camp for Test Development Engineers from Famous Companies]. Once launched, it has won a good reputation among users.

Training camp features: online learning, no need to leave work, no geographical restrictions.

A technical capability framework that meets the needs of enterprises, through 4-6 months of planned training, gradually improve technical capabilities.

Combining "learning + practice", with one learning node per week and rich actual project training in the production environment, knowledge is transformed into ability.

Irregular technical sharing, experience sharing, interview sharing, etc. by big names from large companies allow students to understand how large companies work as early as possible.

Companion learning, weekly homework review and correction, and more efficient answering of questions.

The learning outcomes are endorsed by the Lagou platform, which provides employment guidance in major Internet companies, and graduates enjoy a green channel for job hunting.

3.1.1.3 Branded products: [In-house training]

Lagou Education provides customized consulting and internal training services to enterprises. Based on the technical capability development needs of enterprise R&D teams, it provides enterprises with customized training and internal training courses for skill improvement in different positions, creating a closed loop of enterprise talent services.

Relying on Lagou's big data on talent supply and demand, Lagou Education has real-time insights into the industry's technological trends and customizes internal training courses in the three major areas of technology, products, and management for enterprises, helping them to rapidly advance development projects, efficiently implement cutting-edge technologies, and complete rapid business iteration and successful transformation.

3.1.2 User Analysis

3.1.2.1 User Profile

According to Xu Dandan, founder and CEO of Lagou: "Since courses such as marketing, operations, and product managers are not easy to standardize, the effects are not obvious, and the unit price is lower than that of IT training courses, Lagou Education decided to focus on the programmer market in 2019."

Through searching with tools such as Baidu Index and iResearch, we found that the keywords of Lagou Education have not been included. However, according to the explanation of Xu Dandan, the founder and CEO of Lagou Education, it can be seen that the current strategic direction of Lagou is to focus on the programmer market. So the user portrait can be deduced based on the competitive product data of Lagou Education. Here we take Kaikeba as an example:

From the geographical distribution, we can see that programmers are mainly concentrated in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou. On the one hand, the overall income level of user groups in these regions is relatively high, and their demand and investment in education is greater. On the other hand, large Internet companies are mainly located in these cities, so these cities have a greater demand for recruiting programmers. Large companies and high salaries attract most programmers, which indirectly produces a crowd gathering effect.

From the age distribution chart on the left, we can see that the user group searching for online training for programmers is mainly concentrated in the 20-29 age group, and the TGI index of users in this age group is as high as 215.32, indicating that users in this age group are the main force participating in online training.

In the gender distribution chart on the right, the number of males is higher than that of females. It can be seen that men account for the majority of programming jobs. On the one hand, men have stronger stress resistance. On the other hand, in the programmer industry, working overtime and staying up late are the norm. Men are more adaptable to this work intensity, which ultimately leads to a greater demand for men in this area.

From the data shown in "2019 China's Online Education Product User Portraits, User Demands and Behavioral Preferences and Industry Organizations' Shift to Refined Operation Analysis", it can be seen that 80.9% of users use online education products at home, and 44.6% of users use online education products on public transportation, and most of these people are commuting. Looking at the time when users use the app most frequently, the high-frequency time distribution is concentrated in 8:00-10:00, 18:00-20:00, and 20:00-22:00. In particular, the time period from 18:00 to 22:00 is continuous and complete, and the distribution of this time period also conforms to the best memory time for talents in the process of education and learning.

3.1.2.2 User Demand Analysis

According to the data from "2019 China's Online Education Product User Portraits, User Demands and Behavioral Preferences and Industry Organizations' Shift to Refined Operation Analysis", the top three user needs for online education users are: improving self-ability, enriching business management science, and getting promoted and getting a raise.

In terms of the reasons why users use the platform, the platform’s courses are the main reason for half of the users to choose it, among which 51.7% of users choose it because the course content is rich, and 51.4% of users choose it because the course settings meet their own needs. In summary, the main selling point of online education products lies in the courses, and the main demand of users is to improve their own abilities through courses.

3.1.2.3 Scenario Simulation

Based on the above user portrait and demand analysis, we can roughly simulate the following scenario: a programmer working in a first-tier city, who has just graduated for about two or three years, is currently single and has an unsatisfactory salary situation. He needs to improve his technical capabilities through training. Therefore, after learning about Lagou Education through Baidu search or information flow delivery, he searched for relevant course information online, and then communicated with the teaching assistant to understand the course situation and chose to sign up. Since he is usually busy with work and has to work overtime a lot, his study time is mainly concentrated on the commuting time to and from get off work or the two hours after get off work.

3.2 Traffic

3.2.1 Own traffic

Lagou Education’s own traffic sources mainly include the following three parts:

• Lagou network diversion
• Lagou Education Official Website
• Lagou Education APP

As an education platform launched by Lagou.com, Lagou Education will give more resources to a certain extent, including but not limited to advertising display, talent delivery, job referrals, etc.

3.2.2 Paid Customer Acquisition

3.2.2.1 KOL placement

The agglomeration effect of technical talents is very obvious, so it is very important to find KOLs and maintain them well. In terms of Lagou’s external advertising, it is estimated that KOLs account for a high proportion of the advertising budget, and are mainly concentrated on Weibo, official accounts and vertical technology communities.

3.2.2.2 SEM delivery

SEM delivery is mainly based on Baidu bidding ranking. After the user clicks, he will be directly guided to the official website or the landing page of a single course.

3.2.2.3 Broadcasting and Distribution

Guangdiantong’s delivery strategy is similar to that of official accounts, which is to attract traffic through low-priced column courses and then monetize through full-priced courses.

3.2.2.4 Information flow delivery

Information flow delivery is mainly through the display of video streams, which recreates the situation to show the problems that programmers may encounter in their work or life, explore user pain points, and provide a feasible solution to guide users to click to buy or leave contact information.

3.2.3 Free Customer Acquisition (Media Matrix)

Considering that each platform has severely cracked down on advertising traffic, in terms of free customer acquisition, in addition to the accounts that can be seen through search below, it is estimated that there are also private accounts created by some internal employees to divert traffic to various platforms.

3.2.3.1 WeChat Ecosystem

3.2.3.2 Toutiao Ecosystem

3.2.3.3 Video and text websites

3.2.3.4 Vertical Technology Communities

3.2.4 Referral & Fission

In addition to external investment, this link should be the main gameplay promoted by Lagou Education at present, including but not limited to group buying, distribution, bargaining, word-of-mouth secondary transfer, task treasure fission, etc., which can be seen from the window bar settings in the official account. Lagou Education has even created a distribution community specifically for guiding users to carry out distribution fission.

3.3 Monetization

Lagou Education Course Product Composition:

It can be seen from the product composition of Lagou that Lagou's trust products are small classes and column courses, and its profit product is the training camp. The monetization path is: using small classes or 1 yuan unlocking courses as bait, acquiring users through fission, paid delivery, etc., using column courses to cultivate user minds, and then using training camp courses and internal training to monetize users.

According to the revenue formula: GMV = number of users * conversion rate * average order value, it can be seen that when the average order value and conversion rate remain unchanged, more users can bring more performance revenue. This is also one of the reasons why Lagou Education is holding the New Year fan-pampering event.

Next, I will analyze Lagou Education’s New Year’s fan-favoring event for you from a first-person perspective based on my actual experience.

IV. Case Analysis

4.1【Case Name】

Lagou Education New Year Fans Event

4.2. [Purpose of Disassembly]

Purpose of the activity : This activity is mainly to find incremental growth through existing stock, relying on the spread of old users, using free books as bait to attract users to follow the official account, and then through a series of prize stimulation, guide users to download and register the Lagou Education APP, provide potential users for subsequent sales conversion and monetization, and by the way increase the number of registrations and downloads for the APP.

Purpose of analysis : Starting from this support activity, we can get a glimpse of the whole and understand Lagou Education’s low-cost customer acquisition method and operation rhythm.

4.3. [Case Path]

4.4, [Case Model]

The case model for this event was originally intended to be the AITDA model, but then I thought about it and realized that Lagou Education has the trust endorsement of Lagou.com, so Lagou Education can avoid the common trust issues in our events to a certain extent. As long as there are no major mistakes during the event, the event can basically proceed as expected.

4.4.1. Attention

In terms of event exposure, Lagou Education has done a great job, displaying and exposing the event through various means such as public account tweets, new public account followers, public account welfare window bars, APP homepage banner images, teacher account Moments, KOL placement, etc., attracting users' attention through screen-sweeping displays.

4.4.2 Interesting

When users see the introduction of an event through a certain channel, they may not be moved, but with full-channel, screen-sweeping exposure, there will always be a link that can pique users' interest.

4.4.3 Desire

At work, my leader once told me that most users' desires can be summarized in three words: greed, laziness, and pretense. In this event, Lagou Education hit two of these points: accumulating a large number of prizes to arouse users' greed, and shortening the activity process through tools to make users too lazy to think and proceed step by step.

But how can we implement these two points into actual activities to stimulate user desire? It is necessary to make efforts through posters and copywriting. Lagou Education just pushed this event a few days before the Chinese New Year, using festive red as the main color of the poster, supplemented by attractive prizes, which instantly aroused people's interest after seeing it. Anyway, I was attracted by his event poster at that time, hahaha~

4.4.4 Action

After a series of preparations, coupled with the limited time and limited quantity words written in the event posters and copywriting, and with the trust endorsement of Lagou.com, users will naturally forward and share. When users forward and complete the support task, it is basically no problem to attract users to download and register the APP with privileges and benefits such as multiple coupons and super VIP cards.

4.5. [Product highlights and reusable features]

4.5.1. Script settings

The activity threshold/reward content/activity time/invitation method are all reflected in the script, so that users can understand it at a glance.

4.5.2 Poster Design

The poster meets the six elements of design (the six elements are mentioned in previous articles, you can check them out), the overall color is eye-catching red, and the prizes are displayed with sincerity, which makes users want to scan the code to participate.

4.5.3 Incentive Mechanism

• Timely feedback: After completing the task, the official account will automatically pop up a reward redemption link to avoid users waiting
• Diversified rewards: Not only can you get corresponding rewards by completing tasks, but you can also participate in the lottery

4.5.4. High-frequency reach

With the help of the Message Bao function, new users who participate in the activity will receive an activity information push notification 5/10/20 minutes after they follow the activity. This will help users wake up again through course materials, free classes, course coupons, etc.

4.5.5 Prize Packaging

Courses + coupons + super VIP + physical books make users feel it is a good deal

4.5.6. Gameplay Nesting

When users download the APP to redeem rewards, an activity for forming a team to receive super VIP for free will pop up, guiding users to continue forwarding and divert traffic to other activities.

4.6. [Points to be optimized and solutions]

4.6.1. The value of the prize is not sufficiently established

The prize packaging is very good, but for new users, they are not familiar with Lagou's products, which indirectly leads to a lack of motivation for users to share.

Solution : When the script pops up, include a prize introduction link so that users can intuitively see the value of the prize.

4.6.2. Unreasonable threshold setting

The threshold of the activity is set unreasonably. The first and second stages only require 3/8 helpers, respectively, and the third stage requires 35 people. After seeing this requirement, most users will most likely give up participating in the activity after completing the second stage task, which indirectly affects the spread of the activity.

Solution: For users who participated in the activity but did not complete the task, use Message Bao to push activity progress reminders. At the same time, each progress reminder comes with a coupon link to guide users to download the registration APP

Set a reward threshold between the second and third stages to gradually guide users to share and spread the word.

4.6.3. Lack of strong guidance in activity process

The activity included a lucky draw, which increased the fun of the event. However, after the users completed the lucky draw, there was no guidance for the next step, and some users were lost at this stage.

Solution: Add guidance words in the lottery program to prompt users to continue forwarding the poster to obtain the number of lottery draws

5. Personal Thoughts

1. The trust issue is the first problem that online activities need to find a way to solve. Common solutions include: endorsement by large companies, celebrity endorsements, joint recommendations, real-person appearances, etc.

2. The choice of activity bait is critical. For group buying activities like this, we are always worried about users taking advantage of the opportunity. However, Lagou Education has given us some new ideas. The low-threshold rewards are mainly coupons or virtual courses, while the high-threshold rewards are mainly physical items. At the same time, the auxiliary early warning mechanism can maximize exposure and effectively control costs while carrying out activities around the North Star indicator (this event reached more than 5,000 people, but judging from the ranking data, the number of people who actually received physical prizes was around 20)

3. There is nothing new under the sun. The gameplay of various activities is essentially the same, but there are slight differences between each company. It is these subtle differences that lead to huge differences in the effects of activities. What we need to learn is how to create an activity gameplay that suits our actual situation. As I said before, the best way to learn is: imitation + micro-innovation.

Author: Qiufeng

Source: Autumn Wind