12 Growth Strategies for K12 Online Education

As online education giants and unicorn institutions have successively obtained financing of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan, the education industry has become seriously involutionary, with both capital and talent pouring into large companies.

In addition, competition in online education is becoming increasingly fierce. There is fierce competition in every model of online education. Take AI courses for example. With the formation of the Zebra AI course model, many companies have seen the opportunity and have successively entered the AI ​​course model, especially large companies. For example, Xueersi has created Xiaohou, Zuoyebang has created YaYa, ByteDance has created GuaGuaLong, GSX has created XiaoZao, Zhangmen has created Xiaoli, and Youdao has laid out in various subjects for children.

Faced with intensified competition in online education, how to achieve growth has become a hot topic?

According to my observations in recent times, the growth of online education has become more and more refined and low-cost. At the same time, it has also begun to pay attention to traffic based on retention. 2021 will be a fierce battle in distribution and referrals. Take distribution as an example. At the beginning of the year, many institutions began to establish distribution. In the early days, there were Spark Education, Banyu Children's English, Walnut Programming, Jiliwulala, Beda English, Whale Foreign Teachers and Artbao, etc. Recently, there are Vipkid, Xiaomawang, He Xiaoyu, Oral Planet and Youdao Children, etc.

So what are some more practical growth strategies we have in 2021? The author makes a brief summary of recent observations, which are as follows:

1. Mission treasure fission

Mission Bao fission is a growth strategy that is so familiar that it cannot be more familiar. Mission Bao fission is a crowdfunding fission. If users want to receive gifts, they have to complete tasks (invite friends to follow the official account or join the group). Moreover, Mission Bao fission has been abandoned by many institutions because it costs money and is difficult to convert. However, in my opinion, Missionbao fission is a growth strategy that must be used. After all, it is a strategy that can quickly acquire customers, especially for start-ups, as it can quickly accumulate traffic pools and seed users. The fission of task treasures is becoming more and more refined. How is the refinement specifically manifested?

(1) The fission of a single gift becomes the fission of multiple gifts

At present, the fission of many companies' Mission Bao has changed from a single fission to a fission of multiple gifts, such as Zebra, Xueersi, etc. The fission of multiple gifts is to set up about 4 gifts of the same value, and users can freely choose to complete the support tasks. This undoubtedly increases the interest and motivation of users to participate by enriching products, thereby increasing the participation rate of activities.

(2) Pursuing retention in community fission

Community fission means that if you want to get gifts, you have to invite friends to join the group. You can receive the gifts when you invite a certain number of people to join the group. This form has also changed, with more emphasis on retention. For example, I recently observed the community fission of Chunyu Doctor. If you want to receive gifts, you have to invite people to join the group. You cannot receive the gifts immediately after joining the group. Users are also required to stay for 7 days. After 7 days, the system will determine that the user has not left the group, and points will be issued. The points can be exchanged for gifts.

(3) With WeChat for Business, personal account splitting becomes more convenient and more sophisticated

The functions of WeChat for Business are getting better and better, and more and more fission tools are developed with the help of WeChat for Business, especially in the fission of personal accounts. Based on WeChat for Business on the fission of personal accounts, you can directly add teachers to receive tasks, or you can first follow the public account and then remind to add personal accounts to receive tasks, which ensures the addition rate of personal accounts and provides convenience for building private domain traffic based on personal accounts.

2. Group fission

Recently, I have found that group buying and fission is a popular way to use content to achieve refined growth. The so-called group buying is that many people buy the same product together at a price lower than the original price. The purpose is to quickly increase sales or expand the user base through ultra-low prices and ultra-high cost performance. Group buying fission has now become a relatively effective marketing and traffic generation method. It is currently used by many institutions and is doing very well, such as VIPkid's group buying, Wandou Thinking's group buying, and Zhangmen's group buying.

The group buying and fission of online education is often for attracting traffic, so the price is super low, usually set at 1 point, and 1 point can get more than 5 courses or physical items. In order to better encourage old users to participate in group buying, a model is often set up in which the group leader gets gifts (the group leader gets free of charge, the group leader gives away gift packages).

If online education institutions want to obtain accurate and low-cost traffic, it would be better to use course content to form groups. However, using content to form groups requires content support, and the content suggestions for group formation are very rich. If not, it is recommended to use real objects. The effect of group buying with real objects will be better. After all, real objects are more popular.

3. Team up to get it for free

Forming a team to get it for free is a form of group buying. Currently, more and more online education institutions are using the method of forming a team to get it for free. Zebra AI Classroom was the first company to use it well, and was later imitated by Dingdong Classroom and Datang Xiaoyu, so we will discuss it as a separate growth strategy. Teaming up to get something for free means that multiple people participate in getting something for free.

Currently, the free items that can be obtained by team formation are often low-value physical items. Old users are required to invite 3-4 people to receive them together for free, and because of the physical items, users are generally required to download the APP and register.

The requirements for forming a team to get it for free are very strict. Generally, you need to download the APP and register, so it is difficult for users to complete. Although 3-4 people are required, there are often more than 5 people who actually participate in a team. Many people fail to receive it because they do not download the APP and log in. The good thing is that those who fail to form a team have left their information.

4. Unlocking Fission

Unlocking fission is a form of task-based crowdfunding model. Compared with the task treasure fission, the unlocking model adds a payment link, which is often expressed as 1 yuan unlocking or 1 point unlocking. If users want to receive something, they have to pay 1 yuan or 1 point, and paying 1 yuan or 1 point can only get a small part. The remaining part requires users to invite other users to participate together to get it for free. The unlocking mode of Jiaojiao Chinese is very good. Jiaojiao Chinese often uses content to do 1 yuan unlocking. 1 yuan can unlock 5 pinyin lessons. Inviting 3 people can unlock the remaining 15 pinyin lessons. If the scale of fission is to be larger, physical objects will be added. Inviting 5 people can get a pinyin card. In addition to Jiaojiao, Xiaobu Early Childhood Education also uses content to unlock and split content.

5. Blind Box Growth

Blind box growth is a growth method that has only been slowly used last year. Many online education institutions use nodes to carry out blind box task treasure splitting, blind box community fission, blind box support activities and blind box referrals. The growth of blind boxes is generally blind box fission. The main form of blind box fission is still carried out with the help of official accounts, but the prizes of single-level task treasure fission are replaced with blind boxes. Compared with ordinary task treasure fission, the first thing you see in blind box fission is the richness of the prizes. Secondly, it takes advantage of human curiosity and allows users to make a small investment for a big return.

Generally, the setting for blind box crack growth is very simple. The necessary elements are abundant gifts; gifts of different values ​​with huge gaps; and mysterious gift settings. Leverage nodes.

6. Distribution and Customer Acquisition

Distribution is to gain profits by developing offline business customers, and the upstream customers can get commissions or rewards. Distribution and customer acquisition will become an important growth strategy for online education to compete for users in 2021. Since distribution is based on retention and traffic, and the cost is relatively controllable, many institutions will start distribution in 2021. According to my observation, many institutions have recently started to engage in distribution, such as Banyu Children's English, VIPKid, Youdao Children, He Xiaoyu, Xiaomawang, Ni Paiyi, GuaGuaLong and Oral Planet. If we talk about companies that are doing well in the market and can be used as reference, I personally think there are the following ones: Baby Play English, Xiaobu Early Education, Spark Thinking, Artbao, Walnut Programming and Jiliwawa.

There are many distribution models, the more common ones on the market are full-staff distribution, promoter distribution, KOL group purchase distribution and city partners.

7. Cooperation with social distribution platforms

Social distribution platforms emerged in 2018. Institutions with traffic from mothers began to recruit mothers to serve as distribution platforms, imitating the mechanisms of social e-commerce to evaluate and promote courses. With development, social distribution platforms became very popular in 2019. At one point, there were hundreds of social distribution platforms. Good distribution platforms include Mama’s Choice, Sunflower Mama, Little Happy and Habit Bear. Many online education institutions have achieved tens of millions of transactions and millions of examples by cooperating with social distribution platforms, and it has become the mainstream growth method for many online education institutions.

The model of the social distribution platform is very simple. It negotiates course cooperation with educational institutions, puts the courses on the shelves of its own mall, and uses KOL distribution by mothers to promote the courses. The educational institutions gain customers, the mother promoters gain commissions, the platform gains commissions, and the mothers gain courses.

Cooperation with social distribution platforms is generally based on the CPA+CPS model, with a small amount of CPA and more CPS, to ensure that the front-end enrollment cost is low and the CPS is relatively controllable. This is because the front-end enrollment cost is very low, which optimizes the company's ROI while maintaining a stable conversion rate.

8. Referral

Referral is a way of growth by using old students to invite new users, and using interest incentives to share courses with parents around them. In 2012, referrals based on retention and traffic will become a battlefield for online education institutions, just like distribution, and referrals will become more refined. After all, referrals are cheaper and more accurate than other growth methods, and resources obtained through referrals generally have a higher conversion rate.

There are many ways to play referrals, such as sharing posters to get gold coins or courses, checking in to get class hours or physical objects, giving away classes to get classes, inviting gifts and getting commissions for invitations, etc.

For a detailed explanation of referrals, please refer to this article: https://www.niaogebiji.com/article-32054-1.html

9. Short video + live broadcast to acquire customers

With the rise of short video platforms and live streaming platforms, short video customer acquisition and live streaming customer acquisition have become the research directions of online education customer acquisition, and the competition in this growth method has become increasingly fierce. In 2021, more companies will join the ranks of short video and live streaming customer acquisition.

In terms of short videos, we have entered Douyin, Kuaishou and Video Account, attracting parents' attention through interesting and valuable short videos, and then converting fans of the short video platform to WeChat through benefits and products. There are several companies that are doing well in online education, such as Zhuge Academy under Doshin Education, which uses teachers’ classic scenes to create teacher accounts and form a Douyin matrix.

In the field of live streaming, as live streaming tools mature, many companies have begun to test the waters for live streaming to acquire customers, using Taobao Live, Douyin Live, or Kandian Live, and setting up interest mechanisms to invite parents to watch live streaming. Spark Education is considered to have done relatively well in the field of live streaming, and its live broadcasts can often be seen.

10. Associate Members

As the cost of acquiring customers in online education rises, many institutions have begun to work together to package different products into one product for sale, in order to attract parents through rich content. Recently I have seen a lot of such cases, where one company’s content is used as the main content, and several other companies’ lead-generating courses or products are given as gifts, to create a buy-one-get-several-lead-generating product. This customer acquisition cost seems to be relatively low at the moment, after all, there is not much customer acquisition cost.

11. Channel Cooperation

Channel cooperation has always been a good way to acquire customers, using available resources to acquire customers from other platforms. Recently, I have discovered a more interesting way of acquiring customers through channel cooperation, which is the membership rights of some platforms. Many platforms have added educational versions to their membership rights, especially JD Plus members, Youku annual card members, etc.

In addition to the channel cooperation models mentioned above, there are more channel cooperation models, such as mutual promotion of public accounts, sponsorship of large-scale events, etc.

12. Delivery

Although the cost of advertising is getting higher and higher, it has to be said that it is currently the best way to acquire customers on a large scale. Advertising allows a company to quickly obtain customer resources. In terms of advertising, you can do it through public accounts, KOLs for moms, information flow, and WeChat Moments.

As the cost of advertising becomes higher and higher, the advertising is becoming more and more refined. Take the advertising on WeChat Moments as an example. Recently, there have been great changes in the account name, WeChat copywriting and landing pages of WeChat Moments. In terms of copywriting, make the language more data-based to highlight the selling points. As for the account names, according to my observation, the accounts in the circle of friends used to be company names, but now they have become teacher-like and celebrity-like names. You can see the picture below for details.

Conclusion

The above are the mainstream growth methods that I have discovered so far, which basically cover the mainstream growth methods. Of course, there are more growth strategies that are not covered, such as using Xiaohongshu or Weibo to acquire customers. I hope everyone can break down the growth methods they have discovered and communicate with me. At the same time, I hope everyone can get good growth methods in 2021.

Author: Terracotta Warriors Still Waiting for You

Source: Terracotta Horses Still Waiting for You