How to do growth activities without spending money?

In the previous article, we shared the growth activity matrix of the online education industry. The main conclusions are as follows: Building a growth activity matrix with user stratification and user life cycle as the main framework ensures that different users can participate in corresponding growth activities at different times, bringing new users to the product.

When designing specific activities, consider the user behavior threshold, user usage scenarios, and activity motivation and reward dimensions to form a complete growth activity matrix. The original text is at the end of the article, and friends who are interested can go and read it. Previous sharing focused on the planning of overall growth activities, and subsequent sharing will include more specific cases and design ideas for various types of activities.

This article mainly shares with you the cases and design ideas of growth activities that use courses, learning materials, etc. as activity rewards, that is, "how to do growth activities without spending money." The core of the online education industry is still education. Activities that reward courses and learning materials have natural advantages and are an important part of the growth activity matrix. They need to be given enough attention. Let’s take a look at the details.

The full article is quite long, but it is not lacking in substance. I will try to explain the idea of ​​online education growth activities with courses/learning materials as rewards in one article. Enjoy~

1. Cash/Gifts vs. Courses/Materials

From the perspective of activity motivation and rewards, online education growth activities are mainly divided into pure interest rewards such as cash/gifts, and learning needs rewards such as courses/learning materials. The former is more of an external motivation, while the latter is an internal motivation to meet users' learning needs.

Currently, the most common growth activity in the online education industry is invitation-based gifts. The basic process rules are: old users can get cash or gift rewards by inviting new users to purchase courses. The rules of this type of activity are simple and clear, and using cash and gifts as rewards can greatly enhance users' external motivation to invite others to share. After all, seeking profit and avoiding harm and being greedy for bargains are unquestionable human nature.

We do not deny the importance of invitation-based gift activities with cash/gift rewards in acquiring online education customers, but invitation-based gift activities also have obvious problems and limitations:

1. High customer acquisition costs: The leading online education companies have high customer acquisition costs, so they are more aggressive in controlling customer acquisition costs in invitation-based gift activities. In order to maximize customer acquisition effects, the customer acquisition costs of activities only need to be lower than the customer acquisition costs of investment to a certain extent. As a result, the customer acquisition costs of growth activities with gifts/cash as rewards are still high;

2. Higher risk of cheating: Because the cost control of growth activities with gifts/cash as rewards is relatively bold, there are even radical activities such as inviting new users to buy a 3-yuan trial class and rewarding old users with 10 yuan in cash. As a result, user cheating has increased, and even professional gray industries have joined in.

3. Low customer acquisition quality: In order to obtain gifts, old users excessively recommend new users to purchase courses, or even cheat to place orders, resulting in poor quality of users invited through gift acquisition and low renewal rate of regular courses;

4. Limited user coverage: The problems of high customer acquisition costs, high risk of cheating and low customer acquisition quality are acceptable as long as the ROI of the overall activity is positive. In addition, continuous optimization of activity rules and processes can solve the above problems to a certain extent. In addition, activities with gifts/cash as rewards are difficult to cover all users. On the one hand, invitation-gift activities are less altruistic and have high requirements for old users. They must invite friends to buy courses, which increases the social pressure on old users to share invitations, causing some users to be unwilling to share; on the other hand, users still recommend courses based on course quality. Excessive recommendations guided by invitation-gift guidance cause resistance from some old users who have not attended classes or do not fully understand the courses, and even damage the brand image.

In the face of the problems of growth activities with gifts/cash as rewards, activities with courses/learning materials as rewards are a good supplement. Courses/learning materials better meet the internal motivation of users to learn and improve. Their advantages correspond exactly to the problems of activities with gifts/cash as rewards:

1. Lower customer acquisition costs: As the title says, “Free Growth Activities”, although it is not completely free of charge, the cost is indeed much lower. Courses/learning materials mainly have initial production costs, and the marginal cost of subsequent use is basically zero. Distributing them to one more user does not incur new costs, and they are reward content that can be used continuously.

2. Low risk of cheating: The risk of cheating corresponding to the courses/learning materials is also low, and there is no additional cost even if cheating occurs;

3. High quality of customer acquisition: Courses/learning materials can more accurately guide old users with strong learning needs to participate, and through activity design, target users can be reached more accurately, and the user quality is relatively high;

4. Increase the number of activity users: mainly to supplement the user coverage of gift/cash activities. The cost of courses/learning materials is low, and the corresponding activity threshold can also be lowered, making it easier for users to participate and with less social pressure to share.

The above analysis does not mean that activities with courses/learning materials as rewards are better than activities with gifts/cash as rewards. Instead, it mainly introduces the supplement of course/learning materials reward activities to cash/gift reward activities. The two have their own advantages and disadvantages, and complement each other in the growth activity matrix to jointly serve the goal of user acquisition.

The problems and limitations of growth activities that use courses/learning materials as rewards are mainly that users’ motivation is weaker than that of gifts/cash, it is difficult to quickly acquire customers in the short term, and the preparation cycle of courses/learning materials is also longer. Therefore, most online education companies now give priority to activities that offer gifts/cash as rewards to acquire customers more efficiently and quickly. However, a truly complete growth activity matrix must consider two types of motivational reward activities.

After introducing the features and advantages of activities based on courses/learning materials, let’s look at specific cases and activity design ideas.

2. Case analysis: Dami Online School/Zhangmen Youke

Dami Online School: Free learning of primary school English essentials

Let me first give a brief introduction to Dami Online School. Dami Online School is an online live large-class online school under VIPKID for children aged 6-15 (primary and junior high school users). In terms of target users and course products, it is still benchmarked against current Xueersi Online School, Yuanfudao, Zuoyebang, etc., but currently it only offers English and mathematics courses for primary and junior high school levels.

Take a look at Dami Online School’s “Free Learning of Primary School English Essentials” activity:

1) Old users can enter the event page and directly receive a 5-day membership for free. The membership benefits include free learning of the required primary school English courses;

2) After receiving the course, old users are guided to share the course poster and invite new users to receive the course.

The design of free 5-day membership enhances the sense of gain of old users and forms sunk costs, making users more willing to continue learning courses and participate in sharing sessions. Moreover, there is no extra reward for old users for inviting new users. It is more out of the mentality of altruism and reciprocity. Users have less pressure to share, and the new users they share will be more accurate.

1) There are two guiding buttons on the course page: 99 yuan purchase and 30-day membership. Both buttons will lead you to follow the official account to receive the 30-day membership.

2) After following the official account and binding your Dami Online School account, you can receive a 30-day membership and learn all video courses for free.

Although the 5-day membership satisfies the user's sense of gain and learning needs to a certain extent, it is difficult to complete all courses within 5 days. The incentive of the 30-day membership is more attractive to users. Moreover, to obtain a 30-day membership, one only needs to follow the official account, which has a lower threshold and higher user participation and completion rate.

In addition, a button for purchasing the course for 99 yuan was designed on the event page, using the anchoring effect to highlight the value of the course and to guide users to follow the official account to obtain a 30-day membership. Moreover, the user’s “click to buy for 99 yuan” does not support the purchase, but instead guides them to follow the service account. How clever.

1) After new users enter the event through the invitation poster, they can directly receive 2 video courses for free;

2) After registering and logging in, you can get a 5-day membership. The subsequent process is the same as that of old users, guiding them to share and follow the official account to obtain a 30-day membership.

The design of giving away 2 courses for free is really thoughtful. After new users enter the activity page, they are not asked to log in directly. Instead, they are given 2 courses first. The user's sense of gain and sunk costs are also used to ensure subsequent participation. Users are guided to register and log in when they receive a 5-day membership. This reduces the unnecessary steps and privacy risks that come with logging in right after entering the page, and improves the conversion rate. These are details worth learning!

While users are learning free courses, full-priced courses are exposed and displayed to guide users to complete real conversions.

The "Free Learning of Elementary School English Essentials" is currently the only course reward activity of Dami Online School. Other activities are still mainly based on gifts/cash rewards. Although the single course leads to fewer user choices and limited user coverage, it still has great reference value for us.

The rules and procedures of the "Learn Elementary School English Essentials for Free" activity are very direct and simple, and user participation is relatively smooth. The course benefits are packaged as membership benefits to enhance the sense of value. Corresponding key behavior guides such as following official accounts, inviting new users, and downloading apps are also designed. The detail design of key conversion nodes is also excellent and worth learning.

Zhangmen Youke: Learning materials to help you get

Let me also briefly introduce Zhangmen Youke. Zhangmen Youke is the K12 online school brand under Zhangmen Education and a sister brand of Zhangmen One-on-One. It provides online tutoring courses in all subjects for primary, middle and high school students aged 6-18. Just like Dami Online School supplements VIPKID's business, Zhangmen Youke is also a product of Zhangmen Education to seize the K12 online school market.

Specifically, let’s take a look at Zhangmen Youke’s “Learning Materials Assistance Collection” activity:

Zhangmen Youke has a lot of learning content, and it is specifically classified, including teaching materials, selected test papers, parent classes, etc. Compared with special courses, these contents have lower production costs and shorter cycles, and some even only require collection and organization or copyright purchase.

Moreover, in addition to the teaching aids and test papers that are of great necessity to student users, there are also parent classes for parent users to increase the activity of parent users and thus better guide them to participate in growth activities. After all, only a few primary and junior high school users have mobile phones and are capable of participating in activities, and the main participants in online education growth activities are still parent users.

1) Old users can read a small part of the supplementary teaching materials for free. If they want to read the whole material, they need to redeem it with a redemption voucher;

2) Old users can take the test paper materials for free, but they need to use points or download coupons to download the test paper;

3) Share it with a friend to get a redemption voucher/download voucher, and the user can get teaching materials and test papers;

4) After making a contribution, new users will directly get the privilege of trial classes and test paper downloading, and go to the app to learn/use it.

The rules for "receiving learning assistance" at Zhangmen Youke are also very clear, but the redemption methods for teaching materials, test papers and other learning content are inconsistent. The corresponding two types of privilege coupons will cause certain troubles to users. In addition, there are too many guidances for new users. In addition to the privileges of trial classes and test paper downloads, users are also guided to initiate assistance separately. If new users do not understand the product, there is no value in initiating assistance, which reduces the conversion effect of downloading the app/taking trial classes.

The biggest advantage of Zhangmen Youke is its rich content, which gives users more choices and can also meet the learning needs of more users. In addition to selling the main courses, increasing user activity through learning content also provides good support for reaching users to participate in other activities, which is also one of the values ​​of special courses/learning materials.

3. Design ideas for course/material reward activities

After reading the course/material activity cases of Dami Online School and Zhangmen Youke, everyone should have a better understanding of activities with courses/materials as rewards. There are many forms of activities, which require creative design based on user and product characteristics, but the general design idea model can help us find the right direction and avoid detours.

In activities with courses/materials as rewards, the users are divided into old users and new users. The four key parts are courses/materials, sharing behavior, supporting behavior, and experiencing core functions. Let’s take a look at them in detail.

Courses/Materials

In growth activities that use courses/materials as rewards, courses/materials are the direct motivation for users to participate in the activities and share.

On the one hand, we should pay attention to the quality of courses/materials. The quality of courses/materials also affects users' perception and judgment of the platform. In particular, users who have not purchased paid courses can further understand the platform through courses/materials, which also has a direct impact on subsequent conversions.

On the other hand, try to provide a variety of courses/materials, but make them clearly distinguishable from paid courses. The more choices you have, the more users you will cover, and you will be able to leverage user sharing to attract new users more times.

In addition, the learning method of the courses/materials should also be considered, which is generally limited within the app to improve user retention; and for users who have not purchased paid courses, a conversion process should be designed within the courses/materials to guide users to convert to paid courses.

Share and attract new customers

Old users share to obtain courses. There are various forms of sharing. Support/group buying/gifts/lottery/bargaining are all common forms of sharing. The design of sharing forms should reflect the characteristics of online education and avoid excessive marketing. We recommend sharing forms such as free gifts/help to get together, and use the psychology of mutual benefit and altruism to reduce user resistance to sharing and increase participation.

Helpful Behavior

Supportive behavior is the behavior of new users. New users are exposed to the product for the first time. On the one hand, they help out of social connections, and on the other hand, they also have a certain interest and demand for the courses/materials. In one-to-one sharing with old users, the completion rate of new users’ assistance will be higher. However, in one-to-many sharing scenarios, we must focus on the design of new users’ assistance behavior to improve the conversion rate and completion rate of new users.

In line with the sharing behavior of old users, the supporting behavior can be packaged as new users receiving courses/materials. The user's supporting behavior is no longer just driven by social relationships, but also driven by rewards for courses/learning materials. After all, the marginal cost of courses/learning materials is very low, and allowing new users to receive them is beneficial to the product.

Experience core functions

Experiencing core functions means that after completing the support behavior, new users should further experience the core functions of the product, thereby increasing the probability of completing the conversion. New user acquisition activities aim to retain and convert new users. Simply helping them and then quickly losing them is of no value to the product and is also a chronic problem of many new user acquisition activities.

Allowing new users to directly receive courses/materials after providing support is a way to guide users to experience core functions. New users download the app to view courses/materials, and the conversion process within the app guides users to complete the paid course conversion. After users help, Zhangmen Youke directly offers trial classes, which is also a common way to guide users to experience core functions, and there are fewer steps in the path.

Experiencing core functions is a link that needs to be given special attention and carefully designed in all new user acquisition activities. The conversion window period after new user registration is generally very short, especially for new users brought in by new user acquisition activities. They should be guided to experience core functions as soon as possible to complete the conversion screening of new users.

After experiencing the core functions of the product, new users achieve retention conversion and become old users, entering a cycle of growth activities.

The above is a sharing about growth activities that use courses/learning materials as rewards. It is a further discussion of the activity motivation and reward dimension in the growth activity matrix. After all, “free” growth activities are still worth investing in. Everyone is welcome to discuss.

Author: Wu Yijiu

Source: Wu Yijiu