A universal model for online traffic diversion in training institutions

Before writing this article, I asked the heads of several offline institutions: What are your course completion rate data?

The unanimous feedback from everyone is: they don’t pay attention to the completion rate of the course, but pay more attention to the attendance rate of the lead-in courses. Everyone thinks that as long as the visit rate is high, the conversion rate of subsequent full-price classes will also be high. In fact, this is a misunderstanding: between visits and conversions, there is also the key point of course completion rate.

What is the completion rate? As long as you finish a class, does that count as the completion rate? no. The completion rate includes the entire cycle: pre-class preparation - class - assessment - homework/check-in (some institutions may have different steps). The course is considered completed only when students complete all steps .

The completion rate can be divided into the completion rate of the current class and the completion rate of the entire drainage stage. It is a strong guarantee for the subsequent conversion of full-priced courses.

Why do you say that? First, completing a course is made up of multiple interactions. The more times a user interacts with you, the greater the possibility of a transaction. Secondly, in a lead-generating course, the faster the effect, the stronger the parents' willingness to pay, and completing the course is a prerequisite for the effect.

Currently, many articles on the market share various scripts, prizes, and activity settings to increase course completion rates. They seem detailed and thoughtful, so you can use them right away, but if a certain link in the middle suddenly gets stuck, you may be out of luck. Why? Because you don’t know the underlying methodology, you can’t apply it flexibly.

1. The underlying methodology of course completion rate: Octagonal behavior analysis method

Today, I will introduce to you an underlying methodology: the Octagon Behavior Analysis Method.

This theory comes from the book "Practical Gamification", written by Yu-kai Chou, a TED speaker, behavioral expert, and top gamification expert. He has provided consulting services to many companies including Google, eBay, Lego, and Huawei.

Based on years of research, the author found that the reasons why people play games are basically inseparable from eight core driving forces:

It seems confusing at first glance, right? Let me explain. I was also an internet addict 18 years ago. At that time, I liked to play an online game called MapleStory. Now I will take the MapleStory game as an example to tell you what these octagonals are.

(1) Mission: The game character is a hero who saves the continent, which allows users to escape from the world and find a sense of satisfaction and mission that they have never gotten in reality.

(2) Achievements: As the game character levels up, the lethality points also increase;

(3) Creativity: The game has many different tasks, such as fighting monsters, delivering gifts, and forming teams, which keeps users fresh;

(4) Possession: After completing the game tasks, the character will continue to obtain equipment;

(5) Scarcity: The game has a time limit for killing monsters. For example, if you log in to the game and kill monsters between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., you can get double experience.

(6) Unknown: Just like a blind box, it satisfies the user’s curiosity. For example, team up to fight a boss and win N times the experience or rare equipment.

(7) Socializing: You can team up to compete in the game, and you can even get married. This is how my college roommate fell in love online.

(8) Loss: Tasks are linked to each other. If you do not complete the current task, you will not be able to unlock the next task.

Of course, the game MapleStory is quite old. The popular games nowadays are PUBG, League of Legends, etc. The game lovers in our department compared them and found that the routines are the same:

2. How to apply it to students?

Currently, it is advocated to let children learn through games. Therefore, many major education companies such as Xueersi, GSX, and Spark Education are applying this theory to help children go from hating learning to loving it.

My child is a typical example. After entering the second grade, mathematics became increasingly difficult and she was unable to keep up with the school's mathematics classes, thus losing interest in the subject. Later, I enrolled her in a math class at the Xueersi Online School. She studied very enthusiastically, prepared early every week, and completed all the steps conscientiously. Her performance was very different before and after.

After disassembling Xueersi’s lead generation course, I found that they applied the theory in this way:

Since there are many content analyses on the market on how to attract students, and many institutions are currently implementing the above methods, I will not elaborate on them here.

Is it enough for the lead-in class to continue to attract children? Not really. The decision makers for enrolling children in classes are parents. In addition to their children's interests, parents will consider multiple dimensions such as course quality, teacher teaching, and service before making a final decision . Therefore, your lead-in classes must also be able to continue to attract parents.

3. How to apply it to parents?

How to do it specifically? Let’s take Xueersi as an example and see how they apply the model.

① Mission

Purpose: To enhance the value of the drainage course and link it with parents’ sense of mission to cultivate an excellent next generation.

Specific practice: 10 minutes before each class starts, the teaching assistant will send me a voice message to explain why I must attend this class.

I am considered a relatively aloof parent, but every time the teacher says this, I respond promptly and directly. To be honest, my original intention of signing up for the traffic generation course was to take advantage of the big companies and learn a few tricks. But the teacher's words awakened my sense of mission to cultivate my child's logical reasoning ability, and I gradually began to pay attention to the course.

Seeing this, some principals may ask, academic subjects are easier to connect to parents' sense of mission because they are directly linked to scores, so, from what perspective should art institutions do it? I found the answer from the circle of friends of the school manager’s client, the principal of Jiuwu Art School. You can refer to it and start from cultivating children’s psychological quality and sentiment :

② Achievements

Purpose: To make parents feel as if they are in the game, and the children are the characters in the game. After receiving positive feedback, parents will feel a sense of pleasure in developing their roles.

Specific practices: As long as the child completes each part of the course, the teaching assistant will send feedback to the parents in the form of cards or lists.

③Creativity

Purpose: To provide a variety of activities so that parents can feel novel and not get bored.

Specific approach: Make full use of various forms to allow parents to participate in their children's learning. For example, in Xueersi’s lead-in class, there is a parent-child challenge session, where the teacher asks questions to see who can answer faster, the student or the parent.

④Possession

Purpose: To motivate parents to participate with practical rewards

Specific approach: In Xueersi’s induction classes, teachers hope that parents will participate, and the second half of the class is set up as a parent meeting. All participating parents can receive exclusive information for the entire grade.

But please note that the things given here must match the subject content or the services provided by the institution , so as to maximize the interests of the school. What does it mean? For example, an art institution sets the rules for an activity such that players can get a toy robot after checking in. This is inconsistent with an art institution and there is a high possibility that they will be fleeced.

⑤ Scarcity

Purpose: To create a sense of tension among parents so that they will pay attention to the course.

Specific practice: Xueersi’s lead-in classes will not be adjusted. Everyone must be confident and not devalue themselves. You can set a participation threshold for parents so that there will be no regrets if they miss out.

Let me give you an example here. Recently, I learned from a big shot’s official account that Baijiahao held a training camp. I was very interested after seeing it, and excitedly asked for the link, ready to learn. Unexpectedly, the training camp activity had ended, and there was no way to watch the replay, which made me very sad. Although I was unable to participate this time, I secretly decided in my heart that I must catch up with the next registration.

⑥Unknown

Purpose: To arouse parents’ expectations and curiosity

Specific practices: After each class at Xueersi, the teacher will seriously comment on my child's performance and also issue a learning report. Because the child's performance and the teacher's comments are unknown every time, I am particularly looking forward to it.

Many institutions are doing classroom reviews, but the results are not satisfactory. For example, at the offline art institution where I enrolled my daughter, after each class, the teacher would send a review of the work, but most of her reviews were based on the parts I could see and knew:

The parts that I don’t know, such as what the child shared in class, how many times he raised his hand, and the photos and videos of the class, are not shown at all, so I basically read them but don’t reply.

I believe this is also a concern for most teachers. Why do parents not like to reply to comments?

The problem lies in the details. At present, there are also institutions that are doing very well. They use some professional home-school communication platforms, such as the teacher-student letters of the school manager. The teacher-student letters are equipped with templates from multiple angles, including dimensional ratings, videos, pictures, and voice , making it convenient for teachers to make comprehensive comments on children’s performance in class.

A leading institution told me that providing good reviews can have a ripple effect, and parent satisfaction will increase. In addition to higher enrollment rates, parents are also willing to help the school with referrals, and the school's performance has also improved significantly.

⑦ Social

Purpose: First, to allow parents to show off their “excellence” to others; second, to allow parents to expand their social circle during the experience.

Specific practices: Xueersi’s work is not perfect. Currently, it can only publish the rankings, but the parent social circle has not been established. I suggest that during this stage, some particularly attentive parents can be publicly praised, or parents can be invited to share their parenting experiences. My daughter's class teacher often does this. Once, a parent made candied haws for every child in the class. After the teacher publicly praised them, the parents expressed their gratitude:

What can this capable parent gain? I don't know, but I have my own personal experience. After joining an education community, the group owner invited me to share my experience. The response was enthusiastic, and many users added me as a friend and discussed operational experience with me. Although I was not as active in the group afterwards, I was reluctant to leave this group because it is my social asset. There is a saying that goes, the more social assets a user has on your platform, the more he will depend on your platform.

⑧Loss

Purpose: Everyone is afraid of losses, especially those things that are easily obtained within your ability. Use "losses" to mobilize the enthusiasm of parents.

Specific steps:

1) After class, the teaching assistants at Xueersi will announce the children’s attendance status in the group. It will clearly show the children’s attendance time and whether they have missed classes. Parents will feel a sense of loss when they see that other children have completed the test while their own children have all achieved good results.

2) Task list, parents can see which tasks have been completed and which tasks have not been completed. At the same time, the teaching assistant will also remind your child what he or she has not completed today.

The above is the application of Xueersi’s “Octagon Theory”. Some principals may ask, our own resources are limited, and we may not be able to achieve this octagon. Is there any simpler method?

4. More flexible combination of applications

We can take a 2+1 approach. The book "Practical Gamification" divides these eight dimensions into four quadrants. The first two are:

1. External and internal

The three on the left (achievement, possession, scarcity) are external driving factors, and the three on the right (creativity, socialization, unknown) are internal driving factors.

The 2+1 method is a mix of these two quadrants, such as choosing 2 external and 1 internal, or 2 internal and 1 external.

Some people may ask, why can’t we use only external or only internal? If you only use external methods to promote, although you can maintain motivation at the beginning, the stamina will be insufficient.

Taking referrals as an example, many schools use prizes to stimulate referrals, but the more they do this, the more they find that they can’t do it. First, parents’ appetites are getting bigger and bigger, and they need more rewards to stimulate; second, parents are unable to make continuous referrals. In fact, the principle is that external factors are used as stimulation points. What if we add the “social” within? For example, the school manager classroom review function mentioned earlier. After the teacher makes the review, parents can share the review page to their circle of friends to show off their “excellence”. The page supports adding a school introduction + order information. This not only reduces the psychological burden of parents in making referrals, but also reduces the school’s expenditure costs.

2. White hat, black hat

The three in the upper part (mission, achievement, creativity) are more positive encouragement, we call it "white hat"; the three in the lower part (scarcity, loss, unknown) are more negative promotion, we call it "black hat".

ps: White hat/black hat represent righteous magician and wizard respectively. From the literal meaning, we can understand that white hat uses normal means to operate, and black hat uses some unconventional means.

The application here also requires a 2+1 combination. For example, teaching assistants will convey more positive information to parents: how the course can help children improve their grades and enhance their abilities. Over time, parents may become tired of it. However, if an assessment is done on the child and a certain ability is found to be weak after the test, and your next course happens to match it, then the completion rate of the course will increase a lot due to the fear of loss.

There is a line in the movie "The Godfather": People who can see through the essence of things in half a second and people who cannot see through the essence of things in their entire life are destined to have completely different fates. Once you have mastered this model, you will find that everything is connected and you will no longer need to follow blindly. Learning makes me happy, come on!

Author: Auntie Cai

Source: Auntie Cai