A name that seems to be full of clickbait titles. However, in the field of educational short videos, for top accounts (millions of fans + strong and necessary categories + charismatic anchors), such as Lao Huang Speaks English, Sam Takes You to Learn American English, and Xu Ge Speaks English, it is not difficult to earn 100,000 yuan a month. You can even earn 1 million yuan a month, and the annual revenue can be equal to that of a company.

According to a previous report by 36Kr, the top teachers on Kuaishou currently earn between 2 and 3 million yuan a year. If it is operated institutionally, the annual revenue of a mature Kuaishou education account may be between 10 and 15 million, and it will have more SKUs, more monetization paths and conversion methods.

According to Beita Capital's observation, this year Kuaishou's education ecosystem will be able to produce a number of companies with revenues of tens of millions, and some of them may even be individuals rather than companies.

According to an industry insider, in the Kuaishou education ecosystem, generally speaking, the annual average fans of an account multiplied by 3-5 is the annual revenue range of the account.

For example, if an account has an average of 500,000 annual followers, then the annual revenue of this account is expected to reach around 1.5 to 2.5 million yuan.

According to iResearch Consulting statistics and estimates, the short video + education market size reached 6.23 billion yuan in 2019 and will maintain rapid growth, with a CAGR expected to reach 50% in the next five years. In 2019, the GMV of educational products and content sold through the short video platform channel was approximately 11.75 billion yuan, and will maintain rapid growth. It is expected that the GMV will exceed 100 billion yuan by 2023.

1. What are the mainstream profit models for educational short video hosts?

First of all, the prerequisite for an anchor to monetize is that the account has a person (at least a regular on-screen character), the anchor’s professionalism and reliable endorsement, and a certain number of fans and loyalty. If you don't have these, then the current core focus should be on account positioning and increasing followers, establishing account temperature, and cultivating fan stickiness.

The core monetization methods of educational short video anchors are similar to those of other short video authors, which are nothing more than the two commonplace ones:

1.1 Fans pay (ToC)

The e-commerce sales model includes proprietary courses and educational peripheral products (books, cultural and creative products, toys, etc.), live broadcast gift rewards and other supplementary income.

1.2 Advertisers pay (ToB)

For advertising monetization, after the number of fans reaches 100,000, you can open Douyin Star Map & Kuaishou Quick Order; the types of advertising include brand advertising (such as pit fees, i.e. the cost of linking) and performance advertising (such as low-priced courses for educational institutions to attract traffic).

Advertising monetization is more dependent on the size of fans and the commercial value of fan portraits, following the typical 2/8 principle. Generally, only top-tier accounts can make money, and usually require cooperation with a professional MCN agency business team to create it.

In addition, due to the verticality of educational short videos, the brand owners that can be attracted are limited, and marketing services are mainly provided by well-known educational institutions in the education vertical industry.

In general, e-commerce sales is still the main commercialization method for educational short video hosts, and e-commerce sales are inevitably inseparable from the business logic of [people-goods-place].

2. People-Cargo-Venue

2.1 People-Fans

Don’t rush to monetize when you don’t have many fans in the early stages, as this will make you seem very purposeful and may cause fans to dislike you.

Of course, there is no standard line in the education industry as to how many fans are needed to start monetizing. You should refer to the situation in different segments and fan stickiness. Fan stickiness can be tested by the number of online people in the live broadcast room.

Referring to the threshold of Kuaishou’s incentive plan, you can start live streaming and start monetizing after your fans exceed 10,000.

2.2 Goods - Courses and Educational Peripherals

In e-commerce sales, education monetization categories are concentrated in: courses, books, stationery, toys, and teaching aids.

Among these, course income is the main means of commercial monetization, and unlike books and stationery that require some costs, the cost of making courses is extremely low and the profit margin is extremely high.

2.3 Live Broadcast Room

As a virtual non-standard product, courses require a lot of detailed descriptions to build trust, which makes live streaming a must. In fact, the monetization of educational short videos ultimately depends on the live broadcast scenario. 2020 is known as the first year of live streaming sales, and educational accounts have also caught up with this wave of trends.

So to sum up, if an educational short video anchor hopes to earn a million dollars a year, the main way to monetize is to monetize knowledge - live streaming + selling courses; the second is live streaming with goods (physical goods).

If we break it down, there are several key operational links involved, namely: live broadcast operation, course operation, supply chain, private domain traffic + conversion. This involves the creation of an entire team, and the quality of its operation and collaboration will determine the income ceiling of an account.

The ideal situation is that each module is operated by professional talents, and there is no shortage of complex traders who can manage the entire system.

Below, I will combine some educational short video cases that I have personally observed to concretely analyze the operational skills and precautions in these key links. Due to space constraints, I will only analyze the direction and core focus points, and relevant articles will be produced later to elaborate. Experienced friends are welcome to communicate in the background.

2.3.1 Live broadcast operation

The final monetization needs to rely on live streaming. It is crucial to form regular live streaming, consolidate fan stickiness, retain people entering the live streaming room, and make people willing to consume and come back repeatedly after consuming.

Different from live streaming that is purely for selling goods, live streaming for educational purposes needs to be mainly based on lectures, with selling goods as a supplement.

Key points of live broadcast operation:

1. Traffic generation: How to create a popular live broadcast room - conventional operations include preheating, spending money, and hot-selling promotions;
2. Content: Live content script planning, topic operation, a highlight every 3-5 minutes to retain random viewers;
3. Interaction: guide interactive design, respond to fans’ questions in a timely manner, connect with fans, send gifts and benefits, etc.;
4. Conversion: live broadcast room scene layout, visual assistance, rhythm control, sales skills for different products, etc.
5. Data: Extract, analyze, organize and summarize live broadcast operation data, adjust operation strategies based on data feedback and competitive product analysis, repeatedly test and optimize every detail, and improve live broadcast user retention, stickiness and conversion rate.

2.3.2 Course Operation

Good courses play a core role in conversion rate and repurchase rate, and all marketing techniques are icing on the cake. How should we plan and adopt a differentiated approach based on the characteristics of the live broadcast room instead of simply copying existing high-priced courses?

For example: 101 Teacher Factory is helping top education anchors to develop courses and opening up high-commission distribution rights to its contracted talents.

Key points of course operation:

1. Course design: To create a hit course, whether the course theme meets the strong needs or pain points of the fan portrait, and whether the design of the content, format, and service links can fulfill the learning objectives and achieve learning results;
2. Course production: polishing and presenting the course transcript to ensure content quality and delivery effect;
3. Pricing strategy: Don’t set the unit price too high at the beginning; make small profits but quick turnover. If it is a recorded broadcast, it is best not to exceed 500 yuan. You can add some physical objects, and the entrance price of the lead-in course should not exceed 10 yuan. According to article data, when it comes to live streaming, Kuaishou users usually prefer low-priced and easy-to-use products. Kuaishou products priced between RMB 0-30 and RMB 30-50 are more popular, and the products and users are more down-to-earth. Douyin users are more accepting of prices, and products priced between RMB 50-200 are generally popular.
4. Packaging: Course details page packaging, how to discover pain points, activate needs, teacher endorsements, student reviews, etc.;
5. Courses available.

【Kuaishou Classroom】：

Kuaishou supports online courses, which can be started with 800 fans, and partners support early opening.

Currently, the revenue sharing ratio between Kuaishou platform and individuals and MCN is about 50% after tax. Kuaishou platform obtains about 50% after tax as service fee, and the rest is the actual income of users. Courses can also be sold through third-party self-operated stores (Youzan, etc.), and the platform only charges a certain technical service fee.

【Douyin Store】:

Toutiao paid columns can currently only be listed through Douyin stores (and must be in the "Book Education" - "Education and Training" category). If an individual does not have his own store, he can open an official store (Byte Education Classroom).

Currently, the platform charges a share of about 40%, and Douyin Store will charge a 10% platform service fee based on the final net profit (profit after deducting various fees and commissions).

Of course, you can also put empty course shells on the Douyin store and guide users to complete the course delivery on WeChat. In this way, the platform only charges a 10% service fee. However, Douyin officials are currently upgrading their own knowledge payment platform, and it is expected that delivery may be forced to be completed within the product in the future.

2.3.3 Supply Chain Capabilities

Short video platforms themselves are actively promoting supply chain construction. Douyin provides a selected alliance, which connects products from Douyin stores and third-party mainstream e-commerce platforms; Kuaishou also has Kuaishou stores, and also supports third-party mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Youzan and JD.com. Education anchors who are just starting out and do not have the ability to build their own supply chain can distribute high-quality goods and earn commissions, which can save a lot of customer service, logistics, and after-sales costs.

2.3.3.1 Supply Chain Key Points:

Product selection: The content should be vertical, and the goods sold should also be vertical to the content and fans. If the content and goods are targeted, it will be easier to sell goods. As far as education anchors are concerned, the core categories are nothing more than books, teaching aids, toys, stationery, and teaching aids. Reference standards for product selection:

1. It fits the character and meets the needs of fans;
2. Price advantage, the lowest price on the entire network;
3. Profit margins should be high;
4. Hot products and internet-famous books (you can check the sales volume on the entire network);
5. Uniqueness, scarcity;
6. Practicality, solving pain points, such as academic subjects;
7. Strong endorsement;
8. Story extension.

Except for the first three, not all of the above criteria need to be met.

General third-party short video data platforms will have a TOP product ranking list, which can be used to selectively filter educational peripheral categories such as books and toys, view the number of related videos, sales, views, selling prices, product conversion rates and commission rates within the product cycle, and view the promotional videos corresponding to the popular products.

2.3.3.2 Self-built supply chain

When the team is large, you can try to build your own supply chain. Only by opening up the back-end supply chain can you make the sales more sustainable.

On the one hand: trace back upstream and explore cost-effective sources of goods to ensure cheaper prices, better quality goods, and higher profit margins.

For example: Naodong History (302w fans on Douyin), @地球村论者 (1214w fans on Douyin), etc., rely on a large fan base, operate their own stores, connect with upstream book and stationery suppliers and agents, establish their own product selection strategies, and have launched many popular products with sales of over 10,000 on a single platform.

On the other hand: creating your own brand, developing IP derivatives, contacting factories for self-production, and opening up logistics and after-sales service can provide fans with differentiated products, ensure the front-end and back-end shopping experience, and expand the influence of IP and increase the ceiling of commercial monetization.

2.3.3.3 Store Operation

Self-operated store SKU management, logistics and after-sales; maintain and improve store ratings; contact experts for distribution, develop business cooperation, etc.

2.3.4 Private Domain Traffic

Although the short video platform can already realize the complete business closed loop of "sales-delivery" of goods, it can shorten the traffic conversion path and increase the transaction rate. However, for the service-oriented education industry, the platform’s infrastructure is not yet perfect enough to provide students with the best service experience (such as homework grading, student interaction, and teaching assistants answering questions).

Moreover, education itself is an industry with a long decision-making cycle, especially for courses with high customer unit prices, which require building long-term trust. Fans within the platform are ultimately public domain traffic. It is impossible to achieve flexible (two-way) contact and feedback like the WeChat ecosystem, and to convert the public domain to the private domain, consolidate the private domain traffic pool, and help sell courses/recruit apprentices/training at higher customer units, thereby meeting greater commercial monetization capabilities.

Therefore, it is not difficult to see that many education anchors divert and convert private traffic from short video platforms to WeChat by leaving their WeChat ID, public account, phone number, etc. in their introductions, private messages, header images, comment areas, etc.

Traffic-generating tools range from low-priced courses, free benefits (membership experience, open courses, electronic materials, etc.), to fan groups.

Of course, at present, the most efficient way to attract traffic is live broadcast + low-priced courses. Due to space constraints, I will not elaborate on this topic. Subsequent articles will separately sort out the operational skills of institutional traffic diversion. Welcome to follow and communicate.

Author: Sihan

Source: Liao Liao Dimension