With 0 advertising investment, how can K12 education achieve 150,000+ paid conversions?

Under the premise of 0 fans and 0 investment, how can K12 course products (high school online courses) achieve paid conversion?

This is undoubtedly a tricky problem for operations. Currently, common ways of playing in the education industry are fission, community marketing, group buying, distribution and other methods. Since there are no seed users, it is obvious that none of the above promotion methods are suitable. After learning about the course product in detail, I chose to acquire the first batch of seed users on Zhihu.

It took 6 months to build the IP account from 0 to 1. Currently, the Zhihu creator level is 7, with more than 5,000 fans and a cumulative paid conversion amount of more than 150,000.

The following content is a complete review and summary. Since the company account name cannot be disclosed, please forgive us.

1. Why choose to operate a Zhihu account?

As we all know, Zhihu is a high-quality question-and-answer community with clear questions and high-quality and professional answers. There are two other very important reasons:

1. Target user matching

If you search for keywords such as "high school physics" and "high school chemistry" on the Zhihu homepage, you will find many high-quality questions and answers. The followers of this question are our target users.

2. Associate Baidu search

When we search questions on Baidu from a student's perspective, such as "How to learn high school physics well?", except for the first few advertisements, Zhihu's related questions are ranked relatively high. Therefore, there is a high chance that our answers on Zhihu can get secondary exposure through Baidu search.

2. Details about Zhihu Operation

1. Be familiar with Zhihu's operating rules

No matter which platform you choose, it is very important to understand the platform rules first. In this way, in future operations, we can effectively avoid illegal operations and maintain account weight.

1) Exclusive rights and benefits for Zhihu levels

V3-Zhihu Live, V4 content self-recommendation, V5 appreciation function, V7 Zhihu Live+ custom promotion

2) Self-recommendation of content

When the creator level reaches V4-V7, you can get 3 content self-recommendation opportunities per month (both articles and answers are acceptable)

3) Customized promotion

You can choose to promote yourself or Zhihu official:

• Promote yourself - promotional content will be displayed at the bottom of all articles and answer pages on the mobile phone;
• Promote the official website - Zhihu paid content promotion and you can get corresponding income.

One of the key goals of Zhihu's initial operations was to upgrade the creator level to level 4 so that they could receive official recommendations and gain more exposure.

Special attention should be paid to:

1. Do not add WeChat ID, QQ number and other information in the comment section. Once posted, it will be considered as a violation by Zhihu.
2. Violations will result in a reduction in salt value and account ban. The higher the Zhihu salt value, the more functions it enjoys and the higher the weight. The weight is related to the ranking of Zhihu answers, so please do not violate any rules.
3. The same content can only be published twice on Zhihu, once as an answer and once as an article. If you encounter two similar questions, you cannot use the same answer. Once it is posted twice, it will be deleted immediately and the account will be judged to be in violation of the rules - posting duplicate content.

2. IP account creation

Because we teach high school physics online, the entire account layout is designed for the persona of "high school physics teacher":

• Account name: **High School Physics
• Introduction: High school physics teacher with 20 years of teaching experience, currently a senior class teacher
• Certification: **School Physics Teacher

Certification is divided into academic degree recognition and full-time employment certification. After certification, a blue label + certification logo will be displayed on the right side of the name. The certification logo can increase the authority and credibility of the account.

In addition, external content such as account background images, avatars, image keywords, paid consultation introductions, detailed information, etc. need to be treated carefully. The display of Zhihu background image on mobile phone is different from that on PC. When setting it, you should pay special attention to whether the display on mobile phone is normal.

Don’t underestimate these details. The user’s first impression of your account is in the details.

3. High-quality content output

Zhihu operations must follow the principle of high-quality content creation. In other words, your content must be valuable. If you just read the content for the sake of nonsense or to be witty, it will be meaningless for subsequent conversions.

For a startup education company, the North Star metric for operations is conversion rate rather than the number of readings. Every answer must be sufficiently informative and professional so that parents and students can trust you. With trust, conversion becomes relatively easy.

Once you have a clear goal, you can then choose questions to answer in a targeted manner.

3. How to find high-quality questions

1. Issues with high follower and pageview counts

After you select a question to answer, the answer will first enter the review stage. After the review is successful, the system will push this answer to all users who follow this question. In other words, the more people who follow you, the greater the chance of getting exposure.

But for new accounts, there are also disadvantages to only selecting such questions. A large number of followers means a large number of answers, and because new accounts have no weight, your answer is likely to be drowned out by the many answers.

2. Zhihu Hot List Issues

The questions on the hot list all have millions or tens of millions of popularity. For two similar questions, the exposure brought by being on the hot list and not being on the hot list is a world of difference. So when you encounter a suitable hot list question, you must answer it carefully.

3. Questions answered by industry experts

When an account has been operating for a long time, you will find that many problems are similar. The difficulty of operation becomes how to find the most suitable one among many similar problems.

In this case, you can look at the questions answered by big Vs in the same industry. In fact, this is equivalent to doing competitive analysis in disguise. While researching and asking industry experts to answer questions, you will also gradually find the advantages and disadvantages of your own products and provide optimization suggestions for the courses.

4. Official Questions

Questions from some official accounts, such as "Tencent News", "Pear Video", "Zhihu Daily", "Zhihu Campus", etc.

5. Issues that are currently hot topics but have not yet been listed on the hot list (predicting hot list topics)

Such questions are those that may become popular in the future. For example, in the few days before the college entrance examination, many questions like this appeared on Zhihu:

"Countdown to the college entrance examination, what do you want to say to the college entrance examination candidates?"

"Countdown to the college entrance examination, what exam experience can you share?"

Based on the social hot topics at the time, I predicted that this type of question would likely be on the hot list, so I would write answers before these questions became popular. Fortunately, some of the issues here later became hot topics, which brought me unexpectedly high exposure and attention.

Therefore, operators must be aware of social hot spots and prepare in advance for foreseeable hot topics such as the college entrance examination.

6. Pay attention to the problem log

It is very important to look at the issue log, where you can see information such as the creation time, creator, issue details, etc.

Take our course products as an example. For example, I found a question like this: "Who teaches high school online courses well?" At first glance, this question is very targeted.

However, the log shows that this question was created in 2014, three years after high school, which means that the student who asked this question has already graduated. Then sort all the answers by time and find that the most recent answer is in 2018. There have been no new answers in the past two years. Such questions can be directly passed.

4. How to create high-quality content

1. Professional

Because we are creating the character of "high school physics teacher", the answers and articles on Zhihu must demonstrate the teacher's professional insights into the subject.

As long as students collect or like your posts, it means that they agree with the views you expressed. When students encounter the learning problems described in the article one day, they will naturally think of you.

2. True feelings

Physics is different from language, so you don't need to use too many fancy words when answering questions.

In other words, the content we produce must be close to students' daily lives and be down-to-earth, so that students and parents can perceive the true feelings in the text and will not think that you are superior.

3. Make the opening appealing

If you want to catch the reader's attention, the beginning must make the user feel "interesting", so that the user will be interested in your subsequent content.

For example, a student once asked, “Is physics a less rigorous subject?”

At the beginning, I did not directly answer whether it was rigorous or not, but asked the students: "Do you think it is scientific that in ancient times, when it rained, there had to be Lei Gong and Dian Mu?" It does seem outrageous now, but it was scientific to the ancients because that was the logic of how they thought about problems.

The same is true for physics. Physics is phenomena and truth, experiments and laws. In other words, in physics, there is a phenomenon first, and then humans use logic to explain this phenomenon. It would be best if the explanation makes sense, but it’s okay if it doesn’t. It is very likely that with the advancement of technology thousands of years later, our current logic will be overturned.

4. Ask questions that resonate with people

This is a common writing style for many copywriters, where a question is raised at the beginning to arouse resonance or curiosity.

for example:

"What kind of life did those top scorers who were randomly selected from Tsinghua University and Peking University live later? Were they successful later?"

"If you love her, you must know 100 statistics" "Half of 2020 has passed. How many goals have you set at the beginning of the year and completed them now?"

“Why do some children work hard on their homework but still get unsatisfactory results?”

When you raise a question that bothers a classmate or parent, and then use professional knowledge to analyze and solve the problem, users will naturally follow the rhythm of your article.

5. Create conflicts

We often see people write sentences like "I oppose the highly praised answer using my real name", which is a typical example of creating conflicts. After reading the highly praised answer, users will be curious about this sentence: "What is your reason for objection?"

It should be noted that this method is only applicable if you have extremely convincing reasons to refute the above point of view, otherwise the effect may be counterproductive.

5. How to get more exposure

1. Forward to dynamics, circles

Every article or answer forwarded to personal updates is considered secondary exposure. The applicable condition is that there must already be a certain fan base, otherwise secondary forwarding will have no practical effect.

The second is Zhihu's circle function, which is similar to the Tieba function. Users in the same field can communicate in the circle and forward their own articles in the circle. However, you should be careful to greet the circle creator or administrator, as advertising content may be deleted.

2. Add hyperlinks to other answers or articles

Perform data analysis regularly and insert links to other answers in some articles or answers with high exposure.

3. Zhihu Column

Articles published on Zhihu can be integrated into columns. Users who follow the columns will receive notifications every time an article is updated in the column.

4. Likes from influencers

Friends who often visit Zhihu may often see a sentence like this: "Which big V liked my post?" The account weight of a big V is relatively high. After liking your post, it will not only improve the ranking of your answer, but all the big V's followers will be able to see the big V's likes. So if you have some big V friends, please hold on to their thighs tightly.

Remember, although big V accounts can bring high-weight approval, they can also bring high-weight opposition, which is why it is important for us to maintain accounts.

5. Round Table

Once the creator level reaches Level 7, they can enjoy the rights of a roundtable host. In addition to the host, the roundtable function also involves organizers, guests and other users, and will include selected topics and the latest questions.

For Zhihu creators, the roundtable is also a section that can increase exposure.

6. Zhihu Live Lecture

The official definition of Zhihu Live is a real-time voice question-and-answer product where creators can share their experiences or insights on a topic. It should be noted that Live requires users to pay, and the price options are 9.9 and 19.99, and creators can earn income from it.

7. Zhihu official activities

Participating in Zhihu official activities can not only gain traffic support, but also share the bonus.

For example, Zhihu’s Zhizhi Plan includes the Science Season of the Zhizhi Plan, the Mother and Baby Season of the Zhizhi Plan, the Education Season of the Zhizhi Plan, etc.

Creators must pay attention to official activities and participate to have the opportunity to receive high-weight recommendations on the official homepage .

6. Optimize the conversion process

After you have basic fans, you will receive all kinds of questions, whether in the comment section, private messages or paid consultations. At this time, how to correctly guide user conversion becomes a very critical issue.

User conversion path: students or parents see articles or answers - raise learning questions through private messages, comments, etc. - answer questions and guide students to add consultant teachers - students try courses - complete payment conversion.

1. Difficulties in converting K12 users during actual conversion process

1. Unable to convert backend consulting users into private domain traffic: Some students who only consult learning problems in the background and have no awareness of payment are difficult to guide to add consultant teachers.
2. Learning users and paying users are inconsistent: This leads to many students feeling that the class is good, but their parents do not pay for various reasons; or parents approve of the teacher's course, but the students do not like it.
3. Students are unable to obtain effective feedback after the trial class: Online course products require extremely strong self-control. Some students may not have tried the class at all, some students cannot be contacted after the trial class, and some courses are not suitable for their difficulty... No matter what the reason is, it will lead to conversion failure.
4. Users do not accept the course price: conversion is affected due to the course price issue.

2. Optimization measures

1. Give effective responses: Regardless of whether the user has a strong intention to purchase courses, as long as they ask questions in the background or comment area, professional learning suggestions will be given first. Let students feel the teacher's responsible and serious attitude. In this way, even if users cannot be converted, it will still bring good word-of-mouth influence.
2. Provide good user services in advance (pre-sales): for example, we can do test analysis/learning situation diagnosis based on the problems reflected in the students' test papers. Then, we will give trial lessons suitable for the students' level based on their problems. This can effectively avoid the problem of inappropriate course difficulty.
3. Create a trial scenario where both parents and students are present (during sales): You can use software such as Tencent Meeting and DingTalk, so that parents and classmates can experience course products and services at the same time, avoiding conversion failure due to one party's reasons.
4. Do a good job of academic tracking (after-sales): formulate study plans or stage tests, monitor students' learning effects, and help children improve their grades effectively. We need to do well in both product and service, because only when students' grades improve and parents are satisfied with the service, will there be a chance to expand courses and promote referrals.
5. Develop course products at different price points: For users who have lost due to price issues, we can use high-quality, low-priced small courses to guide them to pay. Let users experience the advantages of the course in small classes, and then convert small classes into large classes.

The above is a complete review of Zhihu’s operations. I hope it can help partners in the education industry. Trust is the basis of all transactions. The process of exporting our values ​​on Zhihu is also the process of resolving trust issues.

Education is an industry of conscience. Even if there is commercial logic in it, we practitioners must have positive values ​​and must not be eager for quick success and instant benefits or use tricks to make money.

Only when education returns to its original purpose can it achieve long-term development.

Author: Mu Qiqi

Source: Mu Qiqi