The nature of private domain traffic and a guide to building an operational model!

Recently, the topic of private domain traffic has reached a new high.

Most companies are considering or have already started to plan their private domain traffic.

Regardless of whether the business is suitable for private domain traffic operations, whether the built private domain traffic model is the optimal model, or even whether the private domain traffic operation method of one's own business is correct.

Just keep going.

The results may be:

The operating staff used various methods to get a large number of users into the group, and sent various advertising links and promotions to the group over a long period of time. Then the operated group gradually became a dead group directed and acted by the group owner.

I don’t know if this result is similar to the result of your private domain traffic operation.

I think,

The root causes of this result are:

Operations personnel lack the breadth and depth of thinking about the nature, purpose, operation model, operation process framework, and operation methods of private domain traffic operations.

So,

How can we operate private domain traffic well? You can think about it from the following five aspects:

1. The essence of private domain traffic operation
2. Operational process framework
3. Conversion
4. Repeat purchase
5. Operational Model

Next,

I will talk about them one by one.

01. The essence of private domain traffic operation

We know that the definition of private domain traffic is:

Private domain traffic is a concept relative to public domain traffic. Simply put, it refers to traffic that can be used multiple times at any time without paying, such as self-media, WeChat accounts, WeChat groups, etc.

According to this definition,

Many people are obsessed with traffic and try various ways to import a lot of traffic to their personal WeChat accounts, WeChat groups and other channels, and then post all kinds of product information, advertisements, and promotional activities on their Moments and WeChat groups. However, in the end, they hardly bring any conversions and may even reduce the GMV of the business.

The root cause of this result is actually easy to understand.

It's like,

A pile of feces, no matter how many times it is displayed in front of you, no matter what type or shape it is presented in, would you choose to eat it?

Obviously, no matter how many times it is shown in front of you, you will not eat it and may even find it disgusting.

Just like the private traffic pool we have built, if it is not constructed reasonably, no matter how many times the product information is displayed to consumers, consumers will not place an order, and may even feel that it is a harassment and directly block you.

In order to make private domain traffic operations ultimately generate commercial value, we must first answer a question, which is:

What is the essence of private domain traffic operation?

Here I give my understanding. I think the essence of private domain traffic operation is: SCRM, that is, social user relationship management (currently the best channel for social management is within the WeChat ecosystem, namely personal accounts, WeChat groups, corporate WeChat, etc.). By managing user relationships, we can improve conversion rates and repurchase rates, thereby reducing the company's marketing costs, maximizing the user's entire life cycle value, and ultimately improving the company's operating efficiency and profit levels.

When talking about SCRM, we have to start with its history CRM. Only in this way can we have a deeper understanding of the concept of SCRM.

CRM refers to customer relationship management, which plays different roles in different time periods:

In the era when digital marketing was not yet popular, the main function of CRM was to aggregate customer contact information and act as a memo;

After the development of mobile Internet, CRM was mainly used by sales management teams for sales funnel and business and data table analysis.

In the era of the rise of private domain traffic, CRM can realize customer interaction and information push, truly realizing that CRM can be responsible for business conversion;

These are the three main stages in the development of CRM.

Judging from the current situation,

Although current CRM systems can achieve customer interaction and information push, and can dial customers' phones and send emails with one click, it is found that phone calls are only used as the first contact with customers, and emails are almost no longer used by customers.

The times are progressing, products are progressing, and now there is a product called WeChat.

So, even if we call the customer, we will find that the customer will still ask you to add the customer on WeChat and then send the information to them. Although for some businesses, telephone contact is still valuable, we find that part of the customer conversion work has been transferred to WeChat, or some businesses with higher average order value still need to complete part of the conversion work on WeChat.

This is how SCRM (social customer relationship management) came about. It has an extra S compared to CRM. The full spelling of S stands for Social, which means socializing. With socializing, there are connections, and with connections, many problems can be solved.

for example:

Solve the problem of information asymmetry, solve the problem of trust, etc.

02. Operational process framework

Clearly understand the essence of private domain traffic: SCRM within the WeChat ecosystem.

Next, let’s talk about the second topic, the construction of the operation process framework.

During the operation of private domain traffic, operators need to build a set of operation process frameworks, that is, they need to build a user conversion channel.

How to build a private domain traffic operation framework?

I think we can build it based on this logical thinking:

Traffic introduction - operation - conversion - fission - repeat purchase.

Regarding these 5 nodes, I will briefly talk about them here.

The first node: How to introduce traffic?

You can refer to my previous two articles on customer acquisition: "The basic logic and ideas of how startups can increase users" and "How To B Business Acquire Customers".

The second node: operation. After introducing users into the private traffic pool, continuous operation is required.

There are three main operation methods: content operation, event operation, and data-based operation.

Content operation, the content operation of private domain traffic pool probably includes: public account content operation, community content interaction, video content planning and operation, etc.

Activity operation. The activity operation of private domain traffic pool probably includes: live broadcast activities, promotional activities, group buying activities, new product activities, offline activities, etc.

Data-driven operation means fine-grained management of users by stratifying and classifying them.

I will not elaborate on fission here. I will talk in depth about conversion and repeat purchase later.

03. Conversion

Conversion means to conduct transactions with customers.

But it is so difficult to trade with customers. There are many obstacles in the process, such as:

Customers don’t understand you and don’t know who you are; you don’t grasp the customers’ purchasing motivations; customers don’t trust you and are not comfortable doing business with you; the cost of action for customers to try and experience your product for the first time is too high, etc.

We need to identify and resolve these issues that affect transactions, and ultimately complete the conversion and transactions with customers, thereby helping customers solve their problems and realizing the company's revenue.

According to my understanding, I can divide all resistance problems into the following four categories:

1. understand
2. motivation
3. trust
4. Cost of Action

In the process of private domain traffic operation, we need to help customers solve the above four categories of problems, so as to ultimately promote the occurrence of transactions.

Next,

Let’s discuss these four questions one by one.

1. Understanding

If users cannot understand the solutions, products and services we provide. Well, I think no matter how many times the products and services are exposed to users, they will not achieve much conversion effect.

You may think: "This is impossible. After the team polishes the copy and then sends the product and service information to users, users should be able to understand it." However, in reality, many teams do this.

for example:

I once saw a company that sold selected agricultural products. When a user asked the company about its operations and what it did, the operations department replied: "Our company is the ×× new retail platform, which was developed by ×× Group Co., Ltd. based on rural revitalization services, and is committed to creating a high-quality agricultural product O2O new retail platform."

You see,

Such an introduction is a bit self-congratulatory and too professional. Consumers simply cannot understand what O2O, new retail, and rural revitalization are talking about.

If consumers cannot hear or understand your business, then it will obviously be detrimental to subsequent transaction conversions.

therefore,

We need to understand how to package our products from the user's perspective and express the selling points of our products in a language that users can understand.

2. Motivation

If any product does not solve the user's consumption motivation problem and generate user demand, no matter how much exposure it receives, it may not have any effect. This is especially true for products with higher average order value.

What are the customer's needs?

I have two very valuable charts from the Harvard Business Review that I would like to share with you. These two charts list the main demand factors of consumers of To C business and corporate customers of To B business.

Consumer demands for To C business include: functional, emotional, life-changing, and social impact.

The corporate customer demands of To B business include: basic value, functional value, convenience value, personal value and ideal value.

According to the demand classification in these two pictures, find your business and match them one by one to see what types of demand problems your business helps users solve.

After identifying the user's needs and motivations, you can then move on to solving the next problem.

3. Trust

If the two parties who want to trade do not have a basis of trust, then you can imagine how difficult it is to make the transaction take place.

It's just like a company that you are completely unfamiliar with, have no trust in, and that sells houses, cars, or does financial management business trying to sell you business. I guess you would not do business with such a company.

What is trust?

Reizman said: "Trust is an individual's unique belief in the general reliability of the sincerity, goodwill, and trustworthiness of others."

Rotter said: "Trust is an individual's general expectation of the reliability of another person's words, promises, and oral or written statements."

Zheng Yefu said that trust relationships have the following characteristics:

First, time difference and asymmetry.

Actions and fulfillment lag behind promises and agreements. There is a time lag between words and actions, between commitment and fulfillment, and a certain uncertainty between the trustor and the trusted.

Second, uncertainty.

If there is certainty, there will be no such thing as risk and risk response, and it will not be called trust.

Third, because there is not enough objective basis, trust is a subjective tendency and desire.

That is to say,

Trust is an attitude, believing that someone's behavior or the order around them is in line with one's wishes. It can be specifically expressed in three types of expectations:

It is not an understanding in the epistemological sense of the orderliness of nature and society, the obligations to partners, and the technical capabilities of a certain role. It is between omniscience and ignorance, and it is a belief regardless of uncertainty.

You need to build things that make customers trust you, let customers know, and then trust you.

There are many ways.

for example:

Reciprocity, referrals, authority, brand influence, customer cases, collateral, social recognition, proof of action, expert status, commitment guarantee mechanisms, etc.

There is a company called "Qian Dama", which runs a fresh meat market. Its target audience is residents in the community who buy vegetables. The company's slogan is: Qian Dama, we don't sell overnight meat.

So how can we make residents believe: Aunt Qian, we don’t sell overnight meat?

Qiandama’s specific approach to building trust is to clear out inventory every day. In order to complete the clearance, discounts are offered starting at 19:00 every day and continuing until 23:30. Then, if the products are not sold out, they are delivered for free. Trust is established through proof of actual actions.

4. Action Cost

When a product or service solves the user's purchasing motivation, the user does not know whether the promises fulfilled by the product or service meet their expectations.

At this time, it is still difficult to get users to place orders.

Especially some products with high average order value and complex decision-making process.

Because at this time the user's action cost, or the cost of the user choosing a new plan to replace the old plan is relatively high.

at this time,

We need to lower the user's action cost, allowing them to experience the product for free or at a lower price, so that they can perceive the product's value in advance. Only then can we sell high-priced products to users and make them more likely to repurchase.

Case,

There is an online education company that provides online skills training for Internet practitioners. It has launched a series of high-priced courses, which cost around 5,000 yuan.

Such a high-priced course,

It is not difficult to imagine that even if this education company solves the user's purchasing motivation problem, it will still be difficult to convert users to place orders to purchase courses.

Because, at this time, the user's action cost is very high.

In order to reduce the user's action cost, let the user take action, perceive the value of the course in advance, and then establish initial trust.

The company refined and streamlined a course worth 5,000 yuan into one worth 18 yuan, allowing users to experience the value of the course at a lower price.

Then, based on the established trust, we further converted the customer and sold the 5,000 yuan course.

04. Repeat purchase

In order to increase user repurchase rate, the most common practice we see is that merchants continuously carry out promotional activities in private traffic pools.

The result of this is that

Users are constantly suffering from "promotion fatigue" and gradually lose interest in the promotional activities planned by merchants, and GMV will become lower and lower.

So,

How should we think about increasing user repurchase rate?

Based on my experience, we can think about it from the following two aspects:

1. Facilitate the user's first 3 to 5 purchases

2. Membership system and storage system

1. Facilitate the first 3 to 5 purchases

A research report shows that user stickiness can only be developed when the user makes the fifth purchase, and the first three purchases have the greatest impact on stickiness.

Therefore, getting users to make the first 3 to 5 purchases is a very critical thing.

How to do it specifically?

It is necessary to manage the user life cycle well. During the entire life cycle of a user, after the first purchase, he or she will go through four stages: active stage; silent stage; dormant stage; and churn stage.

The first stage: the active period. During this stage, you must ensure the frequency of contact so that users can understand the product value you want to convey, but not mainly through promotions and discounts.

The second stage: the silent period. During this stage, a certain frequency of contact with users is guaranteed, and a small amount of marketing and promotional activities are started to stimulate user consumption.

The third stage: the dormant stage. The risk of user loss is relatively high during this stage. It is necessary to control the limited number of contacts with users and win back users by planning larger promotional activities.

The fourth stage: the churn period. Users in this stage are basically lost. The frequency of contact with users should be reduced and they should only be used during big promotions.

Through four steps of refined operations, your user lifetime value will be greater.

2. Membership system and storage system

The membership system means that users are required to apply for paid membership cards. Paid membership cards require users to pay a certain fee to become members, and then they can enjoy exclusive benefits and services.

The storage system means that the company uses various marketing methods, such as gifts for storage, coupons for storage, and other activities to encourage users to store value in advance.

Through the membership and storage system, you can bind the user's future consumption in advance. Whenever the user has demand next time, he or she will come to you to consume.

Encouraging the first 3 to 5 purchases as well as membership and storage systems are all good ways to increase user repurchase rates.

05. Operational Model

In the WeChat ecosystem, we can at least:

WeChat personal account + enterprise WeChat + official account + mini program + WeChat group are the five carriers for interacting with users.

With such a rich variety of carriers, in the process of specific application, various combinations of carriers will result in different operation models of private domain traffic. Different operation models will naturally produce different results.

When building a specific operating model, there may be the following types:

1. Public Account
2. Personal Number
3. WeChat Business
4. Public account + personal account
5. Official Account + Enterprise WeChat
6. Personal account + WeChat group
7. Enterprise WeChat account + Enterprise WeChat group
8. Official account + personal account + WeChat group
9. Official account + corporate WeChat account + corporate WeChat group
10. Official account + personal WeChat account + corporate WeChat account + WeChat group + mini program
11. etc.

Ideally, when building an operating model, the more carriers included, the better. After all, the more carriers there are, the more carriers there will be to interact with users and to push relevant information.

However, how to ultimately build the operating model will still be determined based on comprehensive considerations such as each company’s different business conditions, human resources, and input-output ratio.