Methods and strategies for generating private domain traffic from 0 to 1!

Based on his own work experience and combined with relevant project cases, the author of this article shares his thoughts on building a private domain from 0 to 1 from the aspects of user flow, user conversion and user retention. I hope I can share it with you and find it useful to you.

Let’s make the private domain issue more concrete:

If you are a brand company and your boss gives you the goal of building a private domain traffic user pool of 300,000 this year and the private domain should be able to generate 5 million GMV by the end of the year, what will you do? To achieve the boss’s KPI?

What should the private domain manager do?

My way of thinking is this: "First, study your user group . Any commodity or product needs to solve user needs . What kind of solution can you provide to what kind of user is the core value of this product or commodity."

Suppose we are an e-commerce fast-moving consumer goods company, and our main vertical category is: fashionable women's clothing, and our target group is young women aged 18-35. This positioning should be correct. Then we will split it step by step according to the pirate model:

From finding the right channels to attract fans and traffic - the carriers that carry users - the user's first paid experience - user retention, building relationships, so that users can use and repurchase from us multiple times in the future - fission and sharing

(The user portraits and company background resources of each private domain operation project may be different, and there may be existing inventory. The inventory may be dealt with based on RARAA to improve conversion and fission among existing inventory users. This requires the operator to come up with an operation system).

How do you implement the above 5 steps based on the community?

01 How to attract users

Now that we have found our user base, we need to think about where our user base is, on which channels, and on which platforms. In fact, there are only two major channels: online channels and offline channels. Online channels are divided into:

1. SEO/SEM information flow delivery channels (such as Douyin information flow, Baidu information flow, WeChat Guangdiantong advertising);
2. Some vertical tool community platforms or content platforms, for example, mothers will go to vertical mother and baby product platforms such as Lamamabang and Babytree;
3. You can cooperate with KOLs and KOCs to attract their fans, but the premise is that they are willing to do so, and the premise is that the brand side will settle according to CPS/CPA;
4. Your public fans on major platforms. For example, your Taobao Tmall store followers, Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili followers...

The traffic diverted from the first three channels can be called general traffic . The last channel can be called public domain fans. Pan traffic. My understanding is that he has no knowledge of our brand, and it is very likely that they don’t even know what you are.

For example, if you post an article on a public account of a big V, users will have no idea what you do until they scroll to the bottom to see your product introduction.

Another example is the pop-up ads for community platforms. This type of user traffic is based on very powerful interest points, such as free gifts, free gifts, or red envelopes.

Relying on extremely valuable service privileges, you can add friends to enjoy five free customized door-to-door services or enjoy permanent discounts. Users basically come for your rewards, and of course you will encounter many users who take advantage of you.

Therefore, when launching general traffic channels, the first thing you need to do is to set a threshold; the second thing is to find low marginal cost traffic hooks.

The public domain fans you have accumulated on major platforms have a certain understanding of our brand. We know that you are buying clothes, and you have a clear understanding of the user profile and preferences: young women aged 18-35. In which areas are they distributed, what are their preferences, and which rewards and prizes are they more fond of or sensitive to. It is easier and more accurate to attract such users.

For us e-commerce companies, we have accumulated some accurate old users on Taobao, JD.com, PDD and some content platforms. We can attract traffic through package cards, SMS, Wangwang inquiries, comments and messages, AI outbound calls, active addition of WeChat accounts, etc. (I can only think of so many, if readers have good ways to attract traffic, they can also communicate with me).

First: Package card diversion

The first step in package card drainage is to determine the form of the package card.

In fact, users are now immune to those big red package cards that either say "Add me to get a 2 yuan red envelope" or "Add me to get a 5 yuan red envelope for cash back." Of course, unless you are a big brand, the deletion rate of users who rely on red envelope package cards is very high. After adding you, if you don't have a good retention method, the user may block you the next day.

So if you want to attract users' attention to your package card, I think the first thing you need to do is change the style of the package card. It can no longer be an ordinary card. You can set it as a star card with preservation significance , a bookmark with certain functions, a brand card pendant with certain decorative effects, or a commemorative foldable paper wind chime. First of all, you need to change it from the style.

Second, after the style attracts users, it depends on your hook and content. It could be a red envelope, membership benefits, or free gifts. It can be a physical hook or a virtual hook.

Second: SMS traffic diversion

The bonus rate of SMS traffic is the lowest:

1. Low open rate;

2. He needs to change the scene.

Generally, it is set up through live code external links. First, you need to configure the aggregate live code. The second step is to generate a short link through short link conversion, and then embed it into the text message. Then there are only two situations:

The first type is that users directly click on the external link to open it in the browser on their phone, take a screenshot of your QR code, open it in WeChat and scan it to add it;

The second method is to guide users to copy the link into WeChat and then open it;

There may also be a third situation which may be to guide users to long press the link to open it in WeChat. This is just my guess and I don’t know if it is feasible.

In fact, the most important thing about a text message is whether the few lines of guidance you give can attract users enough to click on it. I am not good at writing copy, so I won't give instructions blindly.

The hooks for SMS are the same: get samples, draw prizes, give out coupons... The prerequisite is that the content of the SMS is well packaged. Here you can refer to Ping Duoduo’s copywriting.

The third type: Wangwang inquiry

It’s very simple, that is, when a user comes to the store customer service for consultation, you can ask her to add WeChat and have something sent with the order, but there will be a certain risk of being demoted, and there are also AI voice calls and active bonus points.

In 2017 or 2018, group control was still strong. At that time, we relied on importing mobile phone number lists to actively add users, but now it is rarely seen.

Once you have determined the drainage channels and methods, you need to start A/B testing . Many variables need to be tested, including test content, test hooks, and test forms.

The most important thing about A/B testing is to control one variable , but you can set up multiple experimental groups. For example, if I test the hook and form, and control a single variable, I can set up three groups of experiments:

A and B measure the hook, and C and A measure the form. ' By the way, the sample size must be at least 1,000 people, otherwise it is meaningless.

Make the judgment based on the final bonus rate. After testing the best content, the best hook, and the best form, you can start to attract traffic on a large scale.

Of course, you also need to calculate your ROI . What is your traffic cost? Your delivery volume and add/follow rate are the four data you need to pay attention to in real time.

Generally speaking: simple, direct and highly profitable hooks are the most effective in attracting traffic, so you need to think about what kind of hooks can solve the most direct needs of users.

What is the guiding script for each step in my traffic flow? How can my style and the content I want to express quickly attract users? Therefore, in the process of attracting traffic, we need to find users, determine channels, determine hooks, and determine the words of speech.

02 Carrier that carries users

The carriers of private domain are also those three: public accounts, WeChat groups, personal accounts, and recently there is also a corporate WeChat account . The general drainage paths are:

1. Directly attract followers to the official account B. Direct traffic to the official account – add a personal account
2. Direct traffic to public accounts – personal accounts – WeChat groups
3. Direct traffic to personal account – WeChat group
4. Direct traffic to personal account – public account
5. Direct traffic to personal account – WeChat group – public account. (Readers are welcome to add the remaining paths)

Ideally, it would be best to have all three, because then you will have one more touchpoint and many ways and means to reach people. It is nothing more than:

• The risk of public accounts is low but the reach is not direct;
• Personal accounts have direct reach and high risk;
• WeChat groups have low reach and low risk;
• The gameplay of Qiwei is single.

I would also like to say one more thing: for official accounts and communities, you need to think carefully about your content planning and how you will retain users.

When you have determined your carrier, the next thing you need to do is to build the IP image of your personal account, position the tone of your WeChat group, lay the content of your public account, and also come up with some follow-up words.

When it comes to personal accounts, I have to say something. Creating a personal IP account - that’s the five-piece WeChat set: WeChat name, avatar, friend background, signature, and personality.

Now I think about it, for young women between 18 and 35 years old, what kind of person would she not be disgusted by if there was one more person in my circle of friends?

In fact, the core of building a personal account personality is that you should treat users as human beings, and you yourself are also a human being.

“Treat users as people” means you should give them options instead of just throwing a marketing tactic at them:

• "Dear, we are currently offering 50% off on all items, please scan the QR code to purchase",
• "Dear, here is a 50% discount coupon, please take it."
• "Dear, today is the last day of the discount. If you dare, please scan the QR code and make your purchase."

You can calculate how many times you send such messages before users delete you. I think you should not use the title "dear" to address users in private domains. When you chat with friends and are not very familiar with them, you can call them "little sister", "little fairy", or "beauty" and so on.

Because the private domain is a direct communication between people, you need to distinguish it slightly from the title of customer service in e-commerce. In addition, can you ask the user for his opinion when chatting with him privately and give him the right to choose.

These are some of my thoughts on treating users as human beings. You are also a person. You have a birthday, a job, hobbies, and a life. Only in this way can you show more content in your circle of friends and attract enough users.

Xiao Wanzi is a good example. For female users, the character of best friend may be more popular.

As a straight man, the first thing I thought of when I saw Chibi Maruko-chan was: best friend .

You can think about whether “Xiao Wanzi” is such an image. So after setting up a real person like "best friend", you need to determine the label for the person, what is her occupation, what are her hobbies, what is her zodiac sign, what is her family background and living conditions, etc., to make her character more full and real.

Some brands will also use their own brand cartoon images for positioning. I think it depends on the effect, but one thing that must be noted is that this character is to be built for KOL.

After you have determined such a well-rounded character image, what you need to do is to add more friends to make her look more well-rounded. Life photos, product recommendations, work status... can all be laid out in your circle of friends. This way, when users add you, they will think you are a real person and are willing to chat with you. Also, your follow-up words must be consistent with your character style.

Speaking of groups , I think group operation including friend circle operation is really a tiring job. You need to have different column contents in three time periods of morning, noon and evening, and you also need to think about how to carry out community and friend circle activities.

Push according to the rhythm & SOP. Really community operation is a very energy-consuming and time-consuming activity. You have to appear on time and send out the corresponding content.

It was fine when wetool was available. You could set up the content a week in advance. Now it’s gone. It’s really tiring to manage a group or post to Moments. I have experienced this very well.

So I think before you have figured out what value and content your group can provide to users, you should not create a group for the time being. It’s really tiring.

WeChat groups generally fall into two categories: long-term groups and flash groups.

If it is a long-term group, then your group must prepare a large amount of content library and topic planning in advance. Of course, these contents must be in line with user needs, because your group needs to be active. Although this is a useless piece of nonsense, I think it is still very important. The content must be in line with the needs of your user group.

Appropriate marketing recommendations should not exceed 20%. You can do it in the welfare push section. Appropriate topic interactions and appropriate social games.

Why does Perfect Diary have a group? Because Perfect Diary’s content platform is very powerful. You can see the layout of the marketing language pushed in the Perfect Diary community. It is beautiful and good-looking. I think users will be willing to keep it open with such a layout, even if I am not speaking in it.

If it is a sales group or a flash group , the core of this group is to sell goods , that is, to sell goods and convert them in the community through marketing nodes, then you need to prepare a large amount of product materials, promote products at regular times and locations, promote activities, promote grass-roots promotion, create an atmosphere, and hold lucky draws.

There is still a very important premise here, which is that you have to think about the differentiation of the products you promote or what interest points can impress users and convert transactions within the group.

For example, your group can give users gifts or coupons with low enough value, or the first few people to get a free meal... These are things you must think about before creating a group. Next comes your operational rhythm.

I’ve seen Daojie write about the composition of group members before, and Koala’s private domain courses also write about the composition of group members. The positioning of the group owner: "a flirty group owner who knows how to deal with things" + "a KOL who loves to show off" . Here, the group owner must be your personal IP image.

Positioning of group management: the group owner’s little follower, the group owner’s little assistant . He can be a robot, or there can be a dozen KOCs who love to share, speak, and chat. In the early stage, you can use your own people as water army, and then dig them out after understanding them later.

The rest are the 20% active users and 80% silent users of the 80/20 rule. After creating a group, another thing to think about is breaking the ice . People in the group may not know each other after joining the group, and they can only get to know each other through self-introductions and changing their usernames.

So what you need to do after joining the group is to have a sense of ceremony. There should be many people welcoming you to the group, and the water army is welcoming you to the group. You will feel that many people want to get to know you, and you will be a little happier. So I will let my friends act as the water army and send welcome expressions to everyone who enters the group (you can also think about what other ways to break the ice are there).

Another thing you can definitely do is to decide whether your group needs to do user stratification . Different groups provide different content and rights. These are things you must think about before joining the group.

Content preparation for the official account : I think it’s OK to plan the content of your official account based on your brand tone, product content, and your personal account IP. After thinking about how to use the carrier, you are actually also thinking about how to retain users.

This step is crucial for you, because it determines the tone and direction of your entire private domain project operation, and undertakes the next step of amount conversion, so you must think it through before doing it.

03 Private Domain Conversion

At present, users still do not have the habit of purchasing goods in private domains. To be more precise, they do not have the habit of purchasing on and through WeChat. It will be better after the mall, mini-programs, and H5. Unlike platforms, placing an order on a store on the platform is based on people's trust in the store. The store is endorsed by the platform, and there are a large number of positive feedback, real photos, and detailed product introductions.

But in the private domain, it is based on trust between people . I will only sell the products you recommend after I recognize your personality. It is like this for everyone, from a sense of trust – a sense of ritual – a sense of participation – a sense of belonging , slowly and step by step they become your loyal customers.

Therefore, how to break through the sense of trust and establish a relationship is difficult for every private domain project operator. Perhaps it would be easier to guide users who have purchased products multiple times in your platform store to the private domain to break the sense of trust. Therefore, this will be easier for projects with a certain brand foundation and recognition.

But how do you break the trust of people who have made a purchase or have not made a purchase but are directed to you through the channel?

My idea (it’s just an idea that has not yet been put into practice) is to apply the user operation approach to allow users to fully experience the purchase path in our private domain and achieve the “Aha moment”.

How do you get users to complete your first private domain order? I think it still depends on your personality.

In the first step of adding fans, you must let users know that you are a real person . You must chat with users for more than five sentences to let users know what you do, what value you can bring to them, and what problems you can solve. This is also a problem that private domain operators must solve, how to enable users to establish a relationship with you and gain trust in the shortest time possible.

Next, we apply the same method used for building a platform, with free shipping for 9.9 yuan, purchase for 1 yuan, limited-time flash sales, new member coupons, group purchases of three people, buy one get one free, etc., through subsidies, only targeting new users to allow them to complete their first order experience. The prerequisite is that it must be completed within three days, or the shorter the cycle, the better.

You can complete the first order as quickly as possible by creating flash groups, live broadcasts, and WeChat Moments activities. This requires the trader to have a complete set of strategies for converting new customers.

As for the transaction scenarios, try to convert the first order through the mini program mall or H5 mall, so that users can experience that they can also purchase goods on WeChat. One thing that needs to be noted is that the first order in the private domain must have a sense of privilege and differentiation.

I want to buy products or benefits that I cannot buy in your platform store. Only in this way will my addition to your private domain be meaningful and valuable.

After completing the first order conversion, you will also get the user’s basic information data, and you can then provide some customized services and push notifications.

The trader needs to see whether the activity mechanism and gameplay you set for the first order from new users can really attract users to complete their first order. You need to test your new user order rate and your subsidy cost accounting. What you need to do is to control the activity effect of your new user's first order conversion to continuously optimize and adjust.

In the private domain scenario, what strategies and means can achieve lasting conversion? Let’s briefly list three models:

1. Youzan Mall has group buying, flash sales, bargaining, or membership days;
2. Follow the rhythm of Tmall’s holiday marketing and new product launches to achieve conversions;
3. In the form of sales guide, one WeChat account is a store and the shopping guide sells goods directly.

But I feel that the above methods are not very sustainable and there is no clear path.

04 User retention, relationship building, and repeat purchases

In fact, in the private domain, users who add you to your personal WeChat account and WeChat group can be considered as lost users in the true sense only if they block, blacklist or delete you. If not, it means you can still reach her through one-on-one private chat, group announcements, Moments, and subscription account push.

Therefore, after the user completes the first order, you need to follow up and return visit . If the user does not have order information, you need to take the initiative to notify them and let the assistant notify them.

After three days, ask users for their feedback and feelings in the circle of friends , and then ask if there are any problems. This will be relatively heavy and complicated to do, and it will be better if there are enough community operators to do this.

Therefore, in order to deepen the relationship with users, you still need to continue chatting and communicating so that users can continue to deepen their relationship with you. Then the 137 rule can be applied.

In terms of user retention, there will be many interactive small activities set up, such as signing in to accumulate points within the group, answering questions to get red envelopes, topic interaction, comment draws, new product trials, and sending small gifts . You can combine your own user base to do a small H5 activity, or you can use resources from other industries to stimulate interaction with existing users. Movie tickets, meal coupons, offline organization activities, etc. Another way is to use loss aversion to create a membership points system.

In terms of user repurchase, users who have completed their first order basically have initial trust in your personal IP and private community, so you can do precision marketing based on the usage cycle of your products, user stratification, and labels.

To carry out promotions and discounts in different categories. You can use a specific hot-selling product to carry out an activity, or you can set a membership day to carry out a big discount promotion.

In terms of user retention and repurchase, project managers need to have strong event planning capabilities and the ability to schedule events . They also need to have a strong control over the progress of each event and break down the KPIs of each event according to quarters, indicators, and actual conditions.

Let your team know what tasks and activities to do and when. This is crucial for the project manager himself.

In fact, the activity framework can be summarized into steps. You can string together the entire activity system: purpose - object - grip - mechanism - path.

Let’s simply sort out yours according to this framework:

• Purpose: To activate old users through live streaming sales, and hope to achieve the purpose of selling goods through live streaming. Target: Store community friends + WeChat friends, a total exposure rate of 5,000 people
• Hack: Old users can enjoy discounts when purchasing and the live broadcast room will launch lucky draws.
• Mechanism: Random screenshot draw every hour. Pay a deposit and win a prize for three live-streamed products.
• Path: See the event poster sent by the shopping guide in the circle of friends – scan the code to join the group – push the live broadcast image – get a reminder at the time – enter the live broadcast room when the live broadcast starts.

Other auxiliary arrangements: water army speech, event speech SOP, live broadcast SOP.

05 Fission and referral

What is also tested here is the growth ability of a private domain manager, whether he can achieve fission based on incremental growth and fission based on existing stock. It is actually very simple to do fission. Just set up the scene, think about the user's motivation to participate and share, and then do fission based on the seed users.

You can think of methods such as group fission, personal account fission, and public account fission. Think clearly about the fission path and hooks of each step so that your fission ideas can be smooth enough, user participation is high, and the K factor and fission rate can be high enough. The trader must think and think clearly before doing the activity.

The event theme, the follow-up speech, the event poster, and the event copy are slightly more difficult than doing a big promotion. It depends on the method and mechanism you use to do it. At this time, I usually read more case collections and participate in more fission activities. However, I have not figured out the activity method and methodology of fission, and I still need to learn more.

Regarding the idea of ​​sharing and referral , I think these are some details that require more attention, or you need to set up a special membership system + referral system.

Members can recommend new people using my WeChat. What kind of rewards and benefits can I give to the recommender and the recommended? The number of people I recommend can unlock deeper benefits.

For example, when I am doing follow-up calls, I can ask old users to recommend us more. When I am doing activities, I can appropriately ask old users to invite new users to join the group. What kind of extra rewards will there be if the order is completed? These are all things that traders need to think about.

Finally, let’s go back to the question at the beginning. If you are a brand company and your boss gives you a goal of building a private domain traffic user pool of 300,000 this year and the private domain should be able to generate 5 million GMV by the end of the year, what will you do? To achieve the boss’s KPI?

GMV = number of users * conversion rate * ARPU

Well, the above is my work summary and thoughts on the project in recent time. I want to express it through words, and everyone is welcome to communicate and discuss with me.

Being a trader requires you to think about all aspects, which can be difficult, but you must first do it, and then continuously optimize it to get better and better. As a rookie, I am still on the road of killing monsters and upgrading step by step. As I said before, when you feel pain, it proves that you are growing, so let yourself grow wildly!

Author: ZS__Fang

Source: ZS__Fang