Dismantling Spark Education’s K12 Education Operation Growth Strategy

Today's case comes from Chen Xi, an outstanding contestant in the ongoing 8th Case Analysis Activity. The case analysis he brought is the analysis of Spark Thinking's referral system. Enjoy~

1. Products

Company Background

Spark Education is an online education company in the K12 field that focuses on mathematical thinking education for children aged 3-10. The company is currently in its growth stage and has more than 120,000 formal students. Start building a business model and use the model to drive and scale a business. The company's main business line: Mathematical thinking education courses for children aged 3-10. New business line developed: Big language thinking course.

Product Introduction

Teaching Mode:

It is conducted through online live broadcast and small class teaching. Parents download the Spark Thinking (student version) app and there are two preliminary steps after entering:

1. Click [Device Detection]. You need to log in before you can detect the device. After the detection is completed, proceed to the next step.

2. Click [Admission Assessment]. After completing the assessment, the system will provide the child’s admission plan and suggestions based on the assessment results.

Course Design:

The first game-level interactive teaching, introducing "scenario animation story + knowledge point operation interaction + teaching aids and real objects". The entire course is designed based on the scenario of Spark Planet, and children learn by following the protagonists' process of passing the level.

2. Channels

WeChat public account matrix promotion:

Spark Thinking Service Account Tweets

Spark Thinking Mathematics Classroom Tweets

WeChat Official Account - Personal Center - Invite Friends and Win Gifts

app:

Menu bar – Personal center – Invite friends to win gifts

Menu bar-Personal center-Activation activities-618 activities

Promotion of bringing new customers with old customers:

Every time you introduce a user to register Spark Thinking, the new user may become an activity promoter in the circle of friends.

3. Creativity

1. Activity Introduction

This event is divided into two parts:

Basic part: A long-term referral activity, the main form of which is to share posters to Moments and upload them to the personal center of the app to obtain Spark Coins. You can get 5000 Spark Coins for the first sharing, and 1250 Spark Coins for each sharing thereafter on a weekly basis. Spark Coins can be used to purchase courses. In addition to this main form, if you invite friends to register and complete a trial course or purchase a course for the first time, you will receive a free live course. There is no upper limit. Purpose: This activity is a long-term referral activity that exists stably and prominently in the app's personal center interface.

618 promotion section: users can earn coins by completing tasks and participate in lucky draws. Based on the original activities, users can obtain 1 gold coin by completing tasks such as sharing posters, inviting auditions, etc., and the gold coin can be used for lucky draws. The user's deterministic prize goal is: to win the Dinosaur Escape board game by drawing 6 times, and the uncertain but tempting goal is: to have the opportunity to win 100 free classes and an iPad. Purpose: Based on the basic referral activities, combined with the 618 node, use 100 free courses, iPad and other big prizes to stimulate users' referral efforts.

Next, we will break it down according to [the effect of old customers bringing in new customers = sharing efficiency * conversion efficiency * sharing frequency].

2. Sharing efficiency: The user's sharing efficiency comes from the following psychology:

Still analyzing from the two points of basic activities and 618 activities:

Basic Activities

Spark Thinking has achieved the first two necessary psychological requirements. However, the psychology of adding extra points is less reflected here, and is only reflected in the personalized poster design.

1) Let’s look at the necessary psychology first:

1. Recognition of the value of the product itself belongs to the product level and will not be discussed here.

2. In terms of gaining benefits, there are two benefits in basic referral activities:

For new users: You can get 5,000 Spark Coins for your first sharing and screenshot upload.

For old users: Share once a week and upload a screenshot to get 1250 Spark Coins.

Spark Coins can be exchanged for courses, online cards and other benefits.

These two benefits target two different psychologies:

When users don’t know much about and trust a product, they will be highly defensive when the product calls on them to do something. Therefore, at this time we should use greater rewards to encourage users to take the first step, and also to cultivate users' behavioral habits. When users are more familiar with the game, it is relatively easy for them to take action, so the reward will drop to a reasonable range.

2) As for the psychology of adding extra points, Spark Education has reflected this in the shared posters.

After entering the poster sharing page, the first thing that appears is to create a personalized poster. You can choose your child’s photo to make a poster. Swipe right again to see the normal poster.

3) Share poster operation path:

Step 1: Make posters (personalized and regular)

Step 2: Choose your own poster (generate a poster and copy the invitation message, encourage people to forward it to their friends)

Step 3: Upload the screenshots shared on Moments to the app.

618 Event

Because the 618 event is open to all registered users, it means that there are not many connections between users and Spark Education. Therefore, the focus of this event is on the benefits that users can obtain. Benefits can be analyzed from three aspects: 1. The attractiveness of the benefits. 2. User action cost: the price that users have to pay to achieve benefits. 3. Experience path.

1) The benefits are attractive enough

In terms of rewards, combine deterministic prizes with uncertain prizes to ensure that every target user who sees this activity feels that they can give it a try. The user's deterministic prize goal is: to win the Dinosaur Escape board game by drawing 6 times, and the uncertain but tempting goal is: to have the opportunity to win 100 free classes and an iPad. This is undoubtedly very attractive to parents. But at this point, the big prize often involves the issue of user trust. Some users may doubt whether it can really be done or whether it is just a gimmick of the merchants. What is done well here is that: small scrolling characters are used to explain what prize xxx has won. The bad thing is that it would be more convincing if it could state how many iPads were prepared at most and how many places for 100 classes were available. However, there are risks involved here, so it still needs to be discussed in detail.

2) User action cost

Although there are many tasks to be completed here, the user's behavioral actions can be attributed to one thing: forwarding the poster to the circle of friends. The cost of the action here is still relatively small. This setting, on the one hand, simplifies and clarifies the activity page, and on the other hand, reduces the user's action cost. If the user really wants to get the prize and takes the initiative to chat with friends privately, the number of invitations is set in the app and the user can see the number of people he has invited.

3) Smooth experience path

Users can enter the poster making page by clicking "Complete Task", and the experience path is still very smooth. Moreover, the activity page adopts the method of completing tasks, which has the meaning of a game and is more interesting.

3. Transformation efficiency

Conversion efficiency refers to how many new users who see the poster are willing to register with Spark Education. Improving conversion efficiency includes the following points: poster design, copywriting value communication, user decision cost, and user experience path. Poster design: Personalized poster production is a highlight. Because Moments has the social attribute of acquaintances, forwarding a poster of a user's personal photo to Moments can reduce the advertising meaning of the poster and instead attract friends to click on the poster. There is nothing special to say about the design of ordinary posters.

The value conveyed by the copy: It is a qualified copy but relatively bland. It was able to express the core concepts according to the basic principles of copywriting, but it failed to express any unique highlights in terms of value communication. Moreover, when guiding users to scan the code and follow the product, it used phrases such as "limited time 0 yuan discount" which had been used many times and failed to attract users' attention.

Optimization suggestion: Use Spark Thinking's most popular courses as the gimmick and highlight as the core idea of the copywriting to highlight the characteristics of Spark Thinking courses. And when guiding users to scan the code to follow, write copy based on the pain points of the core user portrait. User decision cost: After the user enters the mini program page, click on the free trial, enter the mobile phone number and verification code to receive it. The decision-making cost is relatively low. On the one hand, there is no cost for a free trial. On the other hand, it is more convenient as you only need to enter your mobile phone number and no more information is required. User experience path: Scan the QR code - enter the mini program - click on free trial - enter your mobile phone number and verification code to receive it immediately - someone will contact you within a few minutes.

4. Sharing frequency

For basic activities: sharing frequency is once a week. On 618 promotion: Sharing of personalized posters is still a weekly frequency. But when you invite friends to register, you can get gold coins for every friend who registers and listens to the program, up to a maximum of 10 gold coins. There is no upper limit for registration of overseas friends.

4. Product highlights and reusable features

1. How to make the most of referral activities?

Combine regular referral campaigns with promotions during popular holidays:

Referral activities usually lie somewhere unremarkable, tend to be long-term and difficult to grow suddenly. Spark Education took advantage of 618 to combine the usual basic referral activities with the 618 promotional referral activities. Through the generous prizes and novel "gamification" methods of 618, the popularity of referral activities was greatly increased and the threshold for referral activities was lowered.

2. Sharing with warmth is more attractive

When sharing, use personalized posters and personalized copywriting to make the shared posters relevant to the user personally and have a warmer feel.

3. How to minimize user operating costs and make the user experience smoother?

When users need to perform some actions themselves, let them follow the instructions one by one without having to think. For example, providing users with copywriting for Moments.

4. How to make inducements more attractive?

Set up certain prizes and uncertain grand prizes. Deterministic prizes are small prizes that users can get for sure if they try hard. Uncertain prizes can be random or difficult to get, but they must be attractive enough. This will cover different levels of users. It can also be the other way around. Deterministic prizes are big prizes, but users need to work hard to be among the top few to get them. Uncertain prizes are products of very small value, but the probability of winning must be large enough so that users feel that they may win a small prize as long as they participate.

5. How to make the event page more attractive and improve event efficiency?

Refer to e-commerce gameplay and set up simple gamification tasks. But make sure it's trustworthy and not too complicated.

5. To be optimized

1. Poster copy and WeChat Moments copy can be optimized.

2. The entrance channels can be optimized and increased. For example, there was no entrance in the official account on June 18.

3. The threshold for basic referral activities can be lowered further. Allow people who have only registered but not purchased courses to also make referrals.

Author: Wild Mushroom

Source: Wild Operation Community (ID: dugu9bubai)