Online education traffic conversion strategy!

In the field of online education , the acquisition and conversion of traffic has always been a big problem. This article will focus on sharing with you how to convert traffic. Simply put, it is how to sell courses through WeChat communities.

Friends who are familiar with online education should all know that online education is an industry that relies heavily on community.

Different from community operation or App operation, the entire growth model of online education is almost entirely based on the WeChat ecosystem. The business process described below, although simple, should be the business status of many online education institutions:

1. Continue to carry out various fission activities in the WeChat ecosystem, or pay to launch some WeChat public accounts to obtain traffic;
2. Then deposit the acquired traffic on WeChat communities and personal accounts;
3. Finally, by holding open classes in the community, we can achieve user conversion and payment.

From the initial traffic acquisition to the final traffic conversion, the business process described above constitutes a simple funnel model. In a sense, online education institutions compete on the conversion rate between each layer of the funnel.

There are numerous articles on the market about how to obtain traffic and how to acquire customers through fission, so this article will not go into details. This article will focus on sharing with you how to convert traffic. Simply put, it is how to sell courses through WeChat communities.

I believe that for many small and medium-sized educational institutions that are still struggling on the edge of survival, the key to the problem is not the acquisition of traffic, but the acceptance and conversion of traffic.

After all, traffic can at least be bought with money, but when the traffic comes, how to operate and take over it, and how to improve traffic conversion, these are not problems that can be solved with money.

01 Clarify the value of the community

Regarding selling courses in the community, one thing I personally highly recommend is to use the same mindset as you would when building a product to build the community.

So what is the first thing we need to consider when we make a product?

Of course, we need to understand what value this product can bring to users. This is the starting point of all product design thinking. Any product must first clarify what kind of value it can provide to users. Only after the value is recognized by users can the product have the possibility of making money.

This is true for making a product and building a community.

If we want to sell courses through a community, we must first clarify what the value of this community is to users and what reasons users have to stay in the community instead of leaving or blocking the community.

Clarifying what value the community provides to users is the foundation and starting point of community operations.

In actual work, we may need to spend a lot of energy on this link.

Because only by delivering value to users perfectly can you win their favor and trust, thereby narrowing the distance between you and the users, and making the sales of subsequent courses possible.

To make it easier for everyone to understand this point, let’s take the example of Who’s Teaching.

I have joined quite a few GSX WeChat groups, some of which are particularly interesting. The operators of these groups assign homework in the groups every day, and parents will take photos of their children’s answers and send them to the groups for the teaching assistants to mark. The whole process is shown in the screenshot below:

Thanks to this homework marking service, these groups were particularly active during their operation, and parents were always particularly grateful and trusting of the teaching assistants.

On this basis, in conjunction with the open classes held by the instructors in the group every day (these open classes are designed to be converted into paid classes), the conversion rate of these groups is very high. At the end of each open class, a large number of parents post their orders in the group.

GSX is an institution in the K12 field, but it is also in other fields as well.

Baobaowan English is an English enlightenment institution for children aged 0 to 6 years old. It also has very strong community operations. Baobaowan’s enrollment mainly relies on an 8-day trial class, and parents can also gain a lot of value in the trial class community.

First, the teacher will teach the children to sing an English nursery rhyme in the group every day and provide detailed pronunciation guidance videos; second, the group holds community lectures from time to time to share ideas around parent-child topics that parents are concerned about.

Providing some valuable services within the group, enhancing user stickiness, promoting user activity, gaining user trust, and then selling and converting courses on this basis, this is the common approach of almost all the relatively successful communities on the market.

As far as some of the operators of small and medium-sized institutions I have come into contact with are concerned, if they fail to sell courses in the community, the problem is most likely due to the lack of clarity on the value of the community.

If this part is not done well, the community will often have only two outcomes.

One is to become a lifeless and useless group. Apart from some micro-businesses or competing products advertising in these groups, no valuable information will appear. Group members don’t know what the group is for, and even the group owner himself doesn’t know.

The operator is nominally a community operator, but is more like a community manager.

Whenever someone in the group advertises, they need to kick that person out of the group in time; whenever a new course is launched, they will promote it in the group as soon as possible; they may also need to do some fission to bring some fresh blood into the group, but because the community does not have a complete operating mechanism, they often cannot handle the traffic that comes in.

Over time, these dead groups will completely become advertising groups. In addition to micro-businesses or competing products advertising in the groups, it is the official that advertises in the groups. As for normal users, they have either left the group or blocked the group.

I think this kind of community operation without clear community value is a complete waste of time and youth. Doing this kind of work will not form any workplace competitiveness, nor will it bring any sense of professional achievement. It will only make people more and more miserable and confused. But the cruel reality is that there are indeed many operators who are engaged in this meaningless community operation work.

The second ending is to become a "self-entertainment group".

Most of these groups like to send out a morning or evening report every day, and some will even initiate a topic at noon every day for users to discuss. Because there are certain means to promote community activation, these groups seem to be very active and not dull, but when it comes to selling courses, these groups become inactive.

Simply put, the problem these communities face is that the communities are very active, but the conversion rate is low.

Frankly speaking, if these groups are so-called "industry exchange groups", this operating model is completely acceptable.

However, as an online education institution, there is only one purpose for establishing a group, which is to sell courses. So what is the relationship between the operational methods mentioned above such as sending morning newspapers and posting topics and the ultimate goal of "selling courses"?

It has to be said that this kind of group is valuable to users, because users may really like to read the morning paper every day, or participate in topic discussions, but what is valuable to users may not necessarily be valuable to institutions.

The problem with this type of group is how to connect the operational means such as morning newspapers and topics with the ultimate goal of selling courses. If this connection cannot be made, then this type of group will always be trapped in the illusion of blind activity and self-entertainment.

02 Create sales momentum

After clarifying the value of the community, the next thing we need to consider is how to create sales potential for the community through various operational means.

You can also simply understand it as how to "brainwash" users.

This is the key and core of selling courses in the community. For an online education institution, a course can cost tens of thousands of yuan. The unit price of the course determines that the conversion of users cannot be achieved overnight, but must be gradual, from the shallower to the deeper.

In this process, we may need to emphasize the characteristics of our courses to users many times, invite many old students to share their learning experiences in the group, and invite teachers to hold more than one open class in the group. You even have to learn to create anxiety - if you don’t buy our course, you will...

All of this is actually aimed at creating sales potential in the community.

This section allows users to understand why you must buy our courses, what are the advantages and features of our courses, what you will gain after completing the courses, etc.

If the previous link ensures the activity of the community and ensures that users will not quit the group or block the group, then this link is to actually sell the courses.

There are three most common ways to create sales momentum.

1. Push of specific reading materials

Push for specific reading material? Well, these words are indeed a bit awkward to read.

But don’t worry, the meaning is actually very simple. It is similar to the daily report mentioned above. The difference is that this can be connected with selling courses.

This means that some specific news, articles and other content are pushed to users every day for them to read. More meticulous organizations will also break down the articles and extract the core content to send to users. However, the purpose of letting users read these contents is the same, which is to instill some thinking concepts in users to facilitate subsequent course sales.

If you don’t understand, okay, let’s take a look at an example from Changtou Academy.

Changtou Academy is a paid financial knowledge institution targeting full-time mothers in third- and fourth-tier cities. In the paid financial knowledge track, Changtou Academy occupies an absolute leading position.

The 9-yuan financial management training camp for beginners at Changtou Academy is particularly famous. In the WeChat group of the training camp, the class leader of Changtou Academy will push a financial management article to the group every day for everyone to read. After everyone has finished reading, they will also share their thoughts and insights from the morning reading in the group.

The whole process is shown in the screenshot below:

The key to this step is that these articles are carefully selected "brainwashing masterpieces". The content of the articles uses various forms such as presenting data and telling stories. In the end, they all instill one idea in users: financial management is very important!

Imagine that users have to read such an article every day and share their thoughts after reading it. Over time, they will gradually be "brainwashed", creating conditions for subsequent course sales.

Not only Changtou Academy, but also institutions such as Baby Play English and Walnut Programming will post some specific content in the group every day for everyone to read and complete the implantation of certain concepts.

2. Excellent students’ personal experiences

Inviting some outstanding students to the group to share their experiences with everyone is also a tried and tested strategy used by many institutions. With the endorsement of the students, the credibility of the institution has been significantly improved. Moreover, humans are social animals. When they see others gain a lot from the courses, they will also be eager to try.

The trial course of Baby Play English lasted for 8 days. When the trial course was about to end, Baby Play asked some outstanding students to share their learning experiences and insights in the group. The content they share basically follows a story template: at the beginning, they encountered many problems in English enlightenment, and then after coming into contact with Baowan, their children liked it very much. Finally, through Baowan’s courses, the children’s enlightenment achieved great results.

*As shown in the picture above, Baowan allows users to share in the group personally, which will undoubtedly make it more credible and persuasive.

However, many organizations also use text retelling, letting group operators tell the stories of students. In this way, since it is official personnel who are narrating, the effect is more controllable, but the credibility and persuasiveness are definitely not as high as if the users themselves were telling the story.

3. Community Lectures

By holding online lectures in the group from time to time, some concepts can be conveyed to users, allowing users to understand the necessity of signing up for courses. This is also a routine that many institutions like.

Walnut Programming is a children's programming organization focusing on children aged 6 to 12. The conversion rate of its 9.9 yuan children's programming training camp is very high, and it is said to be able to reach 30%. For a non-rigid field like children's programming, this conversion rate is already quite high.

The Walnut Programming training camp lasts for 9 days. Around the 4th day in the middle of the training camp, users will stop learning for a day. On this day, the group operator will hold a text lecture in the group, nominally to answer users' questions, but in fact to explain to everyone the benefits of children learning programming.

The lecture script of Walnut Programming is also very cleverly designed. The benefits of learning programming for children are discussed from three aspects: cultivating programming thinking, improving academic performance, and improving study habits. The course also repeatedly shows users the programming works of previous students and their positive reviews, in order to subtly promote the course. This set of SOPs taken together constitutes a remarkable sales article.

03 Detonation potential energy release

In the first two stages, we have clearly defined the value of the community, gained the favor and trust of users, and created the sales potential of the community. So for users' paid conversion, we just need the final touch.

This whole process is actually like an aspiring young man struggling in society. After experiencing a series of successes, failures, hesitations, joys, confusion, and determination, he has transformed from being immature at the beginning to being sophisticated and mature. He has accumulated a lot of experience, skills, resources, and connections. He is just waiting for the right opportunity to release all that he has accumulated in the first half of his life and realize his life ambitions.

The same is true for community operations. All the preparations we have made, all the services we have provided, and all the potential energy we have created also need an "opportunity" to be released.

The result of releasing potential energy is buying courses.

From the user's perspective, the first two steps have whetted the user's appetite, and the user has already developed the intention to buy the course, but he still feels that it is lacking and lacks a strong reason to convince himself to buy the course. The purpose of this step is to give users such a strong reason so that they can dispel their concerns and pay money readily.

This reason is often the various promotional activities we often see, such as: limited-time discounts, free gifts for course purchases, live streaming, flash sales, limited-time group purchases...

Users all like to get small bargains, and this characteristic is particularly evident among the group of mothers. Therefore, for online education institutions, the strategy of giving gifts when purchasing courses has been proven to be effective. Especially when users have already developed a favorable impression and trust in the institution in the first two stages, and have a strong desire to purchase courses. At this time, if you give users some gifts that parents like and combine them with courses, users will often stop hesitating and place an order immediately.

In the community of Baby Play English trial classes, the strategy of giving gifts when purchasing classes is adopted. After the trial class, the operator announced the course purchase benefits in the group. Those who signed up for the course would receive a course purchase gift package worth 883 yuan, including a reading pen, a set of bilingual wall charts, a box of watercolor pens and an exquisite gift box.

In order to further stimulate conversion, gifts for course purchases are stipulated as limited-time benefits. Operators will continuously announce the countdown for the benefits in the group to enhance the sense of urgency.

Unlike Baowan, Walnut Programming uses live streaming to sell products. Live streaming with products is a long-standing popular enrollment strategy in the education industry. During the live broadcast, teachers recommend courses to everyone, and combined with limited-time and limited-quantity promotions, they can often achieve very good conversion results.

Today’s live streaming sales can be said to be shining in the e-commerce industry, but in fact, the logic of live streaming sales has already been popular in the education industry for many years. Many institutions recruit students by relying on free live classes given by lecturers to students.

The Walnut Programming training camp lasts for 8 days. On the 6th day, the teacher will hold a live video broadcast in the group. The content of the live broadcast will be how to get started with programming, the study plan for the Walnut Programming advanced course, etc.

As soon as the lecture ended, the operation staff immediately struck while the iron was hot and announced preferential plans for advanced courses in the group, guiding everyone to make appointments and register.

Users have just finished listening to the teacher's recommendation and are still excited when they see the registration discount for the course. Those users who already intend to buy the course will immediately grab the discounted spots and complete the registration appointment.

Conclusion

From a theoretical perspective, this article summarizes the three links of selling courses in WeChat communities, as well as some routine designs based on these three links. The three links are clarifying community value, creating sales potential and detonating the release of potential.

• Clarifying the value of the community is the basis for selling courses in WeChat communities. If the community has no value to users, then community operation is like a tree without soil and water without a source, and subsequent user conversion is out of the question.
• Creating sales momentum is the key to selling courses in the community. Only when community users fully understand the advantages and features of the course and the necessity of course registration, will the subsequent paid conversion come naturally.
• The last step of selling courses in the community is to detonate the release of potential energy. Through limited-time discounts, gifts for course purchases, live streaming sales and other activities, we stimulate user action, dispel user doubts, and allow users to ultimately purchase courses without hesitation.

Author: Su Tanbin

Source: Su Tanbin