Baiguoyuan’s private domain operation strategy!

Baiguoyuan is now No. 1 in the fruit industry. What is even more surprising is that its turnover is the sum of the No. 2 to No. 10 rankings.

There are now more than 4,800 stores across the country and 70 million online and offline members . Assuming that one offline store has 2-3 WeChat groups and an average of about 300 people in each group, Baiguoyuan has nearly 5 million private community users across the country, more than 1.3 million Douyin members, and 13.6 million WeChat public account fans.

Taking Baiguoyuan’s new private domain move from the beginning of 2021 to the present as an example, they have done two things:

1. diversion. Through store guidance, manual friend addition and other methods, as of August, there are more than 4.1 million enterprise WeChat community users;
2. operations. After the traffic entered the group, after a period of operation, the monthly consumption increased by 7 times: the original monthly consumption was 50 yuan, and after joining the group, the monthly consumption increased to 350 yuan.

This article analyzes how Baiguoyuan completes its private domain operations and the thoughts that Baiguoyuan’s private domain operations gave me.

1. Case Introduction

Case name: [Baiguoyuan] Private domain operation strategy

Case industries: e-commerce, retail

Case objectives: attract new customers, promote retention, and convert to cash

Case tags: brand communication, social marketing, traffic increase, distribution, GMV increase

2. Overall strategy of Baiguoyuan’s private domain operations

The picture below is sufficient to illustrate the overall strategy of Baiguoyuan’s private domain operations, and is also suitable for any company that wants to build a private domain operation system. The general idea is as follows:

• Take a two-pronged approach online and offline to deposit more users into the private domain traffic pool
• Activate private domain traffic, retain and increase consumption, and convert it into members
• Hierarchical management of private domain users to achieve refined operations
• Explore the value of the entire user life cycle, including the value generated by the user and the value generated by social fission

3. Private Domain Construction

1. Offline traffic diversion

Some friends may think that relying on the huge touch points of nearly 5,000 offline community stores is enough. Just do it casually and many people will join the group to complete the construction of a private traffic pool. In fact, this is not the case. What we pursue here is efficiency, or advance planning.
Let’s go back to the various scenarios of [Baiguoyuan offline stores] and see how to complete offline traffic diversion in different scenarios?

(1) During the renovation of a new store

In fact, the construction of private domain traffic can be started during the renovation of the new store.

During the renovation of the new store, I will put a small table outside the door to give out fruits, brand peripherals (such as Baiguoyuan fruit knives), or even a bottle of mineral water. Since you don’t pay attention to me, I will deliver it to your door myself. You just need to choose whether to accept it or not. The conditions for obtaining these products are: adding friends and joining the group.

(2) During the opening of a new store

When the store opens, the store manager will remind the group of the opening date in advance and launch activities to attract everyone's attention. During the opening period, he will continue to post information in the group to create reasons for users to buy.

(3) During normal operation

In this scenario, we can analyze which actions can guide users to add corporate WeChat and guide users to join groups. For example, during the checkout process, users can receive coupons by joining the group; during the user inquiry process, promotional activities can be used to guide users to join the group. This scenario is quite rich, and the main thing is to analyze the bait and words that can guide users into the group.

2. Online Platform

Offline stores account for more than 80% of Baiguoyuan’s sales, so the online platform mainly provides brand promotion, knowledge and other content. After users authorize their location information, they are matched with nearby stores based on LBS. The prices and inventory of goods he sees in online stores are directly related to the stores around him. The customer's online order will be sent to the corresponding store, and the store will start packing after receiving the information. Drive customers to store for pick-up or have their orders delivered to their homes.

3. Fission growth

Fission growth in the private domain is very suitable for offline retail brands like Baiguoyuan. Baiguoyuan often carries out fission activities within the private domain ecosystem, such as [Share in Moments to Get Coupons], [Eat Fruits for One Yuan at Baiguoyuan], [Super Value Group Buying], etc.

Take the activity of "Eat Fruit for One Dollar at Baiguoyuan" for example, Baiguoyuan has determined the bait and path of the entire fission from the very beginning.

Step 1: Tell the customer clearly and send a private message: For only one dollar, you can choose any item (priced at 10-20 yuan) and quickly complete your first order.

Step 2: When customers pay, they will be reminded that if they spend over 49 yuan, they can pick up the goods in the store for free shipping, but it costs 6 yuan for home delivery, so that customers will continue to buy goods in order to get free shipping.

Step 3: Guide users to share the "1 Yuan Purchase" benefit with their friends. After their friends place an order, the paid amount will be refunded in the original way.

4. Reusable points

Whether in the retail industry or in other industries, we always talk about [people, goods, and places]. People often think of the [place] as a trading place, but they are still far from the real consumption scene.

For example, if you have nothing to do and go shopping in the supermarket, if you don’t have a clear demand, even if the supermarket has prepared tens of thousands of SKUs, it may not be of any use.

A scenario is just a scenario. If there is no demand in the scenario, it means there is no consumption or user action, so we need to return to the specific scenario and give the user the finishing touch.

The scenario that hides the decision-making motivation is the real consumption scenario. If the consumption scenario is not "real", acquiring customers is just a matter of luck.

On the surface, users are wandering around in consumption scenarios, but in fact they are looking for/waiting for a scenario that can truly allow them to consume. They need to be guided, or in other words: give consumers a reasonable reason to spend money.

The logic behind the above content also applies to the construction of private domain traffic. If we want to complete the diversion action, we must return to a specific scenario and complete the strategy design under the segmented scenario .

It is worth our consideration to discover different segmented scenarios and design operational actions that are suitable for the scenarios based on the user needs in the segmented scenarios.

4. Private Domain Operation

1. Operational ideas

Based on the real scenario, we have completed the user diversion process, that is, the user has entered the private traffic pool, so what should we do next? Many friends may think of finding ways to complete user transactions. Yes, the purpose of private domain operations is to tap into the long-term life cycle value of users through refined operations, including the value generated by themselves and the value generated by social fission. But after users enter the private domain, what should we do? First, let’s take a look at the official answer from Baiguoyuan. Then I will analyze from the perspectives of personal accounts, communities, Moments, and user needs (building a label system based on data analysis):

• By observing consumer consumption habits, we have made humanized improvements in details such as product packaging and portion size, and introduced sales forms such as fruit tasting, small portions of fruit, and combined fruits to meet different consumer needs;
• Associate and connect relevant data to build customer portraits to support marketing decisions and provide consumers with more personalized and considerate services.

(PS: In fact, the operation of the Kafka store I experienced was not particularly good. During the analysis, I added my own thoughts to optimize it.)

2. Personal account

I added it to the customer service corporate WeChat through the official account based on LBS positioning.

(1) Personal account welcome message

• First of all, I will introduce myself, including that I am the manager of XX store;
• Guide users to join the group, and include preferential activities in the welcome message to stimulate users
• To join the group, you need to use the group QR code directly.

(2) Optimizable points

• The rhetoric to guide users into the group is relatively weak. They can only be guided into the group through [Fruit News], [Promotional Activities], etc., and new member coupons, order draws, etc. can be added to guide them.
• The picture for joining the group can be made more beautiful, with the benefits of joining the group added on it
• There was a problem with the QR code configuration. After scanning the QR code, a system error message popped up saying that I could not join the group. It is recommended to record data such as the number of friends added and the number of people joining the group to detect problems in a timely manner.

(3) Personal account positioning

Personal accounts play a very important role as a bridge between enterprises and users. However, the corporate WeChat accounts that I have experienced are not particularly good in sharing in social networks and Moments. They are all advertising and promotional. Here are some of my additions to the positioning of personal accounts.

3. Community

From the perspective of private domain operations, a community is not just a community, it is an important scenario for user retention and conversion. The community activities I joined are rather simple, mainly based on discount chain games, and the actions are not very standardized.

Community management can be based on the following:

Daily operation rhythm of the community:

• Sending frequency: 3-5 times/day on normal days. During holidays or flash sales, the frequency will be adjusted according to specific circumstances.
• Sending time: Reach users during the prime time periods of 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m.
• Content sent: preferential benefits, flash sales, answers to questions.
• Sending form: text, picture, video, mini program.

The community operation is also refined to determine what content to post at each time point within a week, and the content is adjusted based on user feedback.

4. Friends circle

90% of the information in the Moments is about promotions and events, which can fully motivate users to buy.

(1) Optimizable points

• Some images are used repeatedly and are not high-definition images
• You can put a purchase link in the comment area of ​​your Moments, and users can purchase directly
• If there is too much promotional content, you can add other content as appropriate, such as user feedback, fruit selection suggestions, etc.

5. The underlying logic of the technology

The operation of personal accounts, communities and friend circles is just the tip of the iceberg. Many students have done community operation, 1V1 private chat and other work, but these actions are only on the surface. Let us look at the deeper content, that is, Baiguoyuan completes user operations based on user portraits (user tags) .

User A likes to buy a certain type of apples with a higher price, but never buys lemons.

Based on the superficial understanding, we can infer that he is not sensitive to price and should be given priority in pushing product information about new varieties of apples rather than promotional information. Suppose one day this user suddenly buys some affordable pears, then this portrait will be laid off.

The question that Baiguoyuan solves is: Why does this user like this apple? That is, what is the user's need for purchasing?

Is it because it has a crispier texture, or is it because you don’t like to peel the skin so the skin is thin, or is it because you simply like the [sweetness] and don’t like the [sourness] of lemon? These particularly specific user preferences for taste, experience, flavor, etc. are difficult to be recognized by conventional big data.

Back to the issue of users and apples, assuming that the data of the pear purchased by the user is similar to that of this apple, both are [sweet, refreshing, and juicy]. Through precise user data analysis: next time we recommend wax apple to him/her, the probability of purchase will be quite high, because wax apple is sweet, refreshing and juicy.

The data dimensions are wider and deeper, and the granularity is finer, which means that the user insights obtained are more detailed and closer to the user's consumption needs. Every 1% increase in marketing effectiveness generated by this will result in direct revenue growth - you now know the reasons why users "why not" and why "can" do so.

6. Reusable points

There is not much to learn from Baiguoyuan’s operations on personal accounts, communities and Moments. The [user portraits and user tags] underneath the iceberg are the top priority. I will discuss this in the fifth summary point.

V. Conclusion

In fact, I feel quite awkward writing this case analysis, because for the "big ship" of Baiguoyuan, the private domain construction and private domain operations that I have experienced are all superficial things. These may have formed a pattern, and the "digital infrastructure" or the company's "organizational strength" behind it is the engine that drives Baiguoyuan to complete private domain operations.

First, private domain operation is a CEO project. If the organization does not attach importance to private domain, no matter how hard the students who actually do the business work, it is impossible to build a private domain and give full play to its due value. It can be said that the leadership ability determines the lower limit of the organization.

Second, private domain operation is the job of the entire company. It involves not only the user operation department or the user growth department, but also the integration of technology, product research, and marketing departments. Various interests, interest relationships, KPIs, etc. are intertwined with each other. Any problem in any link will lead to failure to implement the project.

So in general, a lack of clarity in management capabilities such as organizational structure, management closed loop, and value mining will ultimately lead to the failure of private domains to be truly implemented.

So I consulted other materials, including interviews with Baiguo's Technical R&D Director Yao Yang and former Baiguo Technology CMO Shen Xin, to extend and summarize the full text. This part mainly revolves around member digitization or digital infrastructure.

For high-frequency, low-priced goods, it is important to consider repeat purchases and LTV-based profitability. The logic of private domain operations currently under discussion is based on refined operations of users and tapping into the long-term life cycle value of users. Therefore, based on the business logic of repeat purchases, membership digitization is necessary. The core of membership digitalization is based on the company's attractiveness to members. It is reflected in the difference in product power and service power, and finally turns into members' loyalty and trust.

• The two most basic pieces of equipment in the private domain are: WeChat for Business (WeChat for Business is the specific software manifestation of the private domain) and mini-programs (delivery capabilities);
• It is best to implement membership digitization from the beginning of private domain construction, and connect user IDs with various systems so that subsequent operational refinement can be carried out as scheduled. That is, the front-end, middle-end, back-end and third-party capabilities (enterprise WeChat and other technical tools) should also be considered from the beginning, rather than getting off and refueling halfway.

Image source: Baiguoyuan Baiguoyuan private domain system architecture diagram

Finally, I will use a picture and a paragraph to complete the methodology summary of Baiguoyuan’s private domain operations.

• In private domain operations, it is necessary to sort out and clarify the relationship (management configuration) and interest structure between the actual private domain operators and the headquarters. At the same time, with IT as the foundation, lay a solid foundation for private domain digitalization to ensure consistent subsequent steps.
• Externally, it is necessary to create an internal "pool" environment at the beginning of "engagement" with users. Real consumption scenarios are the first step in traffic, while refined operations serve high-quality private domain users.

Author: Private Domain Deep Operation

Source: Private Domain In-depth Operation