How can online education companies’ products continue to grow amid the epidemic?

Under the epidemic, people across the country began to live a life of not leaving the house. Everyone was happy at first, but the reality was cruel. I thought I could eat and drink while working remotely at home, and have meetings while lying down, but in reality, there were constant meetings and messages, and even video conferences, forcing me to wear a suit on the upper body and pajamas on the lower body.

Although employees working from home are more tired and less efficient than working in the office, they are much luckier than offline bosses because most industries based on offline traffic have been greatly affected by the epidemic. For example, the offline catering company Xibei once announced that it could only last for three months. For another example, many small and medium-sized offline educational institutions have declared bankruptcy and laid off all employees. The entire offline situation can be described as bleak.

As an online education observer, I naturally have to pay attention to the performance of online education during the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic. Overall, it can be described in two words - lucky.

The reason why we are lucky is that online education, an Internet-based business model, is naturally suitable for helping companies transform and survive in special periods. Reality also confirms this. Almost all offline education institutions across the country have urgently switched to online to ensure that existing students can continue to take classes in the institutions to avoid cash flow interruptions due to the epidemic. Secondly, from the perspective of epidemic prevention and control, the Ministry of Education delayed the opening time of schools across the country and actively promoted online learning methods, but restricted learning content. This prompted online education companies to launch policy-compliant content to promote the latest wave of growth.

In fact, this epidemic will have some negative impacts on all industries, including online education. Nothing is entirely beneficial, and nothing is entirely harmful. The key is how we can stop losses or even achieve new growth when facing a crisis. This is also the purpose of writing this article.

01 Response strategies of leading online education institutions

In the early stages of the outbreak, leading online education institutions responded very quickly, donating millions of free courses to support the epidemic areas. Later, as the epidemic gradually expanded to affect schools, they gradually launched completely free public welfare course services.

Source: yiou.com

Of course, the leading online education institutions do not simply launch public welfare courses, but have a relatively systematic approach, and the purpose is obviously to serve growth.

1. Launch public welfare live classes for all grades

The core strategy adopted by leading online education companies in response to the epidemic is to launch public welfare courses for all grades, such as Xueersi Online School, Yuanfudao, and Zuoyebang. It is obvious to all that the public welfare classes are very effective. Yuanfudao claims that 5 million people are taking live online classes at the same time, and Zuoyebang announced that the number of registrations for the public welfare classes has exceeded 10 million.

From Operations Research Society

The author has looked at the contents of several leading public welfare courses, which can be roughly divided into two parts: one part is based on the synchronous courses within the school, which is the core part of the public welfare courses, especially the winter vacation courses. As the epidemic continues, these online education companies will launch the synchronous courses in the spring as expected. Those that do not comply with the regulations of the Ministry of Education will be strictly restricted, such as advanced learning; the other part is literacy courses, public welfare lectures, etc., such as the free literacy courses of Xueersi Online School, the master lectures of Yuanfudao, and Youdao’s "First Lesson in Epidemic Prevention and Control". The purpose is to enrich students' online learning content and cultivate comprehensive abilities during the epidemic.

It is precisely because of the introduction of the free public welfare course strategy that all leading online education institutions have a large influx of traffic every day. This would have been hard to imagine in the past. However, during the epidemic, facing hundreds of millions of users, online education institutions must ensure the quality of public welfare courses and lay a good foundation for subsequent word-of-mouth conversions.

2. Synchronize content and promotion on traffic platforms

In addition to launching public welfare courses, how to make public welfare courses exposed on a large scale and attract traffic is also a problem that leading online education companies consider. Coincidentally, mainstream Internet platforms and official media have launched public welfare learning modules due to the needs of the epidemic, which provides online education companies with an excellent opportunity for brand exposure.

Major online education companies mainly synchronize content and launch promotions on these types of platforms.

One type is official media platforms , such as CCTV Video and Xuexi Qiang Guo. Leading online education companies such as Yuanfudao, Zuoyebang, and Xueersi Online School simultaneously broadcast public welfare courses on this type of platform, and have been reported by official media such as People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV, greatly increasing brand exposure.

The other type is to synchronize public welfare course content on mainstream Internet platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, Kuaishou, Xigua Video, Youku, iQiyi, Tencent Video, etc., which are generally divided into two forms: recorded broadcast and live broadcast. The specific form depends on the platform. For example, you can broadcast synchronized public welfare course content on Douyin and Kuaishou, and use the platform's traffic support to increase the number of followers for your account.

The third type is to promote their own public welfare courses externally , mainly through self-media delivery and information flow delivery. For example, Yuanfudao and Zuoyebang deliver public welfare courses on official accounts and Toutiao, and obtain leads by guiding people to sign up for free public welfare courses.

For small and medium-sized institutions, it is not recommended to compete with the leading players if they do not have money and resources, but they can try to participate in public welfare course activities initiated by traffic platforms. In fact, there is a great chance of obtaining traffic effects that exceed imagination.

3. Launch a free referral strategy to attract new customers through charity

In addition to launching public welfare courses and delivering them on a large scale, relying on old customers to bring in new customers is also a necessary means. Of course, this method needs to be cautious, and attention should be paid to the reasons and nodes for initiation. For example, launching fission at the beginning of the outbreak can easily cause a public relations crisis. If the entire industry launches public welfare courses and then initiates referral actions to match the public welfare courses, it may be much better.

A programming education program with 0 yuan referral has changed the previous participation threshold. Although it is in the name of public welfare, there are still scholarships. I personally think it may be excessive marketing, and according to observation, it has not caused a big splash. Therefore, when an organization is considering launching an activity to bring in new customers, it is best to have zero threshold, natural forwarding and goodwill rewards. This may make the old-to-new customer service activity more successful and make users willing to support and applaud.

02 How should most educational institutions respond?

Although the whole society is doing charity as much as possible under the epidemic, traffic acquisition remains an unchanging theme. How should most organizations, especially small and medium-sized organizations, respond? The author gives three suggestions for your reference only.

First, strive to retain existing students and actively explore online teaching models

Many offline institutions look down on or fail to see the trend of online education, thinking that it is enough to work hard offline. In fact, the integration of online and offline is a magic weapon to increase the survival chances of institutions. The online education craze caused by this epidemic is the best proof of this. Because not enough attention is paid, many offline institutions have lost students. The best thing we can do is to try to stop the loss and ensure the quality of online services.

Second, launch public welfare content, and get a piece of the pie if you can.

Faced with the war of public welfare courses among online education players, when offline institutions are forced to move online immediately, they should also launch lightweight online public welfare products, provided that the content is of high quality. This way, they can retain the attracted traffic and accumulate strength for future business recovery.

Third, develop online business and lay a solid foundation for OMO transformation

As mentioned in the first point, OMO is a new barrier for offline institutions. We can take advantage of this opportunity to plan and implement online businesses and do some work in advance to connect offline and online businesses so as to quickly complete the transformation after the epidemic is over.

The above are the main points. It can be seen that no matter who you are, you cannot be lucky enough to escape. What you can do is to try your best to deal with it and not hold back the country and the people. I hope everyone can get through the difficulties safely.

Author: Wild Solitary Fungus

Source: Wild Operation Community (id: dugu9bubai)