How do K12 online education products achieve user growth?

This article mainly discusses the response strategies and development status of K12 online education products under the epidemic, and mainly uses Yuanfudao (online tutoring course products) as an example to make a series of analyses and explanations.

At the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of an epidemic had a great impact on most industries in our country. As the epidemic situation continues to change, the central government has introduced a number of policies, and offline educational institutions are unable to operate. However, with the call of "suspending classes but not learning", "online education" has become a unique and most mainstream way of learning, and has gradually been deeply integrated into people's lives.

In the past three years, more than 440 billion hot money has flowed into the online education market. Online education has become a supplement to offline education due to its convenience and accessibility.

According to the 44th "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" by the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2019, the scale of online education users in my country reached 232 million, accounting for 27.20% of the total Internet users.

Among them, a large number of students who are facing the pressure of examinations and further studies choose tutoring during the learning process. The market shows strong rigid demand. K12 online education has gradually become a new blue ocean in the field of online education. Although it is still in the stage of industry exploration and development, there is unlimited potential to be tapped.

This article mainly discusses the response strategies and development status of K12 online education products under the epidemic. Taking Yuanfudao (online tutoring course product) as an example, three main issues were discussed:

• First, how has the product/user positioning of K12 online education changed under the epidemic?
• Second, what are the existing strategies of K12 online education products under the epidemic and their impact effects?
• Third, how can K12 online education products seize the opportunity of this epidemic and achieve user growth.

1. Analysis of K12 Online Education Products

1. Product positioning and introduction

Before the analysis, we first clarify the key purpose of K12 education - to allow students to pass the selective examination of "admission based on merit". Therefore, assisting students to pass exams efficiently through high-quality learning results is also the main goal of K12 online education products.

Online education products mainly solve the problem of uneven distribution of educational resources and students’ inability to obtain resources conveniently. Examination-oriented education is the focus of most parents' attention. However, the current educational resources in my country are in short supply. Students and parents have a strong demand for extracurricular tutoring. The distribution of educational resources is uneven, and the fees for offline tutoring are high. It is difficult to guarantee the quality of teachers and teaching. The emergence of online tutoring products has greatly alleviated this problem.

Yuanfudao is the first unicorn company in the field of K12 online education in China. It has entered multiple scenarios such as question banks and online tutoring, and has created a multi-chain product model, including Yuanfudao, Yuantiku, Xiaoyuansouti and other online education products.

Among them, Yuanfudao is an online tutoring course product launched as an extension of the service scenarios of its tool-type products (Yuantiku and Xiaoyuansouti). It diverts traffic through the data and reputation accumulated by its own tool-type products, improves and enriches service scenarios and educational products, and builds a diversified ecological layout in the field of education.

2. Impact of the macroeconomic policy environment

The country supports the development of online education. The 2019 "Government Work Report" of the State Council pointed out that "we should develop Internet + education, promote the sharing of high-quality resources, clarify the application goals of Internet + and other information technology means in the field of education, and realize the sharing of high-quality resources through educational informatization."

At the same time, the Ministry of Education and other relevant departments have successively introduced a series of policies to regulate online education, including regulations such as "the training content must not exceed the syllabus or standards, in-service teachers from primary and secondary schools must not be hired, and each subject must not charge more than 60 class hours at a time" to regulate the orderly development of online training.

During the epidemic, the policy of “suspending classes but not learning” has made online teaching the mainstream trend of current school teaching. Overall, the policy is beneficial in the long run.

3. Target users and user characteristics

K12 online education mainly involves two types of users: demand buyers and demand users. Yuanfudao’s target users are mainly students aged 6-18 and parents aged around 28-50. It mainly meets students’ needs of “reducing burden and improving scores” and helps parents provide targeted tutoring and supervision. These two groups have an open mind towards the Internet, are relatively receptive to new things, have clear pain points, are more willing to pay, and have clear product purposes.

During the epidemic, the free time of students and parents was greatly extended, and offline tutoring was restricted, so online tutoring naturally became an alternative product. However, the policy of “suspending classes but not learning” has forced online teaching to change the learning methods of primary and secondary school students across the country in a very short period of time. Users have been forced to develop online learning habits, and user penetration has increased significantly, especially in third- and fourth-tier cities. The customer acquisition costs of most education companies have dropped rapidly.

But at the same time, we also see that some primary and secondary school students are resistant to this method, and behaviors such as "giving bad reviews to DingTalk and turning off the microphone when asking questions" are emerging one after another, and the quality and effect of learning are worrying.

The research in the "2020 User Consumption Trend Index Report under the Impact of the Epidemic" found that as of February 17, 2020, among the types of products used by Chinese residents during the epidemic, the proportion of K12 extracurricular tutoring actually decreased by 0.3% compared with 2019.

It can be seen that the epidemic is both an opportunity and a challenge for the K12 education industry. Although it has quickly changed the learning methods of most primary and secondary school students in a short period of time, and the long holiday of the epidemic has also allowed it to tap into potential users, but with the opening of online courses by schools, some users have obviously become tired of online teaching, which has reduced the demand for online extracurricular tutoring.

Opportunities and risks coexist. On the one hand, this long epidemic period has provided online education with great opportunities to attract new users, but students’ fatigue with online classes has made it more difficult to retain users. "More accurately grasping the needs of target users" will be the focus of K12 education products in the future.

2. Existing strategies of K12 online education institutions in the face of the epidemic

1. Yuanfudao’s response strategy

In response to the epidemic, Yuanfudao has focused on attracting new users. In its initial stage, it donated 10 million yuan to the Wuhan area and provided free teaching services. Subsequently, free live classes were launched to users across the country, which are mainly divided into two parts. One part is based on the synchronous courses within the school; the other part is literacy courses, public welfare lectures, etc., such as the popular science videos, master lectures, and model youth talks launched by Yuanfudao, to cultivate students' comprehensive abilities.

These public welfare live classes synchronize content and promotion through cooperation with media such as People's Daily, CCTV Video, and Study Strong China; and thanks to its own complete learning product matrix, the "Millions of People Simultaneously Online English Mock Exams" initiated by Yuantiku also has a certain effect in attracting traffic.

Yuanfudao’s detailed response strategy is summarized as follows:

2. Analysis of Yuanfudao’s response strategy

From the above, we can see that Yuanfudao’s main focus during the epidemic was attracting new users and retaining existing users. The following analysis is available:

(1) The free public welfare classes not only helped Yuanfudao acquire a group of new users, but also helped increase retention. The public welfare class lasts for one month, which helps cultivate users' habit of using online tutoring. In addition, each public welfare class includes a detailed introduction to the small class (system class), which can help attract traffic to the system class product.

(2) By segmenting and reorganizing the teaching content, special training classes are launched to attract users with clear needs, and new users are attracted and retained through low-price flash sales. This type of special training class usually lasts 2-3 class hours and provides professional training for students who have weak academic performance or modular knowledge points.

(3) Through 3-4 months of systematic class teaching, users can be retained deeply, and through differentiated pricing, high school students with strong demand for tutoring can be attracted. Yuanfudao has cleverly grasped the special psychology of users in its pricing strategy. For senior high school students, the extension of this holiday has undoubtedly increased the college entrance examination pressure on students and parents. In order to make it easier for parents to accept the price of the systematic class, the price of the senior high school systematic class is 799 yuan, which is a significant discount compared to the 1,200 yuan for other grades, stimulating users' motivation to buy.

3. How to achieve growth - my opinion

In summary, the epidemic has brought the following changes to the K12 online education industry:

First, user penetration rate has increased significantly, especially among users in lower-tier cities such as third- and fourth-tier cities. This has led to a rapid decrease in the customer acquisition cost for online tutoring; secondly, users have developed the habit of online learning, and a portion of offline training users have also moved online, which has increased the number of potential users and the referral rate, which is a long-term benefit.

Yuanfudao's strategy for dealing with the epidemic mainly focuses on attracting new users and converting new users, which is also the common strategy of most leading online education industries. In addition, the author gave some of his own views on how to seize opportunities during the epidemic and achieve user growth from both short-term and long-term perspectives.

1. Short-term coping strategies

First, focus on this special group of students who are going from primary school to junior high school, from junior high school to high school and from college entrance examination, and establish user conversion for this group

This type of users have a stronger demand for extracurricular tutoring during the epidemic, so we can regularly conduct national joint examinations such as primary school to junior high school, junior high school to high school, and college entrance examination simulations (which can be conducted by region). Through big data analysis of test papers, we can summarize knowledge modules with high error rates, conduct corresponding special courses on wrong questions, guide students to participate, and form a closed loop of user conversion. Through short-term cycles, the learning effect acceptance cycle can be shortened, making it easier to improve users' sense of accomplishment.

Second, grasp the pain points of users in third- and fourth-tier cities and seize opportunities to attract new users of this type

Users in low-tier cities face an even more severe problem of a shortage of educational resources. In addition to public welfare classes, short videos can be used, especially video platforms with a large number of low-tier users, such as Kuaishou, Volcano and other short video platforms, to deliver public welfare advertisements. The content of the advertisements should focus on scenes and products, highlighting the theme that children can enjoy high-quality educational resources no matter which city they are in, thereby triggering empathy from target users and building user favorability for the brand through content.

Third, accumulate users through fission

The number of users who currently enjoy free public welfare courses can be utilized, and through the method of increasing the existing base, users who participate in public welfare courses can invite friends to sign up for public welfare courses/system courses and enjoy a half-price discount when purchasing system courses.

2. Long-term coping strategies

User segments are segmented and managed in layers based on student users’ age, learning status, family income, etc.

The online education market tends to be more precisely positioned, and different teaching modes are most suitable for their own user groups and demand types.

For example, based on the learning status of student users, they can be divided into three groups: those with strong self-discipline, those with average self-discipline, and those with poor self-discipline. Online classes are highly dependent on the self-consciousness of children, especially primary and secondary school students. For this user group with poor self-discipline, a learning supervision mechanism can be added with the permission of parents, such as customized student progress management, parental periodic learning effect acceptance, etc., to use external forces to improve the constraints on students.

Combine online education with offline tutoring.

Clearly understand the natural disadvantages of online learning. Compared with offline education, although online education can break through the limitations of time and space, it lacks constraints and a sense of presence, and students are more likely to develop resistance and a coping mentality. As user penetration increases, offline tutoring institutions can be set up accordingly, focusing on experience, and online platforms can focus on accurate user positioning and diversified exploration to gradually complete the transformation.

Author: Wangzai2172

Source: Wangzai2172