Click to read the original text for details You must often experience the following situations:
Scan the QR code to join the group and get benefits. Come to the mini-program to buy and pre-order the latest models. Share with your friends to unlock new features... Private domain has almost become a standard for everyone from chain brands to street-corner shops. But how exactly should we understand private domain? Why do some people achieve mediocre results with private domain, while others successfully find their second growth curve through it? Recently, on Liu Run's live broadcast room's "Stories of Evolution" segment, we invited Xu Zhibin, CEO of Jianshi Technology and author of the bestsellers "Relationship Flywheel" and "Small Group Effect," to share his observations and insights on private domain. Speaking of his initial impression of private domain, Teacher Zhibin smiled and said, In 2019, we held our annual Jianshi Conference. At that time, we were having a particularly difficult time with mini-programs. The team treated it as a "last supper," planning to disband after it was over, and held the conference with that mindset. At the conference, we found that seven guests were all talking about private domain traffic. At that time, we didn't trust the term either, thinking it might just be a flash in the pan. But then we heard them go through their data. We didn't know until they showed us, and then we realized how ignorant we were. Private domain really works. Moreover, after the conference, several guests pulled me aside and insisted that we hold another private domain traffic conference. So we conducted a survey and got another lesson from frontline practitioners. We found that many companies now get 70% or 80% of their customers from private domain traffic. Pushed step by step, by 2020, our team not only didn't disband but seriously began researching private domain. But not long after, a slap in the face came: the COVID-19 pandemic. It was more like a proof than a slap. During the pandemic, we found that all self-rescuing companies were uniformly doing private domain. With this reassurance, we continued to study private domain and learn from it. How to create content? How to gain followers? How to get users to download my app? What exactly is private domain? What does the best private domain look like? How do they do it? In today's sharing, let's dissect one private domain case after another and find the thread within. (This article is from a sharing by a guest on the Evolution Island.) 01 Three Stories Private domain is a dividend. Many startups get 80% to 90% of their sales from private domain. In 2021, 10 million enterprises were doing private domain, an increase of 4.5 million from 2020, nearly doubling. In 2021, there were 500 million deduplicated private domain users, an increase of 100 million from 2020. Although the dividend window is getting smaller, with the push for digitalization after the pandemic, the dividend still exists, and there's still room for an elephant to squeeze in. Whether your enterprise is as light as a swallow or as heavy as a giant beast, private domain is an opportunity test field you can't bypass. But entering with the dividend doesn't guarantee success. Doing private domain well is never about clever tricks; it's about finding the underlying rules that make it work. So how do you find the rules? Let's start with three stories. The first story: How to sell cars at a higher price? Question: If NIO didn't do direct sales or user operations, how much could a car sell for? Conventionally, it might be cheaper than Japanese, Korean, or German cars. But in reality, a NIO car sells at a premium of about 20% over the estimated price. These are all brought by user operations. This might not be intuitive enough, so let's talk about a neighbor's personal experience. The neighbor is a NIO owner. He single-handedly sold over 100 cars, earning more than 400,000 yuan. When asked why he did it, He replied, because I think NIO is like a clumsy child, and I must help him well. The "clumsy child" NIO, with its nurturing style, has won the affection of many users like the neighbor. They are willing to support you in making more expensive products. The second story: Luckin Coffee's self-rescue. In April 2020, after the financial incident, a thoroughly revamped Luckin was thinking about how to start anew. One question they hesitated over for a long time: Why should we do private domain? In the end, the results answered their initial doubts: You should do private domain even if it costs you your life. Let's look at the data. After the first three months of private domain, 1.8 million users entered the private domain pool, directly converting 35,000 cups daily, and additionally promoting over 100,000 cups. In fact, every three months thereafter, they gained 1.8 to 2 million private domain users, and order data rose in sync with the conversion data. They added users one-on-one to enterprise WeChat and pulled them into communities based on the nearest store, thoughtfully telling you about the latest coffee and the daily different coupons, without disturbing, simply providing valuable service. In this way, from a company under immense pressure at the start, they quickly turned around and truly began anew. In the 2021 financial report, Luckin's annual revenue reached 7.9 billion yuan, nearly doubling compared to 2020. The ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) increased from 120 yuan for the whole of 2020 to 153 yuan in 2021, a 27.5% increase. Through private domain, Luckin successfully rescued itself. The third story: Pop Mart. In 2021, Pop Mart's revenue on mini-programs was 890 million yuan, while member revenue was 4.14 billion yuan. How did they do it? They released some cutting-edge, collectible new products through limited sales on mini-programs, using a lottery method for purchase. Therefore, in the private domain scenario of the mini-program, it's very easy to gather a group of hardcore Pop Mart fans or collectors. They can fully leverage the social functions of private domain to share, discuss, and form stronger stickiness. Three stories, three different industries, three companies with different positioning. Through private domain, they achieved connection with users and, more importantly, achieved growth in their respective performances. Private domain, on the surface, looks like various tools—mini-programs, WeChat, communities, etc.—but in essence, it's about insight into relationships and the operation of relationships. Like a clumsy child, like a thoughtful housekeeper, like a companion in an interest club. Such relationship operations have incubated the prototype of super users. What are super users? How are they defined? 02 Want to Change to a New Phone? How to Choose? If your phone breaks and you want to change to a new one, how would you choose? Open Zhihu or Baidu to find reviews: which brand is good, which model is good; DIY comparisons; ask salespeople which is good; or ask your friends and relatives to see which one they recommend. These are the three common choices. Teacher Zhibin said during the sharing: I am a typical example of the third type. When I changed my phone before, among the dazzling array of brands, I didn't know which one to choose. Reading the specs directly was confusing and too abstract; I didn't know if it really suited me. Later, my best friend directly decided for me: Just buy Huawei. It's guaranteed to work well. So, without hesitation, I bought a Huawei. In fact, I'm not alone. In 2019, Tencent's Penguin Intelligence released the "2019-2020 Content Industry Trends Report." The report said that when users need to make decisions, such as downloading an app or buying a product, recommendations from friends, colleagues, and family are the most important factors, accounting for nearly 70%, surpassing advertising factors. This is indeed the lowest-cost way to make a purchase decision. Because trust in friends is absolute, and descriptions of friends' usage experiences are far more specific and understandable than ads. When trust is in place, the relationship is in place, and users feel it's reliable, they buy. For consumers, recommendations from friends and family are useful. For brands, similarly, recommendations from friends and family are useful and should be firmly grasped. For example, an ordinary retired Aunt Wang who loves square dancing. Let's see how strong her social circle's "product-selling ability" is. Recently, her son bought her a new phone, and she finds it very useful. So she brought it to her square dance group. Many group members saw it, thought their own phones were old, and were worried about what to buy. Now they decided: buy this one. Later, Aunt Wang also took the phone to a park outing. A group of aunties and uncles were taking photos. Aunt Wang took out her phone, took photos, and posted them in the group. Everyone praised: The color is so beautiful, the photos are so natural. What brand of phone is it? We want to buy it too. Also, Aunt Wang went to the vegetable market in the morning. She scanned to pay with her phone, which was very fast and didn't lag at all. Aunt Li next to her was envious and quickly asked, Where did you buy this phone? Recommend it to me quickly. With just three simple social scenarios, Aunt Wang casually recommended the new phone and gained a circle of potential users. Using recommendations from friends and family well is a brand's clever use of the east wind. Huawei conducted a statistic: 91.25% of users have purchased 2 or more Huawei phones, of which 18.51% purchased 6-10, and 10.11% purchased more than 10. The performance for phone accessories is similar: 85.64% of users purchased 2 or more, of which 10.78% purchased 10 or more. 98.54% of users have recommended Huawei phones to friends and family, of which 51.19% recommended 5 or more, and 3.32% successfully recommended 50 or more. Also, 93.54% of users have posted and shared Huawei phone product information, including ad videos, posters, and review results, on social media, and only 6.63% never share or recommend on social media. What did you discover? Huawei phone users not only maintain a very high repurchase rate themselves, but they are also particularly willing to share, with a very high referral rate. They continuously recommend their favorite products on various social media and "push" them to friends and family. Such users who love sharing and repurchasing are super users. To sum up, they have four characteristics, commonly known as the "Four Highs." 1) High conversion rate: Users support with real money. As soon as a new product comes out, before the official announcement, they come to the party to inquire about the official release time and pre-order early. 2) High repurchase rate: They stick with you continuously and repurchase. When changing phones, they think of you; when buying earphones, they think of you; when buying merchandise, they still think of you. 3) High sharing rate: They are happy to share with friends around them and are willing to help you plan and organize promotional activities. 4) High referral rate: They constantly recommend to friends and family, just like that best friend who patted his chest and said, Just buy it. So, how are such "Four High" super users fostered? Teacher Zhibin told us that besides the product itself being excellent, behind super users is an intimate relationship—the intimate relationship between users and the brand. The more intimate, the more active. We all know that buying a phone or computer is a heavier decision compared to buying clothes or food. In other words, it's a decision type more prone to choice paralysis. And with the endorsement of an intimate relationship, users can make large payment decisions faster. How is an intimate relationship fostered? 03 Brands and Users Become Intimate Relationships "What a desolate sight: among the pedestrians on the street, one in four is alone." With the advancement of urbanization and solitary living, we seem to be becoming lonelier, with fewer people we can talk to. Teacher Zhibin said he initiated a small survey on his Moments: In the past six months, how many close friends do you have with whom you can discuss matters of great significance, with whom you can talk face-to-face about pain and pour out your heart at night, and with whom you can entrust secrets? A total of 62 people participated in this small survey. 5 said none, and 34 said 1-3. Although the sample is small and may not be statistically significant, to a certain extent, it can show that our close friends are becoming fewer. But people's social needs haven't decreased. When our need for intimate relationships cannot be fulfilled in work and life, we are likely to turn our attention to different brands and products. Therefore, brands and users becoming intimate relationships is both a trend and a need. There are three methods to promote intimate relationships. First, directly introduce users into existing intimate relationships. For example, the Heika Camera mini-program. Upload a landscape photo from your phone, and the mini-program can generate a GIF where the sky in the picture flows. Besides GIFs, it can also generate postcards with one click. The generated GIFs and postcards can be directly shared with friends via WeChat. This feature precisely captures many elderly groups. First, the mini-program is built into WeChat, so no extra download is needed, which is very convenient for elderly people who are not proficient with phones. Second, the elderly already have the habit of making photo albums, GIFs, and postcards to send to friends. Word spreads quickly, and it became popular in the elderly social circle in no time. This is the first method: introducing users into existing intimate relationships. Second, promote the formation of enhanced intimate relationships among users within your own product. Many game software cultivate this type of relationship. People hope to have the opportunity to meet friends from game communities in person, so they spontaneously organize offline meetups. Over time, these virtual friends gradually develop into real friends and partners. Third, simulate different dimensions of intimate relationships between the brand and users. Let's return to the story at the beginning. The neighbor said that NIO is like a clumsy child, and I want to help him well. What it simulates with users is a parent-child relationship. The enterprise is the younger generation. Remember the "Travel Frog" game that was popular a few years ago? Many people said it felt like raising a frog son. He often goes on trips, and all you have to do is prepare food for him, pack his bags, and then look forward to him sending postcards. It's a seemingly boring game, but the frog "son" is really cute and endearing. Seeing his progress day by day indeed made many people experience the joy of raising a son. Besides treating the enterprise as a child, what other simulated relationships are there? Peer relationships. Like Huawei phones, many people feel the brand is particularly reliable, and over time, a relationship of mutual support and shared hardships develops, like brothers or spouses. Another type of parent-child relationship treats users as children and the brand as the elder. The enterprise cares for the children's needs meticulously, and users naturally become dependent on the brand. But how many intimate relationships does a person actually need in life? 04 Integrate Your Various Strengths How many close friends can a person maintain at most? Professor Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist at the University of Oxford, gave the number: 150. Among them, the closest are no more than 5. This answer is also known as Dunbar's number. Dunbar's number tells us that the number of people with whom one can maintain intimate relationships has an upper limit, and it's really not many. In today's internet age, we spend 40% of our total social time on these 5 closest people. If we add 10 slightly closer people, making 15, it takes up 60% of the time. So, from the brand's perspective, to achieve key behavioral orders, repurchases, and referrals, you need to seize the user's limited close friend positions. In the past, we had to invest in platform traffic to gain more attention. Now it has become: I need to buy the user and his friends from the user. Didi Chuxing used red envelopes to let friends learn about Didi; community group buying uses group building and constant invitations. In the end, it's about finding ways to get users to help you share, refer, and be willing to pay. If you retain 1,000 loyal users, you will live well. Alibaba's Daniel Zhang said, "The future focus has shifted from user growth to user retention and ARPU growth." From flooding to intensive cultivation. How should enterprises formulate a private domain strategy suitable for themselves? From the perspectives of purpose and constraints. First, purpose: The purposes of private domain are conversion, referral, sales expansion, and repurchase. Conversion, for example, facilitating sales orders. The purer the purpose, the easier it is to do well. The more hidden and ambiguous, the worse. Repurchase: The most common way is to develop members, find ways to make them buy more, and make them unable to resist coming back to buy. Referral: For high-priced, high-end, heavy-decision products like cars, repurchase is difficult, so referral is the only way. Sales expansion mainly refers to cutting-edge private domain teams that often incubate new products and new brands within communities. After discussing price, let's look at constraints, mainly divided into price, frequency, and privacy. Price and frequency are considered together. Low price and low frequency: no need to do private domain; even if you do, the effect is poor. High price and high frequency: naturally suited for private domain. Low price and high frequency: private domain is most likely to succeed, such as fruit shops, convenience store benefit groups, etc. Privacy is special. It's directly related to trust, such as helping book hotels and flights, providing private psychological counseling, etc. For consumers, they need to find an extremely reliable enterprise they can fully entrust. After analyzing the purposes and constraints of private domain, let's look at ways to naturally enhance the relationship with users and get them into your private domain pool. There are two hooks. Hook 1: How to enter the private domain pool? There are two time-tested scripts: First, after-sales; second, benefits. After-sales: You bought our product, add me as a friend, tell me if you have any dissatisfaction during use, and we can help you solve it anytime. Benefits: Add me as a friend, we'll give you coupons, and I'll notify you immediately when there's an event. Hook 2: Once in the private domain pool, how to advance the relationship? You need to give users a feeling of pride when they show it off. I joined the private domain group and can't help but post on Moments and recommend it to friends and family. For example, the brand's values highly align with mine, it's enthusiastic about public welfare, and often organizes member charity activities. If I go as a member, take photos, and post them on Moments, I feel particularly proud. This is "falling for talent, loyal to character," creating a shared highlight moment between you and the user. Seeing this, many people will ask. Isn't private domain just sending ads to users every day? Aren't many people doing that? Of course not. Take the example of Zhufaner. Its purpose is to find the best way to not disturb people while maintaining frequent contact. We all know that decoration is a low-frequency event in the long term, but very high-frequency in the short term. You won't decorate every day for life, but if you buy a house and need to decorate, you definitely need to get everything done in a short period, from large items like heating, water, and electrical systems to small items like tables and chairs. During this period, you need to intensively acquire decoration information almost from scratch. Ask friends? Most of them are not professionals and can't answer comprehensively. So Zhufaner's intensive search function becomes an expert you can rely on heavily during the decoration period. On it, you will eventually find the one that suits you. Don't disturb at ordinary times, but be reliable at critical moments. This is Zhufaner's secret to private domain. So, to do private domain well, or to build intimate relationships with users, you need to master the scale and timing. In summary, there are 6 key elements. 1) A time when relationships can be triggered anytime, anywhere. No matter when you go to the merchant, you find something waiting for you to participate in, and it urgently needs your participation. For example, helping the brand test a latest product, helping a talent show star vote, etc. It doesn't matter the size; it matters that it's always there. 2) A scenario for interaction anytime, anywhere. For example, NIO's exclusive service group for each user, fan support groups, etc., are scenarios for interaction anytime, anywhere. 3) Make users feel they are an indispensable and important role. For example, before a new phone launch, first invite loyal users to test, listen carefully to their modification suggestions, and then make changes. 4) Fully utilize elements like geography and interests. Geography and interests are natural drivers for community formation and key components of mutual recognition. 5) Ways to continuously advance the relationship. Through member management advancement and other methods, promote continuous user interaction and activity. 6) Form consistent values with users. The same values are the guarantee that users will firmly "stand on stage" for you; conversely, they are also the fastest factor for turning fans into haters. Final Words: Doing private domain is just a tool. Fostering intimate relationships is the goal. The dividend of private domain may be short-lived, but the long-term impact of intimate relationships is just beginning. What is an intimate relationship? Teacher Zhibin's sharing tells us that the key to intimate relationships lies in the trust between users and brands. It starts with appearance, falls for talent, and is loyal to character. A reliable relationship may be the flywheel for the successful application of the private domain tool. Source: Evolution Island (ID: jinhuadao) Opinion: Xu Zhibin. Written by: Jingxian. -END-