In 2024, when the private domain is being added, WeChat, Douyin, Xiaohongshu... have created new trends

In 2024, as the cost of public domain traffic continues to rise, businesses have turned to the private domain to seek more efficient and cost-effective ways to reach users. This article deeply explores the new trends in the field of private domain marketing on platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, analyzes how major Internet platforms lock in traffic through strategic adjustments, and how businesses can find new growth points in this change.

This year, many businesses have felt that public domain traffic is becoming more and more expensive, and the cost of acquiring customers is getting higher and higher. According to the Jiazi Light Year report, since 2018, even for the leading Internet platforms, the cost of acquiring each new customer has gradually increased from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan.

Therefore, businesses have begun to "seek internally" and develop private domains. After all, private domain users mean that you can reach users without paying additional traffic acquisition fees. These users are almost always those who are interested in your brand or have already consumed it. They have the most basic trust in the brand and can bring the most direct effect - increased conversion rate and reduced marketing costs.

The influx of more and more businesses into the private domain will naturally create some new trends. The private domain marketing ecology has naturally undergone some changes, and the pattern of private domain operations is being changed.

01 From WeChat to the entire Internet, the battle for private domain traffic

According to Tencent's first-half financial report, private domain is still an important source of Tencent's profits. The report mentioned that the revenue of enterprise service business achieved a growth rate of more than ten percentage points, benefiting from the growth of cloud service business revenue (including the commercialization of enterprise WeChat) and the growth of technical service fees for video account merchants.

But apart from WeChat, private domains are also constantly mentioned on other platforms.

Xiaohongshu has stepped up its e-commerce business to achieve a closed business loop; users have jointly raised "little celebrities" on Douyin, which has enhanced its social attributes; Kuaishou has reiterated the private domain and released relevant data; traditional e-commerce has restricted traffic induction... Internet platforms have all adopted various measures in an attempt to "internalize the circulation" of traffic. At the same time, more and more businesses have opened up their minds and turned their attention to content e-commerce in the private domain.

Recently, Douyin has been strengthening the social attributes of the platform through various means, which is good news for merchants operating in the private domain. For Douyin, when the e-commerce GMV reaches a certain saturation and the public domain traffic cannot achieve deep seeding or repeat purchases, the e-commerce business will inevitably enter a bottleneck.

Therefore, Douyin needs social networking to re-stimulate the private domain and achieve an internal breakthrough from the public domain to the private domain. Starting from the user's closest social circle and creating a chat atmosphere, it can be active after entering the merchant group chat.

It has been observed that on Douyin, merchants of products with high repurchase rates are more active in community operations, and the atmosphere within the group is relatively more active.

Similarly, Xiaohongshu has long been more than just a place to promote products. After a series of adjustments in the past two years, more and more merchants have completed the transaction loop from promoting products to conversion on the Xiaohongshu site, especially small and medium-sized merchants. Data shows that in the first half of 2024, the number of small and medium-sized merchants operating on Xiaohongshu increased by 379% year-on-year, and the GMV of small and medium-sized merchants increased by 436% year-on-year.

Where are the high-end players making their efforts?

In private domain.

Xiaohongshu started out as a sharing community with a strong social atmosphere. It can gather a large number of users in the early stage of the link interest, and the entire link from seeding to purchase is more efficient. In order to retain traffic within the site, the official Xiaohongshu platform has also launched favorable policies, providing "note traffic" assistance to merchants who experience the group chat management function, and the official provides billions of traffic subsidies.

Even Kuaishou has started to mention private domains again. On August 27, at the 2024 Kuaishou Photosynthesis Creator Conference, Cheng Yixiao, founder, chairman and CEO of Kuaishou Technology, focused on private domains in his speech. And released relevant data: According to the data in July this year, every day, more than 75% of daily active users will like, comment, reward, purchase goods and other interactions with the creators/anchors they follow on the follow page and pan-private domain scenarios. In terms of social networking, the number of double-entertainment private messages increased by nearly 40% year-on-year. Users are increasingly sending private messages to friends on the platform, and the penetration rate of close friends has also increased by more than 10%.

Tmall is releasing some strategies to keep traffic on its own platform. In June this year, Tmall revised the "Rules and Implementation Rules for Inducing Third Parties" again, explicitly prohibiting merchants from directing traffic to outside the site through methods such as package cards. Once the new regulations come into effect, it means that merchants can no longer convert public domain traffic on the platform into their own "private domain traffic" at a very low cost. If they want to continue to reach consumers, they can only communicate within the site. It is not difficult to guess that Tmall is laying the groundwork for building its own private domain traffic pool.

Pinduoduo also has similar regulations: as long as merchants engage in illegal inducement behavior, they will face penalties such as increasing the store deposit (an increase of 50,000). Even if the violations occur twice or more, the merchants may face the serious consequences of having their entire deposit deducted and being forced to withdraw from the store.

Whether it is the implicit "ban" or the soft "traffic subsidy", platforms are racking their brains to lock traffic within the site, and the private domain landscape is quietly changing.

02 From promotion to communication, the changes brought about by the platform

The attributes of the platforms are different, and the characteristics of the private domains are naturally different. The goals you want to achieve are different, and the means you use are also different. But in essence, the criterion for judging the private domain is by no means how many fans you have in your group, and the value of the private domain is by no means just to send red envelopes to encourage users to repeatedly "buy, buy, buy", or to remind you of new products.

What is more important is to communicate with consumers and accumulate brand crowd assets. The diversification of platforms has brought brands more opportunities to communicate with consumers. This does not just mean more fans with more platforms. Instead, it can communicate with different groups of people. Take content e-commerce as an example. Users gather under a certain post because of their interest in a product or brand, and then enter the private domain group through the link. In such a group, users are still in the pre-link stage, and the discussion of products and brands is also higher. You can clearly feel that the atmosphere of this group chat is very different from the traditional coupon distribution group.

He Yabin, Chief Growth Officer of McDonald's China, once mentioned in a conversation with Morketing: "Insights should first focus on fans. Not just users, but the most enthusiastic users, the loyal fans of the brand."

How to focus? Where are the most enthusiastic fans? Private domain.

Morketing recently joined a very active fan group of a headphone brand. The group not only set up a check-in activity, where you can get the product by completing the 21-day check-in, but the administrator also guided group members to discuss product-related topics, such as in what life scenarios to use the product; what theme everyone hopes for for tomorrow's live broadcast, etc. The group members are very active.

Only when users become alive can brands become alive, and only such private domains are valuable.

Just as Yang Jiongwei, founder and CEO of Weiling Technology, said: "Enterprises are paying more and more attention to the operation and mining of the customer's life cycle value. Whether it is a toB enterprise or a toC enterprise, private domain has become an important tool for customer relationship management."

How to do a good job in private domain? Morketing believes that at least three values ​​should be provided to your users.

1. Emotional Value

If acquiring customers in the public domain is like shouting with a loud speaker, then the private domain is like having a tea party or even a 1v1 date. In this scenario, communication is more focused and targeted, and therefore more conducive to conveying emotional value. If you want to do a good job in private domain marketing, you need to show your brand's care for consumers and show your thoughtfulness.

Luckin Coffee is a good example. Its "Chief Welfare Officer Lucky" will recommend cold drinks to cities with high temperatures and hot drinks to cities with low temperatures based on customer needs and preferences. When it is rainy and it is inconvenient for users to go out, Luckin Coffee will offer more takeaway discounts.

Just as Luckin Coffee co-founder and chief growth officer Yang Fei said: "One-to-one service is to help customers solve problems and provide personalized services to customers, rather than harassing them." This is why Luckin Coffee has tens of millions of private domain users, but the blacklist rate is less than 0.000%.

2. Content Value

Whether it is the group of purchased members on WeChat or the group of interested people on content e-commerce, if you want them to stay in your private domain for a long time and bring about conversions, you must provide differentiated content.

In this regard, businesses can learn from long video platforms. Morketing found that popular variety shows have recently launched member-derived columns. In the past, VIPs may only have the right to watch the pure version or watch it in advance to increase the experience, but now there are more rights in content. The mentality of many users has become "I can wait, but you can't stop me from watching." In addition, the main film constantly directs traffic to member programs, and member programs constantly emphasize that only members can listen, giving VIP users a sense of value for money.

The same is true for private domain content operations. Consumers should be given a reason to join the group. For example, posting photography tutorials for camera products, OOTD for clothing categories, makeup tutorials for beauty tracks, white paper sharing for toB industries, etc. On the one hand, it can increase the stickiness of fans, on the other hand, it can liven up the group atmosphere and let everyone discuss, and at the same time, it can better bear the traffic brought by the grass-roots posts.

3. Experience Value

The value brought by the experience is more direct and has extremely high stickiness.

In this regard, new energy vehicles have done particularly well in recent years. Door-to-door tire repairs and door-to-door car washes are routine operations. If you become a NIO owner, you can even experience door-to-door cat feeding, door-to-door haircuts, and door-to-door cooking. In addition to NIO, new energy vehicles such as Ideal and Xiaopeng are also launching their own APPs to provide users with charging, car maintenance, music listening, phone calls, health testing and other experiences.

For durable consumer goods like cars, you might as well try starting with the experience and maintaining private domain members.

Business is essentially a competition for attention. When the public domain bonus period gradually passes, merchants really want to leverage more transactions at a more reasonable cost. Doing private domain is not about counting heads, nor is it about importing into the private domain pool. It is about the relationship between the enterprise and the user. Only by providing real value to consumers can we establish real communication.

Text | Tiana
This article is written by the author [Morketing] of Operation Party, WeChat public account: [Morketing]. It is originally created/authorized to be published on Operation Party. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.