With over 36 million members and an IPO on the horizon, how does Gu Ming, a brand with tens of thousands of stores, operate its private domain?

The continued growth of Gu Ming's performance is inseparable from its efforts and attention to private domain operations. In this article, the author disassembles Gu Ming's private domain operations. Let's take a look.

The first major event in the new tea beverage industry in 2024 was the news that Gu Ming and Mixue Bingcheng were listed in Hong Kong on the same day. Prior to that, Cha Baidao had submitted an application in August last year. Many brands such as Shanghai Auntie and Bawang Cha Ji have also announced their listings.

The continued growth of Gu Ming’s performance is inseparable from its efforts and attention to private domain operations.

Since the launch of the membership system, Gu Ming has had over 36 million members . In 2023, Gu Ming's GMV (gross merchandise volume) reached 19.2 billion yuan, with 1.2 billion cups of drinks sold and a total of over 10,000 stores .

So how does Gu Ming build member stickiness and maintain a high repurchase rate in the private domain? Below, we will disassemble Gu Ming's private domain operations for you.

1. Case Background

1. Brand Introduction

In 2010, the Gu Ming brand was founded in Daxi Town, Wenling City, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, China.

Since its establishment, Gu Ming has relied on a research and development team of hundreds of people to explore tea inspirations and insists on using good fruits, good tea leaves, good milk and other raw materials.

We have built our own Xishuangbanna lemon base and a warehousing and logistics system that covers stores across the country. From origin, research and development, warehousing and transportation to store production, we ensure that consumers can drink fresh, authentic tea.

By 2023, the number of Gu Ming stores nationwide has exceeded 10,000, covering more than 180 prefecture-level cities in 18 provinces and regions including Zhejiang, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Shandong.

2. Market size

The total market size of China's freshly brewed tea drinks in 2020 was 113.6 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 340 billion yuan by 2025. It is a veritable 100 billion yuan market.

3. User portrait

According to data from multiple sources, female consumers account for approximately 70% of the milk tea market, while male consumers only account for 30%.

Gu Ming itself defines its target customer group as young people aged 18-35. Combining the data from both parties, Gu Ming's user profile is basically women aged 18-35 .

2. Traffic Channel Analysis

Gu Ming has established a private domain matrix with channels such as "official account + mini program + corporate microblog + community" as the core, and has made use of popular public domain platforms such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, etc. to achieve public and private domain traffic conversion and help brands expand their voice.

1. Offline stores

Gu Ming's offline stores have set up entrances to attract customers to the community. The store staff will actively remind you to join the community and receive exclusive benefits.

In addition, welfare information such as "Join the community to receive a 30 yuan coupon package" is placed next to the drink menu to attract users to scan the code and enter the private domain.

2. Private Domain Platform

1) Official Account

After following the "Gu Ming Tea" public account, the brand characteristics are introduced in the welcome message, and a jump link is attached. Use [Community 30 yuan coupon package] as a benefit point to attract users to join the community.

After the user clicks the link, the system will recommend the nearest store welfare officer based on the user’s real-time location.

Specific path: Mingxing member – join the group to receive a 30 yuan gift package – select a store – scan the code to add the company WeChat

2) Mini Programs

On the homepage and ordering page of the mini program "Gu Ming Tea" , there are WeChat's traffic-generating touchpoints.

Using the "30 yuan coupon package" as a hook, users are attracted to click and jump to the WeChat QR code poster, where they can scan the code to add a store welfare officer.

3. Public Domain Platform

1) Video Account

Gu Ming’s video account [Gu Ming Tea Drinks] mainly contains content such as brand promotion, product introduction, and funny skits.

Set up the "Add Corporate WeChat" touchpoint on the homepage, click to add the Welfare Officer's WeChat. The Welfare Officer invites you to join the community.

2) Tik Tok

Gu Ming has 1.567 million followers on Douyin and 8.816 million likes. The account content is mainly product promotion, event promotion, and live broadcast promotion.

The home page sets the traffic paths for stores, fan groups and group purchase recommendations, and you can jump to the corresponding page by clicking.

3) Xiaohongshu

Gu Ming’s account on Xiaohongshu has 501,000 followers and 254,600 likes and collections.

The account mainly promotes new products and brand events, and will set up lucky draws in tweets to increase the exposure of the content and attract users to make offline purchases.

4) Weibo

Gu Ming has 1.08 million fans and 323.7 million likes and comments. Weibo will share content such as rewarded interactions, event promotions, and product introductions.

The homepage sets up touchpoints for the fan group. Users can apply to enter after following the account and becoming loyal fans of the account.

3. Disassembly of Private Domain IP

Gu Ming has refined its customer service WeChat account based on each store, positioning its brand IP as a welfare officer.

Below I will take the welfare officer I added, "Gu Ming Welfare Officer-Da Shu", as an example for analysis.

1. Personal positioning

• Nickname : Gu Ming Welfare Officer-XX (nickname)
• Avatar : Brand logo
• Role positioning : Brand welfare officer

2. Automatic welcome message

After adding the WeChat account, the WeChat account will automatically reply with a welcome message, introduce the exclusive benefits of the community, and provide a link to the community to guide users to join the community.

3. Moments content

• Content frequency : Publish 1 Moments content per day
• Release time : Irregular
• Moments content : mainly new product promotions, welfare activities, etc.

4. Analysis of Community Operation

Gu Ming has more than 10,000 stores across the country, and the community is mainly based on store groups. It attracts users to join the group with a "30 yuan coupon package" and guides users to receive coupons after joining the group, prompting them to place orders and complete transactions. The following is a detailed analysis.

1. Community Positioning

Group nickname: Gu Ming + store name + welfare group, such as: Gu Ming Gongshu Jinmao Yue Store Welfare Group 2

Group positioning: welfare group

Community value: issuing coupons, launching new products, welfare activities, and increasing repurchase rate

2. Group Announcement

The group announcement introduces the community’s exclusive benefits and comes with corresponding links to guide users to jump to the event page to generate conversions.

In addition, Gu Ming clearly defined the violations in the group announcement to facilitate the establishment of group order.

3. Community Content

There is no fixed schedule for the content that Gu Ming releases in the community. It usually releases some welfare activity content, such as Wednesday Member Day and Thursday New Product Day. It mainly focuses on promoting the activities and attracting users to consume.

Gu Ming has established an SOP in the community. Take the SOP of my welfare group for one week as an example:

• Monday: [Workday] Get a 17 yuan all-inclusive package;
• Tuesday: [Points Day] Members can spend 10 points to get a 1-yuan milk tea;
• Wednesday: [Members’ Day] Choose from a variety of milk teas for 9.9 yuan;
• Thursday: [New Product Day] Interactive guessing of new products to win free orders;
• Friday: [Raffle Day] Surprise draw to win prizes;
• Weekend: [Get coupons] 9.9 yuan coupons for designated drinks.

5. Membership System Analysis

The number of members of the Guming Mini Program has exceeded 36 million , mainly through setting up a membership system in the WeChat Mini Program, based on a growing membership + points system .

1. Growing Members

GuMing Growth members are divided into 8 levels:

• V1 Mingxing Member (9 Vitality Points)
• V2 Mingxing Member (29 Vitality Points)
• V3 Mingxing Member (99 Vitality Points)
• V4 Mingxing Member (249 Vitality Points)
• V5 Mingxing Member (499 Vitality Points)
• V6 Star Member (999 Vitality Points)
• V7 Star Member (1999 Vitality Points
• V8 Star Member (2000+ Vitality Points)

「Vitality Points」 can be obtained through consumption, and the consumption amount is 1 yuan = 1 vitality point. The higher the accumulated freshness, the higher the level, and the more rights and interests you enjoy.

Taking the V8 level as an example, the main benefits include 1:2 reward points, buy one get one free on membership days, and occasional exclusive benefits.

2. Points system

Users can get 1 point for every 1 yuan spent, and the points can be used to redeem product coupons, discount coupons, etc.

VI. Summary

Finally, let’s summarize the highlights and shortcomings of Guming’s private domain operations:

1. Product promotion breaks through the circle with force : various platforms jointly promote new products, and amplify product attention through rewarded interactions, situational videos, etc. based on user portraits, so as to quickly break out of the circle and reach more target users.
2. Rich community gameplay: Gu Ming’s community content has rich gameplay. In addition to issuing coupons, there are also interactive games.
3. The IP image is relatively weak : the content of Gu Ming’s WeChat Moments is almost all product-related content, lacking daily life content, making it difficult to narrow the distance between the company and users.

Author: Yan Tao

Source: WeChat public account "Yan Tao Sanshou (ID: yantao-219)"