Why do private domains fail to succeed despite huge investments? The reason lies in these 7 conflicts

Why can’t private domain operations be successful? Let’s see what the author says.

Yesterday, Xiaoqi told me that many people have been asking recently, what should we do if private domain cannot be established? Many companies have invested a lot of money, and some have been doing it for several years, but still have no improvement.

I asked these companies what obstacles they felt prevented them from developing private domains. Some of them were operational, such as poor copywriting and community management; others were team-related, such as not knowing how to determine performance and recruiting the right people.

In my opinion, these questions miss the point.

All of the above are easy to solve. The real reasons why a company cannot succeed in its private domain are mostly invisible and intangible. You will only understand them when you go deep into the company.

In the past six years, I have seen too many companies fail in their private domain development. The reason lies in these seven "conflicts". See if you are affected.

Conflict 1: Company expectations vs. cognition and investment

I believe that many private domain operators have a deep understanding of this. Many companies have high expectations for private domain operations, hoping to quickly increase sales and customer loyalty through private domain operations.

However, in actual operations, due to employees' overall lack of understanding or experience in private domain operations, coupled with companies' low investment in private domains, it is often difficult to achieve the expected results.

So this leads to a conflict between the company's expectations and its perceptions and investments.

Conflict 2: Short-term interests in private domains vs. long-term value contradictions

This is also the pain point for many traders and private domain managers.

Many bosses who are engaged in private domains want to have it all. They want to provide good services in the private domain and emphasize long-term value, but they also want to get results quickly in the short term and set the monthly KPI performance very high.

However, the construction of private domain traffic requires long-term investment and operation, and requires continuous accumulation of customers and enhancement of brand influence. If a company only focuses on short-term returns and ignores long-term value, it will be difficult to succeed in private domain traffic.

Therefore, how to find the balance between the two is one of the keys to private domain operations.

Conflict 3: The contradiction between company goals and operational capabilities

I believe this is a problem that most companies face when operating in the private domain. When setting goals for private domain operations, many companies often ignore their own operational capabilities.

For example, when some companies engage in private domain, they will give priority to recruiting people from the original membership team or customer service team, and they do not carefully screen people when recruiting. As a result, the people who engage in private domain do not understand operations at all, and naturally cannot achieve the desired results.

Or they set very high goals without considering the actual situation of the team and blindly believe in the effect of private domains, which leads to a gap between goals and operational capabilities. Therefore, companies need to seriously consider their own operational capabilities and resource investment.

Conflict 4: The contradiction between the company's private domain and the dealer's private domain

For larger companies, the problems of private domain are even more diverse. Especially for companies with a dealer system, conflicts are inevitable if they want to do a good job in private domain.

The core conflict is about interests. We have come into contact with too many such companies in the past. The dealers’ cognition and understanding of private domains are different from that of brands.

To give a very simple example, for dealers, every private domain user is their own asset, so they naturally will not be willing to hand over the user to the brand.

Therefore, how to coordinate the relationship between the company and dealers while ensuring their own interests is also one of the difficulties in private domain operations.

Conflict 5: The contradiction between the trader and the company’s positioning/investment

This is also a problem that exists in the market. Many private domain operators have sufficient experience and a very high level of understanding of private domains.

However, many companies are doing private domain business, to put it bluntly, just to seek sales and conversions, and position the private domain as a sales channel, which does not require too many fancy things.

This also leads to the situation that traders have many ideas, but have no place to use them, and their professionalism and creativity cannot be fully utilized.

Conflict 6: Conflict between private domain teams and corporate departments

In large enterprises, it is normal for conflicts to exist between the private domain operations department and other departments.

For example, in a billion-dollar enterprise we served in the past, there was a conflict between the SCRM department and the marketing department. Users wanted to buy something in the group, but they had no transaction channel because sales were managed by the marketing department.

There is also the issue of organizational structure. Which department should a private domain department be placed in, or should a new department be established? This will involve conflicts of rights and interests.

Conflict 7: Enterprise vs. agency operation service contradiction

We have also helped many companies resolve this kind of conflicts. Nowadays, it is very common to find agents to operate private domains. Due to lack of experience and resources, companies will choose to cooperate with agent operation service providers.

However, due to differences in the needs and understanding of enterprises by the agency service providers, as well as the competition and interest relations among the service providers, some contradictions and conflicts often arise.

For example, the service provider may pay more attention to its own interests and ignore the interests of the enterprise; or the service provider may not fully understand the needs and goals of the enterprise, resulting in poor results of private domain operations.

Therefore, how to choose the right service provider and coordinate the relationship between the two parties while ensuring one's own interests is another difficulty in private domain operations.

Final Thoughts

The above are the seven conflicts and contradictions in the private domain that I have summarized. These "common problems" in the private domain are the key factors that affect the private domain. People who have not experienced this may find it difficult to understand.

Today, among the companies I have come into contact with, no one is discussing whether to enter the private domain. Instead, they are thinking about how to do private domain more efficiently and sustainably. The competition has begun on details, systematization, and standardization.

Only by thinking carefully and avoiding the common problems mentioned above can enterprises go further and faster on the road of private domain operations.

Author: Yan Tao WeChat public account: Yan Tao Sanshou