With over 66 million members and one of the top 3 new tea brands in China, how does Chabaidao operate its private domain?

This article analyzes and explains Chabaidao's private domain operations. It first introduces Chabaidao's background, then analyzes its traffic channels, then disassembles its private domain IP, and analyzes its community operations, membership system, and some fission gameplay. Finally, it summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of Chabaidao's operations. This article is suitable for other tea brands to watch and learn.

Following Nayuki Tea and Mixue Bingcheng, Chabaidao recently applied to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for listing.

According to the retail sales forecast for 2022, Chabaidao ranks third in China's new tea beverage market, with a market share of about 6.6%. Benefiting from the rapid growth of the industry, Chabaidao has performed well in recent years.

The compound annual growth rate in the past three years is as high as 97.9%. Net profit in 2022 will exceed 900 million yuan. The continued growth of Chabaidao's performance is inseparable from its efforts and attention to private domain operations.

Since the launch of the membership system in 2021, Cha Baidao has had more than 66 million members. The member repurchase rate in the second quarter of 2023 was as high as 32.8%, far higher than the industry average.

So how does Chabaidao establish member stickiness and maintain a high repurchase rate in the private domain?

Next, we will analyze Cha Baidao’s private domain operations for you.

1. Case Background

1. Brand Introduction

Founded in 2008, Chabaidao is a local tea chain brand in Chengdu, Sichuan. Chabaidao returns to the essence of making a good drink, using raw materials, craftsmanship, and innovative spirit to create drinks. In 2008, Chabaidao opened its first store in Wenjiang District, Chengdu. In April 2023, Chabaidao held a 2023 brand upgrade conference in Chengdu, Sichuan. It announced that the number of its stores has exceeded 7,000, covering 330 cities across the country.

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 about 70% of the milk tea market, while male consumers account for only 30%. Chabaidao itself positions its target customer group as young people aged 18-35. Combining data from both sources, the user profile of Chabaidao is basically females aged 18-35.

2. Traffic Channel Analysis

Cha Baidao has established a private domain matrix with channels such as "official account + mini program + corporate WeChat + 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

Chabaidao has set up a community traffic entrance in its offline stores. The store clerk will actively remind you to join the community and receive exclusive benefits. In addition, welfare information such as "Join the community to receive a 20 yuan coupon" is placed next to the beverage menu to attract users to scan the code and enter the private domain.

2. Private Domain Platform

1) Official Account

After following the "Cha Baidao" public account, the brand characteristics are introduced in the welcome message, and a jump link is attached. Use [Community 20 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.

2) Mini Programs

On the homepage and ordering page of the mini program [Cha Baidao Ordering+], there are Qiwei’s traffic-generating touchpoints.

Using the "20 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

The video account of Chabaidao mainly features brand promotion, product introduction, funny skits, etc. The homepage has a touch point called "Add Corporate WeChat". Click it to add the Welfare Officer's WeChat. The Welfare Officer invites you to join the community.

2) Tik Tok

Chabaidao has 145.6w followers on Douyin and 64w likes. The account content mainly promotes products, events and live broadcasts.

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

Cha Baidao’s account on Xiaohongshu has 506,000 followers and 351,300 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

Weibo has 316,000 followers and 229,800 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

Since Chengdu is the hometown of giant pandas, Cha Baidao’s packaging design mainly focuses on the panda IP.

Cha Baidao has set up a "store-exclusive welfare officer". Below I will use the "Ding Ding Cat" I added as an example for analysis.

1. Personal positioning

Nickname: Ding Ding Cat

Avatar: Blue and white panda (cartoon image)

Role positioning: Brand welfare officer

2. Corporate WeChat Business Card

In each company WeChat business card, you can see Cha Baidao’s video account, working hours, and links to "Want a drink" and "Click me to join". Clicking "Want a drink" will jump to the ordering page of the mini program.

3. 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.

4. Moments content

Content frequency: Publish 1-2 Moments of Friends content per day

Release time: Irregular

Moments content: mainly new product promotions, welfare activities, etc.

4. Analysis of Community Operation

Chabaidao has more than 4,000 stores across the country, and its social network is mainly based on store groups. It attracts users to join the group with the "20 yuan welfare group" and guides users to receive coupons after joining the group, which encourages them to place orders and complete transactions. Let's break it down below.

1. Community Positioning

Group nickname: Cha Baidao + city + store name + fan group, such as: Cha Baidao Hangzhou Blue Diamond Tiancheng fan group

Group positioning: welfare group

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

2. Community welcome message and group announcement

When a user joins the group, an automatic welcome message will be triggered immediately, introducing the community’s exclusive benefits and attaching corresponding links to guide users to jump to the activity page to generate conversions.

In addition, Cha Baidao clearly defines violations in the group announcement to facilitate the establishment of group order.

3. Community Content

There is no fixed arrangement for the content Cha Baidao releases in the community. It usually releases some welfare activities, such as lucky draws on Wednesdays, half-price promotions for the second cup, etc. It mainly focuses on promoting the activities and attracting users to consume.

Chabaidao has established a SOP in the community. Take the one-week SOP of my fan group as an example:

Monday: [Drink Together] Invite friends to join the group and enjoy discounts such as half-price coupons for the second cup;

Tuesday: [Tasting Day] 12% off on fresh milk tea series;

Wednesday: [Group Buying Day] Interact with the community to win a 3-yuan no-threshold coupon;

Thursday: [Members’ Day] 12% off all drinks;

Friday: [Fan Day] Get a 20-yuan coupon for free;

Weekend: [Get coupons] 20% off coupons for designated drinks.

5. Membership System Analysis

The number of members of the Cha Baidao Mini Program has exceeded 60 million, mainly through setting up a membership system in the WeChat Mini Program, based on a growing membership + points system.

1. Growing Members

The membership of Chabaidao Growth is divided into 6 levels:

LV0 lost panda (0 panda value)

LV1 New Panda (1 Panda Value)

LV2 Curious Panda (50 Panda Value)

LV3 Panda Drinking Tea (100+ Panda Value)

LV4 Tea Art Panda (200+ Panda Value)

LV5 Tea Ceremony Panda (500+ Panda Value)

LV6 Gold Panda (1000+ Panda Value)

"Panda Value" can be obtained through consumption, and the consumption amount of 1 yuan = 1 Panda Value. The higher the accumulated freshness, the higher the level, and the more rights and interests you enjoy.

Taking LV6 as an example, the main rights and interests include membership day privileges, badge privileges, group buying privileges, IP privileges, birthday privileges, level privileges, freedom to upgrade cups, etc.

2. Points system

Users can get 1 Panda Coin for every 1 yuan spent, and Panda Coins can be used to redeem product coupons, free coupons, etc.

Members above Lv3 can redeem exclusive discount coupons, members above LV5 can redeem a second cup at half price, and members above LV6 can redeem buy one get one free.

6. Analysis of the fission gameplay

Cha Baidao will use some simple fission gameplay on the "order page" to rationally utilize private domain resources to achieve the effect of attracting new customers and repeat purchases.

For example, in the "Drink Together" category, users can invite friends to join the group order and share the cost. In the community, Chabaidao also set up a fission activity where users can invite friends to join the group to get coupons.

VII. Summary

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

1. Product promotion breaks through the circle

Each platform jointly promotes new products and, based on user portraits, amplifies product attention through rewarded interactions, situational videos, and other methods, allowing the product to quickly gain popularity and reach more target users.

2. The social gameplay is single

Cha Baidao’s community content has few gameplay options and is only used to distribute coupons, which will lead to insufficient brand presence and insufficient user activity.

3. IP image is relatively weak

The content of Chabaidao’s WeChat Moments is almost all product-related, lacking daily life content, making it difficult to narrow the distance between the company and users.

Author: Yan Tao San Shou WeChat public account: Yan Tao San Shou