In the tea industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, how can brands improve their performance through private domains?

The concept of private domain has become popular again and again. In the tea industry with a scale of hundreds of billions, how do brands operate in private domain? In this article, the author uses the tea industry as a case study to describe in detail how tea brands use private domain to improve their performance. It is recommended for friends who are interested in private domain operations.

If you ask which industry is particularly suitable for private domain, the tea industry is definitely on the list. The trust demand is high, the repurchase rate is high, and the sharing rate is high. It can be said that the tea category is naturally suitable for private domain.

The pain points we are facing now are also the key reasons why businesses are transforming to private domains:

• Weak brand influence and limited sales: The overall tea industry is currently "categories but no brands". When most consumers buy tea, they think about what kind of tea to buy, not what brand of tea. Merchants also rely too much on channels and word-of-mouth recommendations for sales;
• Fierce market competition and high marketing costs: The tea market has low concentration, many brands, and extremely high online marketing or placement costs, with weak subsequent conversions;
• High trust cost and few loyal users: There is no unified standard for tea prices, and it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of tea. Loyal users require extremely high trust costs to build;

Looking at the tea market, tea brands of all sizes are developing their own private domains: Xiaoguan Tea has been in the private domain for half a year and has achieved a million-dollar increase in private domain GMV; the emerging tea brand Yi Nian Cao Mu Zhong has accumulated 300,000 fans in one year, and private domain sales account for more than 90%...

So, what is the key to doing a good job in private domain in the tea industry?

Combining industry pain points and brand operation cases, I believe that in addition to ensuring high-quality products and services, the most important thing is to achieve three "strongs": strong traffic, strong trust, and strong conversion.

1. Strong drainage

Many tea brands have encountered this dilemma when selling goods:

Brands lack their own influence and need to rely on online celebrities to promote their products. However, top IPs such as "Li Jiaqi" and "Make Friends" often require large discounts to promote their products.

And because customers go for the big IP and discounts, even if they end up buying the product, their awareness of the brand is still very limited.
And after leaving the live broadcast room, it is impossible to continue selling goods . This way of bringing goods is obviously not sustainable. Therefore, a popular practice in the market is for brands to establish their own private channels, contact consumers to build trust, and then increase profits through repeat purchases.

Therefore, merchants need to do a good job of attracting traffic from various channels and not waste any sales channels and user leads. The following methods are for reference:

1. Package card diversion

Due to restrictions on e-commerce platforms, brands are unable to obtain user contact information, and package cards are the safest and most effective way to attract traffic.

Among them, the package card of "One Thought in the Grass and Trees" is a benchmark. The package card uses the benefit hook of "receive exclusive green tea sets" to guide users to scan the code to enter the private domain, and also comes with a "letter from the manager", which conveys the brand's feelings and concepts, allowing users to feel the brand's sincerity.

Not only that, they also observed that many of their user groups are relatively young, and most of them don’t know much about the ins and outs of tea tasting.

Therefore, a "brewing guide" is added to the package card. In this way, not only can the problem of many people having a poor experience due to not knowing how to taste tea be avoided, but users can also be smoothly guided into the private domain, instantly maximizing the user experience.

2. Online traffic generation

When doing private domain, we must also pay attention to the public domain. Only when the public domain continuously provides traffic can the private domain continue to operate.

Brands can set up traffic-generating touchpoints around multiple platforms such as official accounts, video accounts, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, etc., covering all platforms. Through these touchpoints, they can establish strong links with users, stick with users, and retain users.

But as small and medium-sized enterprises, we do not have enough scale to invest resources in building public domain platforms. How can we attract customers at low cost?

The more common method is fission, which can bring in a large number of new customers in a short period of time. Take the fission gameplay of "Xiao Guan Tea" as an example:
Xiaoguan Tea launched a fission event last year. Users who invite 5 new users to add customer service friends can buy three bags of spring tea for 1.99 yuan; if they invite 8 new users, they can buy a Xiaoguan Tea gift box for 1.99 yuan.

Through certain welfare baits, we can stimulate old users to actively invite new users and achieve rapid user expansion. At the same time, we adopt the 1.99 yuan trial method instead of free access to prevent users from taking advantage of the situation, increase user participation costs, and better retain users.

In addition, there are different forms of fission gameplay such as group buying, bargaining, distribution, and lottery, which can also have a good drainage effect in the private domain, but it requires a good path design, a clear budget, and consideration of risks.

2. Strong Trust

At present, the domestic tea market is in a stage of rapid growth, but it is also full of chaos. There is no unified standard price for tea, and it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of tea.

Therefore, tea users have an extremely strong need for trust, which is almost the primary factor that determines their consumption.

For merchants, quickly establishing trust with customers can largely determine whether the final transaction is successful. However, many merchants think that operating a private domain is just posting on WeChat Moments and social networks. After a long time, users will naturally trust you, but they don’t know that users have already blocked you. To gain the trust of users, you need to continue to dig deep and operate, so that users will feel that you are valuable and stay in your private domain.

Generally speaking, "building IP" and "creating content" are two effective ways to build trust.

1. Build IP

IP is the character.

Compared with an abstract brand, a concrete and personalized IP image is easier to close the distance, create emotional connection and accumulate trust when communicating with customers. At the same time, it is also easier for customers to have a memory point and leave a fuller and more three-dimensional impression.

Take Shunzi Talks Tea, which is currently very popular on the video account, as an example. Since entering the video account in April 2022, it has achieved more than 26 million yuan in live sales in less than a year, and its product repurchase rate has reached more than 30%, becoming a leader in the video account tea industry segment. At the 2023 WeChat Open Class Annual Conference, it was officially recommended and liked.

Let’s break down how his IP was built:

• Name: Shunzi (original name Chen Jingshun)
• Image: A middle-aged man who loves tea (in line with the category user portrait)
• Identity: National first-level tea appraiser (authoritative)
• Achievements/honors: Won the 2021 Innovative Chinese Tea "Outstanding Innovative Talent Award" and other awards, published 6 tea-related books
• Background: I have been in the tea industry for thirteen years. In the past 13 years, I have visited authentic tea production areas across the country and have a deep understanding of the culture and history behind tea.
• Value provided: It can provide high-quality content and culture, such as the history and humanistic stories behind the products. Even for an ordinary tea set, he can talk about it from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, from the Middle Ages to the modern times.

Years of accumulation have also made his IP image very full, able to quickly attract different tea lovers and make them trust himself.

Therefore, to build a good IP is not as simple as asking the customer service to change a unified avatar and a unified name. First of all, it is necessary to treat it as a real "person" and make a good portrait of it from all aspects such as its age, occupation, identity, family, hobbies, and experience stories, and at the same time match it with the brand image and product. The following tool table can be used for reference.

Later in daily operations, there must be unified and standardized content output to ensure consistency with all aspects of IP attributes.

2. Create content

In addition to IP establishment, daily content distribution is also important.

People who like to drink tea are particularly interested in tea-related cultural knowledge. Therefore, outputting professional content can further deepen users' trust in you.

There are nearly 200 types of tea in China, with different varieties and different ways of drinking. Every single point of problem can generate a "content", and every "content" will generate communication, trust, and even consumption.

Taking Shunzi Tea as an example, content and culture are its core advantages. The content types can be divided into:

• Tea knowledge: such as tips for brewing xx tea;
• Popular science about the tea industry: Understand the six major types of tea in five minutes;
• Dialogue with experts: Dialogue with experts in the tea industry and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to share tea culture;
• Visiting tea production areas: visiting tea production areas, visiting Jingdezhen Museum, etc.

So, as a brand or business, how can we learn from it?

3. Content positioning

First, focus on your own tea category, and then understand your user profile. For example, if your product is mainly green tea, the unit price is not high, and the user group is mostly novice, the content direction can be mainly green tea and partial to popular science.

If the product has a high average order value and a high-end user base, the content cannot be biased towards popular science and requires a deeper interpretation.

4. Benchmarking

After you have a general direction, you need to find some competitors and learn some good content and models. Build your own material library, whether it is text or video, and find your own advantage.

5. Content Distribution

Content can be distributed within private channels through official accounts, video accounts, communities, and Moments. It should be noted that content distribution requires a combination of professionalism + planting grass + life , which can make the brand image more full.

3. Strong Conversion

Nowadays, there are more and more sales channels for tea, including offline stores, online e-commerce platforms, and live broadcast hosts. Merchants are facing increasing competition. Although many customers come to consult, they are always one step away from conversion.

In the private domain, you can continuously attract customers and build trust, but the final conversion step still requires corresponding strategies to help stimulate users to place orders.

Depending on the different market positioning of tea products, the conversion strategies will also be different:

1. Targeting customers of mid- to high-end tea products

This type of customer has strong purchasing power, attaches great importance to product quality, and contributes the most to GMV.

For this type of customers:

You can consider setting up a "many-to-one" exclusive service group to take over. In addition to operations and sales, the service group can also have an exclusive tea artist or even the boss.

For example, the average customer order value of "Shun Zi Shuo Cha" has reached 2,600+. He believes that in the private domain, users should be served 24 hours a day, so they only do three things in the community:

1. Every time there is an important live broadcast, a message will be sent in the group to remind everyone of the live broadcast theme of the day.
2. Respond to and resolve issues raised by users.
3. Share some insights into tea, exquisite videos, etc.

In addition, they will not actively add people to their private domains. They will only add users back if they are added by them. Otherwise, they will never "harass" users for the rest of their lives.

Let customers enjoy the service with the fastest speed, the simplest way and the most convenient after-sales service with the least time investment. After all, serving a "super user" well may exceed the contribution of 100 ordinary customers.

2. Targeting customers of mid- and low-end tea products

This type of customers accounts for the largest proportion. This type of customers have not yet formed a high level of awareness of the quality of tea, and do not have excessively high demands for taste. Under the premise of brand recognition, cost-effectiveness is their primary decision-making factor.

For this type of customers:

You can consider pushing new products and promotional offers in the community at the right time, and at the same time highlight the difference between member customers and non-member customers. This type of customer has very obvious advantages, with large volume and high enthusiasm. With proper operation, it can bring us more new customers.

For example, the community content of Xiaoguan Tea focuses on tea knowledge, interactive topics, and welfare tea products, especially the interactive topic module, which includes tea drinking knowledge test questions, sentence chain games containing the word "tea", drawing pictures to guess the tea, and other small games, which drive users' heated discussions and form a harmonious and like-minded community atmosphere.

3. Target new customers with low order value

The average order value of this type of customers is generally not high, and the user group tends to be young. In addition to meeting their functional needs, it is more important for them to provide a rich form of activities and increase the fun and interactive lifestyle.

For this type of customers:

From the perspective of trying new things and bringing in new ones, we can organize more welfare activities and fission activities to attract this group of people to participate. The best way is to use frequent live broadcasts, some low-priced traffic-generating products, and the price advantage of live broadcasts and basic tea product explanations to attract a large number of new customers to place orders.

4. Final Thoughts

Not only the tea industry, facing the current industry competition landscape that is constantly involuted, most industries are suitable for using private domain methods to attract customers, retain and convert them, and achieve sustainable growth.

In addition to building a good brand image and producing valuable content, the key is to capture users and understand their real needs.

Treat every piece of natural traffic as a stranger who walks in when you open your store. Manage them well, and the value of your private traffic will become larger and larger.

Author: Yan Tao Sanshou