"No.1 Chinese fast food", how does Lao Xiang Ji, which has thousands of stores, achieve performance growth through private domains?

How can Chinese fast food achieve business growth through digital transformation? From quality to marketing model, management model, and private domain operation model, all aspects of success need to be taken seriously. This article uses Hometown Chicken Chinese fast food as a case study to analyze its unique private domain operation model and put forward some of its own views. It is recommended for those who are interested in the transformation of the catering industry and private domain operations.

Statistics show that in China’s fast food market, Chinese fast food currently accounts for more than 70% of the market share all year round , and the brand chain rate is increasing year by year.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, Chinese fast food brands represented by "Lao Xiang Ji" have been greatly impacted. However, Lao Xiang Ji has been able to frequently break out of the circle in recent years and even wants to become the "No. 1 Chinese fast food stock."

Behind the success of Lao Xiang Ji, in addition to its high quality and mature marketing and management models, there is also its unique private domain operation model.

In 2019, Lao Xiang Ji began to develop private domains, and in 2020, it promoted WeChat for Business in all its stores. So far, it has accumulated more than 3 million WeChat for Business users . In 2021, Lao Xiang Ji started its digital transformation, and its strategic goal is to achieve a 30% digital user base.

So how did Lao Xiang Ji develop its private domain? Let’s analyze it for you.

01 Case Background

1. Brand Introduction

Lao Xiang Ji is the top national brand of Chinese fast food in recent years. As of 2021, Lao Xiang Ji's revenue exceeded 4 billion yuan, with more than 1,000 directly-operated stores nationwide, serving a total of 600 million consumers, and an average of 500,000 store visits per day.

Lao Xiang Ji adopts an integrated industrial chain model, that is, the company implements the model of self-breeding, self-raising, self-slaughtering and self-sales, masters each key quality control link of integrated breeding, and has created a new model in China's catering industry.

2. Market size

The Forward-looking Industry Research Institute predicts that the market retail scale of my country's Chinese fast food industry will continue to maintain rapid growth in the next few years. By 2027, the national Chinese fast food market size will reach about 1.4 trillion yuan.

3. User portrait

Lao Xiangji users are mainly male, aged between 24 and 35, and are mainly distributed in new first-tier and second- and third-tier cities, among which Anhui, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu have the largest number of users.

02 Traffic Channel Analysis

1. Stores

Lao Xiangji has more than 1,000 directly-operated stores across the country. Membership benefits of the mini program can be seen everywhere in the stores. Based on the store, it attracts offline consumers to scan the code and become members, gradually directing traffic to the private domain traffic pool.

2. Private Domain Platform

Official Account:

In the menu bar of the Lao Xiang Ji official account, there is a diversion to the mini program and membership system, attracting users to enter the mini program to order food and become members. The official account articles also divert traffic to the mini program through benefits.

Mini Programs:

Users click "Receive Privileges" on the mini program homepage and jump to the WeChat Enterprise page, which introduces the four major benefits of joining the group and attracts users to scan the code to add the store manager, who will then invite them to join the community.

3. Public Domain Platform

Douyin: Lao Xiang Ji's Douyin is also very distinctive. Unlike other brands, its official account is more like a personal account, posting content from the perspective of employees, making jokes, and interacting with users. The Lao Xiang Ji chairman's account also has the same positioning, posting some daily life and grass-planting videos, giving it a humorous and friendly feeling.

In addition, Lao Xiang Ji has also set up a special live broadcast account "Lao Xiang Ji Clucking Room". The homepage has group purchase and store touchpoints. Click to jump to the relevant page to guide users to generate conversions.

Weibo: Lao Xiang Ji has 879,000 followers on Weibo, and 701,600 likes and comments. In addition to the daily fixed column "Kakakada", Lao Xiang Ji also shares daily work, brand dynamics and welfare activities. There is a touchpoint for the fan group on the homepage, and there is no threshold for joining the group. Users can apply to join.

Xiaohongshu: Lao Xiang Ji has 204,000 followers on Weibo and 637,000 likes and comments. The account is mainly used for brand image promotion, welfare activity promotion, product introduction, etc. There is an obvious social button on the homepage, and you can join the group chat by following the account.

03 Analysis of IP Characters

The IP of Homemade Chicken is uniformly named after the store manager to receive users, mainly to promote the latest event information and answer questions for users. The following is a detailed analysis:

1. Personality IP creation

Nickname: Manager of Hangzhou MCC Store

Avatar: Anime image of a male store manager

Role: Welfare Officer

Corporate WeChat business card: On each store business card, you can see Lao Xiang Ji’s video account and the link to the “Super Membership”, making rational use of resources and conducting multi-dimensional traffic diversion.

2. Automatic welcome message

After adding the WeChat account, the WeChat account will automatically send a welcome message, which uses "12% off" and "free dishes on Wednesday" as bait to guide users to become super members or join the community.

3. Analysis of Moments Content

Content frequency: content is released less frequently and irregularly

Release time: Content is released around 10:00-11:00 am every day

Moments content: mainly promotes welfare activities. When promoting in Moments, a QR code will also be attached to attract users to scan the code and participate.

04 Community Operation Analysis

Community is the most effective and common scenario for promoting activation in the private domain. Below is a breakdown of the Lao Xiang Ji community, taking a community I added as an example.

1. Community Positioning

Group nickname : Lao Xiang Ji Hangzhou MCC Store 2 Group

Group positioning : welfare group

Community value : mainly publishes the latest welfare activities, food displays and other content before and after sales.

2. Community Group Announcement

The Lao Xiang Ji community does not have an automatic welcome message for the community. It only introduces the business hours and functional positioning of the community in the group announcement to reduce disturbance to users, but it also reduces the exposure of important information to a certain extent.

3. Community Content

Lao Xiang Ji publishes community content based on user portraits and releases dish display content around 11:00 and 18:00 every day. On the one hand, it caters to users' lunch and dinner needs, and on the other hand, it serves as a reminder.

Wednesday is the community welfare day. Participants can get coupons to encourage users to convert. In addition, there are red envelope coupons and interactive quiz content every week.

05 Membership System Analysis

Currently, Lao Xiang Ji has set up a membership system on the WeChat mini program/Alipay mini program, which mainly includes paid membership, stored-value cards and points system , but there is no growth-type membership.

1. Paid membership system

There are two types of paid memberships for Homemade Chicken, namely Super Membership Card and Super Plus Card:

Super membership cards are divided into continuous monthly subscription, continuous quarterly subscription and monthly subscription. Once activated, you can enjoy 12% discount on meals.

The Super Family Enjoyment Card is 239 yuan/year, and benefits one, a free 336 yuan package; benefit two, a full-year super membership worth 144 yuan; benefit three, three super membership monthly cards for relatives and friends.

2. Stored-value card

Lao Xiang Ji’s stored-value cards are divided into three tiers: 100 yuan/200 yuan/500 yuan, with an overall discount of around 95% off.

3. Points system

Users can earn points by making purchases (1 yuan spent = 1 point) and completing activity tasks. Points can be used to redeem coupons and physical prizes.

summary

Finally, let’s summarize the highlights and shortcomings of Lao Xiangji in private domain operations:

1) Personalized operation: Lao Xiang Ji has established a "down-to-earth" and "friendly" personality through personalized operation on social platforms, which has quickly shortened the distance with users. At the same time, it has also attracted a large number of fans, expanded the brand's reputation, and laid the foundation for product conversion and repeat purchases.

2) Real-time positioning community : Users can join the nearest store community based on their geographic location. This is more user-friendly and also helps to increase the community’s repurchase rate and connect online and offline sales.

3) Community operation has little content: Community operation is a good conversion scenario, but Lao Xiangji has not done many details well. For example, some communities lack welcome messages for joining the group and less content is released.

Author: Yan Tao San Shou;

WeChat public account: Yan Tao San Shou;