Membership Operation Trends and Capacity Building

Membership operation is a very important part of private domain operation. As private domain operation becomes more and more popular, brands must also adapt to the full-hearted capacity building of membership operation. This article introduces in detail the new changes in membership operation methods and their future development trends under the background of digital upgrading. I hope it will be helpful to you who are concerned about private domain operation.

Private domain operation can be an upgraded version of membership operation. Under the trend of digital upgrading in the whole industry, consumer demand has also undergone new changes. Therefore, the membership operation of brands must also adapt to the new development, and there are corresponding new requirements for the construction of membership operation capabilities.

1. With digital upgrade, membership operation enters a new stage

With the rapid development of digitalization, consumer behavior is becoming more diversified, quality-oriented, socialized and digitalized, and the consumer goods industry is shifting from being product-centric to being user-centric.

Membership operations have entered the stage of precision operations. In this context, both brands and consumers are undergoing significant changes. For consumers, material life is abundant and diversified, and they are no longer satisfied with basic material needs. Instead, they are eager to find more meaningful interpersonal relationships through transaction links. On this basis, members give up some privacy rights and pay more attention to a sense of belonging, social identity, and other additional emotions and internal needs.

For brands, the membership economy is no longer about pursuing a one-time transaction, but is more focused on stable and lasting relationships with users, having a long-lasting relationship with members, and thus resisting the threat of more intense market competition. This requires brands to be able to outline a clear user portrait, understand user behavior information, feedback, pain points and needs in real time, and conduct multi-dimensional analysis of member portraits.

In addition, precise member operations are also reflected in the establishment of a deeper membership system. Brands have transformed from high-traffic and low-precision to small-traffic and high-precision: on the one hand, brands pay more attention to tapping high-value members and improving their LTV, thereby maximizing the value of each customer; on the other hand, brands pay more attention to providing members with more comprehensive and ecological products and services.

Not only that, more and more brands have begun to shift from a C-end user operation model to B-end digitalization, opening up their internal systems to allow more brands to move in and establish direct links between brands and the C-end, thereby providing members with platform-based and ecological member care.

It can be seen that the retail industry has shifted from the original pursuit of traffic economy and scale economy to a model that takes private domain as the core position and deeply explores the "single customer output value". More and more companies regard members as core assets and maintain the core value of the brand based on member operations.

In addition, the acceleration of digitalization has also brought about major changes in membership operations, such as the change from the previous management based on physical cards to the operation based on digital means, from emphasizing internal management to emphasizing information interaction and data analysis, from single offline services to online and offline multi-platform omni-channel integrated services, etc. These have put forward new requirements for the membership service system of retail enterprises.

2. Three major trends in member precision operations

1. The membership system reversely derives a new business model and creates surprises for users

Today, the functional value of the membership system is no longer limited to the single quadrant of brand marketing and promotion, but is constantly exploring new business collaboration models to improve member experience.

Medium and large brands often have diversified business structures and strong influence and voice in the industry chain. Such companies no longer limit the functions of the membership system to brand marketing and promotion, and the value delivery utility of members in a single quadrant cannot be amplified, resulting in limited member experience.

By reversely deriving new business models, we gradually explore profit models and new business collaboration methods based on the membership system, so that the membership system can play a greater role in the development of enterprises, thus giving birth to new business models. For example, in the traditional home appliance industry, the membership system is used as a carrier to open up the high-frequency service modules in the back-end links, greatly improving the member service experience, while the enterprise also derives a new diversified and profitable business model.

2. Focus on the user journey, pay attention to the accuracy of touchpoint layout, and explore new paths for omni-channel marketing

As the boundaries between channels blur, brands urgently need to integrate all touchpoints across the board and continuously refine marketing, channel distribution, user operations, etc., thus forming a new marketing path.

1. Direct traffic from the public domain to the private domain: Accurately layout consumer touchpoints, occupy user time and mind, and effectively expand the brand's private domain traffic pool.
2. Private domain traffic operation: interact efficiently with private domain users, maintain user stickiness, and stimulate repurchase willingness.
3. The private domain feeds back to the public domain: tap into the data value and social value of private domain traffic, and feed back to support public domain marketing.

Enrich the information embedding points in the private domain and build a more complete user tag system to achieve one-to-one accurate information push based on data, provide consumers with a more personalized experience, and then start to carry out precise delivery on public domain platforms, which greatly improves the delivery conversion rate.

Consumption channels are numerous and scattered, and the boundaries between channels are becoming increasingly blurred. Brands need to integrate touchpoints and continue to innovate in marketing, channel distribution, user operations, etc. Focusing on the user journey, pay attention to the accuracy and agility of touchpoint layout, explore new paths for omni-channel marketing, use automated marketing tools to accurately reach consumers, and iterate target customer groups, optimize processes, agile touchpoint selection, and intelligently optimize marketing content based on feedback and results.

3. Diversified value positioning to match segmented groups, winning the "mainstream" with the "niche"

Today's membership operations have entered the golden age of niche operations. Consumers are no longer satisfied with just basic mass needs, but are more inclined to have personalized, customized, and emotional targeted needs met.

This means that membership operations must fully reflect differentiation, and this differentiation is not only reflected in traditional marketing methods, but also in deeper product value, membership service experience, and member experience scenario planning. This is a niche era. Consumers have already met their basic physiological needs and are jumping from the bottom of Maslow's needs to the middle level, tending more towards social needs and the needs of others' respect.

The era of niche marketing means differentiated marketing. Different from the common methods of discounts, promotions, and group buying, the secret to the success of niche operations is to seize the attention of a single user with differentiated scenario planning, and use sustainable consumption content to root users in the scenarios they have planned. After a single product breaks through, it is time to plant seeds with content and build user circles. The key is to improve traffic accuracy by making transactions through delivery.

The process of continuously replicating niche models is a process of “niche becoming mainstream”.

3. Three capabilities and focuses of member operations

In a broad sense, membership operations need to be combined with the brand's business model, operations, products, services, brand, experience design, etc. From the implementation perspective, it is necessary to jointly build a goal, such as the number of members, high-net-worth members, member activity, etc., and do a good job in the three capabilities of membership operations:

1. Brand management capabilities: including member loyalty programs, in-depth operation and maintenance strategies for core members, full-scenario new member acquisition, member enrollment mechanisms, etc.
2. Ability to build touchpoints: including official accounts, membership centers, private domain malls, communities, corporate WeChat, etc.
3. Middle and back-end collaborative support capabilities: operation middle platform, data middle platform, organizational collaboration, etc.

Therefore, membership operation is a systematic project for the enterprise. We need to align operational strategies, IT tools, and highly skilled personnel to achieve the desired business results.

Members in different industries have different characteristics and needs, and member operations also have different focuses:

• In high-frequency and high-order industries, members generally have strong social preferences and value socializing and sharing. Brands should focus on brand image building and user interaction.
• In high-frequency, low-order industries, members have high requirements for convenience and short decision-making links, and tend to pursue personalization and diversify their interests. Brands should deploy multiple touchpoints and focus on member retention and conversion rates.
• In low-frequency, high-order customer industries, members focus on product quality and service, the decision-making chain is long, but brand loyalty is high. Brands should improve user stickiness by improving high-frequency service scenarios.

1. Focus on high net worth users

The "80/20 rule" tells us that 20% of high net worth users often create 80% of the profits. They account for a small proportion, but they have strong purchasing power, high loyalty, high repurchase rate, and are willing to share.

2. Focus on circle operations

Based on the influence of high-end membership circles and the brand’s own marketing advantages, a social circle with circles as the core has been created.

The brand has created a strong social scene for circle members to interact naturally with the brand. By carrying out circle activities that are in line with the brand tone and category characteristics, the circle's mental penetration and member stickiness are enhanced. While creating sales opportunities, the brand is brought in more precise consumer users in the circle through introductions from friends and the gift of circle activity rights, thus forming a circle reputation.

3. Create differentiated highlight benefits

In addition to the homogeneous membership benefits, brands have launched a series of new user activities that are unique to the brand and keep up with the times, to help users deeply understand the brand and product stories, and resonate with the brand through immersive or lightweight interactive experiences. At the same time, various scarce and customized membership benefits, such as targeted purchases of scarce products and member customization services, are used to strengthen the awareness of membership benefits.

Author: Lan Zhaoyu

WeChat public account: Lan Zhaoyu (ID: gh_d73f97e145de)