With tens of millions of private domain users accumulated in two years and a GMV exceeding 200 million, what is the advantage of Refeng’s private domain?

In July 2020, Hotwind officially built its brand private domain. By 2021, the private domain revenue reached 150 million yuan. In just two years, the private domain GMV exceeded 220 million yuan, and the number of private domain users exceeded 10 million. How did Hotwind plan and operate its private domain? The author of this article has disassembled this, let's take a look.

Affected by the epidemic in recent years, the offline business of fast fashion brands has been severely impacted, and many brands have begun to transform online.

As a leader among domestic fast fashion brands, Hotwind also started to develop online channels early on and regarded private domains as a new engine for brand growth.

In July 2020, Hotwind officially built its brand private domain. By 2021, the private domain revenue reached 150 million yuan. In just two years, the private domain GMV exceeded 220 million yuan, with more than 10 million private domain users , and the private domain diversion store customers created a GMV of more than 1 billion yuan.

So how does Hotwind plan and operate its private domain? Let’s analyze it for you.

01 Case Background

1. Brand Introduction

Hotwind was founded in Shanghai in 1996. It is a selected fashion retail chain brand that sells shoes, clothing, bags, accessories and some fashion lifestyle products.

Currently, Hotwind has more than 1,000 stores in 140 large and medium-sized cities across the country, and has formed strategic alliances with many well-known domestic and foreign commercial real estate brands.

2. Market size

In recent years, the market size of China's footwear and apparel industry has continued to expand, growing from 2.5 trillion yuan in 2017 to 3 trillion yuan in 2021, making it the world's largest footwear and apparel market. It is expected that the market size of China's footwear and apparel industry will reach 3.2 trillion yuan in 2022.

3. User portrait

Most of Refeng’s users are female, accounting for 84.45%; most of them are aged 31-40, accounting for 40.85%; and they are mainly in second-tier cities.

02 Traffic Matrix Disassembly

1. Offline stores

Refeng has more than 1,000 directly-operated stores across the country, becoming an important source of channels in the private domain, bringing more than 1 billion yuan in additional revenue to stores each year.

When customers enter the store and pay, the shopping guide uses "scan the code to draw a prize" or receive a "10 yuan coupon for all categories without any threshold for members" as a benefit point, guiding users to add the store manager "Re Xiaofeng"'s corporate WeChat and then guide them into the community.

It is understood that the daily powder adding speed of hot air can reach 20,000-30,000/day, and the powder adding cost is about 40-50% of the industry level.

2. Official Account

The official WeChat account of Hotwind has set up a drainage channel. In the first-level menu "Store Outfits", click "Join the group to exchange 100 yuan coupons" to add the company's WeChat account. After adding, reply with keywords according to the welcome message to join the group.

3. Mini Programs

You can add your company’s WeChat ID on the homepage of the Hotwind mini program, in the poster below the event, or in the welfare community of the member center. After adding, you can join the group by replying with keywords.

In addition, the mini program has also created a rich content community that can provide users with dressing services, thereby increasing the activity and user stickiness in the private domain.

4. Video Account

Hotwind displays the mall, membership, guidance and other channel modules on the video account homepage to attract users to the greatest extent. The main content of the video is dressing tips, unboxing, product evaluation, product recommendation, event promotion, etc.

5. TikTok

Refeng has established an account matrix on Douyin, with several major official accounts having a total of more than 2 million followers. The video content is mainly about promoting products and evaluating products, and there are accounts that start live broadcasts every day to sell products.

6. Weibo

Refeng has 1.19 million followers on Weibo, and posts 1-2 times a day. The main content is product recommendations, outfit sharing, rewarded interactions, and holiday greetings.

Hotwind is very good at using current marketing nodes to conduct rewarded interactions, and the frequency is very high, 4-6 times a month. This not only allows fans to complete designated communication actions and obtain traffic, but also deepens fans' trust in the brand during the interaction.

7. Xiaohongshu

Refeng has a total of 120,000 fans on Xiaohongshu and 250,000 notes, with the main contents of the notes being holiday activities, dressing tips, and prize-winning interactions.

In addition, Refeng has set up a store on Xiaohongshu, which will lead you to the community. You can add the company’s WeChat account by clicking on the contact information.

Now many public domain platforms are doing closed loops, so it is very difficult to divert traffic to private domains, and it is easy to violate the rules. However, like Hotwind, diverting traffic to private domains in stores is also a good way.

03 Analysis of the character IP

Hotwind establishes a link between users and private domains through corporate WeChat. Each employee's WeChat becomes a window for external output. The following is an example of an employee I added:

1. Personal positioning

• Nickname : Hot Wind-yoyo
• Avatar : Anime girl holding a red envelope
• Role : Welfare Officer

2. Automatic welcome message

After adding through the employee corporate WeChat, a welcome message will be automatically sent, and the "newcomer exclusive gift" will be sent as soon as possible. Welfare activities and community links will also be notified. This allows users to enter the community as soon as possible, increasing the community entry rate.

3. Moments content

• Content frequency : 2~3 pieces/day
• Release time : Unfixed
• Moments content : mainly event promotion, product recommendations, rewarded interactions, scene-based outfit recommendations, etc.

04 Community Operation Analysis

After several years of development, the number of members of Hotwind has grown to one million, and the number of communities has exceeded 10,000. Below, I will take a community I added as an example to disassemble the Hotwind community.

1. Community positioning

• Group nickname : hotwind hot wind micro mall welfare group 29
• Group positioning : welfare group
• Community value : new member benefits, points activities
• Community welcome and group announcements : The welcome mainly guides users to understand the benefits of new members, points rules, ways to check points, warm reminders, and links to points rules and mini-programs; group announcements mainly include group values, brand services, group rules, and service consultation guidelines

2. Community Content

The Hotwind community will publish 5-10 pieces of content every day, mainly sign-in reminders, product recommendations, and event promotions. The following is an example of the community's SOP for one day:

• 09:00 AM Sign-in reminder
• 10:00 AM Product Recommendation
• 12:00 noon Product recommendation
• 14:00 PM Product Activities
• 16:00 PM Product Activities
• 20:00 PM Product Recommendation
• 22:00 Evening Exclusive Event

3. Community stratification

Refeng uses different channels and different methods to guide users into the community in order to stratify users and provide targeted content and services.

1) Live broadcast group

On the mini program live broadcast page, there will be a group entry point and a QR code in the middle of the right side. Take a screenshot of the page, identify the QR code in WeChat, and then add "hotwind hot wind live broadcast assistant" to enter the "hot wind live broadcast group"

2) Brand/member group

Refeng will periodically conduct private chats on the company WeChat to reach out to users and invite them to join the group. After scanning the QR code on the poster, there are Refeng brand groups and exclusive member groups to choose from.

05 Membership System Analysis

Hotwind has set up a membership system in the WeChat mini-program and e-commerce platform. Both are based on a growth membership + points system, and the content of the benefits is slightly different.

1. Mini Program Membership System

After registering as a member on the Hotwind Mini Program for the first time, you can get a 15-yuan coupon for designated products, which is valid for 30 days.

HotWind Growth members are divided into 3 levels, the conditions are relatively simple, and the specific rights and interests are as follows:

• Silver card members (register now): birthday coupons, discount coupons
• Gold card members (spending RMB 999 or more within 1 year): 5% off coupons, birthday coupons, discount coupons, new product/limited quantity reservation qualification
• Windmill Card Members (spending RMB 1,999 or more within 1 year): 5% off coupons, birthday coupons, multiple discount coupons, new product/limited quantity reservation qualification, offline VIP event qualification

Points system: Users can earn points through consumption or sign-in, and points can be exchanged for coupons and shopping bags (must be exchanged at designated stores).

2. Taobao membership system

Refeng’s flagship store on Tmall has more than 7.63 million fans, and its membership system is also based on a growth-oriented membership + points system.

There are 4 levels of growth members: ordinary members (0 yuan membership), senior members (2 transactions and cumulative consumption of 500 yuan), VIP members (3 transactions and cumulative consumption of 1,000 yuan), VVIP members (6 transactions and cumulative consumption of 1,500 yuan)

The benefits include: membership gifts, exclusive gifts, shopping points, points sharing, exclusive customer service, and direct fan promotion.

Points system: Users can earn points through consumption, completing information, following stores, daily check-ins, invitations to memberships and positive reviews. Points can be exchanged for video platform memberships, lifestyle products, etc.

06 Summary

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

1. Case highlights

Content community improves user stickiness : Hotwind has created a content community on the mini program - "Zhongcaoshe", which provides different matching scenarios for different items to meet users' dressing needs. The richness of content can improve the activity and customer stickiness of the private domain, thereby improving the transaction conversion of the entire mini program mall.

2. Insufficient cases

Community content is monotonous : the content released by the community is either event promotion or check-in, lacking content that interacts with users. Over time, this will lead to a lack of user stickiness, rapid churn, and eventually the group will become a dead one.

The content of Moments is monotonous : the content of Moments is mostly advertisements, most of which are activities and product recommendations, and lack humanity.

Author: Yan Tao Sanshou

Source: WeChat public account "Yan Tao Sanshou (ID: yantao-219)"