At a local webmaster meeting, an Internet senior said that the future trend of the Internet is to develop in the direction of specialization and localization, because only by segmenting user groups and doing localization well can websites become better and better. Just like Xiamen Xiaoyu, Hualong Lane, and 19th Floor, these local websites/forums should be localized to meet and serve the needs of local users to the greatest extent, and the website's profitability and traffic problems will naturally be solved.
On April 14th, the A5 Thursday edition chat event invited Guo Baoming, founder of Xinjiang Tuanyizu.com www.tuanyizu.com , to share the topic of how local websites can be "localized". This article has compiled some of the highlights of the chat. Discussions are welcome.
Question: The guest’s website is a group buying website in Xinjiang. Why did you consider building a group buying website? Are there any competitors in the Xinjiang market at that time? What are the opportunities and challenges? If an individual webmaster also wants to build a local group buying website, what preparations should he make? What investments are made?
Answer: Because I felt that group buying had high offline requirements, and I had the ability and experience in this area, I started investing in it. At that time, there were no competitors in the Xinjiang market. Due to special reasons, the Internet in Xinjiang was disconnected. Therefore, after Xinjiang opened the Internet on May 15, 2010, we immediately started to establish the Xinjiang Tuanyizhao Group Buying Network.
For us, opportunities and challenges coexist, because group buying was still blank in Xinjiang at that time, and we had a lot of room for development; the challenge is to slowly cultivate this new consumption concept and cultivate everyone's enthusiasm for group buying. The initial investment requires a lot of publicity and promotion to cultivate everyone's group buying concept.
Question: Opportunities and challenges coexist. There are no competitors, but users do not have this consumption habit. What efforts have you made to cultivate users' group buying habits? How long did it take to get Xinjiang netizens used to group buying activities? How long did it take? Investment requires a lot of publicity and promotion. What are the main aspects of promotion and publicity?
Answer: It took nearly a month to cultivate the group buying habit among netizens. The initial promotion and publicity mainly focused on group buying methods and benefits, so that members can personally experience the fun of group buying. When we started doing group buying in the early days, many people didn’t know how to do group buying and how to consume.
Therefore, we use various forms such as sending free mouse pads and promotional coloring pages to cultivate everyone's group buying concept. There is also the need to establish a local consumer group for eating, drinking and having fun, accumulate users, and do SEO so that you can rank first in search engines.
Question: I am currently in a small city and the Internet is not very developed. I want to build a group buying website. I think this market is good, but I don’t know how to cultivate users’ group buying habits. How do guests do this? The Internet in Xinjiang is relatively lagging behind. How did Tuan Yizu cultivate and form user habits in the early stage?
Answer: To build a group buying website, you need a city with a certain consumer market. The Internet in Urumqi, Xinjiang is not very developed, but the consumption level is still very high. Group buying is aimed at people's livelihood and brings benefits to everyone. In terms of cultivating users, it must be as simple as possible in the early stage to make group buying very easy. The slogan of our group has always been "simple happiness". If users can experience a simple and happy shopping method with you, it will attract users.
Question: Even if the Internet is underdeveloped, as long as users have a desire to consume and group buying brings benefits, it will attract users' attention and gradually form consumption habits. If you want to build a local group buying website, it seems too difficult for one person to do it alone. It would be more appropriate to do it as a team. The guest group is currently also done as a team. I would like to ask what issues should be paid attention to when forming a team and how to form it. An efficient and cooperative team? The team will have some problems such as division of labor and income distribution. How should these problems be effectively solved?
Answer: Yes, there is a business team, graphic editing team, and technical team, forming a work chain mechanism that closely connects the upstream and downstream.
Question: Group buying websites will face the problem of finding merchants and group buying products. How does the Xinjiang Group Buying Website of Guests solve this problem? What issues do you usually pay attention to when arranging group buying products?
Answer: Yes, group buying merchants and products are an important part of group buying. When we are looking for a merchant, we must first inspect the merchant. It must be a merchant with a certain degree of popularity and credibility. When arranging group buying services and products, ensure that the repetition rate is as low as possible within two months. The effect is better if group buying products for food, drink and entertainment are interspersed.
Question: If there are limited merchants to choose from in a city, what if it is better to arrange group buying products among the limited choices? Interspersed with eating, drinking and having fun, this is a good idea. In the early stage of group buying websites, do they take the initiative to choose merchants for cooperation? Do you have any tips for talking about cooperation with merchants and group buying? Because in a small city where the Internet is not very developed, merchants don’t know much about group buying. How do you get merchants to accept your invitation and join group buying? I hope you can share more tips on talking about cooperation with merchants.
Answer: Yes, communication and negotiation with merchants are very important. We must let the merchants understand that our group buying website is also advertising and promoting them, and it can definitely bring real consumers. This is completely different from television, radio, newspapers and media. Even one person may not be able to carry it through if he invests more than 100,000 yuan. Moreover, our consumer group is precise, and only those who have needs will come to experience it. We are an experiential consumption that allows our members to become loyal consumers of merchants.
Question: When discussing cooperation with merchants, do you bring case introductions, flyers, etc. We know that group buying can indeed bring promotion, traffic and real consumption to merchants, but merchants may not know these situations at the beginning. , how do you dispel these concerns of merchants when discussing cooperation?
Answer: Yes, case introductions and leaflets are needed and very important, and the design must also be of high quality. This is also the shaping and establishment of one's own image.
Question: What are the basic conditions required to be a local group buying website? In addition, how to prepare for the positioning of a group buying website?
Answer: A team that is familiar with local resources and the local market, but also needs to inspect the market and analyze users. Group buying users are mainly young people and urban white-collar workers, so we have invested a lot of promotion efforts in office buildings and university campuses. We conduct offline and online promotions at the same time, including offline leaflets, advertisements, etc., and online QQ groups, Search engine optimization, etc.
Q: What is the general staffing situation for group buying? How are the plans for the early, middle and later stages of the website arranged? What is the most important thing? What are the main capital investments in the early stage?
Answer: In the later stage, the website will be developed to become stronger and combined with the forum to become a preferred website for local consumer services. There are some expenses such as website construction and promotion in the early stage. Promotion is important.
Question: As a local group buying website, can I place advertisements on TV media? How valuable is it?
Answer: Investment in local group buying websites and TV media may not have a great effect.
Question: After a group buying website has a certain brand, merchants and users will take the initiative to pay attention and it is easy to cooperate. How does Xinjiang Tuan Yizu do it in accumulating and realizing its own brand? What is the local brand and popularity of Xinjiang Tuan Yizu now? ?
Answer: Our group buying website has been very passionate about public welfare since the beginning and has organized several large-scale public welfare activities. We have established good cooperative relations with local government agencies and Youth League committees. Then it cooperated with the largest local paper media and portal website to build a channel and form a strategic partnership. It also became the only designated online sales platform for the Xinjiang CBA men's basketball team. These are all brand building. Now Xinjiang Tuanyizhao Group Buying Network is the largest, oldest and most reputable group buying website in Xinjiang.
Question: I have found that many group buying websites are conducting lottery activities recently. Is this activity suitable for local group buying websites? If so, how to operate it? In addition, are you optimistic about the prospects of group buying websites?
Answer: It is true that many group buying websites are conducting lottery draws. However, I also noticed that a certain group buying website specifically stated below the lottery: We are not a lottery website, we are a group buying website. Haha, such activities can also be done in moderation on local group buying websites. But it can also be combined with some local markets to conduct special forms of member feedback activities.
In addition, the prospects of group buying websites are still very good. The key lies in how to position and maintain them. It depends on whether you want to be bigger or stronger, whether you want to do it locally or nationwide.
Question: Before you started a group buying website, were you an individual webmaster? Did you run a site at that time? Nowadays, the profitability of many individual webmasters’ websites is not ideal. Do you have any good opinions on website profitability?
Answer: Before starting the Xinjiang Tuanyizushi Group Buying Network, I had never been a personal webmaster and didn’t know anything about the Internet. After I understood the group buying model, I started to learn it, because group buying is very important offline.
Question: It’s so awesome. I thought that many people with good website experience came from individual webmasters and gradually accumulated experience. The guest should be relatively unfamiliar with website building technology and art. What are you currently responsible for at Tuanyizhao.com, website operations?
Answer: Haha, yes, I don’t know anything about technology or art. Mainly responsible for website operation and grasping the strategic direction of the website.
Question: When building a website, promotion is a very important issue. Different websites have different promotion ideas. Group buying websites can focus on online and offline. What are the main offline promotions of the Xinjiang Tuan Clan?
Answer: We do a lot of offline activities, such as organizing large-scale charity activities, organizing outdoor hiking groups, hosting celebrity concerts, member networking, etc.
Question: Nowadays, many individual webmasters still face the problem of profitability. Whether they are local websites or industry websites, they can only continue to develop if they are profitable. However, many people do not do well with regard to the idea of profitability. How to combine the characteristics of the website itself? Looking for profit points, can the guests share their ideas in this regard?
Answer: Group buying websites are a website model that is relatively easy to generate profits, and then combined with forums to increase stickiness and provide image publicity for merchants.
Question: Tuanyizhao.com, what are the main aspects of profitability now? Traffic and membership are good now. Can you disclose the monthly profit? Haha.
Answer: At present, profitability still relies on group purchasing products. We will develop in the direction of a local consumer service portal, and in the future we may consider providing some value-added services to customers to generate profits.
Question: I would like to ask the guests, for local group buying websites, which products are easier to attract consumers? When starting a group buying website, which products should be easier to start with? I hope the guests will share.
Answer: Many group buying websites also start with catering, movie tickets, etc. The price must be extremely high at the beginning.
Question: The chat event is coming to an end soon. Please give some specific suggestions from the guests who are about to join the Internet and want to run local group buying websites, so that everyone can have a better start in starting group buying websites in their respective cities and can solve the problem relatively smoothly. Difficulties in the initial stages of a website. Guests can summarize from their own experience in building a group, or put forward opinions that you think are more important and practical.
Answer: It is indeed a difficult process from setting up a website to making a profit and then growing it bigger and stronger. Group buying websites can be regarded as websites with relatively clear profit goals and profit ideas, but they also need a certain amount of promotion efforts in terms of online and offline promotion. During the operation process, local group buying websites should integrate the local market and form good cooperative relationships with local government departments, paper media portals and influential merchants.
Later development must have clear goals, and it can be combined with forums and so on to form a localized consumer service for each household, so that members can form sticky habits. I wish all webmasters that their websites will become more prosperous!
To build a local website, you must first understand the local market and user habits, and truly meet the needs of users, and the development of the website will be relatively easy. Although local websites have geographical restrictions, it is relatively easy and there will be less competition. It is also a good way to serve one user and become the best local website, and then radiate to the whole country. I hope some of the discussions in the above version chat can give you some inspiration. Please also continue to pay attention to the A5 forum’s version chat activities every Thursday afternoon. At the same time, the second A5 version chat exchange group 149091583 has been opened. Friends are welcome to join. (Text/Compiled by Mengjiang)
For more discussions about local website localization, you can also check out the chat thread. Post address: http://bbs.admin5.com/thread-2513444-1-1.html
Editor in charge: Meng