Now, knowledge paid draught has passed, the bonus period is gradually disappearing, many knowledge paid entrepreneurs are also lamenting business difficulties, and some have even begun to leave the field. For example, Baidu’s paid audio knowledge product only survived for six months, and its last update was stopped on July 13. On September 11, 2017, Papi Jiang, which had been operating in Fenda for more than two months, also announced that it would stop watching.
As early as 2016, fanda, Dewei, Ximalaya and other knowledge payment platforms all entered the game and started the trend of knowledge payment. It can be said that almost in 2016, the first year of knowledge payment, new products were produced every month. In May the fruit shell launched a sub – answer; In June, the public account of Luji Thinking pushed “Li Xiang Business Internal Reference”…… However, the paid knowledge market calmed down a lot in 2017. The most intuitive phenomenon is that, according to sohu.com, the open rate and play rate of almost all paid knowledge products have decreased significantly since April 2017.
What are the reasons for the shift from the era of paying for knowledge, which everyone is talking about, to the current calm market?
Fragmentation, homogenization, marketing three cups of ice water to pay for knowledge cooling
Paying for knowledge is no longer popular. According to public data, the average attendance rate of paid knowledge products is now less than 10%. Two years ago, with the purpose of “relieving anxiety”, many educational institutions, we-media and big names joined the ranks of “paying for knowledge”. However, up to now, the number of active gold diggers in this field is obviously not as good as before.
In addition, according to the “IiMedia Report 2017 China Knowledge Payment Market Research Report” of IMedia Consulting, as of November 2017, the repurchase rate of Ximalaya FM products is 52.4%, the repurchase rate of the products answered is 43%, but the repurchase rate of the products obtained is not shown. It can be seen that many popular knowledge service providers, their re-purchase rate is only half of last year, which means that many people are unwilling to pay for knowledge payment products, resulting in the cooling of the knowledge payment market. This phenomenon can be explained from three aspects:
First, knowledge fragmentation makes it difficult for users to form a knowledge system. The use of fragmented time learning, in fact, is a false proposition, users in real learning, is unable to do both. And Himalayan, points a, these so-called knowledge such as paid products is to use audio or video instead of paper to host the content, although can be realized while driving, listen to the teacher off the side of the road in class, but this knowledge is fragmented, how many can be converted into their own knowledge, that is not necessarily, after all, users also distracted attention should be paid to the surrounding information.
To “answer” above the course, the teacher explained the depth of the course is some, the content is more systematic, it can be said that the amount of knowledge is very large. For learning with a large amount of information, it is impossible to acquire complete knowledge without real concentration, which makes it difficult to form a perfect knowledge system.
It should be known that most users use fragmented time to learn in the hope of bringing benefits to their later life or work, which is more utilitarian. The utilitarian nature of users means that they require short-term returns, but no matter the accumulation of knowledge or the integration of fragmented knowledge, it is not effective in a short time. And the user to obtain the knowledge after cutting is more difficult to cause long thinking and precipitation, if there is no long thinking and precipitation, the user will not know the effect of its way.
Second, the content homogenization is serious. For example, popular knowledge fields such as time management and investment and finance are easy to attract more people’s attention, and also easy to become the key content recommended by the platform. Most of these contents are technical training with a high degree of standardization, so most of the contents are similar. However, the user’s time is limited, facing similar content, can only choose one or two to learn. Even so, knowledge payment apps, such as Momo and Climb Reading, have not yet made innovations and still offer similar courses, so it is difficult to attract users for a long time, leading to a decline in the popularity of knowledge payment.
Third, curriculum development pays more attention to marketing. The purchase of courses is nothing more than the “achievement motivation”, which plays a big role in personal development, like a high-powered engine that keeps people moving forward. Knowledge service providers grasp the user’s psychology and then launch marketing.
Take the course “Teach you a monthly salary of 50,000” launched by Mimong team and Ximalaya FM as an example. Mimong played a “smart card” this time — “if your salary does not increase by more than 50% after 3 years, the course fee will be refunded in double”. Such a marketing strategy won a large number of users instantly. Mimong is not concerned about whether the content will actually increase users’ salaries, as many may not apply for a refund after three years.
Sure enough, “Mimeng teach you a monthly salary of 50,000” course although by marketing to win the number of users, but in the content has been one-sided criticism. According to sohu.com, with the update of the course, users’ comments on Ximalaya show a downward trend, with keywords such as “less dry goods, short content in each episode, title party, refund” appearing. Moreover, the number of views of ximalaya episode 6 is 1,544, down 95% compared with the number of views of the first episode.
Visible knowledge operators pay more attention to pay for the product marketing strategy, and easy to overlook the quality of the products, and users to buy course, cannot learn the knowledge of the quality, to a certain extent can reduce pay for knowledge, the recognition of the product, has the potential to cause most users don’t want to buy again paid product knowledge, and knowledge to pay market in a downturn.
It can be said that the knowledge payment market is gradually cooling, and as a member of the knowledge payment army, with the market cooling or there is still a residual temperature?
Behind the considerable user numbers, there are also difficult to understand the pain
Back in the days of Logical Mind, Luo zhenyu had already amassed a large number of fans, so he created a personal IP, which gave him an innate advantage in getting the app launched. And Luo Zhenyu also dug a net for Wu Jun, Wan Weigang, Xiong Yi, Xue Zhaofeng and other KOL, no doubt again to get added to the natural flow.
The number of users has reached 20 million in just over two years, and KOL owes much to this success.
From logical thinking, however, team understands public figures, in May 2018, the number of users is 6 times in December 2016, but the day live users more than tripled for visible day live user growth is not large, this means that most users might just registered, but not often use, in other words, get the user viscosity is lower. However, behind the low user stickiness, the future is not a bright one.
First, the operation model obtained is relatively simple. The resulting operation model is the PGC sharing model led by KOL’s knowledge producers. Kols from all sectors create influence to trigger products and attract users to subscribe. However, these subscription content does not become a barrier to access, and Ximalaya, 36 krypton and so on can also do so. Such an operation mode is dependent on the number of big Vs to a certain extent. If big VS cannot be retained or their continued participation can be guaranteed, fans will naturally migrate with the flow of head IP.
It can be seen that there are limitations to a single operation model. Compared with the head platform of knowledge payment — Ximalaya’s operation model, the limitations are more obvious. It should be noted that Ximalaya adopts the combined mode of UGC, PGC and OGC, which not only provides breadth and depth in content, but also has little impact on it due to the loss of BIG V. After all, it has cultivated many grassroots anchors, and its user base is relatively difficult to migrate.
Second, get social is not good. At present, although the obtained users can leave messages under the column, there are community groups, and simple interaction can be carried out during the live broadcast, but the effect of user communication is not good. Users can only wait for the author to turn over the cards and reply, or get other users’ likes, and there is no communication between users.
It is understood that social groups seem to provide users with a social platform, but the most popular responses are “post-80s friends leave your wechat account”, “post-90s friends meet” and so on. However, there are few posts for users to exchange learning results on the course content, which can be seen to some extent that the learning atmosphere of the community is not as good as imagined, and the purpose of establishing the community has not been achieved.
Third, get commercialized breath is too heavy. Some popular, lack of depth of content products, if commercialized through advertising and other traffic sales, may be compared to pay for the product, its spread of a wider range, the transmission force is stronger. But get almost all of the products are the way of pay for content to realize commercialization, this way may be excessive consumption user expectations of good and evil people mixed up paid product knowledge, if the user but not to spend money on get buy products quality knowledge, and then get could face the risk of damage to its brand influence.
Therefore, for such a knowledge payment platform, if it cannot find a sustainable way of development in the operation model, user experience and cash model, and simply assume that content can be charged, then such logic may even make it decline.
Knowledge pay to enter the second half of “stock competition”, get how to go?
At present, most of the knowledge payment products are more similar to chicken soup for the soul. After users buy them, they will be anxious or anxious, not or not, and they have not solved the actual problem. It can be said that the knowledge payment market will become cold, which is also an inevitable trend. And arrived at knowledge to pay the second half, get should cool cool? In the face of the end of the dividend market, stock competition becomes the key, how to do?
First, knowledge paid products to vertical depth. At present, the content coverage is relatively wide, but in the content supply is relatively popular, without too many bright spots, it is difficult to improve the re-purchase rate. What’s more, as the pay-for-knowledge industry continues to grow, the number of early adopters will decrease, and the goal of acquiring knowledge will no longer be to understand, but to master. In addition, current users are more eager to communicate with knowledge producers or co-learners, but the current situation cannot meet users’ expectations. Therefore, users’ behavior of blindly buying courses is gradually decreasing.
In view of this situation, if the vertical service route of deep cultivation of content and emphasis on user experience is adopted, it will have a certain influence on retaining users and building user interactive community, and even improve its brand professionalism.
Second, expand business to third, fourth and fifth tier cities. In terms of city level distribution, according to the data monitored by Aurora Big data iAPP, most of the knowledge paying users are concentrated in the first and second tier cities, while the permeability of the third, fourth and fifth tier cities is relatively low.
However, the population of the third, fourth and fifth tier cities is actually the main body of Chinese Internet users, and they have the characteristics of large population base and low Internet penetration rate, which can provide more imagination space for the development of knowledge payment industry. But it is worth noting that the 345 cities than a second-tier cities, users may pay more attention to low threshold of press close to life, the application of online knowledge paid products, if can get according to the 345 line city people’s unique design knowledge acquisition requirements in terms of product and content, to some extent, can help to expand its business scope, implementation subsided.
Third, improve resource conversion rate. Now, get the user only through introduction or listen to decide whether to buy a small part of the content courses, and this kind of way, and can’t let users find they want good knowledge, easy to cause the app open rate low, at the same time, the resources cannot be used to maximize, and brand influence is also didn’t get promoted.
If can according to the problem of user input, use of AI techniques from all kinds of books, pick out the relevant content in conformity to the user, and users to provide information to pay, then the model is better than the way of all the books purchase nature can attract more users, to a certain extent, not only can improve the user viscosity, but also improve the conversion rate of resources.
In short, as the concept of pay for knowledge abates, the voice of pay for knowledge is also constantly appearing, can not help but let a person think about “pay for knowledge and tomorrow”? After the flow bonus, how to get the APP to change? Wait and see.
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network