Online audio has formed a Himalayan FM, Dragonfly FM, lychee tripod situation.
Knowledge pay this war, Dragonfly FM is not winning
Dragonfly FM and Himalayan FM growth path is very similar, are the knowledge of the pay tuyere. Paid-for content accounts for 50 percent of dragonfly FM’s revenue, with the audio program “Xiao Da Jin Zhi Bei” reaching 5 billion views each by October this year.
But this seemingly excellent performance is just a drop in the bucket in the overall pay-for-knowledge market. Dragonfly FM accounted for only 9% of the top paid content in 2017, according to the 2017 Pay for Knowledge White Paper. At the same time, Dragonfly FM also only “short big tight point north” a head program into 2017 paid content comprehensive purchase index top10.
Dragonfly FM, which was busy buying audio rights, was in the red like Himalayan FM in 2017, but Litchi, which parted ways with FM, was the first to turn a profit. This shows, although dragonfly FM has fist product, but is not the winner that knowledge pays. The achievement of knowledge payment failed to help Dragonfly FM turn losses into profits, and diversified business models such as advertising revenue, user payment, copyright distribution and publishing, and community fan economy also failed to help Dragonfly FM turn losses into profits, because dragonfly FM’s content innovation ability was insufficient, and the user viscosity was relatively low.
In order to improve user engagement, but also to tap new incremental market, out of the loss of your circle. Dragonfly FM, which takes PGC as its main content, has made two preparations this year: one is to launch member services; Second, layout of intelligent hardware.
Grasp member service grasp intelligence hardware, dragonfly FM still has hidden worries
In fact, not only dragonfly FM, in order to broaden the user usage scene and improve user engagement, membership service and layout of intelligent hardware has become a standard online audio platform. From the point of view of member service and intelligent hardware layout, dragonfly FM has the advantage also has the place of limitation.
Member service: Mining high-value users has become one of the development centers of various Internet industries. From online video to takeout to e-commerce, member services launched by various platforms are more affordable than one another, among which the most affordable is Ali’s 88-year membership. Online audio platforms have also followed e-commerce in launching membership services and festivals: Himalayan FM launched Peak Membership last year, while Dragonfly FM launched its membership system in April this year, following in Himalayan FM’s footsteps five maymonths later. Following the 123 Knowledge carnival and Himalaya 66 membership Day, the online audio industry has another fixed festival — “91 Listening festival”.
The purpose of launching membership service is to stratify users and dig out high-value users, while the festival is to stimulate more users to consume and encourage more users to become members. From Double eleven to 618, 818… There are more and more shopping festivals, and the annual transaction volume has set a new record high. For example, the total transaction volume of This year’s Singles’ Day on Tmall has exceeded 200 billion yuan.
Similarly, make section also really for dragonfly FM and other online audio platform brought considerable trading volume. Data shows that Ximalaya achieved sales of 50.88 million yuan in the first 123 Knowledge Carnival, and 196 million yuan in the second. Dragonfly FM is not to be outdone, 91 Listening festival set a new record of 3.04 million member sales.
Stimulating consumption is only one of the benefits brought by member services and festival creation. Another benefit is to improve user stickiness. Although Dragonfly has 300 million users, the proportion of active users is very low. From the data of Analytica qianfan, making festival does help Dragonfly FM wake up more stock users, dragonfly FM active users in September compared with August increased by nearly 1 million.
However, although festivals can drive consumption, too many festivals will also cause consumption fatigue. E-commerce shopping festival is an example and a precedent. With the increasing number of e-commerce shopping festivals, users view consumption activities more rationally. Although the transaction volume of Tmall is higher than that of previous years, the transaction volume of many merchants behind it is actually lower than that of previous years, and the shopping spree is just a “false prosperity”.
With the gradual cooling of knowledge payment, consumers’ attitude towards knowledge payment has changed from anxious consumption to rational consumption, and it will be difficult for membership service and festival creation to move more consumption. In fact, analysys data show that the active users of Dragonfly FM are still growing after the event, but they have fallen back. The Q3 report of Aurora data even pointed out that dragonfly FM penetration rate in September was only 2.2, far lower than zhihu and other knowledge paying players.
Intelligent hardware: The application scenarios of intelligent hardware such as smart home are very compatible with online audio products. Dragonfly FM, Ximalaya FM and other online audio platforms cover intelligent hardware scenarios, which can not only meet the different segmentation needs of different consumers, but also achieve full time coverage and seize more users’ time. Therefore, in addition to smartphone manufacturers who are busy expanding the smart hardware ecosystem after the end of the smartphone dividend period, online audio is also grabbing this new incremental market.
However, from the layout, Himalayan FM and Dragonfly FM focus is different. Ximalaya focuses on smart home scene and takes the route of self-research. It has launched AI speakers Xiaoya and Xiaoya miniAI speakers. Besides its own content, It also has access to Content sources such as Baidu Music and Xiami Music, which can provide users with more diversified services. And dragonfly FM choice is cooperative line, with car hardware and intelligent household brand all have cooperation, such as millet’s small love speaker, day cat spirit, and said that later also won’t roll out intelligent hardware products.
In contrast, the two layouts have their own advantages. The self-research mode of Ximalaya FM is relatively heavy, but it can be oriented to more accurate user groups, with higher recognition and loyalty of users. If the product matrix is formed, it can realize thick accumulation and thin development. Dragonfly FM cooperation mode can quickly cover more user groups, seize the market opportunity, so as to achieve user growth, but also can let dragonfly FM in the loss stage to save hardware research and development costs and promotion costs. In addition, dragonfly FM content advantage is the radio anchor, the use of the scene and car hardware more fit.
However, the wide net layout also has some shortcomings, not only the cooperation benefit is difficult to product matrix, cooperative relationship is not as stable as self-developed products. Moreover, from the perspective of time coverage, although radio programs have the advantage of fragmentation and can cover the time period of commuting, it is difficult to generate highly sticky users. And car hardware domain, dragonfly FM also is facing another strong opponent, namely very early focus on car hardware koala FM. Therefore, dragonfly FM can seize the opportunity of intelligent hardware is difficult to conclude.
Scene and content, dragonfly FM can not be left behind
Online audio as a content industry, no matter how wide the scene coverage is, it can only gain advantages in terms of traffic acquisition, and the linkage of film and television is the same. Only by retaining users and cultivating high-value users can it be profitable. Dragonfly FM’s active users account for a low proportion in the total users, which indicates that dragonfly FM has a problem of insufficient content innovation centered on PGC content, while high-quality content is the core of online audio industry to retain users, as well as the real barrier advantage.
To this end, in addition to the layout of intelligent hardware to prolong the product line and the use of member system and member festival to stimulate consumption to improve user stickiness, dragonfly FM still need more efforts in the content. Although Dragonfly FM has a lot of high-quality head content, but the head content accounts for a larger proportion of the operation, the overall content quality is difficult to balance. To this end, it is more important to dragonfly FM to improve the quality of waist content, and stimulate the user’s participation.
On the one hand, Dragonfly FM has improved the content innovation capability of the platform by recruiting anchors, but the centralized content innovation method is often not as good as the decentralized content innovation method to encourage user interaction. Therefore, dragonfly FM, while taking PGC content as the focus, might as well try to build UGC content around the existing IP, which not only avoids copyright disputes, but also drives users to be active, and releases the operational pressure of buying head content.
On the other hand, the sources of quality content are audio books and radio dramas in addition to paying for knowledge, and the common feature of all three is that copyright investment is very high. Is not only a dragonfly FM, cat ears FM online audio to a piece of audio books and radio play, itself with copyright resources online reading platform are eyeing, such as strategic investment already lazy people listen and Himalayan FM group read article recently launched a new listening listening, reading and have been the starting point in reading, read QQ platform, enabled.
Well prepared to read text on dragonfly FM and Himalayan FM are a strong enemy. Although Dragonfly FM has introduced popular IP titles like The Hunger Games and The Tudors by joining the Audiobook Publishing Association of The United States, these preparations are far from enough for a low-penetration industry to break out of the homogenized competition. Dragonfly FM may need to connect with more content sources.
Can see, dragonfly FM layout has always gone is a wide net strategy, obviously do not know what is their core barriers. To follow the footsteps of others is also can have, but want to be a leader, ability to innovate, dragonflies FM only for positioning and differentiation advantage, while increasing content of PGC upgrade innovation ability and content, has it been possible to activate the stock of more users, and to get more in the competition and the Himalayan and lychee.
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network