Prevent online education frantically "burning money" into vicious competition

　　Prevent online education frantically "burning money" into vicious competition

　　Author: Ai Ping Jiao

[Bright Times Review]

　　According to media statistics, according to the financial reports of major online education platforms, the marketing expenses of only three well-known online education institutions from February to November 2020 exceeded 10 billion yuan.

In the summer of 2020, the four K12 online schools that are the "head" spent about 4.7 billion yuan in summer vacation, while in 2019, the total investment in the summer vacation was only 1.9 billion yuan, which more than doubled in a year.

Such "burning money" made the public exclaim: Is online education doing education or is it "burning money"?

　　Corresponding to the crazy "burning money", the overall loss of online education institutions is very serious.

According to statistics, for the whole year of 2020, capital has input nearly 15 billion U.S. dollars into the online education field, but the income of online education is only tens of billions of yuan.

In this regard, some "head" online education institutions do not take it seriously, believing that the "burning money" model will eventually allow the "no money to burn" institutions to withdraw, thereby "shuffling the cards" and allowing the ultimate winner to be "dominant" .

　　The current online education marketing battle is competition driven by capital.

This has caused training institutions to spend too much energy and financial expenses on marketing, and ignore the improvement of education quality, which not only affects the healthy development of the institutions themselves, but also increases the operational risks and many chaos in the online education industry.

Regarding the increasingly fierce battle of “burning money” among online education institutions, regulatory agencies need to strengthen supervision to prevent risks, and the online education industry also needs to proceed from the health of the industry and say “no” to vicious competition.

　　There are at least three problems in the marketing battle of online education institutions.

First, the proliferation of advertisements has aggravated parents' educational anxiety.

In the past year, parents turned on TV, listened to the radio, surfed the Internet, and used smartphones, all surrounded by ubiquitous online education advertisements.

Although this does not violate the Advertising Law, with such a strong advertising campaign, it is difficult for parents to rationally choose off-campus training institutions.

Whether to further restrict the advertising of online education and training institutions based on the Advertising Law is also one of the issues discussed by public opinion.

　　Second, huge marketing expenditures affect online education teachers and curriculum construction.

Online education invests a lot of money in sales and marketing, which will undoubtedly squeeze the investment in teacher construction and curriculum construction. This is turning the cart before the horse and pushing up the cost of customer acquisition for the entire industry, thereby reducing profitability.

According to industry insiders, the customer acquisition cost of online education has accounted for 50% of the overall income, and some even reached 100%. That is to say, a student’s tuition is basically all used for marketing, such as teacher construction, curriculum construction and What about internal management expenses?

Contrary to the high quality advertised in advertisements, online education institutions have the problem of packaging "famous teachers" and false propaganda.

So, why not use the money to build a high-level teaching team and curriculum system?

　　Third, "burning money" is difficult to make a big platform, and vicious competition will leave a lot of feathers.

Financing, "burning money", refinancing, and then "burning money"... Capital and online education institutions believe that "burning money" will bring traffic, and ultimately "shuffle" the industry.

Judging from the development of the online education industry in 2020, there are indeed well-known online education institutions that went bankrupt and closed because they could not afford to play a marketing war. This allowed capital to see the “prospects” of becoming larger institutions.

However, this ignores that online education is for education, and the Internet thinking of "burning money" to obtain traffic may not be suitable for education.

　　The free marketing battle played by online education and training institutions illustrates this point.

It’s not that easy to convert free traffic into paying customers.

If parents want to buy courses, they still need to look at the quality of the courses.

Regulatory authorities regulate off-campus education and training institutions, and clearly require that a single charge should not exceed 3 months. In addition to reducing refund disputes, there is also "an implication", that is, to promote training institutions to improve training quality and attract users to continue courses with quality. Not through marketing means to acquire customers.

However, many institutions still play side-by-side, charging tuition fees for more than three months, or even one or two years.

　　It is understandable that online education institutions have the pursuit of bigger platforms.

However, parents of students choose training institutions because of differentiated needs.

From this perspective, it is difficult for online education to emerge as a super carrier company like other Internet industries.

Expansion of educational institutions, if they do not do well in quality control and cost control, they will soon fall into the predicament of bankruptcy and closure.

Investors and operators of online education institutions must be soberly aware of this, not blindly pursuing size and scale, but need to create personalized online education products that meet the differentiated choices of educators. This is also the existence of off-campus training institutions Where the value lies.

　　Regarding the intensifying marketing wars of online education institutions, both the regulatory authorities and the industry themselves need to pay attention.

For the regulatory authorities, it is necessary to strictly enforce the advertising law, requiring training institutions not to exaggerate or conduct false propaganda when advertising, and to seriously investigate and deal with training institutions’ illegal advertising and hype.

At the same time, it is necessary to work with industry organizations to further regulate the operation of online education institutions in response to the marketing war and the risks that exist, and guide operators to use their energy and funds to provide high-quality, personalized education products. Create a good education ecology for basic education.

(Author: Ai Ping Jiao, the Department of Education researcher)