TechBang Targets Consumer Healthcare Acquisition Challenges with WeChat-Centric Private Traffic Solution

In the past two years, “private-domain traffic” has become a buzzword. It refers to traffic that is owned and freely controllable by brands or individuals, and can be used repeatedly at no cost. Personal WeChat accounts, WeChat groups, and Mini Programs are the most common forms of its manifestation. In addition to the education sector, which is heavily engaged in private-domain operations (such as study check-ins on WeChat Moments), the consumer healthcare industry has also quietly entered this space.

In early May this year, Jishubang, a venture capital firm specializing in serving consumer healthcare institutions, entered the arena of private-domain traffic with its WeChat personal account management tool, “Weikong System.” Jishubang aims to address the pain point of high customer acquisition costs in the consumer healthcare industry by helping institutions build private-domain user pools, thereby increasing user volume and enhancing user stickiness.

Michael, CEO of Jishubang, told VCBeat that the consumer healthcare sector, dominated by medical aesthetics, holds immense market potential and still faces unmet demands for patient acquisition channels.

“Prioritizing user operations by channeling users from various sources into the medical institution’s backend system to build a private-domain traffic pool is essential for accumulating the ‘intangible assets’ held by the institution,” Michael told VCBeat. He identified this as the direction for addressing pain points in the consumer healthcare industry, a conclusion reached through his in-depth analysis of the industry background.

Michael stated that the "2018-2019 Research and Industry Chain Analysis Report on China's Medical Aesthetics Industry," released by iiMedia Research, showed that the market size of China's medical aesthetics industry reached RMB 224.5 billion in 2018. China accounted for 10% of the global market share, ranking third worldwide after the United States and Brazil.

Data indicates that with the development of the medical aesthetics industry and the growing appeal of private institutions, more investment will flow into this sector in the future. Industry players will become more diverse and varied, while competition will intensify across all dimensions, including business philosophy, operational models, talent, technology, and branding.

Michael also noted that patient acquisition has long been a persistent pain point for consumer healthcare institutions. Taking the medical aesthetics industry as an example, traditional marketing channels entail high costs, with clinics heavily relying on Baidu search engine marketing, referrals from beauty salons, and various advertising campaigns. The advent of the internet has, to some extent, alleviated this situation; emerging channels such as online-to-offline (O2O) bidding platforms and medical aesthetics apps have broadened customer acquisition pathways for the sector. However, as costs associated with search engine bidding and traffic redirection via medical aesthetics apps continue to rise, many clinics find themselves in a predicament where, despite the abundance of channels, they struggle to identify effective and affordable acquisition strategies.

“Currently, most online social interactions in China take place on WeChat, which presents a breakthrough for channel expansion,” said Michael. In the pre-internet era, personal customers’ home addresses and contact information constituted private domain traffic. In short, one’s address book was private domain traffic. Subsequently, the forms of private domain traffic have continuously evolved with the advent of the internet, email, telephone, and WeChat. Regardless of their size, companies that can effectively harness private domain traffic are able to significantly expand their follower base and enhance customer stickiness.

Founded in December 2015, Jishubang is a technology-focused venture capital firm that primarily provides consumer healthcare companies with support in product development, IT technology solutions, and talent staffing. By reducing labor, operational, and technical development costs, it helps traditional enterprises successfully complete their digital transformation.

In 2018, Jishubang conceived the idea of developing its own products. After conducting in-depth market research, Jishubang focused on the medical aesthetics industry, which holds significant growth potential. Against this backdrop, the “basic version” of its product, the Zhiyi Medical Aesthetics Cloud System, was launched.

Zhiyi Medical Aesthetics Cloud System is a comprehensive internal business management system, bearing strong resemblance to hospital ERP systems. From outpatient registration and appointment scheduling to triage, as well as internal material management and multi-location clinic operations, medical aesthetic institutions can manage all these processes centrally via the cloud.

Michael pointed out that low standardization of diagnosis and treatment, along with the susceptibility to customer data loss, are two major challenges facing medical aesthetic institutions. When these institutions fail to provide standardized, refined management services throughout the entire customer journey, customer satisfaction declines, leading to a reduced willingness among loyal clients to make referrals. Loss of customer data results in poor real-time availability of operational and sales data, thereby compromising operational decision-making. Furthermore, medical aesthetic institutions grapple with issues such as high sales costs and organizational chaos stemming from unclear staff role definitions.

The core features of the Zhiyi Medical Aesthetics Cloud System include customer management, intelligent business management, and precise data management. By maintaining customer relationships, enhancing service quality, and leveraging data to support operational decision-making, the system helps medical aesthetic institutions increase their revenue from multiple dimensions.

It is worth noting that, compared to other medical systems, one of the advantages of the Zhiyi Medical Aesthetics Cloud System is its ability to provide personalized customization for clients, including the option to open up system source code for secondary development.

Michael stated, “We found that the Zhiyi Medical Aesthetics Cloud System focuses on retaining existing users and plays a significant role in the institutional business segment, but there is still room for growth in customer acquisition. Only by bridging the gap between the institutional business side and the consumer side, and continuously infusing new customers, can the pain points of the consumer healthcare market be truly addressed.”

During market research, TechBang discovered that WeChat, as the most widely used social platform, is the optimal choice for private-domain traffic strategies. Subsequently, the TechBang team focused on WeChat as the entry point for product development, leading to the creation of the “upgraded” Micro-Control System.

The Micro-Control System is a front-end user community management system, consisting of three components: the customer service platform, the mobile app, and the Micro-Control Management Platform.

The customer service platform offers features such as adding friends, viewing Moments, and intelligent chatbot support. Healthcare institutions can import contacts with a single click to precisely target potential clients, and leverage auxiliary tools—including scheduled bulk posting to Moments, automated follower acquisition, and automatic group creation—to reduce labor costs.

TechBang also provides an analytics system based on this data, helping institutions analyze business data and mine user information to deliver more precise marketing services. It is important to note that private-domain operations are not simply about harvesting traffic from WeChat Moments, but rather about cultivating long-term relationships. To truly achieve user retention, administrators must serve as personal assistants to users, helping early adopters understand the product and facilitating conversion.

Mobile operations are primarily conducted through dedicated work phones. Medical institutions provide each sales consultant with a specialized work phone and a WeChat account designated for professional use, thereby preventing customer attrition resulting from employee turnover.

Furthermore, medical institutions can log into the Weikong Management Platform to perform cloud-based management of sales and consulting advisors’ work-related WeChat accounts, including monitoring their work WeChat, phone calls, and text messages. The Weikong system enables real-time synchronization between mobile devices and the management platform, automatically intercepting sensitive keywords. Administrators can review employees’ WeChat content, call logs, and SMS messages at any time and from anywhere to supervise staff. Commenting on this, Michael joked, “This system acts as a ‘magic mirror’ that reveals employees’ work status.”

Michael, who has a technical background, told VCBeat that the company’s technology team has now reached maturity. The current objective is to launch the microcontrol system into the market, aiming to capture greater market share and expand its customer base. “Once our product gains a firm foothold in the market, we will initiate external fundraising.”

(By Li Chengping)