Discussing activity operations from the perspective of user retention and activity

Today’s sharing will talk to you about event operations from three aspects:

First, theory, analyze some theories;

The second point is practical operation, which is how we should implement each point;

The third point is cases. Combine cases to fully understand the whole process.

After listening to these three points, you can at least replicate a similar offline event.

1. What does operations do?

Operation, commonly known as Internet operation, is to use all means to attract new users, activate users, and ultimately convert users and increase product revenue.

What is the ultimate goal of the operation? Increase your income. All the means used can be understood as the user growth model, which is acquisition, retention, activation, monetization, and recommendation. Some companies may have a dedicated user operations position, or as is popular this year, many companies have begun to set up growth hackers or user growth officers. Here, I would like to recommend a book to you. You can go back and read it. It is "Chief Growth Officer". It analyzes the theory of user growth from the perspective of data. For students who are engaged in operations or user operations, this book is still very valuable.

Operational work can be roughly divided into five stages:

The first stage: acquisition, commonly known as attracting new customers.

The second stage: promoting activation, which is to make the users attracted become active. This product has both good and bad sides. He may come today and decide he doesn’t like it and leave.

The third stage: retention. What you need to do is not to let users leave.

The fourth stage: conversion, to keep users, the ultimate goal is actually to make money. It is necessary to guide conversion and generate income through payment for some products, activities, content, etc.

The fifth stage: referral, which can be simply understood as word of mouth. We hope that users will recommend our products or services to more people, let more users know, and let more users enter the first stage.

In fact, all operations, whether you are doing event operations, content operations, product operations, or products and data, are actually about user acquisition, retention, and monetization. User operation is a more detailed breakdown. Some companies will set up user operation positions to be specifically responsible for growth, acquisition, and fission tasks, making the user system larger and larger, which is a very detailed breakdown of user operation.

2. About activity operation

Event operation can be put into the operation level, and understood as "complete this operation in the form of an event". Of course, it does not mean that one event can complete the overall operation. It may be to set up special activities for each stage. In addition to a better user growth model, the product stage model also needs to be considered. For a product, whether it is real estate, stationery or an Internet company, you need to consider the product stage issue, which includes the startup stage, growth stage, maturity stage and decline stage. You won’t necessarily die once you reach the decline stage. You may need to use some means and methods to curb the decline trend and return to maturity, which is the peak stage.

Taking into account these four product stages and the user growth model, we can set up our activities very accurately, or in a planned and targeted manner.

1. Confirm the purpose of the activity

First, consider the purpose of the event. If the product is in its early stages, it needs to attract some initial users through an offline event to ensure the subsequent growth of the product. For example, you can do things like free trials for educational institutions, free experiences for products, etc. If you want to activate and gain more active users, you should plan some welfare activities. One advantage of offline activities over online activities is that they are very suitable for increasing the relationship with users. A month of chatting with users online may not be as effective as a meal offline.

That’s all the theory. In fact, all these theories are available on the Internet and you can go and learn about them.

2. Track of offline activities

Next, let’s talk about the trajectory of offline activities. I want to emphasize here that my experience and trajectory are more suitable for offline salons and knowledge sharing. If you are doing some offline garden parties, it may not be completely suitable, but you can select the nodes that need to be controlled.

1) Event Planning

The first event plan is the first thing to do for an event. At least two event plans should be made, one for internal use and one for external use: because a lot of details need to be communicated externally, such as the investment promotion, venue, guests, and channels written above all need to be communicated. You can't just use an internal plan to talk about it. If the internal plan says that you hope to make 500,000 yuan from this event, it's not a good idea to send it to others. If the team has enough people, different external planning documents can be made for each channel and each target object for communication. This is also in line with the theme of today's event, which is how to increase user stickiness and activity through an event. In fact, it is very simple. Every link of the activity is helping you to improve user stickiness and user activity.

2) Activity investment promotion

Next, let’s talk about event investment promotion. Why do we have to bring it up separately? Because for different product stages and user growth stages, there may be a stage of monetization revenue, that is, the product needs revenue, including the need for product revenue in the mature stage. If you are a service brand, such as service tools such as Donghuoxing, you need to obtain certain income through investment promotion to achieve the overall revenue target, which requires investment promotion.

What kind of investment should we recruit? It just so happened that he was interested in my activity and it was what he needed. For example, when doing an activity to promote an App, who needs these users the most? Third-party tool providers for app promotion may need it because they need you to use these products, so we specifically look for such commercial sponsorship to increase the revenue of our entire event. With increased income, we can work harder to make this event a success. For example, we can generously distribute fruits and drinks to everyone, which can be paid for from investment sponsorship. If not, the user retention and stickiness of this event would definitely not be very high, because no one received good service.

3) Venue services

Based on my current experience, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to find a suitable venue, especially a free venue, in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. However, there is a very contradictory point, that is, there are a lot of offline meetings now. Take Shanghai for example, there may be dozens of events in a week, and you need to be selective about which event to attend. At this time, the choice of venue is very important.

First of all, we must choose a place that matches the user attributes. For example, if we want to hold an Internet event in Shenzhen, we must choose Nanshan because there are many Internet companies there.

Second, the transportation is very convenient, which can reduce everyone’s transportation costs.

Third, the venue itself must be very consistent with the user attributes. For example, people in the Internet industry prefer venues that are either simpler or more like crowd-innovation spaces.

4) Communication with guests

Communication with guests is very important. You must not invite guests just for face or personal connections. A guest may be suitable at the beginning, but the PPT he sent is not so good or outdated. At this time, you must choose to change it. Therefore, communication with guests is very important and runs through the entirety of your event. It is not enough to just invite the guest. You must do a good job of operating the guest from beginning to end. You must ensure that his PPT is very suitable for the current audience and most importantly, you must ensure that the order of their appearance is acceptable to everyone.

Generally, the more active or talkative guests are placed first to liven up the atmosphere. Today I am a special case and am not included.

The most important point in guest communication is that you must have a Plan B. Because when we do offline growth activities, we may finalize a guest 20 days in advance. On the day of the event, he may not come because he is suddenly unwell or has something going on at home, and you can't do anything about him. Therefore, you must have an alternative guest. If he doesn't come, you can have an alternative guest. There should be a Plan B for any activity. At each node, if there is an emergency, you should know how to use alternative plans to ensure normal operation.

5) Activity time

In my experience, the trends of some offline activities have changed in very strange ways in recent years. In 2017, everyone particularly liked to attend meetings on Fridays. Why? Because it was Friday and I had a good time skipping work, I went home after listening to the lecture. The entire Internet environment has become very depressed this year. I would be very worried if I skip work at this time. It would not be a good idea. So Friday is not a good time and I have to choose Saturday.

But what is so embarrassing? Many companies also work on Saturdays. Now many companies like to work on Saturdays instead of having two days off. At this time many people will say that they want to work on Saturdays as well. What should they do? I have some good partners who, when they are in Beijing, will choose to hold events on Sunday afternoons, and their attendance rate will be much higher than on Fridays and Saturdays. Therefore, the choice of event time is a detail that seems to be no problem, but it is related to your user group and the trend of the entire market industry. Therefore, you should carefully consider the time of the event.

6) Channel communication

An event needs promotion, right? You can’t promote it alone, as the number of users you attract will be limited. I hope everyone can promote it together. For example, flyers are distributed before an event, which is channel promotion. What is the most important principle of channel communication? It is a match of resources between both parties, that is, the resources I can give you are matched with the resources you can give me. No one should take advantage of the other, otherwise it will be difficult to cooperate next time. So are the more channels the better? No, you must choose the one that suits you. For example, if my former employer was engaged in App promotion and agency, I would definitely look for a channel to cooperate with that would not be a competitor to mine and would not conflict with me.

7) Material design

Material design is easily overlooked by many people, and they often just design it casually. But now, good designs can increasingly attract people. When we are designing materials, it is best to determine how much material we need to make. Do we just need to make a long picture for the Moments, or do we need to make a promotional poster or a guest poster, or just a very simple poster like the one in the Moments that is suitable for mobile pages? These are all things that need to be considered, and it is necessary to ensure that the design tone of the entire event is consistent. The simplest thing is to enable people to quickly grasp the key points of the event.

8) Online promotion

Once we have made all the adjustments above, we can now promote the launch. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard. We need at least one day to make relevant plans and see how we should promote the launch.

First and foremost, we need to make several versions of the promotional column. Is one version enough? No, because you have so many channels. Your channel may be from your circle of friends, someone else’s website, or a WeChat public account. You need to design different copywriting according to different channels and your own channels.

Second, you need to design different copywriting according to the beginning, middle and end of the event. For example, if you have no tickets left or only a few dozen are left, you will need to make minor changes to the copy.

Third, what else needs to be done? To arrange and plan channel time. For example, if you plan an event today and launch it at a certain time next week, you can promote it through external channels every day and internal channels. By arranging and combining the time in this way, you can repeatedly remind users that there will be such an event in a certain city at a certain time, so that more users can participate.

9) Activity follow-up

After the promotion is launched, the next step is to follow up on the event. In fact, it is very simple. Just do what I just said before, in addition to event investment and event planning, including event investment, and follow up well during this stage. For example, the investment will ask you "what do I need to remember, how is the site arranged", and the venue will say how to do this place, and every place must communicate in place. This is what needs to be done during the event follow-up period. The most important thing during the follow-up period is the user, because our theme today is "improving user stickiness and retention", so how to do it? The service starts from the moment the user signs up, rather than waiting until the user arrives on site. If a WeChat account is left in the text, you need to record his needs after approval. You need to know what he does, what he wants to gain from participating in the event, whether you can guarantee that he can actually be there, and whether he can bring a few more people to the scene? These are all things you need to do during the user follow-up process.

10) Risk Control

Risk control, combined with the points mentioned above, for example, a channel suddenly cannot be sent, a guest suddenly cannot come, there is suddenly a rainstorm during the event, these are all risks, and you need to use your own experience and the overall arrangements and scheduling to curb these risks to ensure the smooth progress of the event.

11) Activity Execution

Finally, there is activity execution. What is activity execution? Does the activity execution end when the activity ends in the afternoon or evening of the same day? Absolutely not. It should be from this morning to around this time tomorrow, which is a little more than 24 hours. Why? Because you have to set up the venue in the morning. I'm talking about small events. If it's a large event, you may have to set up the venue one day in advance. For example, if it's far away from the subway, 1.5 kilometers away from the subway, you have to ensure that users can find your venue as quickly and accurately as possible. Whether it's one-on-one notification or WeChat group notification, all of this needs to be done. This is pre-meeting guidance.

We need to design a process on site that day. For example, the icebreaker game we just played is the first one we need to do, and we need to make everyone familiar with it quickly. Then we'll have tea break and share more. This is the process, and we need to control the process in this process. Through this very meticulous service and on-site execution, the entire event has a relatively high quality.

12) Subsequent operations

After the event is over, users will have a lot of questions. They will never say that it’s over for today and they can go home. No, at least for the Knowledge Salon event, they will at least ask: "When will the PPT be given to me? Do you have the teacher's contact information?" These are all questions that you need to reply to. It is impossible for the event to be over and you can go home. You need to carry out follow-up operations for these users. This follow-up operation can ensure that they are willing to participate in your next event because you are very knowledgeable about their event. By the next day, there will be fewer and fewer people asking you questions, and you will feel a little relieved.

3. How to conduct user operations in offline activities

1) Understand user needs

In fact, user needs are difficult to grasp. They are ever-changing and affected by many factors. The venue, weather, etc. mentioned earlier will all be factors influencing whether users choose an event, but what is the most critical factor? Is this event what he needs?

For example, if it’s fun, some offline concerts and amusement parties are fun, so everyone can go and have fun; or if it’s useful, I find these activities very informative. But user needs are changing.

For example.

In 2016, Apps were very popular, and everyone was talking about how to promote Apps, how to increase downloads and user usage, etc. Everyone loved to hear about this kind of knowledge. But in 2017, this was not popular anymore, and everyone loved to hear about Mini Programs. I wanted to hear about how Mini Programs retain users and monetize. What is 2018? Fission, everyone wants to know how this thing fissions in the circle of friends? How to monetize? This is the ever-changing user needs. We need to set up related activities based on user needs, combined with the product stage and our user growth model.

For example, the main task now is monetization. Although I know that App promotion is not popular anymore, I have signed several sponsors before. I have to go ahead with this event no matter what. I cannot give up on it and I have to complete my task in the previous stage. Therefore, we need to carry out activities based on user needs and our own actual needs.

2) Establish connections with users

This is very important because whether you can establish connections with users means whether you can provide good service to users, which also means whether the event is of high quality. How to establish connection with users?

First of all, I need to break it down to each point and leave my contact information on each channel so that users can come to me actively.

Second, proactively find users and ask them to leave their WeChat ID and mobile phone number when they sign up. After adding the user, you need to communicate with the user to understand his needs and his main purpose.

Third, multi-channel user notifications determine whether users will attend the event. In most cases, an event is held twenty days or a month in advance, and the users may have forgotten about it, so you need to remind them that the event is about to be held. Multiple channels, such as WeChat, social groups, and mobile phone notifications, all need to be used to contact him and remind him that the event is about to start to ensure that he can come.

3) Refined user operations

After knowing the user's data and behavioral characteristics, analyze the user's needs. For example, if I suddenly launched an activity about a mini program, many people gave me feedback saying “OK, I like the theme of this mini program and it really suits my needs”, and I can also launch a mini program in the next activity because the demand for mini programs is relatively high. You can also continue to push event information to users, and make detailed push notifications so that they can receive notifications and participate in the event.

5) Pay attention to user data

It is necessary to pay attention to user data (source, payment, activity, attendance rate, completion rate). Source, test whether the channel is high-quality. For example, if you have cooperated on many platforms, you need to see how many people come from each channel. Maybe the registration effect of a certain channel is not ideal, so you will not cooperate with it next time and continue to cooperate with the channel with ideal registration effect. How to set this? There are sub-channels in the activity group, and everyone can set them up. Then there is payment. Whether there are more or fewer users, maybe 20 yuan per person, and everyone thinks that 20 yuan is enough for a cup of milk tea. If you are doing a national tour, you need to divide it into different cities and different attributes to study what kind of paying users are acceptable. For example, first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have experienced too many conferences. If you rashly say that the maximum price for an event is 2,999 per person, very few people will sign up. Even if there are a lot of people, they will only be free tickets obtained through various channels. Activity means how many people came to the meeting, and which ones kept listening and did not leave, and which ones left while listening. All of these need to be observed.

4. Small details about the event

Let’s talk about some small details. These small details really affect the effect of the event. In fact, the key to organizing a high-quality offline event lies in the details of each service. Inadequate service will greatly affect the quality of the event.

1) Activity Fees

If you charge too much, no one will come. If you charge too little, people will think it is useless. This price needs to be better monitored based on different cities and different groups of people.

So what should we do? You can base it on the data from previous games, or you can use other data. For example, if you are organizing an offline meeting, you can check what activities have been held in this city in the past year and what the payment rate of each activity is. You can see all of this above, and then see if there are any problems with the charging of your own activities and what lessons you can learn.

2) Whether the user responds to the message in a timely manner

This is user operation. In fact, activity operation is just superficial. In essence, it is micro-business operation. One person is equipped with five mobile phones and keeps replying to messages. This is called micro-business operation. For example, this user sends you a message at one o'clock, and you reply at two o'clock. OK, if you haven't replied by the next day, he will be angry.

3) Is the pre-meeting notice in place?

If the venue is far from a transportation hub, a series of settings or instructions will be needed. For example, which exit everyone likes to take the subway, how long it takes to walk, whether there are parking spaces, and how much it costs per hour. These are very common questions and you need to tell them so that everyone will think you are very thorough and careful, and they don't need to search for it themselves.

4) Setting the atmosphere of offline activities

If you don't play an ice-breaking game and just start talking about knowledge, everyone will definitely complain and won't be able to continue listening. You need to follow up with some small games and small gifts to liven up the offline atmosphere. How do you do it? The simplest way is to give out red envelopes. I have tried to adjust the atmosphere of all offline activities, and the best way to start is to give out red envelopes and let everyone grab them. Everyone will be very happy.

5) Subsequent service follow-up

Follow-up is needed after the meeting to make users feel that our service does not stop after the event, and that there will be follow-up services. Because the user’s service does not end after registration, there will also be follow-up, so your service must also have follow-up, and you must provide him with different services for each stage.

For example, if a user has signed up for the Shanghai Salon, I can continue to push information to him next time and set different copywriting based on different attributes. Assuming that he has not participated in similar activities since then, he may just need a simple reminder. Assuming that he actively participates in this event, you need to explain the event very clearly to see if there is anything that can impress him. This requires making a portrait of the user based on his different attributes when following up after the meeting, and then performing different operations.

6) Activity review

For a good event operation, you can continuously carry out offline activities, constantly review, summarize, and analyze to form your own strategy.

The above is all the content shared. Many of the details mentioned in it are worth thinking about by the organizers. I hope they can learn from them!

Author: Event Operation

Source: Event Operations