3 steps to event planning and promotion!

The author summarizes the "three-part theory" of event planning, which are setting goals, determining paths, and finding resources, and further subdivides the elements, hoping to bring you inspiration and thinking.

Event planning is one of the basic operational capabilities. There are many methodologies to guide operators to complete events, help acquire traffic, and solve conversion problems.

However, the author has not found a concise event planning theory. The main reason is that there is no unified standard for the event planning process. Everyone’s proposal may be correct, and event planning often depends on the results. As long as the goal is achieved, the process is not particularly important (I think it is very important).

Furthermore, and this can be said to be the most important problem, is that many operators often have confusing logic when they want to do an event, and they tend to start without thinking through the details, and they are very impatient, and the results are often bleak.

In order to enable operators to come up with a reliable event planning plan at any time, the author summarized the "three-part theory" of event planning, that is, event planning can be accomplished through three simple and direct steps, namely setting goals, determining paths, and finding resources.

Next, I will explain it to you in detail.

1. Set goals

The first step in event planning is to determine the event goals, which have three specific meanings.

(1) Business objectives

That is, the background of the event, the motivation for designing the event, and what kind of business purpose it is for, or what kind of business problem it is for. In fact, there are only three business goals of the event: attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, and monetizing existing customers.

To be more specific, the reasons why an activity is designed include APP downloads, registrations, and payments, the growth of public account fans, the expansion and retention of community size, product repurchases, etc., and the purpose is to help achieve these business goals.

(2) User goals

That is, user needs refer to a certain type of user group and their certain needs. When the activity is designed, it can solve these problems of users.

User goals are the direct basis for establishing the theme of the activity, and they are not set blindly, but are established through user research, competitive product analysis, market observation, etc.

For example, the promotional theme of Double Eleven was born because it is the end of the year and merchants want to clear their inventory and users want to consume. Double Eleven just happens to meet the needs of both parties.

Another example is the lecture recruitment activities that are often held in the education industry. The themes of the lectures are because users at that time need such content to solve their educational confusion. Lectures on further studies, such as planning for the high school entrance examination and preparation for the transition from primary school to junior high school, are basically full as soon as they open.

(3) Activity indicators

Refers to the specific data tasks that need to be achieved by the activity, such as the number of participants in the activity, the number of people converted through the activity, the number of new users attracted through the activity, participation rate, new user acquisition rate, conversion rate, etc.

For event planners, identifying the three types of goals for an event can ensure that the event does not deviate from its direction during the planning stage, and can also ensure that there is a high probability of achieving the expected results when the event is executed.

2. Determine the path

The second step of event planning is to design the event path. The general event design path is: promotion->attraction->activation->dissemination->conversion.

(1) Promotion

When promoting on major channels, you need to consider the traffic position of the target users and the traffic scale of that position. The more precise the channel, the better; the larger the scale, the better, such as the Kaiping advertising space of the APP, the homepage carousel of the website, WeChat groups, Moments, etc.

(2) Attraction

Deliver accurate information through text, pictures, videos and other content forms to attract target users to participate in the event. The core of this step is to polish the event copy, visual design, information logic, etc. The more touching the copy description and the more eye-catching the visual design, the more guaranteed the participation effect of the event.

(3) Activation

Through products and operational means, guide or remind users to continue to participate in all aspects of the activity, mobilize overall activity, increase stickiness, and pave the way for subsequent activity dissemination and conversion. Often use gamification thinking, such as pushing points tasks, granting honorary certifications, designing rankings, etc.

(4) Dissemination

The first three steps only complete the task of some users participating in the event. The participation of more people depends on the sharing of users who have already participated. It can be designed to be passive or active. The passive method relies on the fission mechanism. The active method can refer to three methods: finding KOLs, creating slogans, and using communities. The "Three Principles of Triggering Points" are the reference behind them.

(5) Conversion

This is the last step, which includes two levels: one is to retain users, such as guiding users to join long-term WeChat groups, or follow the official account used for the service, register for the APP, etc.; the other is to sell core products, directly generate revenue, and screen out real target users.

Basically, the paths of most activities will follow these five steps, and the difference lies in the gameplay, which is actually the soul of any activity and the key to giving users a core experience.

3. Find resources

The third step in event planning is to find and prepare the necessary resources, which are the specific details of the event and determine more than 90% of the effectiveness of an event.

The resources required for the activity mainly include four aspects:

(1) Content

It includes copywriting, pictures, audio and video, etc. Specifically, the copywriting includes promotional language, operational language, rule descriptions, landing page information, product information, etc. Pictures include promotional posters, carousel pictures, article pictures, banner pictures, etc. Audio and video includes promotional audio and video, course audio and video, etc.

(2) Rewards

It includes physical rewards and virtual rewards, and the rewards given out are different for activities of different types and fields. For example, educational activities mostly give out books and courses, brand activities are willing to give out self-made peripherals, membership activities give out limited-time free service experience rights, and e-commerce activities give out high-priced gifts or even cash.

(3) Channels

It also includes two categories. One is proprietary channels, such as WeChat groups, QQ groups, public accounts, Moments, Weibo accounts, Douyin accounts, etc. The other is business channels, such as resource exchanges with companies in other industries, KOL advertising, and advertising space on traffic platforms.

(4) Personnel

This is the most core resource to ensure the implementation of the event. It requires division of labor according to the event plan and finding the personnel required for the corresponding links. Generally speaking, it mainly includes operations personnel who implement the event plan, planners who are responsible for the overall planning of the event and promote its implementation, production and research personnel who ensure the effectiveness of the event and avoid technical failures, as well as guests or KOLs who add influence to the event.

4. How to implement the "three-part theory" of event planning

The above are the three core steps of event planning. In order to facilitate readers’ clear understanding, the author takes the 21-day check-in event as an example and plans and displays it according to these three steps.

(1) Activity objectives

• Business goal: Activate old users and attract new users
• User goal: Old users are not proficient in a certain area of ​​knowledge and need full time and concentrated training
• Activity indicators: Number of participants and check-in rate of check-in activities

(2) Activity path

Public account tweets promotion -> users scan the code to join the group -> mini program registration -> daily group and public account reminders to check in -> complete exercise questions every day -> share check-in day pictures every day -> complete check-in on the last day -> issue check-in rewards

(3) Activity resources

According to the above path, we can know that the check-in activity requires the following types of resources:

• Content: mainly official account soft articles, check-in activity recruitment briefs, group operation scripts, promotional posters, check-in day signature pictures, check-in content pictures, daily check-in topics, etc.
• Rewards: After 21 days of checking in, the top ten will be selected based on points, days, results, etc., and the first, second to fourth, and last six will be given prizes of different values, mainly in the form of physical items.
• Channels: Mainly public accounts, WeChat groups and WeChat Moments
• Personnel: including public account operators, WeChat group operators and teaching and research personnel. The public account operator is responsible for soft copywriting, the WeChat group operator is responsible for check-in guidance and user Q&A, and the teaching and research personnel are responsible for check-in questions.

Of course, in addition to these three steps, the implementation of the event also requires specific personnel division of labor, promotion schedule and standardized execution process, which together with the three steps of event planning constitute a complete event plan.

In addition, after the event, a review should be conducted to identify problems that occurred during the event and propose improvement plans to guide the next identical or similar event, so that the results can gradually reach expectations and help business development.

In short, event planning is also a basic ability that operators must possess, and the stronger the better.

Author: Wild Solitary Fungus

Source: Wild Operation Community (id: dugu9bubai)