The underlying logic of event planning and promotion!

When it comes to event planning, what everyone thinks of is the specific execution of the event, such as personnel, processes, etc., but this is only the basic configuration of event planning. What are the invisible designs of excellent event planning? The author shares some of his own views based on his own experience.

As a marketer, you must be familiar with event planning. Usually when it comes to events, whether it is the practical articles currently on the market or the event planning plans we actually write, we will quickly think of the following contents.

For an event planner, in fact, as long as you master a template like this, you can apply it to wedding planning, press conferences, concerts, opening events, annual meetings, etc. In short, with a mature template, no matter what kind of event planning, we can gradually become more and more handy.

For event planning companies, if they add some creativity to such a template, then an event will be considered more perfect.

In fact, the activity plans we see now are all visual, easy to understand, easy to operate, and easy to execute. Many activities are more inclined to creativity or execution rather than strategy.

However, truly outstanding event planning is often invisible and difficult to understand. It requires interlocking designs, a deep understanding of human nature, and the ability to coordinate strategies. Usually, such event planning also has its own underlying logic and strategy.

Today we will not talk about how to design the activity process better or creativity, but just talk about what underlying logic may exist in an activity.

1. Strategic synergy: Activities must align with strategy, not just sales data
2. Use similar groups: find similarities between yourself and users or divide them into similar groups
3. Variable rewards: Individuals’ social behavior is driven by their past learning experiences of rewards and punishments
4. Establishing social relationships: The most basic motivation of human behavior is to establish connections with others

1. Strategic synergy

Whether it is a military activity or a commercial activity, its purpose must be subject to the overall strategic planning. In other words, the activity needs a coordinated strategy so that the activity itself can become a lever to amplify its value, and these values ​​cannot be reflected simply through sales data.

In the famous "Operation Desert Storm" in the 1990s, the main purpose of the existence of the best American airborne division was to coordinate with ground forces and divert the attention of the Iraqi army, rather than to actually attack. Although the air force commander wanted to demonstrate the value of strategic bombing, he ultimately had to obey the overall strategy.

In Operation Desert Storm, each activity of the U.S. Air Force was subject to the overall strategy rather than existing independently. If it were a commercial activity, then the U.S. Air Force would have been equivalent to doing an activity that did not generate beautiful sales data, but such an activity ultimately achieved a comprehensive victory through strategic coordination.

As Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle." Its real meaning is not to tell us to fight a hundred battles and win every one of them. Many classic battles in history were not won by fighting hundreds of battles. What really changes the situation or establishes victory is often a single battle that decides the outcome.

The same is true for exciting business activities. The underlying logic is the same. For example, Qinghua Langjiu once held an event where users were invited to the event with their eyes blindfolded to distinguish between Langjiu and Moutai through tasting. As a result, after tasting, no one could tell which wine in the cup was Langjiu or Moutai. Although such an event could not generate beautiful sales data, it did coordinate the strategy.

The copywriting of Qinghualang Liquor at that time said:

Therefore, when we impulsively make an annual or quarterly activity plan, or design various forms of warm-up activities, press conferences, and concerts, we still need to constantly remind ourselves whether the series of activities we are about to do have achieved strategic synergy and whether users can perceive the value.

2. Use Similar Groups

Countless studies have proven that we are attracted to people who look similar to us, have similar ages, ideas, hobbies, and personal habits. The most attractive thing about similar individuals is that their beliefs and attitudes are the same as ours.

So how do you typically leverage such similarities in your campaigns?

1. Find similarities with users

In some activities or sales meetings I have participated in, almost every time I saw some PPT introducing the founders, there were all kinds of high-sounding and countless honors. But what do these have to do with users?

For example, I once saw a sales event where the target users were owners of beauty salons, but the founder’s introduction included a series of complicated honors that were hard to remember, such as a foreign MBA, a master’s tutor, etc.

I gave the founder a suggestion, asking him to think about how he is similar to the owner of a beauty salon. For example, imagine whether you have worked in a beauty salon before and the bottlenecks or pain points you encountered in the industry. These bottlenecks or pain points must be similar to the problems that the users present are facing now.

In this way, when users think that you are also a similar group as them, it will naturally be easier to gain support.

2. Similar group division

Throughout human evolution, people have been more willing to help those who are genetically related to them in order to increase the survival rate of their own genes. Because the underlying motivation of all living things is to allow their genes to continue.

This is also why in many pyramid schemes, people with similar personalities, hobbies, and characteristics are often put together to live together. Under certain specific situations, a group of communicating individuals have irrational consistency in interests, emotions, opinions, or behaviors, and this irrational consistency stems from suggestion and imitation.

For example, in some marketing activities, marketing is often targeted at a similar group, such as specifically inviting square dance aunties. When the square dance aunties enter a similar group with common interests, once an opinion leader takes the lead in paying, it is more likely to trigger others to follow suit and pay.

Even in the marketing world, many marketers themselves will unconsciously and automatically imitate some of the activities planned by other marketers. When others do something that seems fun, some people will rush to imitate it without considering whether it is suitable for themselves, because in a certain specific situation, the people engaged in marketing work themselves have become a similar group of people.

3. Variable rewards

What exactly drives people's behavior?

Numerous studies have demonstrated that an individual's social behavior is driven by their past reward and punishment learning experiences, with past rewards encouraging us to approach some goals and avoid others.

Children also exhibited similar imitative behavior when they saw another child or adult being rewarded for beating an inflatable doll.

We can see in the news that even adults, after being addicted to games for a long time, will naturally begin to imitate some behaviors in the game even when they are not playing games, because as long as they take some actions in the game, they can get rewards, which prompts them to associate it with rewards.

When he saw the audience screaming in admiration to the lead singer of the concert, the boy decided to become a musician as well. He fantasized that he would be able to obtain such status and rewards after becoming a musician.

In continuous event planning, if you want to attract users to come continuously, the important content is: small prizes are constantly given, the grand prizes are large enough, and the rewards are of various kinds, so as to drive people's behavior through rewards.

Through the probabilistic returns each time and the varied rewards (social rewards, monetary temptations, etc.), users who come to participate in the event can often become addicted. Sometimes, the rewards are not necessarily monetary rewards, such as participating in some small games to get rankings, or cooperating with strangers to form a team in the event and getting team rewards.

Therefore, when we plan an event, the prizes or rewards for the event often need to be carefully designed, rather than imitating others’ prizes. We need to constantly ask ourselves whether the rewards we set can drive

People's behavior helps users get closer to their goals.

4. Build social relationships

When psychologists list the most basic motivations for human behavior, the desire to connect with others usually tops the list.

When we are planning to hold an event, we need to consider not only potential users, but also whether the event we are about to plan can satisfy the motivation for others to establish connections.

How to operate it?

For example, for a product aimed at ordinary people, we may first invite some local high-end people to participate in an event, and then tell the public through the media that such a group of people are participating in our event. Although these high-end people may not be potential users and cannot bring about real transactions, they represent a circle and are the group of people that many users want to establish connections with.

Later, when the event was held again, just a small-scale publicity was enough to attract a large number of ordinary users who came uninvited, and these ordinary users were the real paying group.

For example, some of the success studies, CEO training classes, Chinese studies lectures, etc. that we often saw in the early years, when they reached a certain level, they could often attract many bosses to participate. But in fact, for these bosses, the content of the lectures itself is often not important. What is important is to get to know those who attend the class.

Therefore, when we want to organize an event, we need to constantly ask ourselves whether our event can satisfy the most basic motivation of human behavior and allow users to establish connections with the circles they desire.

Author: Escape

Source: Taoxuzi (ID: taoxuzi23)