A comprehensive analysis of Tmall’s Double 11 e-commerce operations in 2021

Starting from 2019, Double Eleven no longer refers only to November 11th, but even starts warming up at the end of October. The overall pace has been lengthened, and everyone has more time to prepare, which can ensure the smooth operation of the server, and everyone will receive the goods faster; but this will cause a problem: Double Eleven will no longer feel like it.

"No feeling" means lack of expectation.

Regardless of success or failure, from an operational perspective, Tmall's Double Eleven activities in terms of full-process planning, operation and promotion are still very complete and excellent.

Today we will analyze and share some key points worth learning from from an operational perspective.

1. Changes and constants of Double Eleven

Tmall Double Eleven has gone through a cycle, and this year is the 13th year. The transaction volume of the first Double Eleven in 2009 was 52 million, and it has reached 540.3 billion this year. Although the growth rate has slowed down, it still broke a new record.

Let’s interpret it:

1. The overall marketing rhythm is not much different from previous years

Judging from the overall rhythm, the rhythm of Tmall Double Eleven in 2021 is similar to that of previous years.

We started recruiting investors in September and October, with the first wave of pre-sales at the end of October (which can be understood as the first wave of warm-up), followed by the first wave of formal sales on November 1-3; the second wave of warm-up was from November 4 to 10, followed by the carnival on November 11; and the return period was one week after November 11.

In event planning, the dissemination time for super-large platform events is usually 3-4 weeks, and for small and medium-sized events it is 1-2 weeks. 20% of the time is spent on warm-up, 60% of the time is spent on investing core resources in the detonation period, and the remaining time is spent on PR communication. The overall rhythm of Double Eleven is also consistent.

The overall pace is relatively slow, but it is not a bad thing. It is well worth spending some time to manage your own users.

2. From brand recognition to on-site conversion, the classics remain the same but new products/fashionable products and other new ways of playing are added

We sorted out the overall gameplay before and after Double 11 according to the timeline, and took corresponding actions in many aspects such as communication strategy, on-site activities, and content dissemination.

1) Communication strategy

Since 2019, Tmall has taken corresponding actions in terms of communication for both the "Tmall" and "Tmall Double Eleven" brands. On the one hand, Tmall has shaped Double Eleven into a stable national event; at the same time, Tmall has aroused users' emotional resonance and increased their favorability towards the "Double Eleven" brand itself through the release of brand stories.

2) In-site activities

In addition to the common gameplay such as various cross-store discounts and Meow Sugar sharing of 2 billion, new gameplay has also been added, such as new product releases, trendy products, brand membership challenge plans, and all-star shopping cart disclosures. Create a new perception among consumers that "Double Eleven is not just about selling slow-moving and low-priced products, but is also a good time to buy new products/trendy products."

3) Dissemination of off-site content

Starting from the Cat Hair-collecting Academy on October 20, price-sensitive users will receive information about getting free deals - since you like to get free deals, I will tell you directly how to do it. This is actually also a marketing strategy.

Other communications, such as "Is Wang Xiaole Happy?", are brand-oriented and awaken everyone's desire to shop; Meow Sugar Paradise, Tmall Ideal City, and What Is Double Eleven Festival in nine cities across the country are all Tmall's annual reinforcement of the message that "Double Eleven is not just about shopping, it can also be about other things" (you can also see what Tmall has done specifically in the analysis below).

Around November 1st to 3rd, you will know everything you need to know and start purchasing conversion strategies. Activities inside and outside the site and hot topics will be highlighted, as well as promotional videos, rankings, etc., using the herd effect to guide users to buy.

In the overall marketing approach, certain incentives or topics are set, but these incentives and topics will be achieved through your own active creation of content, or completing the tasks that he wants you to complete (for example, asking you to go shopping), allowing you to accumulate, calculate, and complete the final purchase process.

3. Tmall Double Eleven has been held for 13 consecutive years. What is different this year compared with previous years?

Overall, there are about five changes:

1. No need to stay up late for pre-sale: many brands will start the pre-sale process at 20:00 in the evening, so you don’t need to place orders at midnight anymore.
2. The threshold for placing an order is further lowered
3. Shopping carts can be shared, making it easier to copy homework
4. It is more convenient for seniors to participate
5. Grateful to consumers, 12 years of participation in Double Eleven with gifts

4. From its rise to its peak, what is the operational logic of the Double Eleven event?

Alibaba has shared a full-link map of the Double Eleven brand. Let’s break it down using Alibaba’s AIPL model:

1) Cognition: How to attract the participation of all citizens?

Even if you didn't participate, you must know some information about this year's Double Eleven. This means that this year's Double Eleven has reached you or formed a perception in your mind.

The information users receive is limited, and we need to convey it as much as possible and align our cognition with users - this is what we need to focus on in the "cognition" stage. For example, marketing IPs such as blind boxes, trendy products, and new species, the interactive dissemination of videos and topics on social platforms, various advertising placements such as billboards in various cities, naked-eye 3D, celebrity galas, etc., are all means of creating "cognition".

2) Interest: How to stimulate your interest and participation?

But knowledge alone is not enough - knowing does not mean you will go and see it, nor does it mean you will buy it after seeing it, so how to stimulate your interest and sense of participation is a problem that "interest" solves.

The interactive gameplay of Meow Sugar Mobilization allows users to participate and distribute through interest incentives in the form of games, and constantly stimulates users' interest in products and brands during browsing, searching and other actions.

Similarly, various content recommendations and live broadcasts on Xiaohongshu and Zhihu are constantly stimulating users' interest.

3) Purchase: How to stimulate you to make a purchase?

As long as you are interested, you will also restrain yourself from buying because of lack of money or other reasons, so you need to design some things to stimulate you to buy. This is the problem that "purchase" solves.

Price itself is not the key to users making purchasing decisions. The key is to make users feel that they are getting a good deal. Stimulating users' behavior paths from browsing products, adding to shopping carts, grabbing coupons and paying, as well as promotional conversion methods such as live broadcast purchases, discounts, super flash sales, etc. all fall into the category of purchasing stimulation.

4) Loyalty: How to make you continue to buy?

After the purchase, it does not mean that you become a Tmall user. Tmall needs to continue to operate "you" for a long time until you frequently use their products, and then you become a Tmall user; otherwise, Tmall will still need to reach you again the next time it does marketing, which is particularly difficult to do. This is "loyalty".

The ultimate result of loyalty is: when a user wants to buy a product in a certain category, will he think of a certain brand or company?

How to make users more loyal? Typical behaviors include:

• Efficient logistics allows users to quickly receive their purchased goods
• Product quality is guaranteed
• If there is a problem, the platform responds quickly
• For users with high credit ratings, there are various privileged services such as quick refunds and advance payment of shipping costs, which make users "loyal" to the platform.

As a whole, Tmall Double Eleven goes through the entire after-sales and logistics process from cognition-interest-purchase-loyalty, forming a complete full-link marketing map.

Next, we use Alibaba’s AIPL model to interpret Double Eleven:

2. Cognition: How to preheat and launch Tmall Double 11 to attract the participation of the whole people

At the cognitive level, we focus on online marketing and offline experience.

1. Online marketing

In terms of online marketing, Weibo is generally an important platform for Tmall to create content. At the end of October, Weibo posted a very popular question: What is Double Eleven? The prize is the Double Eleven 1111 warm gift money.

Judging from the final results, the number of readings was 1.22 billion and the number of discussions was 1.562 million, which is a relatively large number.

As the topic gained popularity, Tmall also released a funny short video. This short film has 6 segments, telling you from an official perspective that Double Eleven can be Father's Day, Mother's Day or Valentine's Day, depending on who you want to buy something for on Double Eleven. This thing is a thought and a gift, not something we buy just because it is on sale.

But what kind of festival is Double Eleven? It cannot be defined by just a short video.

Tmall’s official account has released many interesting posters in the topic community: self-adjustment, good festivals, celebrating Children’s Day twice a year, and celebrating Christmas twice a year. These are all very interesting.

So you can see that many people buy different things on Double Eleven: some buy things for the present, and some buy things for the future. The future will involve all kinds of people and all kinds of festivals. Some things can be maintained for a long time and will not change. They will be purchased frequently during Double Eleven, which will form various festivals in the hearts of different people.

According to our customs, since Double Eleven is a festival, should we eat something?

On this point, there are different opinions between the north and the south: the south eats tangyuan, and the north eats dumplings. When viewpoints begin to collide, the topic will become very interesting; and after the festival, it will continue to lead you to share and do further dissemination.

I remember that Tmall’s Double Eleven wanted to upgrade and turn this shopping festival into a holiday and a new folk custom.

We often say that advertising should achieve "integration of brand and effect". When Tmall was doing cold start preheating, they also tried to combine their dissemination points with the effects (in fact, there is already such a tendency in operations). Regardless of how much data is generated, at least we can learn from this when we are doing operations ourselves.

For example, during the Parents’ Happy Blossom Festival, there are many things that can be bought - gifts for dad, gifts for mom, etc. The same goes for other cute pet festivals, girls' festivals, and fashion festivals, all of which promote specific products under defined festivals, and this kind of promotion is actually a process of achieving product-effect conversion.

2. Offline experience

The offline experience part, such as Yi Xiang Qianxi’s naked-eye 3D large-screen advertisement. This form of advertising has just started, and people are willing to share new and interesting things on their social circles. For businesses, they can reach you by spending some advertising money, and can also reach hundreds of people through your circle of friends. All of these will dilute the cost of advertising (of course, it still needs to be calculated specifically), which is also a revelation.

On the evening of October 31, Tmall used a drone to write love poems for users under the starry sky. These things only cost a portion of the money and do not directly lead to shopping behavior. It is also difficult to measure how much GMV they bring. They are more about highlighting Tmall’s own brand and everyone’s perception of festivals like Double Eleven.

3. Summary

Let’s summarize it using the law of attraction:

Adhesion Law: Find appropriate information channels for specific target users, reduce users' vigilance through clever packaging, and effectively deliver the content you want to market to users.

If Tmall calls you or sends you a text message during an event, saying there is this or that for Double Eleven, it is not wrong, but everyone is wary and will treat it as a harassing call or fraudulent message. However, these forms of topic discussions, funny short films, naked-eye 3D, and drone performances are like sugar-coated bullets - the bullets are what Tmall itself wants to market, and the sugar coating is just a form of packaging that makes users more willing to accept and spread it.

The rule of key figures: large-scale events will invite big Vs with high traffic in vertical fields to be the spokespersons. In fact, this is to utilize the fan economy of big Vs to quickly gather trends in a short period of time.

The law of environmental power: let users feel the influence of the surrounding environment and people. For example, completing lucky draws through topics and interactions, guiding users to post their shopping carts, etc., all of these can create a great atmosphere.

These three rules are what we need to pay attention to in the cognitive stage when we are doing activities.

3. Interest: How to stimulate users’ interest and participation.

Tmall has done some pretty interesting things this year.

For example, the Double Eleven promotional machine, the first-ever shared shopping cart, the addition of the interactive Cat Candy Mobilization, a large number of charts, and many content promotion tools during live broadcasts.

When we are doing an event, how much money we ask the boss for or how low the product prices are are not the key points, they are just icing on the cake. If the price of goods is low enough, will the boss think that the goods sell well because of the low price? We are more focused on reducing operating costs by using effective communication methods at a relatively good price. This is the value of the operations position in the entire company.

1. Optimization of grass planting machine

If you browse from the bottom of the Taobao homepage, you will reach the page of the grass-planting machine. It will come with a search term, and you can also delete your own search, and then click "Plant Grass", you can see the products or lists that others have planted in the category you searched. Many of them can be searched for corresponding pictures, videos, reviews, live broadcasts, etc., which will be more three-dimensional than the product details page you see (the product details page is only the official description, but the content of this planting grass is your precise search, and there will be analysis of different dimensions for different users), this kind of planting grass experience will be much better.

Of course, you can also grow your own grass.

If you participate in the promotion a certain number of times, you can also participate in the lottery and have a chance to win the grand prize of 49,999 for clearing your shopping cart.

This is actually a mutually beneficial process: the sharer thinks the item is good and is willing to share it; the platform gets content publicity and can also use lucky draws to give feedback to the sharer; the buyer can also have references in different dimensions when making a purchase; this is something that benefits all three parties.

The grass-planting machine also has rankings, such as "Mobile Phone Replacement Selection Guide" and "Recipes that Will Never Go Wrong", etc. The rankings can be manually intervened according to the platform's guidance, or they can be ranked by popularity based on the actual grass-planting situation. They mainly provide a way to see what others are doing, what they are buying, and what is popular at the moment.

2. Share shopping cart

Sharing the shopping cart at the shopping cart entrance on the homepage and entering the activity page by shaking it is a marketing approach that leverages the trust between you and your friends.

I used to think this thing was great, and I had to open the product and share it with you via the password. Now I can share it by just touching or shaking the shopping cart.

By looking at each other's shopping carts and sharing shopping carts, you will get a clearing code. With the clearing code, you can draw a lottery for a chance to empty your shopping cart, so many users will take the initiative to find friends to shake.

Clearing the code is a kind of interest incentive. The activity itself is to give your target users the incentive they want. This incentive either costs money or time. Spending time may require the user's relationship chain, and the relationship chain is the key factor in reducing our communication costs.

Another one is the celebrity shopping cart that takes advantage of users’ voyeurism. For example, Su Bingtian’s shopping cart basically contains the classic models of the products he endorses, leveraging the fan economy to achieve better dissemination.

3. Other small tasks

Meow Sugar Mobilization is an action to complete social marketing through gamification of product design.

There are two ways to play: collect meow candies to get red envelopes, and throw meow candies to get red envelopes. Users can earn meow candies through small tasks, invitations for help, and surprise treasure chests. The more meow candies they get, the bigger the red envelope will be.

There is one advantage of gamified product design: it gives everyone a legitimate reason to play, communicate and ask for things with confidence, rather than asking others to help bargain directly, which firstly puts a psychological burden on users and secondly makes people think that you are trying to get a bargain. Gamification solves this problem and everyone can have fun.

Brands will also have a grass-roots city, which will display different content to each user based on the accumulation of historical data. In terms of branding, merchants will be encouraged to live broadcast and some priority recommended resources will be given according to the situation. This can not only stimulate users' enthusiasm for consumption, but also stimulate the enthusiasm of brand owners and merchants.

In terms of rankings, there are more rankings this year, and there are some detailed rankings. For example, there are lists for facial care, food, drink and entertainment. Each vertical category has a corresponding list to solve the user's problem of "I seem to have something to buy, but I don't know what to buy."

Li Jiaqi also specially planned a bargaining variety show called "All Girls' Offers", as well as a widely circulated online document, which looked like a grass-planting version leaked by an internal operations manager and was very detailed.

4. Summary

To sum up, when we analyze an activity, we not only look at the fancy gameplay, but also its underlying logic that can be copied and migrated, which involves the three elements of activity gameplay: simplification, visualization, and closed loop.

It contains two principles:

The first principle of activity task design: make it as simple and easy to understand as possible, with fewer steps, so that everyone will participate.

Tmall is a giant platform with tens of thousands of businesses or brands. Each brand has a different way of playing, which you may find very complicated; but if you only look at one or two brands that you are interested in, the individual ways of playing will be relatively simple and the rules will be clearer.

The second principle of event task design: brand packaging or new product recommendations through gameplay.

There are many such small tasks on Double Eleven, but the gameplay is not complicated, just strolling around and shaking the app. In the process of completing the small tasks, the brand owner’s products are exposed, and users get coupons through prizes. The feeling it gives people is that the discount is obtained through the user’s own labor, and is not forced on me by the official - users will have a sense of gain.

When users obtain discounts through their own labor, from a conversion perspective, the conversion rate will be higher than when they get something for nothing.

4. Purchase: New ways to drive user consumption, what operational logic is hidden

Purchase is the finishing touch: you know, you are interested, and all that’s left is the finishing touch to make the purchase.

So, what information does the platform need to convey to stimulate conversion?

1. This product is really good.
2. This is a really good price.
3. This is really good quality.
4. This service is really good.

This is what the platform wants to convey.

So what is the user behavior?

Since these four are all good, add them to the shopping cart quickly, grab the coupons, and complete the order within the specified time (flash sale or other forms).

In marketing strategies, we see that benefits are distributed through various means such as e-commerce live streaming and super flash sales. Purchases can be stimulated by benefits such as interest-free installments, free orders when shared, and large coupons.

But coupons have their pros and cons.

The disadvantages are: there are too many types, the calculation is too complicated, and we don’t know whether it is the optimal solution. The advantage is: so many coupons will make users feel like they are getting a good deal. If you don't use a coupon, you will feel that you have lost out. Why not get more?

Why are the discount amounts different for each category?

In fact, there are tricks to getting all kinds of discounts, and it doesn’t just make you feel it’s cheap.

For example, the average order value in the home appliance field is around 800 or 1000. In order to make the average order value reach the range of 1000 or 1200, the platform will design the threshold for using coupons so that you need to tiptoe to reach it before you can get a certain amount of discount. Therefore, the amount of discount is designed more around increasing the average order value, which is one of the reasons why we always find something is missing when we add and subtract.

The second reason is the problem of mental accounting.

Mental accounting and windfall accounting are two different relationships and concepts.

When you use the cross-store discount policy and get 30 yuan off for purchases over 200 yuan, you will find that you have paid 200 yuan, but gained an extra 30 yuan (or calculated as saving 30 yuan); it is a bit like winning the lottery, which is a windfall account in the psychological account, allowing users to think "think about what else can be added to the mix".

If you add them together, the average order value will go up.

So how do we apply mental accounting in activities?

First, you have to create a good reason for users to spend money. This involves a process of defining the user's psychological account, including but not limited to the concepts of unexpected gains, emotional maintenance, etc. that you reinforce during the promotion process.

Secondly, provide users with additional benefits. For example, the various red envelopes, coupons, etc. seen in the previous stage make users feel that the "money" is already in their hands, and if they do not consume it, it will be wasted, resulting in a big loss. A person who was not originally planning to buy anything also decided to buy something at this time, but once he had this idea, his original capital was gone.

5. Loyalty: How to turn consumers into users and continuously tap into user value

The maintenance of the relationship between users and platforms is what we call "loyalty."

Turn consumers into users and continuously tap into user value. This is almost a truth and is very important to all brands. Even Tencent and Alibaba, which have a large number of users, attach great importance to user assets.

In a sense, if users are loyal enough to your company, enterprise, or brand, even if your product collapses, they will form a user group for your new brand or new product again in a very short period of time - of course, this is under ideal circumstances. This is also the purpose of various platforms to have membership in recent years. The platforms urge the brands that have settled in to become members for this purpose.

The problem is: many companies don’t understand the value of membership.

Membership is a challenge in many companies. People think it is just the difference between the original price and the membership price, but in fact it is not.

The membership price is just a hook, a reason you give to users. After users become members, membership operations are very important. This operation is "how do users perceive the value of your products and services?"

Therefore, the indicators to be considered should be: whether the purchase frequency, average order value, and desire to share increase after users become members. Sharing is even more important - even if a user does not continue to make purchases after becoming a member, if he continues to use the product and has effective sharing behavior, then the membership is still worth maintaining.

From the platform's perspective, providing members with high-quality products and priority support in after-sales and logistics aspects will strengthen users' purchasing decisions.

88 VIP had a strong presence during this year’s Double Eleven. Tmall gave some extra things to 88 VIPs and also reinforced the requirement that stores on the platform must have members.

Brands need to stratify users when they serve as private domain members. The fundamental reason is that their energy, finances and resources are limited. In this case, they must serve the most valuable people.

What is the most valuable?

Users like it and are willing to spend money to support it - these users are worth investing in. It is necessary to screen out these users: which ones are ordinary, which ones have high potential, which ones are very high-quality, and which ones are highly active and have a high willingness to pay. When we are doing operations, we are more focused on serving the level of effective members, making potential members more active, and driving active members towards paying - these will involve operational strategies, encouraging users to see us, encouraging users to be active, promoting paid conversions, and promoting user loyalty.

You can choose paid advertising, and various product cards will encourage users to enter the brand. The membership products and exclusive gift packs displayed to users here are actually a hook to stimulate users to complete registration. After registration, it is actually useless to look at the growth in the number of members. What needs to be considered is the level of activity of the members.

Repeat purchase is one of the indicators of activity.

How to make users repurchase actively and how to make users feel the value of membership?

There will be some small tasks here, such as member upgrade challenge plan, birthday benefits, member-exclusive shopping funds, etc. These are to make users feel that "because he (the user) is a member of your (platform) , you (the platform) treat him (the user) very well", and because you (the platform) treat him (the user) very well, he (the user) will come to your (platform) platform again when buying things and complete the repeat purchase behavior.

That’s actually the logic.

6. Final summary

We have seen a lot of Alibaba’s marketing strategies, creativity, and planning, but creativity can lead to both success and failure. Creativity itself is a reason to create user participation. It may be interesting and fun, but if the idea makes users feel complicated, troublesome, and incomprehensible (especially when the target users have this situation), we should pay attention to whether the idea is useful.

We often look at AI and VR, but we are not sure whether the target users are interested in these things. So when trying new things, be sure to do some testing to see how users accept them and what the learning cost is.

Double Eleven is not just a Tmall brand, nor is it just a string of GMV numbers, but it is to become a festival.

Behind GMV is user loyalty.

If we don’t ensure user loyalty, users will flow to Pinduoduo and Douyin Live, so Tmall and brand owners must be bound together, and membership must be achieved. Therefore, member loyalty and brand reputation behind GMV are both one of the goals.

Author: Pan Zhipeng

Source: Pan Zhipeng