Three methods of event planning and promotion: gameplay, dissemination and fission!

Today, based on the basic planning capabilities, we will upgrade and introduce three more advanced planning methods: gameplay planning, communication planning, and fission planning . This article takes a more essential perspective to help everyone understand how these three methods should be used and in what scenarios.

Planning a gameplay, planning a communication and planning a fission all sound like the same concept, representing those advanced planning tasks in the daily planning work of event operations that are separated from regular marketing pages and have stronger user interaction, deeper content and more complex interactions.

In fact, gameplay, dissemination and fission are three completely different planning methods, and the business value they can bring and the planning thinking angles are completely different. Being able to accurately distinguish and flexibly apply these three planning methods based on business goals means that you can use these three advanced planning methods more controllably to bring these business values:

1. Increase page click-through rate by multiples;
2. Users spontaneously spread and re-create content;
3. Controllable traffic fission.

The reason why the three methods can bring the above three different business effects is based on the different thinking angles of the three methods:

1. The gameplay is based on the user operation level thinking;
2. Communication is based on sharing motivation level thinking;
3. Fission is based on thinking at the level of propagation model.

Of course, there are many different versions of the names of the three planning methods, but the names are not important. Understanding the angle of thinking is the key.

Going back to what we said before, the essence of planning is how to influence user operations to achieve business goals. Based on this, let's analyze the three methods one by one to see how they work.

1. Gameplay is based on user operation level thinking

1. Definition of gameplay

When planning a gameplay, we often consider how to involve users through more attractive interactive forms and functions, so that users can't help themselves and contribute more clicks and stays on the page.

Typical gameplay cases are as follows:

Several typical gameplay

(1) Sensor-based gameplay

(2) Gameplay based on touch screen operation

(3) Gameplay based on screen presentation

The common points of the above gameplays are: good interactive operation experience (strong playability), a certain degree of challenge difficulty, and a strong sense of immersion in the interactive atmosphere. The reason for these features is, without exception, to encourage users to click and interact frequently .

Therefore, the key to planning gameplay is not to let users "reach the goal as quickly as possible". To a certain extent, making gameplay is like making a game. The goal is to retain users through the charm of the interaction itself and the fun of the game mechanism. Once users stay and generate effective clicks, we can then consider how to add value to the business.

2. Gameplay planning has several characteristics

• Advantages: High tolerance rate. It is difficult for users to jump out of the scene after entering it. We have plenty of opportunities to implant brands and businesses. The challenge and fun of the game itself can easily create opportunities for a certain degree of dissemination through showing off or sharing mechanisms (sharing to extend life, etc.).
• Disadvantages: The fun of the game itself is difficult to grasp. If it is not fun and has no creativity, it is easy for users to drop out. The cost of user education is high. If the gameplay is complicated, users will need a lot of education processes after entering the game, which poses a risk of dropping out.

3. Business application scenarios of gameplay

Based on the above characteristics, gameplay is generally used as a transit station for traffic in business application scenarios, that is, users are first kept in games with high fun and low participation thresholds, and then the business is smoothly implanted into the gameplay to achieve higher traffic utilization efficiency.

The general means of business implantation are as follows:

1. Brand placement: By customizing page elements with brands and exposing them repeatedly during a large number of user interactions, the exposure efficiency is greatly improved compared to traditional static advertising.
2. Implantation of coupons: Implanting coupons in the form of prizes into the game process (such as rewards for phased achievements in the game) greatly improves the success rate and volume of coupon issuance. However, there is a decline in the utilization rate of coupons, which is related to the strength of the coupons themselves and the matching degree between the product and the user group.
3. Implantation of other businesses: embed business operations such as event reservation, public account following, sharing and dissemination into the gameplay (for example, rewarding game points for event reservation, etc.), and drive users to make reservations, follow, share and other operations through the gameplay. Of course, there is also the problem of inducing a decline in user quality (because it is not an active operation), but if the game itself is intended for target users and users with needs, it can actually greatly increase the rate of effective user operations.
4. Incorporate the check-in mechanism to form a user operation scenario: extend the activity cycle, use long-term rewards to motivate users and the fun of the game itself to drive users to visit repeatedly and retain users for a longer period of time. Of course, if you want to use the gameplay as a user operation scenario, you can consider long-term gameplay such as cultivation from the beginning.

4. Some gameplay tips

How to solve the two core disadvantages of the gameplay:

The fun of the game itself is difficult to grasp: the flash game wave in 2002 and the smart phone game wave in 2010 created a large number of highly playable games (building houses, beating penguins, going down 100 floors if you are a man, etc.), and there are still many of them available on various 4399 game websites. It is recommended to just copy directly, because creating a truly interesting gameplay is not easy and requires a lot of testing and verification, which is a trial-and-error cost that no company can afford. So, why not just use a proven pattern?

High user education costs: It is recommended that the gameplay mechanism refer to offline or interactive experiences that are widely recognized by users as much as possible, which can help you save a lot of user education costs. For example, the claw machine game is a good example. When users come in, they know how the buttons work together and that prizes are obtained by grabbing them in an uncertain way. There are many experiences similar to claw machines that can be learned from, and try to use users' known interaction habits.

2. Communication is based on sharing motivation

1. Definition of Communication

In the process of planning a communication plan, we often start from how to make users have emotional resonance or emotional changes, and think about how to achieve communication through users' active sharing in a specific scenario and for a specific user group.

Typical communication cases are as follows:

H5 that evokes emotional resonance↑↑↑↑↑↑↑

Short videos that evoke emotional resonance

The common points of the above communication cases are: specific user groups and scenarios, eye-catching titles, and progressive content "routines". These features are all designed to create emotional resonance among target users, drive users to share on their own initiative, and use this content to represent themselves in their circle of friends.

Therefore, the key point in planning a communication plan is how to plan a complete discussion starting from the "title that users will notice", to the preface of "users will have great interest", to the sublimation ending of "users will be determined to share". When your topic resonates and resonates with users, combined with smooth product placement, it can help your product to enhance its brand image and embed itself into user memories.

Please note that most communication plans do not allow users to complete transactions immediately, because the priority of guiding users to perform communication operations often takes precedence over product guidance (users’ sharing follows topics and emotions, and the crude insertion of product purchases will interrupt this process).

2. Several characteristics of communication planning

Advantages: Compared with gameplay and fission, the cost is lower, and large amounts of continuous content output can be used to hit the explosion point; the user experience is better, because the core of communication is the user's identification with the content and active communication. Therefore, a successful communication means the user's recognition of the brand, and there will be no fission situation of "scolding while sharing".

The forms of communication can be diverse, and many interesting explorations can be done. If it is continuous content production bound to an IP, a fixed private traffic pool can be formed. The explosive power of communication has no limit, and there is an opportunity to achieve a very high input-output ratio.

Disadvantages: The success of communication is relatively uncontrollable and can only be achieved by chance. It requires a combination of factors such as the right time, the right seed users, and the right topic to have a chance to explode. It is more difficult to divert traffic to the business. Creating user resonance and diverting traffic to the product are two conflicting processes. There is no methodology to refer to in finding the balance between them, and one can only rely on the sensitivity of long-term personal attempts. Communication is often related to hot spots, which are fleeting, and tracking timeliness is a high-threshold requirement.

3. Business application scenarios of communication

Based on the above characteristics, the application of communication is generally as a front station for business, through the content and communication nature of the communication itself to carry out extensive and in-depth user education, in preparation for subsequent conversions.

The general communication planning methods are as follows:

(1) Spreading the word based on topics that resonate with the target group of the product

The communication planning routine that is most likely to generate dissemination while ensuring effectiveness for the business is to create topics that resonate with the target audience. For example: If your target audience is white-collar workers, then topics such as overtime, workplace struggles, and motivational hard work can easily be spread to your target audience. The process of communication is also the process of helping you capture your target customers. The more specific the target audience is, the more specific the scenario is, and the more touching and profound the topic will be.

(2) Create communication based on the creative combination of hot events and products

The most critical first step in communication is to attract attention. If you can tie it to a hot event, it will greatly help you take the first step to attract attention. The key point is to ensure the timeliness of hot spot tracking and the creativity of product binding (awkward implantation will completely discourage users from spreading the word).

(3) Communication packaging based on the product’s selling points

Does your product have a special selling point? If you can distill it and create some exaggerated, interesting, and conflicting content based on this selling point, the characteristics of your product will be deeply embedded in the minds of users.

(4) Create a continuous IP

In today’s content era, if you can create an IP with user value (the motivation for user attention and conversion) + entertainment (user likes and dissemination) (for details, please refer to the article From Amateur to Million Bloggers, and provide a link), and output and disseminate a large amount of content continuously, you will have a better chance of guessing the explosive points of those contents and at the same time you can form your own traffic pool.

4. Some communication skills

How to solve several uncontrollable points in communication planning:

(1) On the uncontrollability of communication

Here are a few ways to help you minimize uncontrollability:

1. Try to reduce the complexity of the communication model (such as the text and picture format of Durex’s Weibo). Controllable costs will allow you to make a large number of continuous attempts, making it easier to hit the hotspot.
2. Be as clear as possible about the users and scenarios, and avoid touching on topics that are too broad or too general. The clearer and deeper the topic connection, the easier it is to drive target users and key people (those core opinion leaders) to take the lead in spreading the message.
3. There are three controllable ways to spread information: emotional resonance, entertainment and curiosity (refer to the story of ordinary people becoming millionaire bloggers, here is the link).

(2) Difficulty in directing business traffic regarding communication

If there is no way to strike a good balance between emotional resonance and product traffic, it is recommended to look for connections between the product selling points themselves and hot events or creative topics. The communication and traffic extended from the product features will also be more reasonable. If the selling point of the product itself is still difficult to package, it is recommended to consider the IP sedimentation model. If the user does not convert at the moment, you can first sediment the user into a reachable channel (become a fan), and first use the emotional resonance of the personality to retain the user (the target user is office workers - a chicken soup public account for office workers - a positive personality), and then slowly educate them later.

(3) How to follow up on hot topics

Hot spots are more likely to explode the earlier they emerge, so considering the complexity of the dissemination model is a basic condition to help you check out the spots as early as possible. Apart from this, the only way to meet timeliness is to establish a rapid production mechanism.

Another key to following hot topics is creativity, which needs to be driven by the planner's relatively strong sense of the Internet. Whether you can think of the current popular topics at the first time and use the expressions that young people like nowadays all tests the planner's internet sense. You can also refer to previous articles on how to improve your online sense. Here is a simple summary: open up your definition of knowledge (how to go disco is also knowledge), watch a lot of Weibo and Douyin, and output content through a lot of practice to observe and exercise your sensitivity.

3. Fission is based on the thinking of the penetration model

1. Definition of fission

In the process of planning a fission, our main consideration is how to integrate the fission model into an activity (discounts, lucky draws, competitions, etc.) as much as possible, and drive the fission through the pulling force of the activity itself.

Typical fission cases are as follows:

Crowdfunding Case

Group Buying Case

Bargaining Case

The common points of the above cases are: the underlying logic is the most classic and effective operation tools (snap-up, discounts, lucky draws), fission and sharing are the main process (different from the branch line such as sharing gameplay to gain more interaction opportunities), and they are all driven by interests. These features are all designed to leverage the driving force of classic operating tools, leverage more fission traffic to enter, and import fission traffic into the business as effectively as possible based on direct user demands (to gain benefits).

Therefore, when planning a fission plan, the key point is how to cultivate users' fixed habits, perform sharing operations under clear expectations, and then introduce more target users through clear expected sharing content. The key to fission planning is not how innovative the gameplay is or how resonant the content is (many years ago, people participated in fission for curiosity, but not now). Users are very clear that they participate in fission in order to gain certain benefits, and the temptation of benefits is the main driving force.

Therefore, fission is now more of an operational means rather than a marketing means, which is bound to specific scenarios and continuously captures target users.

2. Several characteristics of fission planning

Advantages:

• The effect is controllable. A fixed fission model can basically operate to a constant fission multiple in a fixed scenario, but this feature is not available in gameplay and communication.
• The marginal benefits are high. The fission model does not rely on creativity and resonance. After the effective fission model forms user habits, it can continue to operate. The more accustomed users are and the more skilled they are in operation, the more conducive it is to the explosion of fission effects.
• Directly related to the business, fission is different from the gameplay and communication that need to be transferred to reach the business. Fission is often based on business interaction (such as group buying-direct sales), so the fission traffic is most likely to form effective business output.

Disadvantages:

• Risk control is difficult, because fission is often driven by profit, and the skills of black industries and wool parties are developing rapidly, and it takes a huge cost to invest in fighting against black industries and wool parties (and many people often choose to turn a blind eye and assume that the black industries are helping them to achieve their "performance");
• LOW. Compared with gameplay and communication, fission is often more crude and direct, which can easily damage the brand image.
• The single R&D cost is high. In addition to the front-end logic, fission also involves a large amount of back-end logic control, risk control logic, etc., and the R&D cost is relatively high.

3. Fission business application scenarios

Based on the above characteristics, fission can be integrated into various business scenarios and play a role in every link of the user life cycle.

1. Fission exposure: represented by the lucky card collection gameplay, brand elements are implanted into the fission gameplay (collecting several images of the brand) to achieve deep brand exposure through large-scale dissemination. Compared with a single advertising exposure, investing traffic in fission interaction can achieve the spread to more users and multiple exposures during multiple interactions.
2. Fission traffic: represented by bargaining gameplay (one user can pull dozens of people to assist in bargaining), through the profit-driven activities, the process of users obtaining benefits is connected to the fission model, realizing the introduction of a large amount of fission traffic.
3. Fission fan acquisition: Various fission gameplays can be integrated, and the following behavior can be implanted into the main process of fission propagation (send points for following, initiate fission from the official account after following, etc.), so as to achieve more efficient use of promotion traffic.
4. Fission sales: a gameplay represented by fission red envelopes and group buying. Fission red envelopes can target potential purchasing users through the mass distribution of coupons, or achieve more efficient sales conversions by spreading the message to similar users through precise push notifications (giving a mother and baby user a milk powder coupon will likely make her share it with a group of mothers). Group buying attracts more potential target users by encouraging users to share products through the discount incentive of the products themselves.

4. Some fission techniques

In order to solve several disadvantages of fission, there are some tips:

(1) Regarding the difficulty of risk control: No matter how strong your company’s blacklist or connected user database is, you must perform active business logic control.

• Single-user operation control: Limiting it to a reasonable value (for example, bargaining is generally limited to a maximum of 68 friends) can effectively block illegal users (who can often attract more than a thousand users). However, it may accidentally hurt some ordinary users who can really make a lot of friends, but this is a necessary cost. We should set a reasonable threshold to serve the vast majority of users and give up a small number of special users. Remember to make the activity rules clear, otherwise the freeloaders will definitely complain to you and make you cry.
• Single-hour and single-day control: The operations of illegal activities and wool-collecting parties are often concentrated, with large amounts of data being brushed in a short period of time. If the upper limit of prizes issued per hour or per day can be limited, it is possible to stop the amount of fraud within a single hour/day and avoid the prizes being drained away quickly.

(2) About low: First of all, fission is rough and direct. We must recognize this nature. By implanting it into operational scenarios, allowing users to form habits and making it a routine operation, it will cause less damage to the brand than using fission as the main body of a large-scale marketing activity.

Two other tips: Don't give away iPhones for every event. It will be more motivating to combine gimmicky prizes with user attributes (for example, for students, trendy sneakers are better than iPhones, because sharing an event to draw an iPhone is low-brow, but sharing an event to draw limited edition sneakers is very honorable); not winning a prize is better than an insulting prize. If you tell users that they didn't win a prize, they will know that it was bad luck, but if you 'congratulate them' for getting a coupon of extremely low value, they will feel very bad and basically think that you are running a scam. If you really want to give out coupons, at least, don't 'congratulate' users.

(3) Regarding the high unit cost: Due to the high unit development cost, if it is not a large company, it is basically impossible to support the testing of several fission activities. Therefore, it is recommended that you directly copy the mature gameplay in the industry that is recognized and accepted by the majority of users at the pixel level. One is that the effect is guaranteed, and the other is that you will save a lot of user education costs.

The above is more about opening up a complete understanding of gameplay, dissemination and fission for everyone, understanding the essence of the three operating methods, and knowing what you really need. If you feel that you are proficient in or interested in one of the methods, you can choose one path and continue to study it in depth. As long as you can use one of these models with ease, you will be very valuable in the Internet industry. Please also look forward to a more detailed analysis of the three methods in the future.

Above ~ understand it yourself ~

Related reading:

1. Activity operation: an inventory of mainstream gameplay such as group buying, bargaining, and distribution!

2. Three key points of event operation: How to increase users’ willingness to participate in activities?

3. Event operation: How to do a live broadcast sharing that can attract 10,000+ users?

4. What you need to know about event operation | The basic process of operating online events

5. Event Operation: If these 4 points are met, there is no event that cannot be done well

6. Event operation: How to run a good event? Share 4 points!

7. Event operation: 6 common types of event link title copywriting!

8. Event operation, complete analysis of the gameplay of flash sales

Author: SKY#沙璇浩

Source: skyhahalife