E-commerce activity operation system and framework construction!

E-commerce products are extremely common. There are many schools of thought, including comprehensive e-commerce, shopping guide e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, fresh food e-commerce, service e-commerce, and live streaming e-commerce. They have become an important part of the Internet industry and have also gathered many Internet practitioners.

The product functions and commodity services of e-commerce are relatively stable. Compared with other types of Internet products, e-commerce is also seen as an industry that is more "operation-driven", among which event operations are an important and common form of operation in e-commerce operations .

Event operations can effectively guide users' high-value behaviors, cultivate users' consumption habits, and create product characteristics. In order to share the methods, experiences and summarized thoughts on event operations more comprehensively, we will discuss event operations with you in detail in several articles. In this article, we will talk about "the framework and layout of the event operation system."

1. Activity Operation Framework

The goal of e-commerce products is to maximize the unification of sales GMV and user value LTV. Increasing e-commerce sales means increasing the user's lifetime value, and increasing the user's lifetime value means increasing sales.

There are many ways to break down e-commerce sales GMV, which are similar:

GMV = Number of registered users x conversion rate x number of purchases x average order value

In order to increase GMV, more registered users, higher conversion rates, more consumption times and higher average order value are needed.

The user life cycle value (LTV) is the result of the continuous contribution of consumption value by users whose identities are constantly changing and forming different stages of stratification:

New users → first-time users → repeat users → loyal users → silent churn users

In order to increase LTV, it is necessary to continuously operate users from new users to high-value loyal users and reduce their churn.

Correspondingly, the relationship between sales GMV and user value LTV is that the number of registered users means new users, a higher consumption conversion rate means more first-time users, and the number of consumption times and average order value are the key indicators of repeat users and loyal users.

Based on the decomposition of GMV and LTV, the operation stage of product users can be divided into three stages:

1. New user acquisition stage: Acquiring more registered users and increasing the scale of new users is the basis for further operations;
2. Conversion stage: Improve consumption conversion rate, increase the number of first-time users, and activate the consumption value of new users;
3. Retention and repurchase stage: increase the number of user consumption times and average order value, increase the number of loyal users who repurchase products, and maximize profits.

The most typical classification framework for event operations naturally emerged. Based on the user-oriented and stage goals of the activities, e-commerce activities can be divided into three categories: new customer acquisition activities (new customer acquisition stage), conversion activities (conversion stage), and promotional activities (retention and repurchase stage). These three types of activities basically cover all e-commerce activities in terms of activity goals and stages, but do not include market-oriented activities that are mainly aimed at marketing brand goals.

The three major categories of activities cover the entire process of improving the user's life cycle value from user acquisition, user conversion, user retention and repurchase, ensuring the maximization of user value at each stage and jointly serving the product's GMV goals.

2. Activity Operation Layout

The three major types of e-commerce activities form the framework for e-commerce activity operations, but this is a relatively macro-level division of activity stages and types, and further planning and improvement of the specific activity layout under each type of activity is needed.

Are more activities in the same category better? Which activities are best? How to design multiple activities differently? Will the user participate in every activity? These problems are what activity layout needs to solve.

The layout of activities can be planned from the time and structure dimensions:

• The time dimension refers to the specific activities of a particular type of activity at different time stages;
• The structural dimension refers to the parallel activities of a specific type of activity in the same time period.

The structural and time dimensions ensure the comprehensiveness and continuity of activities and maximize operational effectiveness. In actual operations, the stages are often divided based on time, and then multiple parallel activities are designed for each stage.

1. Activity layout under the structural dimension

Multiple activities of the same type run in parallel under the structural dimension, giving users a variety of activity choices, which is conducive to achieving operational goals in multiple ways.

However, since multiple activities of the same type are carried out in parallel, differentiated design is needed. The entry points of differentiated design include:

When it comes to the parallel operation of multiple activities of the same type under the structural dimension, we have to mention Pinduoduo's saturated new customer acquisition activities. Pinduoduo's simultaneous fission new customer acquisition activities use physical goods, cash red envelopes, and consumption red envelopes as rewards. From an incentive perspective, it arranges multiple activities of the same type to meet users' different preferences.

2. Activity layout under the time dimension

On the one hand, the time dimension is the regular iteration of activities, keeping the activities novel and creative and ensuring user participation; on the other hand, its value lies in utilizing specific nodes to design activity themes and gameplay, which is conducive to the dissemination of activities, reduces the cost of user understanding, and increases activity attention and participation.

The regular iteration of time dimension activities mostly follows the layout ideas of the structure dimension, and regularly plans differentiated activity iterations. What is more important is the activities combined with characteristics. Common nodes are as follows:

3. Three major activity layouts

When planning multiple activities for attracting new customers, the structural dimension is the main consideration, supplemented by the time dimension. The differentiation of multiple new user acquisition methods is mostly distinguished from the perspectives of incentives (red envelope support activities, product bargaining activities, team-up to receive coupons), behaviors (invite new users to group together for free orders, invite new users to help bargain and get products), and scenarios (bargaining support on the home page, cash back for placing orders on the payment result page).

For the same group of users, conversion activities have a short time period and a small number of participation times. They focus on strong guidance and incentives, and are mainly designed and laid out based on rewards under the structural dimension (new user coupons, first order cash back, first order free).

Promotional activities directly affect the product GMV target. The types of activities are rich and varied, covering a wide range of users and a long time period. The layout is based on structural dimensions (full-discount/flash sales/group buying/M choose N, brand promotion/site-wide promotion, membership day) and time dimensions (Double 11, 618, anniversary celebration).

The above is a discussion of the framework and layout of e-commerce activity operations. The three types of activities are consistent with the product GMV and user value LTV goals. The multi-activity layout in the time dimension and structure dimension is a further improvement of the framework, and together they form an operation system for e-commerce activities.

Learn and understand from top to bottom, practice and verify from bottom to top. We will continue to talk about event operations next time.

Author: Wu Yijiu

Source: Growth Corsair