Review the promotion and operation methods of the 618 event!

In this article, the author will take the 618 Mid-Year Sale as an example to review, and systematically describe some operational experiences and lessons learned from the author's experience in operating large-scale events from three aspects: the preparation period, the launch period, and the end.

Not reviewing after the event is equivalent to wasting 50% of the budget. After all, there are not many opportunities to spend the company's money to gain experience.

Thanks to the high frequency of activities in the e-commerce industry, I have participated in and led many large and small marketing activities in the more than one year since I came to JD.com.

Since large companies have dedicated people for specific tasks, they don't have to do everything like small companies, so in most marketing activities, I mainly do traffic generation work, and there are also some activities where I serve as a PM (project manager) to lead the entire activity. In terms of event experience, it is relatively complete, involving all businesses. This time, we will review the 618 mid-year promotion as an example. The angle involved is more about some lessons learned in large-scale event operations, rather than specific methods for order growth. I hope the relevant content and thoughts will be helpful to everyone~

1. Activity preparation period

Part 1: Find the right target direction and confirm key indicators

Before doing anything, people must first be clear about the goal. Otherwise, it would be like boxing, where you don’t know where to put your strength.

The same is true for operations, especially event operations. Event operations are essentially about spending little money to accomplish big things, aiming to drive improvements in one or more business indicators in the short term, so it is very important to find key indicators.

Unlike daily marketing activities, the 618 promotion is one of the most important promotional activities of the year. Its KPI cannot be completed by a marketing department alone behind closed doors. It requires more planning, execution, and integration of multiple business departments to complete the marketing department's promotion KPI. When the core indicators of various business departments are not completely consistent, how to integrate and determine a core data indicator becomes a very challenging task.

Take the 618 group buying promotion for example (I have been working on JD.com’s group buying business), my KPI is the number of group buying orders, and many of the business lines integrated this time originally had different core assessment indicators. Some are responsible for first-time purchases, some are responsible for GMV, some are responsible for increasing the number of fans of the official account, and there is also the amount of content output, and so on.

How to find the right target direction?

Through business junctions or intersections, the core target value of the entire activity and the corresponding auxiliary target values ​​are determined in the form of resource replacement, resource cooperation, etc.

First, look at the points of business integration. For example, if the department has the same goal as mine, which is to achieve order volume, we can directly integrate the resources of both parties and see what proportion each of them is responsible for in the big goal.

Secondly, look at the intersection of the business, for example: responsible for attracting new business lines, whose KPI is the first purchase order, but in fact the first purchase order is also part of the overall order (my goal can be understood as no limit on the number of new and old orders). If I want to work with the new customer acquisition department, I only need to ensure that there is a corresponding proportion of first-purchase orders in my overall order volume. Since I have included new customer acquisition indicators in my KPI, I will invest a certain amount of resources in the new customer acquisition department to cooperate with my overall strategy.

Let's talk about the form of cooperation. Resource exchange is generally a matter of each party taking what they need. For example: the platform has traffic, and what is assessed is the operational efficiency of the APP product homepage (click-through rate, jump rate, etc.), and I can provide competitive low-priced goods to achieve the click efficiency that needs to be improved on the platform side during the big promotion period. Resource cooperation is more about integrating what everyone already has together. For example, during the 618 period, the price of purchasing off-site traffic is relatively high. Everyone has a limited budget, and doing it separately can only cause a small splash. However, if the budget is concentrated together, a small traffic peak can be achieved.

Finally, let’s return to our goal. The goal must have specific and quantifiable data indicators. The e-commerce industry does this relatively well and rarely plays with vanity indicators such as exposure (marketing departments may still have them).

The core goal must be centered around your own business KPI, rather than being led by others because of too many integrated business lines. For example, in this promotion, the final KPI must be the overall order volume. Since it is said to be integrated, other departments have also contributed efforts and resources, and auxiliary target values ​​can also be used. On the one hand, it can balance the various departments from the overall resource input, and on the other hand, there may be some unexpected highlights at the end of the event.

Of course, in essence, it is because the business everyone is doing is consistent, the data indicators are positively correlated, and the correlation is relatively high. For example, the higher the traffic on the platform side, the more users will actually purchase through the user funnel. The larger the purchase volume, the better the GMV data will be when other conditions remain unchanged.

Based on the above, the core goal of the entire 618 group buying promotion is to increase order volume.

So, after the target direction and range are determined, how do you come up with a value that is challenging but relatively reliable (so as not to fail to achieve and dig a hole for yourself)?

The answer is: determine the final target value through deterministic data.

I used the following data:

1. Daily data before the event: daily traffic, daily order volume, including daily related data of other cooperative business lines. These are to understand the overview of order inventory under natural conditions without any operational actions;
2. Data during last year’s big promotion period: traffic on 618 & Double 11, order volume on 618 & Double 11, and the growth rate between 618 & Double 11 and non-activity period. The company’s requirements are definitely increasing year by year (often the colder the winter, the more the company hopes to see the results of the activity). With these data, we can know how much this year's activities will increase compared to last year, and what is the normal achievable range;
3. Existing resource data: How much budget, how much manpower, and how much traffic are available for you to allocate during the promotion period, all of these need to be calculated clearly. If we don't have the diamond, we won't take on this porcelain job. If you believe that you can gain millions of followers at 0 cost, you will really lose.

Based on the above three types of data, two target values ​​were finally determined: the conservative version is to complete 30 million orders, and the sprint version is to complete 40 million orders (I will use the sprint version below). The two versions of the goals are mainly to manage the boss's expectations. There is definitely no problem with how much resources are needed to achieve a certain goal. However, as a boss, you definitely hope that the people doing business below can jump and make a strong effort. Therefore, we need both a realistic conservative version and an ideal sprint version.

Another personal opinion is that setting overly conservative target values ​​based entirely on existing resources is actually equivalent to denying your own value as an event operator. Because whoever gets this good hand can be the winner, so where is your irreplaceability? For example, if you are given a budget of 50 million to attract 100,000 new users, and the cost of attracting new users has risen to 500,000, what are you supposed to do? It might be faster to just send the money directly. To a certain extent, the greatest value created by each position is to reduce the company's operating costs (you can also understand it as exploitation).

However, you can’t just set the target value and be done with it. Instead, you need to get the approval of all participants in the event, business partners, and your boss before you can move forward with this goal.

First of all, colleagues in the group must recognize that although each person is responsible for different specific work items, you are responsible for inventorying the goods, she is responsible for attracting traffic, and someone is responsible for building the store page. But it does not mean that everyone just needs to mechanically do the work at hand. If the goal can be synchronized with everyone and everyone works towards the same goal, the motivation will be stronger and the resistance will be less during the specific execution. Moreover, when everyone adds fuel to the fire, great ideas can be generated together.

Secondly, we need to gain recognition from the business side. Since it is a collaboration, there must be an interdependent relationship with both requirements and needs. The overall target value and the proportion of KPIs of each business line must be given to everyone at the same time. For example, the KPI of 40 million orders this time clearly requires that CPS should bring in 20 million orders, accounting for 50% of the overall KPI, and coupons should bring in 4 million orders, accounting for 10% of the overall KPI. Such information is best sent via email with the other party's consent to avoid any disputes later.

Finally, and most importantly, your overall goals and the goals of each business line need to be presented to your boss at the same time and approved by your boss. Whether there are any problems with the target value, whether the proportion of each business line is reasonable, and whether the input-output ratio of each strategy/means is cost-effective, these all need to be confirmed in the early stage as a basis for comparison in your subsequent review.

Don’t forget one thing: all data must be aligned with the same caliber, and everyone’s calculation methods must be consistent, and duplicates must be removed. Also remember to embed points on all pages of the activity in advance to have data (large companies generally have data groups).

Part 2: Output activity plan, inventory and confirm resources

Preparation before the activity plan: market research + resource inventory

In order to smoothly output the activity plan, or to minimize the number of times the PPT needs to be modified, we'd better do some preparation in advance, including market research and resource inventory.

Generally speaking, market research is outward-looking and is mainly aimed at understanding:

• The opponent’s recent operational actions (or even the opponent’s activity plan);
• Some screen-swiping methods in other industries (for cross-border reference, etc.);
• User profile (channels of target audience, preferred activity formats and prizes, etc.);

The resource inventory is more about the latest positioning of one's current situation:

• People: How many people are there in the team? Can they cover the entire activity? Are there other support departments that can be called upon at any time? Data, products, development, and design are all human resources.
• Finance: cash expenses, virtual gold expenses, how much can be used to attract new customers, how much can be used for orders, and how much can be used to issue coupons;
• Are there any prizes available? Is additional purchase required? What is the specific quantity?
• Traffic: How much traffic is there? Which channels do they come from? Is it enough? Which channels have traffic gaps, and how big are the gaps?

The above resource inventory can make you more aware of how much resource gap you need to fill in the process of jumping from the current situation to the ideal. It is good for you to reflect it in your plan to strive for more resources, or to inform the risks of possible failure in advance and manage your boss's expectations.

The basic framework of the activity plan:

The activity strategy is the means for you to achieve your goals, and the activity plan is the execution manual of your strategy . For example, I have confirmed that 40 million orders need to be achieved through five major strategies - CPS (20 million), social gameplay (8 million), low-priced subsidized goods (5 million), coupons (4 million), and traffic purchasing (3 million). But when it comes to social gameplay, how many types of gameplay will I use during the entire event, how long will it take, and how much money and resources will be invested in each gameplay? These all need to be specifically presented in the plan.

The e-commerce activity plan does not require a big or unique idea as everyone imagines. It is more about clearly presenting your strategy, your rhythm, and your input-output in the PPT. Because the essence of e-commerce activities is to sell goods, apart from all kinds of fancy packaging, they are inseparable from the old formula "sales = traffic * conversion".

In addition to your project introduction, core strategy, and detailed gameplay, there are two things you should not forget:

1. Activity time rhythm table: This table requires you to divide different periods, such as the warm-up period, the official period, the climax period and the encore period, and mark the main focus and core gameplay of each period (it would be best if it can be broken down to each day). In this way, the whole activity will have a strong sense of rhythm, which will also help to improve the sense of control over the entire activity.
2. Event staff schedule: The promotion will last for a long time and involve many tasks. In order to improve communication efficiency, each task must be assigned to a specific person and the deadline for each task must be specified in days to avoid subsequent buck-passing and ineffective communication. After all, the company is large, and there will be times when you spend more than half an hour asking eight or nine people about a problem, but in the end there is no additional information, and all the time is wasted on looking for people.

2. Activity launch period

Part 1: Final check before going online

After dozens of rounds of planning and more than a month of stumbling, the team finally got to the point where the activity was about to go online.

Coming soon is a scary word. Here is some general knowledge for friends who are not in the e-commerce industry. For big promotions like 618 and Double 11, the overtime that people often talk about, in addition to the early preparations for the activities, the most important time is the eve of the launch of the activity page. Generally speaking, operators will work overtime overnight, because when huge traffic rushes in, no one knows what bugs there will be that the early operators cannot predict, and all we can do is to experience and check repeatedly.

Here I share with you my own check list:

1. Are the links given to various channels incorrect? Are they adapted links for the corresponding scenarios? Will they fail to open?
2. Check whether there are dead links or wrong links on the web page, and make sure that each link can jump normally;
3. Is the web page displayed normally? For example, are there any modules that cannot be displayed or are deformed? Are there any empty windows for product placement?
4. Are there any copy errors on the event page? Does the advertising material induce sharing? Is there any content that is likely to cause customer complaints?
5. Is the price of the product incorrect? Is it effective? Is there enough inventory?
6. Have you reported possible customer complaints to customer service in advance?
7. Have you prepared a Plan B for issues like the ones above?

For example: For some gameplays that skirt the rules and may be blocked or complained about, are there preparations for emergency offline operations, and are there contingency plans for gameplays that can be put online at any time?

(For example, I found that after sharing the product, the link could not display valid text and icons)

Part 2: Data monitoring and optimization during activities

After the activity is launched, the operator needs to monitor the large amount of data generated and make adjustments at any time. For me, this includes but is not limited to the following key data:

1. Real-time order data

This is data that directly reflects the core KPI, and it is definitely a must-see and must be put first.

Real-time order data, from the time dimension, includes daily/period and accumulated order data to date. For example: we report data at least four times a day, at 10 a.m. (looking at the overall order data of the previous day to understand the daily completion status and cumulative completion progress), 12 noon (mainly to see the completion progress of the day, whether corresponding adjustments need to be made), 3 p.m. (the fluctuation range of the curve can be used to see whether the adjustment measures are effective), and 9 p.m. (estimated daily completion overview, for example, the daily order volume at 9 p.m. is only 800,000. If nothing unexpected happens, the estimated daily total should be 900,000. We can't expect everyone to suddenly start shopping crazily. Generally, the traffic is higher after lunch and dinner).

From the perspective of geography (channel), real-time order data includes orders introduced by centralized traffic within the site and orders introduced by off-site purchasing/cooperation traffic. The former can be subdivided into channels such as WeChat mini-programs, WeChat H5, QQ Mobile or APP; the latter can be seen as channels such as GuangDianTong and browsers. Because there will also be a channel dimension when splitting order KPIs, it is expected that which channel will bring what proportion of orders. The order data of the channel can be monitored at any time to see which channel is lagging behind, so as to investigate the reasons and make strategic adjustments.

2. Traffic data

This part is mainly for monitoring the performance of our own BD or purchased traffic data, because this data can be intervened and adjusted through promotional materials and landing pages.

For example: During an event, in the same ad position, we had a material that had a lower traffic-generating effect than other activities online during the same period. We optimized the copywriting and visual design for this material, highlighting the "1 yuan benefit point" to attract user clicks, and enhancing users' sense of gain through the familiar red envelope style. The inertia of people clicking on red envelopes also helps to increase overall clicks.

(Promotional materials before and after adjustment)

There are many similar adjustment cases, and there are also many excellent materials that attract 4-7 times more traffic than the average. The common points are summarized below:

1) Use existing symbols in design to reduce user cognitive costs

What does it mean?

For example, the red envelope style I mentioned. Thanks to the powerful traditional culture of red envelopes and the habit education of WeChat red envelopes, users have formed the habit of clicking on red envelopes when they see them. After being packaged into a red envelope style, the click effect of the material can generally be three or four times higher. There are also lottery wheels and golden egg smashing styles, which are common and very familiar scenes for users in life. They know they are profitable when they see them.

Making use of existing symbols or people's existing cognition or habits is essentially the same as some of the "brand grafting" and "brand parasitism" mentioned by Hua & Hua in "Super Symbols Are Super Creativity". They are all leveraging momentum - borrowing the potential energy of existing symbols, culture, concepts, and habits in users' hearts to empower themselves.

2) Keep the copy simple and convey the information first

Personally, I think words like "huge discounts", "carnival" and "happy shopping" are purely invalid information. First, they are too general and do not convey clear information. Second, all platforms and industries are using these words, and users have long been numbed by visual rape. Third, they are really from the client's perspective and have textual thresholds. Any behavior that sets thresholds for users is at odds with budget investment and sales conversion (excluding deliberate thresholds, such as the intentional distinction of luxury goods).

Broad, general and highly extensible vocabulary may be acceptable for brand advertising that does not assess sales results, but when it comes to selling goods, it is best to regress yourself to the level of an elementary school education and tell everyone (Chinese college students account for 5% of the country, which means that there is a high probability that you will be facing people with a lower level of education than you), this thing is very cheap, and how much cheaper it is.

(Wrong example: In a shopping scenario where the entire screen is filled with price promotions, if there is no specific benefit point, it is a waste of space)

Although everyone knows this, one thing that may be forgotten in practice is that the title is the most important, and it is best to have only one main title and focal point. Too much scattered visual information will make your advertising material look unfocused. The result of wanting everything is often that you will achieve nothing.

3) Create gimmicks and benefits

The above are all forms, and they all serve your content. The content that can most directly impress users must be very explosive interest points.

You may say that the items I sell are worthless items worth only a dozen or dozens of dollars and are not very attractive. Limited subsidies for goods, making the price so low that “I’d be a fool if I didn’t buy it”, and using unexpectedly low prices to improve the competitiveness of your products. There are many ways to limit quantity, such as using low-probability events such as lotteries to control quantity costs, or limited-time purchases at specific times, etc. I won’t say much about the more common gameplay of limited-time lottery.

Here we mainly extend the logic of subsidies:

First, it is better to focus subsidies than to disperse them.

As the saying goes, it is better to cut off one finger than to hurt five fingers. What we are talking about here is the issue of strength and focus. As for group-buying goods, the average order value does not exceed 60 yuan. The best-selling items are always consumables priced at 10-20 yuan. The profit margin itself is very low, and any further price reduction can only be by 50 cents or 1 yuan per order at most. However, for users, the perception of this level of price reduction is very weak. Most people can’t remember how much three packs of tissues cost the last time they bought them, whether it was 11.9 yuan or 10.8 yuan.

The perceived value of dispersed subsidies is very weak, but focused subsidies can easily create interest incentives. By focusing the subsidized cost of paper towels into a 0 yuan refrigerator, a 1 yuan rice cooker, a 1 yuan iPhone, etc., users will be easily attracted.

(Comparison of benefits with and without gimmicks)

Generally speaking, people with this kind of interest will choose standard home appliances. The prices of standard products are relatively transparent and fixed, and users are more aware of their value. Home appliances are more expensive than ordinary goods and are mostly rigid needs, so they are easy to resell even if they are not needed.

Second, subsidizing merchants is not as good as subsidizing users.

From the perspective of the path, subsidizing merchants is an indirect subsidy, and subsidizing users is a direct subsidy. Every additional layer in the user funnel means a greater amount of loss. Merchants can use the money they receive to subsidize product costs or to invest in advertising, which is an indirect factor affecting order volume. When users receive the money, they can only make purchases, which directly leads to order volume.

From the perspective of attributes, merchants are the suppliers and users are the demanders. To increase the total number of orders, we must start by expanding consumer demand. Cash red envelopes and coupon subsidies directly stimulate consumer demand. Once the subsidies reach users, the mentality of “I’d be losing out if I don’t use the free cash red envelopes” will stimulate users to spend as much as possible at the first opportunity. From the perspective of economic psychological accounts, since it is unexpected money, users will be more inclined to buy more and reward themselves with higher-priced items.

3. Product conversion rate

As mentioned before, sales = traffic * conversion rate. Simply pursuing traffic without doing a good job of conversion is a waste of resources, and will also lead to a vicious circle of always attracting traffic but never retaining it.

Moreover, for e-commerce, users come for the goods. A high order conversion rate indicates that the products are attractive and competitive enough, the user value of the platform is relatively higher, and the competitiveness of the entire platform is actually stronger.

Regarding the conversion rate of goods, not only are there at least two real-time reports every day, but there is also a horse racing mechanism for goods. Goods with poor performance will be directly replaced, and will not enjoy the C position in the store, nor will they have additional exposure.

4. Activity diffusion multiples

The diffusion multiples or the number of shares are also things we need to pay attention to. Because what I am doing is group buying business, which is essentially social e-commerce. If the diffusion multiplier and sharing data are too low, then the word "social" will lose its meaning. Of course, if the data is too high, it is also necessary to determine whether it is a brush to brush benefits or take advantage of the situation.

For the former, we need to investigate the reasons. Is it because the product or the gameplay itself makes people not want to share, or the sharing prompts are not obvious enough and users do not know how to share, or the WeChat ban leads to sharing failure, or even the RD of the sharing path is buried incorrectly and some data cannot be counted? For the latter, we need to strengthen the risk control level to control ROI. We cannot let real users not get the benefits, while the brushes increase our costs.

3. After the event

Part 1: Finishing work

After the expiration of an event, it does not mean that it should be left to fend for itself. Any issues left over from the event must be resolved as soon as possible. At the same time, the relevant event pages should be removed, and the 618 icon, price discounts, etc. should be removed. Do not give users the wrong activity guidance, otherwise it will easily lead to customer complaints.

In addition to the actual offline work to inform users, there should also be offline notifications internally. It is best to inform the end of the event in the form of an email, and at the same time thank the partners and bosses in various business lines within the company, so that everyone who has participated in the event can have a sense of ceremony with a beginning and an end.

Part 2: Review work

Of course, for others, the removal of the page means the end of the event, but for the event organizers, it is only considered ending when the review email is sent out.

Generally speaking, activity review includes two parts: business review and execution review.

1) Business data review

The logic of replay is very simple, generally:

• The final data of the activity is compared with the target value. Is it higher or lower than the target value?
• Exceeding the target value - the strategy takes effect - locate the most effective strategy and analyze the conditions for effectiveness - it can be reused next time and amplified;
• Below the target value - strategy failure - locate the reasons for strategy failure, improper execution or immature conditions or the strategy itself is not good - appropriately choose to optimize or test or abandon;
• In contrast, are there any abnormal data? Are the abnormal data abnormally low values ​​or abnormally high values? Identify specific and core causes;

2) Activity execution review

This is how event operations work. No matter how well prepared you are, there will always be various unexpected situations. However, there is still a big difference in execution between those with experience and those without. Experienced people will think more comprehensively from the beginning, and secondly, when unexpected situations arise, they will have multiple solutions to deal with them.

Therefore, it is necessary to review the activities and summarize the experience, which can not only avoid falling into the same pit twice, but also make us more calm when doing activities. As for this 618 promotion, I will share with you some of the pitfalls I encountered.

Owner awareness, even if others don’t pay attention to it, you have to pay attention to it. As one of the two major e-commerce promotions, 618 is usually prepared 3 or 4 months in advance. However, due to the early preparations for the promotion, other marketing activities also need to be carried out at the same time. There is still a long time before the real start of the big promotion, and the boss and various business parties don’t pay enough attention to it. I am the only one running the plan.

This kind of situation really tests the will of the project manager, because the early time node makes no one pay attention to it - in other words, 618 has become an important but not urgent event. At this time, if you don't hurry up, and the preliminary plans and some cooperation matters with various business lines are delayed too long without being finalized, it will seriously slow down the progress of subsequent execution. So at this time, you must be thick-skinned and not be too sensitive. You must lead everyone to run the entire project together. You must also find opportunities in daily and weekly meetings to solicit everyone's opinions and synchronize some important information.

The rules are in place first, and it is best to back them up by email.

The former reflects more of your professionalism in the workplace: large-scale projects will involve multi-party business cooperation rules and various resource allocations, who needs to provide what and when, and what can be obtained. How do you allocate your resources? Are the rules clear? Is there any suspected violation?

All of these require a specific white paper on rules. Rules should be put in place in advance to reduce others’ doubts/challenges and improve communication efficiency (you don’t want to make your requirements one by one). The latter is more from the perspective of workplace protection. Oral communication is prone to information funnels and misunderstandings. WeChat texts are between formal and informal. Everything should be based on the content of the email to avoid being blamed as much as possible.

Report activity risks in advance.

During promotional periods, there is a higher risk of customer complaints than usual. Improper handling of issues such as price, inventory, and promotional copy can easily lead to customer complaints. When using some high-leverage interest points, it is best to make a good risk report. For example, the 1 yuan refrigerator grab interest point I used on 618 did not say on the cover that the stock was limited and it was first come first served. Instead, it was cunningly marked with a small text inside the main venue page. Some users who could not grab the refrigerator and like to nitpick may complain about this, so this requires reporting in advance.

You must have public relations awareness! What’s more terrifying than not meeting the KPI is that an event also triggers a public relations crisis! During the climax of the June 18 Sichuan earthquake, a time when the public was relatively sensitive, it was necessary to handle it in a humane way, such as using words like "carnival", otherwise the company would appear to be particularly inhumane.

(The word carnival should be avoided at certain times)

The above is a review of our company's 618 group purchase promotion. Some detailed data have been modified for data security considerations, and the views may be biased. If you have other opinions, you are welcome to communicate with me in detail~

Related reading:

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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

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

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Author: Nan You Chestnut

Source: Delicious chestnuts