App overseas promotion, basic process and core elements of activity operation!

First, compared with the traditional manufacturing industry, the performance of China's mobile Internet products going overseas is obviously more impressive; secondly, compared with last year's list, the position of tool apps has been replaced by content apps, and ByteDance has entered the top five for the first time with TikTok, indicating that China's mobile Internet going overseas has entered the stage dominated by content-based products.

The underlying logic of content-based products is content production - content distribution - content consumption (monetization). Among them, content production is the primary condition that determines success or failure. How to reduce the cost of content production has become a problem that many companies must face. When the cost of PGC content production remains high, only by working hard on UGC content production can healthy and sustainable development be achieved. Especially now that mobile Internet overseas has entered the dominant stage of content-based products, studying this topic is more realistic.

For the cold start of content-based products, including short videos, online articles and other products, in addition to PGC methods such as team self-production and authorized cooperation, as well as signing KOLs to drive UGC creation, another way is to collect UGC content through specific theme event planning. Taking short video APP as an example, by planning theme video collection activities, such as beauty expert video collection competition, travel expert video collection competition, etc., the H5 page of the collection competition is promoted on social media to collect short video UGC content.

Firstly, it can collect various high-quality videos, discover excellent short video talents, reserve content for product launch, and achieve content cold start; secondly, through social media promotion competitions, fans can be accumulated for social media homepages, laying the foundation for subsequent APP promotion and brand marketing. This article will review an event to discuss how content-based products can collect UGC content through events when they are launched overseas. The article is based on practical cases, and some content and data have been anonymized, but the basic logic remains the same. The analysis of this case is divided into two parts. This article first shares with you the "basic process and core elements of event operation."

1. Combine product content direction with user needs to clarify the goals, resources, and time of the activity.

First of all, event planning must be carried out after understanding the user needs of the target market and having a definite plan for the content direction. Therefore, the students in charge of event operations must fully communicate with the students in charge of content to determine the theme of the event. Because the fundamental purpose of the activity is to guide relevant users to produce content through the promotion of specific content theme activities, the platform can quickly collect and screen excellent content and creators on the theme. These two points are core elements, so we can combine existing resources (mainly prizes and promotion fees) to set a specific number of high-quality content and creators as activity goals.

Tiktok advertising screen at Shibuya's busiest intersection

Evaluate event resources and budget to determine prizes, bonuses and promotion plans. Prizes and bonuses are not only an important driving force to attract users to participate in activities, but also an important element in promoting and publicizing activities. Therefore, you should spend some time thinking about setting up prizes and bonuses. I think there are 2 points to consider.

First, the prizes should be linked to the content theme. For example, if it is a short video collection contest, the prizes can be short video-related prizes, such as cameras.

Second, the first prize must be attractive enough. As the facade of the event prize, the first prize has a direct role in promoting the event and can mobilize users' enthusiasm for active participation.

In addition to material incentives, exposure incentives or list incentives can also be used to meet user demands and better stimulate user enthusiasm for participating in activities. For example, the final winners will have the opportunity to be displayed on specific offline large-screen advertising spots. For example, the reward for the Tiktok challenge held in Japan is that the winners have the opportunity to appear on 4 large advertising screens at the busiest intersection in Shibuya, which ultimately attracted more than 60,000 short video submissions and more than 300 million views.

The activity duration refers to the length of the activity cycle, which is closely related to factors such as the activity goals, the scale of the activity, and the time required to develop and launch the activity page. Specific issues need to be analyzed specifically. If the event prizes are generous and the number of collected content is high, the event may need to be run on a quarterly basis; if the event goals are easier to achieve and the prizes are average, then the event may be run on a monthly or weekly basis. The second step is to evaluate the time required to develop the event page based on all the company's development resources to determine the final event start time.

2. Design the gameplay and format of the activity.

The core elements of online gameplay design are fun and novelty. From the description of the event theme copy and the design of the event poster to the setting of the award mechanism, they must be able to attract user participation; secondly, for content collection activities, when uploading content, the upload entrance and path must be designed to ensure that it is convenient for users to upload content.

First, determine the activity upload entry based on the specific scenario and the device used by the user. Different content forms, content lengths and production scenarios determine whether users use PCs or mobile devices for creation.

For example, for the creation of long online novels, authors are more accustomed to and more convenient to write on computers, so the landing page of the activity is best based on a PC site; for the shooting of short videos, video experts basically use mobile devices such as mobile phones to shoot, and the activity is based on applications. If the APP is not online, videos can be uploaded through the H5 page.

Secondly, design the path of the upload mechanism well and shorten the operation path as much as possible. In terms of factors that affect marketing conversion, one is to have large-scale accurate traffic exposure, and the other is to shorten the conversion link. Because every additional conversion link will increase the loss rate of content uploads, so whether on PC or mobile, it is necessary to ensure the simplicity and stability of the user upload mechanism path.

Finally, in addition to the main upload mechanism based on PC sites or mobile device products, there should be supplementary upload or submission options. Taking into account the network conditions in the target user's area (network conditions vary greatly in different countries and regions overseas), user upload or submission habits (users are not yet accustomed to uploading content online), and even the upload mechanism due to bugs or other factors that affect users' online content uploads, there must be a second option for users to upload or submit content. For example, you can leave an official email address for users to upload content.

3. During the implementation process of the activity, the team should communicate and adjust the plan in a timely manner, confirm resources and follow up for a smooth launch.

After the activity plan is planned and approved by the operation team, the next step is the implementation of the plan. The core elements of this stage are to carefully control the activity process and experience, the copywriting and visual effects of the activity, and collaborate with other teams to ensure the smooth launch of the activity.

Do a good job in project management and ensure that each key node is completed on schedule to ensure the launch. The implementation of an event involves the assistance of different departments, including design, development, data, advertising, and new media. First, a design review and a development review are required to evaluate the time required to develop the event page. Then, communication with the data group should be done in advance to ensure that relevant data of the event can be obtained to evaluate the final effect. Finally, preparations should be made with advertising and new media to warm up and promote the event.

In this process, operations students need to pay attention to the following points:

First, set goals and determine the "deadline" for each module at the event review meeting, including the time when the design draft will be released, when the development will be completed, the data required for embedding, the plan and timeline for advertising and new media preheating and promotion, etc. Discuss with the person in charge of each module to determine the specific time point and draw it into an SOP Gantt chart after the meeting and synchronize it with all participants to ensure that everyone understands the time node output of their own matters and can achieve it.

Second, pay attention to using appropriate communication methods for different departments to quickly promote implementation in each department. Event operations is both the brain of event planning and the driving force behind the implementation of the entire event. Therefore, it is very important for operations staff to communicate with other departments during event execution. The thinking patterns and starting points of students in different departments may be different.

For example. Designers are more concerned with the aesthetics and coordination of the page, while technical colleagues are more concerned with the difficulty of technical implementation, development costs and cycles, and operations themselves are concerned with whether it is conducive to improving key indicators and user experience. Therefore, when communicating with different departments, it is necessary to understand each other's starting point and comprehensively evaluate opinions from all aspects.

Third, repeatedly adjust the operation plan during communication, and pay attention to optimizing the details of the operation plan. The implementation of an activity is the process of realizing the operation plan through the interaction of various roles. After planning the activity plan, the activity operators need to draw an interactive prototype to facilitate others to understand and implement it.

However, there is no perfect operation plan or interaction. Students who design or develop will understand from their own professional perspective. On the other hand, students who do local operations will evaluate the copywriting and effects of the activity page from the perspective of local target users, and put forward suggestions for modifications to certain details. Therefore, the person in charge of event operations should maintain an open mind, not deny other people's ideas, and actively communicate with others. Only in this way can we reduce the error rate and optimize the data of the activity.

4. Warm-up and promotion of activities.

In the event planning stage, you need to consider how to warm up and promote the event. The core element is how to reach more target groups before and after the event goes online.

Many people know about the promotion after the event goes online, but often ignore the importance of the warm-up phase. A successful event cannot be achieved without preheating. A good preheating can make the event more effective. Preheating serves to inform more potential users of the event, so that they can become interested in the event and want to participate. Especially for UGC content producers, they need to use their creativity to produce high-quality content based on their understanding of the theme and rules of the event. Whether it is a long serialized online novel or a creative short video collection, users need to be given sufficient time to conceive, which further highlights the necessity of preheating.

Secondly, during the warm-up period, we need to stimulate users’ enthusiasm for participation through the benefits of the event, including prizes, bonuses, or advertising exposure rewards. We can use the warm-up activities to sense the users' interest in the benefits and judge whether it meets the needs of the audience. If the effect is not good, we need to analyze whether the prizes are not attractive enough or the format is problematic, and make timely adjustments and improvements. If the warm-up effect exceeds expectations, it can be judged that the event is very popular and the number of participants may exceed expectations. We should prepare in advance to welcome more participants, such as increasing the number of prizes and bonuses.

How to preheat and promote? Choose appropriate channels for preheating and promotion, and make full use of internal and external channels for exposure.

Internal traffic includes its own apps and websites, as well as its own social media account system. You can place a designed banner image in a prominent position on your own APP and website, or put a link to the event somewhere else on the page to ensure the best location for pre-promotion. The social media account system, including FB, Ins, etc., fully covers the company's own fans, has a strong timeliness of dissemination, and is an important channel for preheating exposure.

Warm-up posters are the most common warm-up materials. For UGC content collection warm-up activities, you can present bonuses, prizes or other highlights on the warm-up posters while highlighting the content collection theme to attract participants who are interested in and in need of the event. In addition, if there is enough time before the event goes online, you can use the fans’ social media relationship chains to spread the word, plan warm-up activities, and use small prizes as rewards to encourage users to forward warm-up posters.

Firstly, the cost is relatively low. Secondly, users who are willing to forward are often users who are interested in the event. Birds of a feather flock together, and the relationship chains of these people are often potential participants, thus achieving the goal of low-cost diffusion.

External traffic mainly comes from KOL cooperation, mutual promotion and advertising. Generally speaking, the promotion of external traffic is the responsibility of the company's advertising department. Therefore, operations students need to invite advertising students to participate in the event review meeting, because they also need to understand the background and goals of the event, rather than hastily raising demands after the event goes online, which is inconvenient for both parties. The meeting should reach a consensus on the time for the output of the advertising plan and the time for the official launch, and synchronize them to the SOP Gantt chart for easy implementation.

Operations need to inform advertising colleagues of the campaign’s advertising goals, budget, specific time period, target audience positioning information, etc. The advertising plan produced by advertising colleagues needs to include overall budget allocation, delivery rhythm, key landing page tracking, advertising effect estimates and suggestions, etc.

At the same time, operations staff should pay attention to listening to the other party's opinions when communicating with advertising placements, because as the planners of the event, operations staff may be too involved and miss some important links, while advertising placement staff will raise some potential problems in the user uploading link from the perspective of users seeing the ad and clicking to upload content. Taking video uploading as an example, the user's behavior path includes clicking on an ad - entering the page - uploading a video - submitting a video - successful submission. The operations team focuses on video collection, thinking that under normal circumstances, the user already has a video in their album and clicks Submit to upload the video.

However, advertising colleagues will think from the entire scenario from the user seeing the ad to submitting the video, because the ad is displayed instantly. If the user does not have a video in the album, he needs to exit the page and shoot. During this process, when the user goes back to submit, the page may disappear and the ad may not be shown to him again. This is a scenario that operations colleagues may overlook.

Therefore, from the perspective of advertising colleagues, some potential problems may be discovered, and users who do not have local videos need to be given another option, such as providing official homepage information, and the official homepage will also have active links, so that these users have an upload channel. The lesson we can learn from this example is that operations need to communicate more with other project stakeholders, rather than just asking them to execute the plan. Only in this way can we continuously improve and reduce or eliminate the occurrence of problems after going online.

5. Analyze and monitor data during the activity execution to identify problems and make timely optimization.

After the activity goes online, we need to keep an eye on data changes, observe the current situation, locate problems through data analysis, and solve them in a timely manner.

Analyze user behavior on your page. Observe the behavioral data of the main path of user content upload, and analyze the specific data and conversion rate of each link through the funnel model to identify the problems and directions for improvement. If the conversion rate of a certain link is lower than expected, we need to analyze the reasons, such as whether there is a bug in the page or the visual effect of a certain button is not eye-catching enough, so as to determine whether it is a technical or design problem, communicate with relevant colleagues to find a solution and determine the specific improvement plan and launch time.

Analyze key metrics of your activity. By analyzing the key indicators of the activity, we can quickly understand the effect of the activity. Take the short video collection activity as an example. In this business scenario, the key indicators of the activity include the average daily number of successful videos submitted by users, the average daily number of successful submissions, and the number of successful submission users. Knowing these data, we can intuitively evaluate the overall effect of the activity collection. Secondly, after knowing the above data, we can also know the average number of successful video submissions per person and the average number of successful video submissions per person. From a micro perspective, we analyze the user's enthusiasm for uploading videos. If these two data are greater than 1, it means that the average number of videos uploaded by the user is more than once. The larger the number, the more active the user is in uploading videos to the activity and the better the effect of the activity.

Analyze the traffic sources of your campaign. As mentioned in the previous section, targeted delivery plans have been made for preheating and delivery, so we need to analyze the data of traffic sources in the activities and make timely adjustments. This part of the work is more controlled by advertising delivery colleagues. On the one hand, when analyzing traffic sources, it is necessary to compare the click costs and effects of image materials and video materials, the submission costs of different channels, etc., in order to optimize them; on the other hand, by quickly collecting user email addresses and using user email addresses to expand lookalike precise similar audiences, advertising costs can be continuously optimized.

6. Screening and secondary dissemination of high-quality content. High-quality content screening mechanism and social dissemination.

It would be ideal if the activity could achieve viral transmission, but we must pay attention to secondary transmission and not be too complacent. It is recommended to consciously add social media communication as a weight in the event award rules when planning the event. The fundamental purpose is to encourage users' interpersonal relationships to comment, like and share the event while participating in the event. In this way, the event will begin the process of secondary dissemination, which will not only enhance users' sense of participation, but also expand the scope of influence of the event.

Taking the short video collection as an example, the likes or shares of the entries on social media can be added as an award dimension in the award rules. The high-quality videos shortlisted by the contestants can be uploaded to social media to encourage the contestants to actively share and get their friends to like them. On the one hand, it can meet the participants' needs for exposure and make participants more actively participate in the event. On the other hand, it can also achieve good secondary dissemination effects. Of course, when considering social media communication factors as part of the award rules, we must consider preventing award fraud, because if there are loopholes in the rules, some people may take advantage of it.

In addition, creating topics and promoting through soft articles on social media or forums are also important means that cannot be ignored.

7. Review of activities and evaluation of their effects. Determine the activity results and complete the distribution of bonuses and prizes.

When planning an event, when setting up the reward mechanism, specifically, in addition to the above-mentioned principles of relevance to the theme of the event and the principle that the first prize must be attractive enough, it is also necessary to consider the principles of localization and ease of distribution. The localization principle means conducting research on users in the target market. Operations staff need to pay attention to communicating with local operations and should not apply domestic experience as a matter of course. They need to ensure that the reward mechanism is popular with target users and that prizes or other rewards can stimulate their enthusiasm for participating in the event. Ease of distribution means that when choosing prizes, one must consider whether the distribution process is convenient for the organizer to distribute them to all winners. And if the prizes are delivered by express, one must consider the safety of the express delivery and the cost of the prize logistics, etc.

Effect evaluation and activity review. Reviewing is a way to learn from yourself. I think the way to make relatively rapid progress is to be good at learning from yourself. I believe many students have also thought about this question. Regarding their career choices, should they choose to explore independently in a team or learn from a team with big names? In fact, the opportunity to follow the right expert or good leader is hard to come by, so the ability of self-learning is the key. Reviewing is an essential skill to exercise self-learning ability.

How to review an activity? In simple terms, it can be expanded in the following order:

1) Review objectives: What is the purpose of the activity?

2) Evaluation results: How well have the original goals been achieved? What are the achievements and shortcomings?

3) Analyze the reasons: What are the reasons for the success or failure of the goal completion, including both subjective and objective aspects.

4) Activity summary: Through the above thinking and analysis, whether collecting UGC content through activities is a feasible way, which links can be optimized, what practices can be replicated in the next activity, etc.

In fact, the review of each of the above links can be said to be a review of the activity from the perspective of basic processes, and this process is applicable to other online activities. After event planning, the implementation needs to ensure the conversion of each link, because how to increase the overall amount of UGC content collected within the premise of a given budget, especially the amount of high-quality content, is the most core indicator of the event operation. I will share my views on this issue with you in the next article.

Author: Curry

Source: Curry (ID: chuhaiyunying)