Three key points for event operation: How to increase users’ willingness to participate in events?

As an event operator , I wonder if you have ever faced the following situation:

1. After planning and executing an event, traffic from various channels will come, but there are many people browsing but few participating, so the conversion rate is very low;
2. While the activity was ongoing, various feedbacks and data came in. However, after adjusting the activity in stages according to the feedback, the number of participating users and data did not increase.
3. After a successful event, we reviewed the accumulated successful routines and gameplay, but it is difficult to reuse them in the next event, and it is difficult to get a large number of participants again.

These problems can actually be attributed to " how to increase users' willingness to participate in activities ." But if you dig deeper into the root of these problems, you need to start with the user's real needs - that is, "Who are the users?" "What do the users really want?", and then "How to increase the user's willingness to participate."

1. Who are the users? ——User Positioning Methodology

When we talk about locating users and creating user portraits, we often make some assumptions based on the user's attributes and levels, and based on these assumptions, we determine the user's needs, locate the user's channels and find them. (In other cases, we first identify a target group and then carry out a series of activities targeting them. We will talk about this in the next paragraph.)

But in fact, this method is very subjective. Sometimes, the users we think are interested in the event may not necessarily be interested in it. The result is that the publicity has been launched, the traffic has increased greatly, but the number of participants is very small, and the value of an event has only become brand promotion. However, the user groups we have ignored may actually participate in the event very enthusiastically. The result may be an unexpected blessing, with traffic and number of participants inexplicably increasing, but it will be difficult to replicate in the next event.

At this time, you need a simple method to solve the problem of user positioning and find the real target group of the activity, that is, consider two questions:

1. What are the user characteristics of people who participated in similar activities in previous events or competing products?
2. What kind of users do you want to participate in your activities?

As shown in the figure, the point of overlap between these two conclusions is the target users of your activity. Only by continuing to formulate activity strategies based on them can we get an activity result with the right direction and success.

2. What do users really want? ——Analysis of user needs

Although Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory has been mentioned many times in various articles, it still needs to be mentioned again here. Among physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect needs, and self-actualization needs, which needs of your users are met in the activity? Which levels of users are attracted by your activities?

To solve these two problems, we need to establish a basic principle - the essence of operating an event is to locate and gather a group of users with similar needs so that their needs can be met in the event. Only by adhering to this principle can the entire activity be further disseminated and achieve better results.

After determining the target group of the event, we need to explore the real needs of this group and formulate event strategies. What do users want? Not all high-end users want "fame", and not all low-end users want "profit". Usually, the method we adopt is that the operators put themselves in the target group to determine their true intentions, but such an approach will actually have errors.

For example:

A travel APP needs to organize a self-driving tour event for people who own cars. At the beginning, the event operators judged the needs of the target group to be "having a certain economic foundation and liking to explore niche scenic spots by self-driving", and prepared to plan the event route accordingly. However, after detailed communication and investigation with users, we found that the real needs are different from the imagined needs. The communication conclusions are as follows:

• Travel is mainly done in groups or by self-planning, and most people travel for sightseeing, leisure, and vacation;
• The driving distance is usually within 300km, and the travel time is usually during holidays;
• We pay more attention to the safety of scenic spots and the rationality of routes.

From this result, we can see that for the target group of this event, planning a medium- to short-distance mature scenic spot route is far more attractive than a niche but scenic spot with beautiful scenery. Therefore, the activities can be more varied based on this.

So, what is the answer to the question, “How do you determine user needs?”

The conclusion is simple: you need to have a certain understanding of your platform, users, and goals, and conduct detailed communication and analysis based on this, rather than working in isolation and imagining what users will be attracted to. In this way, after having sufficient understanding of user psychology and demand levels, the next step is to determine specific plans for user demand levels.

3. How to get more people to participate in my activities? ——Encourage users to interact

Starting from the user's level of needs, we can summarize a set of methods from some successful activities. If you have found your target activity users and their level of needs through the first two steps, you can find the right method in the following methodology to leverage your users' willingness to interact.

1. Physiological needs level - material incentives, cash incentives

When analyzing the methods used to attract user participation in existing activities, a very common type is material incentives. This method is also a simple solution that many event operators are unwilling to think of, that is: if you come to participate in my event, I will give you something, or there is a certain probability of giving you a prize, but often the user groups attracted by such activities are a large number of wool-gathering parties who come after hearing the news.

Common material incentive activities

Whether using material incentives or cash incentives, what is satisfied is the lowest level of needs, that is, the physiological needs level. When translated into actual activity plans, it naturally translates into various benefits, either physical or virtual.

This method is the simplest, but of course the effect is the least ideal. Generally speaking, the effectiveness of such activities is proportional to the value of the prizes. In the short term, the activity data will be very good. However, those who come for the rewards will naturally leave because there are more rewards elsewhere. Moreover, the users brought by this method are often too scattered and are not the target users of the platform, so it is naturally difficult to accumulate them.

2. Security needs hierarchy - creating a sense of crisis and scarcity

In finance, there is a concept called "loss aversion", which means that when people face the same amount of gains and losses, they find the losses more unbearable. The negative utility of the same amount of loss is 2.5 times the positive utility of the same amount of gain. For example, the pain caused by deducting 10% of salary is far greater than the happiness brought by paying out 10% bonus.

The method applicable at this level is the same, which is to artificially create a sense of scarcity and crisis, so that the popularity and value of a certain item will increase sharply, thereby triggering everyone to rush to participate.

There are many examples of using the method of "creating a sense of scarcity", such as Xiaomi's F code:

By issuing a small number of purchasing qualifications, an atmosphere of scarce event places is created, which in turn increases the number of people paying attention to and participating in the event.

The conclusion here is: if the reward you use to attract user participation has limited appeal, then you might as well add a restriction to the reward and give it a " scarcity attribute ."

Many common routines used in online courses also meet the user's security needs. For example, the sharing mechanism launched by Xin Shixiang - "for every 10,000 people who purchase this course, the price will increase by 5 yuan." Seeing the course price increase every second will naturally encourage users to participate in the event immediately. Here, the method used by Xin Shi Xiang is "creating a sense of crisis" at this level.

3. Social needs level - competition consciousness, showing off consciousness

We often see this kind of situation in the circle of friends: everyone actively shows off their exquisite clothes, wonderful life, travel attractions, etc. If we further develop this situation, we can see that people also like to forward or participate in some activities, such as forwarding a test drive experience of a certain luxury car, participating in a health run event of a certain brand, etc.

Sometimes we say in life: Life is like a play, it all depends on your acting skills. In "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life", American sociologist Erving Goffman mentioned a point: people often show a certain image to others or assume certain social roles through intentional or unintentional performances.

Everyone wants to show their best side to others, such as: beautiful, rich, smart, humorous, etc. At this level of demand, the method we need to use is "encouraging users to display positive self-labels", and applying this method in depth to actual event planning, that is, tapping into users' sense of competition and sense of showing off.

NetEase Cloud Music released a year-end review event

The year-end reviews of various brands such as Alipay and NetEase Cloud Music, the points rankings in mini-games, etc., these activities have been able to explode in large part because they have leveraged users' willingness to participate in activities and met the social needs of target users.

4. Respect needs hierarchy - recognition

Aristotle once said, "We cannot influence others through intelligence, but we can influence others through emotions." Generally speaking, facts and data will make people feel trustworthy, but people are also easily attracted by fictional stories. Facts, especially those that have been emotionally packaged, have a powerful appeal.

Therefore, it is very important to put yourself in the user's role and create strong emotions when interacting with users. The leader in this regard is undoubtedly Mimi Meng, who was once very popular. Take Mimi Meng as an example. When she conducts an event, she will start with a story around her. In the story, she will design a character that is very consistent with the characteristics of the target user group. Starting from this character, she will draw out her point of view, arouse readers' resonance, and then launch the event.

Think about it, if you need to plan an activity to induce users to share content, can you use a similar approach?

Users attracted to participate in activities at this level will be more determined than users gathered through material rewards, and will have a higher sense of identity and recognition of the platform and brand.

summary

The basis for the success of an event is the people who participate in the event. It is very important to locate users, analyze the needs of the located users, and formulate corresponding methods based on their needs to enhance their willingness to participate in the event.

I hope that next time we face an event, we will no longer be confused about "users" and can truly get all users "moving".

Finally, if you read the above carefully, you will find that in the hierarchy of user needs for participating in the activity, there is actually a top-level "self-actualization need", and the method corresponding to this need is the "reciprocity principle", which will not be discussed in depth here.

Here’s an assignment: If it were you, how would you satisfy the user’s “self-actualization needs” through the “reciprocity principle”?

Author: Fulu Network

Source: Fulu Network