2022 General Event Program Planning!

If marketing is the top priority in operations, then program planning is the top priority in marketing, and the implementation of the program is the top priority to ensure the effectiveness of the program. This is why we dream of planning a hit program and executing a hit activity.

1. Cultivate the thinking of program planning

Before we explain the formal event planning template, let’s first briefly explore the development of program planning thinking. How to cultivate thinking through small things that are readily available around you, and cultivate the global nature of your own solution planning thinking by analyzing the solution planning centers of different industries.

1. Develop it from the little things around you

Regarding planning, it can be divided into small plan planning and large plan planning according to the size. Some people may be curious about what is small event planning and what is large event planning?

We express our opinions on major social platforms, post on Moments, and participate in various topic activities. Some people's content is very attractive and receives great responses; while some people's content is really mediocre. The former plans these events as small activities and thinks about the more irritating points; while the latter is completely self-entertaining and only focuses on expressing their own emotions.

The various online and offline activities that we commonly see, as well as the brand promotion advertisements and conferences of major companies, all belong to large-scale planning. The common activities on the Internet, such as wheel draws, card collection activities, tree planting activities, and chopping activities, are even more large-scale planning. As such activities become more and more common and more and more numerous, the need for professional manpower is increasing.

2. Learn from different industry giants

Because program design includes marketing and event design, and marketing is a particularly large category. Therefore, we will not do analysis here, but mainly analyze the program planning that is closely related to operations, especially the most commonly used activity program planning. Internet companies include social, e-commerce, content and other companies. Although they all belong to the Internet industry, different categories often have different planning directions, levels of presentation, and focus.

For example, social and entertainment software tend to prefer topic-based, low-priced membership, information push, and SMS notification types.

For example, the workplace social software Maimai will push topic activities such as #How are you doing if you choose the wrong major#What will happen if you slack off for a long time; the short video entertainment software Douyin can add a variety of hot topics, such as #Human Cute Pet Cultivation Diary#My country is so great, etc.

E-commerce software often prefers discount activities such as full-reduction activities, price cuts, group buying, etc. For example; every year’s 618, Double 11, and Double 12 events.

Content-related activities often prefer activities that cultivate authors and user usage habits because they take into account the growth of content and users. For example: Toutiao and Zhihu’s training activities for self-media authors; Qutoutiao’s red envelope reward activities for users who have read for a certain period of time.

Therefore, as a program planner, or someone who hopes to engage in program planning, you need to learn comprehensively from different types of large companies, clarify in advance your own industry or the industry you expect to work in in the future, and plan programs based on the actual situation of the industry. At the same time, we can also try to introduce excellent planning schemes from other industries into our own industry to bring new growth.

2. Universal activity plan template

A person is anxious because he is not confident about the work he does;

A person is afraid because he is terrified of unfamiliar things.

And all this is due to the lack of a guide or a simple, clear and easy-to-understand knowledge system. As the saying goes: Although the sparrow is small, it has all the organs. So, what elements does the activity plan include and what do we need to pay attention to regarding these elements?

Template required element 1: Activity name

Capable of capturing the mind, easy to understand, and easy to spread

Template Required Element 2: Activity Purpose

The objectives of the activities are divided into five categories: attracting new users, active users, conversion users, retention users, and fission users, which are mainly used to set the tone and direction for the activities.

Template Required Element 3: Activity Target

Why do we need activity goals in addition to activity purposes? Are these two pieces repeated?

In fact, the purpose of the activity is to determine the direction and tone of the activity, and the goal of the activity is to set digital, specific, quantifiable, executable, and assessable goals. On the one hand, these goals make the goals clearer for program planners; on the other hand, they also facilitate the company's later assessment of internal personnel.

Template Required Element 4: Event Budget

Activity budgets are divided into two categories:

The first type is the budget estimated in advance by the program planners based on the activities. This type of budget is only for reference and cannot be implemented specifically.

The other category is the budget approved by the company. This type of budget is the specific expenditure budget for the event. Event planners need to make adjustments based on the final budget, as well as find prize partners to negotiate prices and budgets, and implement pre-orders, pre-production or procurement.

Template Required Element 5: Feasibility Design

Most new operators have no idea where to start with an event, often because they lack a feasible design entry point. Feasibility design can refer to the RSM model of e-commerce activities.

R stands for Role. Through data analysis, users with the roles that meet the requirements for participating in the activity are screened;

S stands for Scene. Create common scenes that suit role users, so that role users can quickly enter the role and participate in activities through scenes.

M stands for Motivation, the motivation for users to participate in activities. The content in this area is relatively complex and mainly involves the analysis of human nature. Some event planners want to use the seven deadly sins analysis, while others prefer to use the Enneagram analysis. If you don’t have too many ideas, you can analyze based on people’s basic needs for fame, wealth, power, and sex.

Template Required Element 6: Activity Form

There are many different forms of activities, and of course more forms need to be developed by event planners. Common types of activities include ranking interactions, game activities, discount promotions, and group buying activities.

Activities that attract new customers often use group buying activities, which are more effective. For example, the common group buying activities of 2 or 3 people are often designed based on exponential functions such as 2ⁿ or 3ⁿ under ideal conditions.

Active activities often use game activities, which are more effective; such as turntable activities, red envelope activities, slot machine activities, Ant Forest, Happy Farm, etc.

Conversion and retention activities often use discount promotions, which are more effective; our common 618, Double 11, Double 12, and member birthday activities are all discount promotion activities;

Ranking activities are often used for fission activities, which are more effective. This kind of ranking activity can rank users based on their number of orders, transaction volume, and number of new users invited, thereby achieving fission of orders or fission of new users.

Template Required Element 7: Activity Content

In Internet activities, users rarely see the original activity content. What we usually see are event posters, detail pages, landing pages, advertising links, etc. Ordinary people often lack understanding of this content. But it does not mean that there is no such content or that this content is not important.

For example, when we participate in new product launches or sales events, do we always have PPTs carefully prepared by our staff? The lecturer explained the PPT to make the content of the activity clearer and more understandable to everyone. If, as an innovative activity, it is very necessary to explain the activity content in detail to the seed activity users.

Template Required Element 8: Activity Rules

The design of activity rules needs to serve the activity goals. At the same time, the rules need to be guiding, readable, understandable, and challenging. If the planners of an event need to think for a long time before they can understand the logic behind the rules, it is a typical example of failure. At the same time, we do not recommend activities that have rules that are not beneficial to users, and that are displayed in small print in inconspicuous locations. This is not in line with user thinking, fan thinking, and honest brand thinking.

Template Required Element 9: Activity Flow

Every activity needs to have clear processes, paths, schedules and other information, which facilitates communication and collaboration with other departments; it also makes it easier for executives to have a clear execution direction, rhythm and actions. For process design, you can use the free ProcessOn online design tool for quick and easy design.

In order to facilitate the implementation, control, supervision and subsequent review of the activity, it is recommended to consider the activity path data embedding actions in advance when designing the activity. All these data will become valuable assets of the company.

Template Required Element 10: Risk Plan

Risks and opportunities exist at the same time. When planning an event, you need to fully consider the risks from politics, laws and regulations, friendly companies, and ethics.

Template Required Element 11: Coordination Resources

An excellent event planning is definitely not something that can be completed by one person.

Product managers are required to plan the activities of the app;

R&D personnel are required to develop and test activity programs in the midst of busy development work;

Designers are needed to arrange the design of posters, rules, prizes, etc.

Purchasing staff are required to prepare the prizes in advance and warehouse staff are required to manage the activities, etc.

Template Required Element 12: Activity Review

Whether an activity is effective or not, it needs to be reviewed. In order to better leverage strengths and avoid weaknesses, and also for the continuous iteration of subsequent activities. This kind of iterative thinking is absolutely indispensable for event planners. Review includes but is not limited to data review, path review, cost review, and copywriting review.

3. Finally

As an event planner or a prospective event planner, you need to be good at discovering the little things around you that are related to event planning, such as: circle of friends, topic activities, etc., and be good at cultivating your own event planning thinking through these little things; make rational use of the universal event planning template in this article to cultivate systematic large-scale event design thinking; at the same time, you also need to actively participate in and learn from the activities of other major Internet companies to provide yourself with more thinking and reference; in addition, actively gain insight into new marketing knowledge and operational knowledge in the market, learn quickly and apply what you have learned.

Author: Zhong Jiazhen

Public account: Things about Internet operations