How to plan a heartfelt event? A complete guide to event operations

During the Double Eleven Shopping Festival, Tmall generated sales of 120.7 billion yuan, once again breaking last year's record of 91.2 billion yuan.

Looking through the phenomenon to the essence, Tmall’s Double Eleven and Meituan’s food ordering red envelope grabbing are the same, and they are essentially activities. So the question is, how should the activity be played?

Here, Mantou has prepared a complete event operation strategy for you.

The following is the logical structure of this article, which has a total of 4,680 words and is recommended to be read for 10 minutes.

What is event operation?

In my opinion, event operation is to achieve commercial goals and design a game for users.

According to Jane McGonigal's "Games Change the World", games have four decisive characteristics: voluntary participation, goals, rules and feedback mechanisms. These four characteristics are also possessed by the activity. Take Meituan’s meal ordering and red envelope grabbing as an example:

Voluntary participation: Users voluntarily share red envelopes with WeChat friends.

Target: Users want to grab red envelopes or share red envelopes with friends.

Rules: You can only grab red envelopes after you share them with your friends.

Feedback mechanism: After grabbing the red envelope, there will be a pop-up window telling you that the red envelope has been deposited into your account.

Why did Meituan design this game for users? When you share red envelopes with your friends, it is equivalent to recommending your friends to use Meituan to order food. Through this red envelope grabbing activity, Meituan achieved the goal of acquiring users (attracting new users). Similarly, through the Double Eleven event, Tmall achieved a daily sales of over 120 billion yuan.

Similar to games, activities also design content around users . To some extent, event operation is an extension of user operation and content operation. Therefore, user operation and content operation are basic skills.

Activities are generally divided into four stages: activity preparation, activity planning, activity execution and activity summary. Next, I will share with you the process and details of these four stages.

Activity Preparation

If you plan ahead, you will succeed; if you don't, you will fail. This is even more true for events. The excellent events we often see all have careful preparation behind them . Take Double Eleven as an example. Alibaba often starts planning Double Eleven investment and related activities half a year in advance.

So the question is, what specific activities do we need to prepare for?

Clarify the purpose of the activity

Why do we need to do activities? Is it for branding, attracting new customers, retention, activation or conversion?

The purpose of the activity must be clear, and don’t do activities just for the sake of doing them . There are two points to note when clarifying the purpose of an activity:

1. There is only one purpose.

It is good enough for an activity to achieve its intended purpose . The most feared thing is greed and wanting to achieve multiple goals such as attracting new customers, retaining customers, and promoting activation through one activity. In that case, it is very likely that no goal will be achieved.

When you achieve your expected goal, you will gain other added value. If the purpose of the activity is to attract new customers, then the brand will be promoted incidentally.

2. Make your purpose specific

If the purpose is just to attract new customers, retain existing customers, promote activation, and convert customers, then it’s the same as saying nothing. The purpose of the event needs to be specific to numbers . How many new users do you want to gain through this event? How many users are retained? How much survival can it promote? How much conversion?

On the one hand, it is to give the boss expectations for the activities, and on the other hand, it is to measure the resources invested in the activities and the actual effects of the activities.

Familiar with users

Activities are designed around users. Before doing an activity, it is best to have a clear user portrait in mind .

How to deeply understand users? The best way is to make friends with users, join user-related QQ groups and WeChat groups, chat with users, check out their friend circles, and learn about their hobbies and hot topics. Only first-hand information obtained in this way is reliable.

As for high-quality user resources, you should reserve them on a regular basis and don’t wait until you organize an event to contact them . Especially those KOLs, you need to spend time and energy to maintain them.

Analyze your opponent

Who are the competitors for your product?

What activities have your competitors done?

Which activities of the opponent failed? What is the reason for failure?

Which of the opponent’s activities were successful? What is the reason for success?

The process of analyzing competitors is the process of learning. There is no need for you to go through the same pitfalls that your competitors have already fallen into.

Why was Xiaomi later surpassed by Huawei? As we all know, Huawei’s slogan was "pixel-level imitation" , which was a comprehensive study of Xiaomi's marketing and operation behaviors. Knowing the other party's shortcomings and combining them with my own strengths, I will definitely be able to do better than the other party overall.

Coordinate resources

Find corresponding activity resources according to the purpose of the activity .

First, look at what resources are available in your department. Second, what resources do you need from other departments? Regarding cross-departmental cooperation, this requires you to maintain relationships on a regular basis, say hello when you meet, and discuss issues with each other.

Asking other departments for resources in the name of the boss is a bad idea, because no one likes the feeling of being forced. If your activities can be linked to the KPIs of other departments, the cooperation will be quite smooth.

Activities need to consider the budget, but not having a budget does not mean that the activity cannot be held. We can use the platform's idle resources to organize activities. We operators don't care about some of the resources, but users do care about them . For example, we previously held a national VIP event where users who paid last week could enjoy VIP privileges for one day next Tuesday, thus utilizing the idle resources of user levels.

Event Planning

Activity Creativity

During the event planning stage, event creativity is the key. The quality of creativity determines whether an event can be successful, and whether an event has highlights depends on the creativity of the event. So, where do we come up with creative ideas for activities?

To conceive activity ideas, you can start from the following four aspects:

1. Insight into user psychology

What psychological needs of users are not met?

If you don’t have a clear answer, it means you don’t understand your users well enough. Once you have a deep understanding of your users, you will definitely discover their unmet psychological needs . These psychological needs are the users' G-spots. By finding them, you can leverage the entire user group.

I have a deep feeling about the power of this psychological need. Due to various prejudices, most people think that used car dealers are scalpers and traffickers, but in their hearts, car dealers yearn to be recognized and respected by society. After discovering this hidden psychological need, I planned an event for car dealers on New Year's Day in 2016 [2016, I am the spokesperson for used car entrepreneurs], which ended up sweeping the entire circle of friends of used car dealers.

The escape from Beijing in 4 hours planned by Xin Shixiang a while ago was also based on insights into user psychology.

2. Borrow ideas from games

As mentioned earlier, event operation is to design a game for users .

In a way, the activity itself is the game. For example, Alipay’s activity of collecting the five blessings during the Spring Festival last year had the same creativity as the jigsaw puzzle game. There are also many H5 activity cases that borrow creativity from games.

So no matter how busy you are at work, don’t forget to experience various mobile games, especially those classic mobile games and current popular mobile games.

3. Cross-border marketing

Cross-border has already become a trend. As long as there is a high degree of overlap with your user group, you can try cross-border . Because the activities are designed around users, as long as the user groups are the same, anything can be discussed. For example, Shenzhen Vanke and Benlai Life Network jointly launched the 717 Go Home for Dinner event.

In addition to cross-border cooperation between brands, cross-border cooperation between online platforms and offline physical stores is also a great form of cooperation that can make up for each other's shortcomings and achieve a win-win situation.

4. Use new forms

New forms of expression such as VR, augmented reality, and live streaming can bring users a brand new activity experience . In this regard, this year's Tmall Double Eleven set an example for us.

"Invitation to Travel Across the Universe", as the first hot topic of the Double 11 event, is an H5 that combines VR technology. The visual effects are very cool and the details are colorful, creating a crazy and joyful shopping atmosphere.

Finding Carnival Cat combines augmented reality with grabbing red envelopes, giving grabbing red envelopes a whole new form. In addition to grabbing red envelopes, Tmall also uses "Find Carnival Cats" to grab Disney tickets and Double 11 party tickets, making multiple uses of one thing.

Live streaming is a highlight of this year’s Tmall Double 11. In less than a month, Tmall platform staged more than a thousand live broadcasts, and the hosts included entertainment stars, Internet celebrities, sports stars, global anchors, brand bosses, travel experts, and so on.

Copywriting

The title of the event is the most critical, and it affects the opening rate of the event. It can be said that the title is half of the success of the event . Regarding the method of writing an event title, first write a title that allows users to understand the event at a glance, and then based on this title, write 20 more titles and select the most attractive title from them.

When it comes to event promotional images, the priority is to allow users to obtain key information about the event, followed by design sense . Even if users don’t read the title, they need to know what kind of activity this is just by looking at the picture.

The event background, event time, event rules, award settings, etc. must be clearly written, such as the specific day and time of the event . After writing the copy of the activity rules, be sure to show it to several colleagues around you to see if there are any ambiguities. Finally, remember to add this sentence: "The final right of interpretation of this activity belongs to xxx."

Details are king

The more details you consider before an event, the more you can avoid surprises during execution.

The two questions that users are most concerned about are: How to participate? What benefits will you get after participating? The event entrance details, participation method details, and award details related to these two issues must be carefully polished. For example, it is best to show pictures of the prizes and indicate the prices, etc.

Activity Execution

Event Promotion

Event promotion requires speed, accuracy and ruthlessness. Quickly find where your users gather and use multiple platforms and media to comprehensively cover your user base . For regular activities, you only need to warm up 1-2 days in advance. Users will forget about it a week in advance. Only for large-scale events, such as Tmall Double Eleven, JD 618, LeTV 414, etc., we will consider preheating one month in advance.

Before promoting an event, you need to find out where users gather. Taking Xiaomi as an example, most seed users are active in the Xiaomi community, followed by WeChat, Weibo, etc. Fans of each product will gather in certain Internet communities (including WeChat groups), so you can quickly find them and tell them about the event.

All available platforms and media should be utilized to fully cover users. In addition to its own APP, website, WeChat official account, Weibo, Toutiao and other media, user WeChat groups, audio live broadcast, video live broadcast, etc. can also be used.

Activity Tracking

Activities are not created by waiting, but by doing. First-rate event planning coupled with third-rate event execution is a waste of event creativity. On the contrary, if a third-rate event is planned but executed with first-rate execution, the results will not be bad.

You must follow up on the progress of the event every day, pay attention to user participation, and constantly adjust the details of the event to ensure that the expected results of the event are achieved. For example, whether there are loopholes in the rules during the event, how to prevent users from inflating the volume, etc.

There are two key points in the activity tracking process:

1. Guidance

There are many activities on Weibo. Why are there big Vs reposting or commenting on them as soon as they are released? Because we had already communicated with the big V before the event started. Through the participation and forwarding of big Vs, the popularity of the event will be increased and more people will be encouraged to participate in the event.

The purpose of guidance is to attract more high-quality people to participate , especially in the first hour of the event. It is necessary to invite high-quality users to participate in advance so that the event will have enough momentum to continue. If the first batch of users participating in the event are of low quality, then later high-quality users may not participate in the event, because bad money drives out good money.

Comments about the event also need to be guided after the event starts , especially the first 10 comments. The selected message function of WeChat official accounts is, to some extent, guiding users to comment.

2. Adaptability

During the execution process, it is inevitable that variables will be encountered. Therefore, it is very important to make timely adjustments according to the progress of the activity .

If there are few users participating in the event, do we need to increase the promotion efforts? If the event is effective, should we extend its duration to further amplify its influence? If there are many people violating the rules and rigging votes, is there a loophole in the event rules?

If users exploit loopholes in the activity rules to obtain prizes. The operators themselves have to pay for the consequences and cannot blame the users. When it comes to prizes, be sure to specify the exact amount, and don’t assume the number of participants will be there. If a competitor takes advantage of this loophole, you could end up losing a lot.

Activity Sharing

It is difficult to create an excellent event just by relying on publicity and promotion. It is like driving a vehicle. The initial publicity and promotion is just to start the vehicle. How far the vehicle can go depends on user sharing activities. In other words, activities not only require interaction with people, but also require people to interact with each other through activities to form a closed loop: user-activity-user . Last year’s Alipay Jingyefu event became a topic of communication and discussion among people.

When do users share activities? Users are most likely to share when the sharing activity is beneficial to themselves and their friends.

Regarding the guiding copy for sharing, this detail is very important. Especially for H5 activities, WeChat officially prohibits inducing sharing. At this time, you need to be creative and change your thinking. Such as "Hurry up and call your friends for help", "Not convinced? Invite your friends to challenge you", etc.

Activity Summary

Sedimentation users

Activities are a good way to accumulate users. Have you set up a WeChat group or QQ group for this event? Which high-quality users were discovered during the event? Do you have the WeChat, QQ, contact information, etc. of high-quality users?

Here, it is recommended to set up an activity QQ group, but not a WeChat group, because everyone has too many groups on WeChat and it is easy to be ignored. Next time you hold an event, you can invite these high-quality users to participate. Only by continuously accumulating high-quality users and making small amounts into large ones can the activities become bigger and bigger.

Activity review

After each activity, be sure to review the entire process. It is best for all participants in the activity to review the event once. Because the activity is not a one-person thing, it requires close cooperation among the team. When each team member reviews the process, they can not only optimize the collaboration process, but also collect many different ideas. He who listens to both sides will be enlightened; he who only listens to one side will be in the dark.

Let’s review the entire event process again. What were the highlights of this event? What details were done very well? What problems need to be avoided? Summarize and share experiences and lessons learned so that the next activity can be done better. Use the mindset of a product manager to run activities, treat activities as products, and continuously upgrade activities from version 1.0 to version 2.0 .

Reviewing is not just for the purpose of doing better for the next activity, but your abilities are often improved through reflection.

Analyze activity data

After the activity is completed, retrieve all data related to the activity, analyze the data, and find out the problems and reasons behind the data .

Through data analysis, on the one hand, we can measure whether the expected purpose of the activity has been achieved, and on the other hand, it also lays the foundation for determining the goals of the next activity. People tend to overestimate their abilities and set overly high goals for activities, resulting in the activities failing to achieve their intended goals.

Summary

1. Clarify the purpose of the activity.

2. Either don’t do it, or make it outstanding.

3. Activities are not something that can be done by waiting, but by doing.

4. Event operation is the explosion point when daily operation work accumulates to a certain level.

5. Grasp the user's psychology. If you were a user, would you participate in this activity?

6. Be sure to review the entire event, summarize experiences and lessons, and upgrade the event.

Source: Jianshu