How to master event operations? 4 cases to decipher for you!

How do operations experts manage operations? Below, the author will use four cases for detailed analysis.

Someone once said: Operations is the company's omnipotent house, it has to do everything, exhaust all business functions, until the scapegoat incident occurs, and then kill the person to sacrifice to the heaven...

If you are still filling yourself up by being busy all day long like you just graduated, I'm sorry, but it is very likely that you have started doing useless work. Moreover, if you want to gain an escape acceleration and realize your own value while circling in the black hole of low-end operations, the first thing you need to learn is: how to have fun!

Have you ever had this experience: you have met an operations tycoon who is very fun in his daily life, skiing and cycling. His life and work seem to be very separate, and he lives every thing to his heart's content.

It seems that you work harder than them and work overtime longer, but you often cannot reach their level. Why is that?

When you can think like this, you have actually subconsciously understood where the gap between you lies - they are better at playing than you!

The third of the three core values: creating gameplay

This is the third core value of operations that we are going to talk about today: creating gameplay - that is, based on the current product form, creating a completely new gameplay through operational intervention.

Because the product itself serves a wide range of groups and the satisfaction of their needs is universal, when there are activities or temporary needs in the operation, the product often cannot meet them normally. (Remember! This kind of unsatisfactory situation is basically the norm)

Next, we will analyze through several cases: How do operations create gameplay?

Case 1: Love Bank

This is a product built with gameplay in mind, and it is also the first product in the industry to maximize the sign-in function.

The gameplay of Love Bank is very simple to describe. As long as two people (1 man and 1 woman) sign in within the product continuously for 1 year (365 days), they can receive a cash reward of 1,000 yuan. Although the gameplay is simple, the underlying logic is very sophisticated. Let’s analyze this through 4 questions: Why does the Love Bank app work this way?

Question 1: Is continuous sign-in worth 1,000 yuan?

Worth it and very cost-effective!

Let me do the math. It costs 1,000 yuan to buy two users who are active for 365 consecutive days. The average daily active price for one user is 1.36 yuan. Any user who buys traffic in the market now costs more than that. As long as your commercial monetization capabilities are sufficient, the commercial monetization conversion value of users in the product content is large enough, or you simply make traffic products, it will be cheap enough.

Question 2: Why do two people need to sign in together?

This is a very fulfilling gameplay - signing in becomes a habit of mutual supervision, and is done in the name of love.

This approach is similar to the marketing of diamonds, deepening the deeper meaning of a certain behavior. As long as one party is aware of the need to sign in, it will remind the other party, creating an effect in which the user helps the platform increase the user conversion rate.

Question 3: Will the product experience a financial collapse?

No, because the product's cash flow cycle is 1 year. During this year, as long as the commercialization of the product is good enough, whether it is selling advertisements or in-app purchases, or financing through traffic, this set of gameplay will win them 1 year of product polishing life cycle. Moreover, daily expenditure is predictable. As long as the market user base on the delivery side is large enough, there is no need to worry about the expenditure side.

Question 4: What will be the final sign-in conversion rate?

The effect will be as expected, there are 2 key points that need to be noted.

Who is the user group?

I believe that Love Bank must have conducted relevant user research, which generally involves young men and women, and the majority of them should be college students. It is very likely that college students’ love will end in less than a year. If the relationship between two people breaks down in less than a year, then the Love Bank naturally does not need to redeem any cash for the 1,000 yuan promise, and it also transfers the active user data for a long time.

Will they insist on signing in?

No matter how the product is designed, the conversion rate of users who log in continuously will definitely get lower and lower, and the conversion rate funnel will most likely be narrow - that is, at a certain period of time, most of the users will suddenly be lost, and the final conversion rate of users who really stick to it for one year will definitely be less than 0.1%, or even less than 0.01%.

As long as users are willing to log in continuously, there is no need to worry about the product not working.

Love Bank has added content-oriented functions such as emotional diaries to its products, allowing the product to have a deeper meaning for users. At the same time, it also facilitates the formation of barriers, shifting from a pure tool-oriented product to a content-oriented product.

Such products built with pure gameplay have become more and more common in the market in recent years, and they are the main battlefield for certain operations in the second half of the Internet.

Case 2: Didi Chuxing

Observing Didi's operations in recent years, there is no overly innovative gameplay, but more of an integration of information that is strongly related to the business and the packaging of marketing techniques.

For example: During the Spring Festival in 2019, the operation of giving red envelopes to drivers by passengers caused a lot of controversy.

Didi's original intention was to build a simple non-business connection between passengers and drivers through small red packets, to provide more bridges for building relationships between people, and to arouse social topics through publicity methods such as the warmth of the Spring Festival.

Although the original intention of this operating method was good, the actual implementation was distorted and was interpreted by public opinion as: Didi used passengers' money to build its own reputation. Therefore, sometimes there will be unexpected risks before the operation is actually implemented.

Looking back at Didi’s operations in the past few years, although they were a bit simpler, the results were really good.

For example: In recent years, during the Spring Festival, we have repackaged the Spring Festival services, provided a new skin for hot demand solutions, and launched activity pages such as Spring Festival Homecoming. Although simple, the effect is obvious.

Case 3: Meituan Waimai

Friends who have ordered takeout from Meituan know that you can share red envelopes after ordering takeout.

But did you know that Meituan Takeaway’s red envelopes have also gone through three stages of gameplay changes?

Phase 1

After the red envelope is shared, everyone who clicks it can receive a takeaway red envelope of equal value. I call this stage the market capture stage. At this time, the main operational purpose of Meituan Red Packet is to add new users.

Phase 2

At this time, the amount of each person's red envelope is random, and it will tell you which red envelope is the largest. This is when the fun begins, especially in WeChat groups, where many people will inquire about the number of red envelopes that have been received, how many people are left to receive the largest red envelope, and so on. The popularity surrounding Meituan Takeout began to continue to rise. I call this stage the active stage.

Phase 3

This stage is also called the harvest and retention stage.

The number of red envelopes that can be received is limited to 3 per day. For users who have become accustomed to this way of playing, they will continue to stick with it. To retain Meituan’s truly valuable users, only a small amount of welfare subsidies is needed.

It is also very important to grasp this period of time. I believe that the data analysts of Meituan Takeout also made a multi-faceted analysis before finally making a business judgment support at a certain point in time.

Case 4: Momo

Momo’s approach is similar to the logic of Facebook’s classic growth strategy - Facebook analysts found that after a user follows 3 users, retention can reach a relatively high value.

The same is true for Momo. They found that when users complete their core processes, the user conversion rate can also be improved. Based on this, Momo uses red envelopes to attract users to complete the main process.

The specific form is: users can find users with red envelope logo near their own geographical location, click on their profile, and get the red envelope. Moreover, this red envelope can be shared to attract others to their personal homepage to grab the red envelope. Through this fission and guidance process, user growth can eventually be achieved.

Many stranger social products are also using this gameplay - on the core path of product registration/stay/chat, they attract users to complete the process by configuring red envelopes.

Of course, this approach also has its limitations, which is: if users do not recognize your product, or do not have such a strong demand for it, then this approach will not work.

Unless it is like Qutoutiao, which converts user time into advertising revenue, realizes the cost of user time, and achieves a closed business loop. Otherwise, it is difficult to promote a product that is not doing well in itself through operational methods.

Source: Operations Professor