How to turn on activity conversion? Share 3 types of gameplay with built-in traffic!

Regardless of the type of activity, the ultimate goal is to gain traffic and increase conversion rate . This article divides activity types into three categories: old-fashioned activities, creative activities, and new things and new ways of playing activities, and describes the effects that the three different forms of activities can bring.

For almost every activity, the funnel model can be used to measure the effectiveness of the activity. From the user's entrance click to the transaction order, the conversion rate performance can explain the situation of this link. If the conversion rate of a certain link is low, optimize that link.

This can be deduced: If more traffic is found from the beginning, judging from the funnel model, the final effect will definitely not be bad.

However, in actual event planning and execution, the funnel process can only be used to provide feedback on the effects, but cannot replace the event itself. The event itself is often the key to its success.

This article divides activity types into three categories:

1. Old routine activities: Old routine refers to the activity rules that everyone is familiar with in the past, such as free, full discount, buy two get one free and other promotional methods of e-commerce , as well as cash back, gradient rewards and other distribution methods;
2. Creative activities: Creative activities are eye-catching activities, such as small games , posters, H5, psychological tests, etc. that arouse users' interest;
3. Activities with new things and new ways of playing: New things activities refer to new ways of playing triggered by new technologies or new platforms. They may also be routine activities. When supported by new technologies or new platforms, the ways of playing are new.

1. For old-fashioned activities, we should proceed steadily and steadily

The company's activities are oriented towards achieving goals, and there is a steady and reliable path to follow. Assuming that the purpose of the activities is consistent, the activity routines and methods used in the past by various industries can be simply summarized into four types: " free, discounted, full-reduction and cash back ". These four methods dominate the majority of conversion activities.

1. Free is the characteristic of the Internet

Chris Anderson, author of the book "Free", said, "The price of any commodity product and service on the Internet tends to approach zero, which is a significant feature of information technology."

It is precisely because of this feature that, with the "free" approach, China's Internet has given birth to BAT -style giants, as well as up-and-coming super tools such as Baidu Netdisk and WeChat .

When promoting their products, companies also regard free strategy as the most important strategy. The "free" strategy is also a proven way to attract user participation.

In the early days, Taobao offered free lotteries or free trials of new products, which could be participated in every issue, and attracted a large number of users to participate. This method is still in use today.

Even if it is no longer an APP or an e-commerce field, it will appear in its form. For example, on the mini program , there are many free lottery assistants.

Also, because there is no cost and no threshold for users to participate, such activities often have the largest traffic.

(Photo: New product trial)

If these activities include lucky draws and free trials of new products, and the cost to the platform is close to zero, you can feel free to do such activities. However, in some areas, free is a visible cost, but it does not affect the continued use of free activities.

For example: When shared bicycles experienced explosive growth in 2017, OFO , Mobike and other shared bicycles were competing for market share. As shared bicycles are asset-intensive products, coupled with the daily wear and tear and depreciation of bicycles, the costs for companies are still quite high.

But after the strong entry of capital, riding OFO and Mobike is basically free for users. Every time we hold an event, we give users free monthly cards or free orders. Relying on such measures, OFO and Mobike have basically established themselves in first-tier cities, leaving other shared bicycles behind.

The temptation of free things is so amazing that there was even an industry chain of "1 yuan treasure hunt" that was born for a while.

Free methods are still being used in various products, such as: newbie benefits, free first order, 0 handling fee for the first loan, no handling fee for the first transaction, etc. On the other hand, the opposite of free is doubling the interest on novice deposits, which is actually also a free operation method.

The traffic brought by free is amazing, but it is not applicable to all products. So what activities are suitable? The closer the cost of the product itself is to zero, the more suitable it is for free activities.

2. Discounts are a common tactic used to promote many products

Discounts are the most common promotional method in the commodity market. Whether it is offline shopping malls, supermarkets or online Taobao and JD.com , there are discounts every day of the year 365.

Discount means there is an original price. For example, if the tag price of a piece of clothing is 129 yuan, the suggested retail price is usually 129 yuan. When actually selling, the merchant will say that the new product is on the market at 15% off and the selling price is 110 yuan. Users often feel that they are getting a good deal, but in reality the winner is still the merchant, not the user.

Giving a suggested retail price is an "anchoring effect", which makes users preconceived notions about price and think that the price of a certain piece of clothing is 129 yuan.

(Photo: discounted products)

There are also many such activities in Internet products. Especially during holidays, there are limited-time flash sales, fixed-point purchases, etc.; there are also discount coupons given by merchants on social products based on geographic location; and activity strategies where users spend once at the original price and the second purchase at half price.

It is particularly noteworthy that discounts for a product should often be given with caution, especially for branded goods. The reason is that discounts damage the brand's tone and also hurt other hardcore fans who subscribed at the original price.

For discounts, existing products often use free coupons or discount coupons to act as a discount effect.

3. Full discount is a combination sale

In "bundled sales", discounts on purchases over a certain amount are the most common form of activity.

When placing an order at Tmall Supermarket, the system will often tell you that if you add a certain amount of money to get free shipping, and if you buy a certain amount more, you can save a certain amount of money. This kind of suggestion often makes users feel that Tmall Supermarket is saving them money.

When ordering takeout on Meituan , discounts of 25-20 yuan for orders over a certain amount or 20 yuan for orders over 40 yuan have become the norm. The Meituan takeout system will also give users tips on how much they can get off if they buy a certain amount.

(Photo: Meituan Waimai)

In addition to the e-commerce and O2O industries, there will also be discount activities for various products such as paying for membership on videos and renewing paid software.

Price reduction is one of the ways, and another is quantity reduction, for example: if the number of users join together to get a certain discount, Juhuasuan provides a lower purchase price for group purchases.

4. The biggest power of cashback is distribution

In the history of sales, there is a kind of sales called distribution. Distribution can produce a fission effect, and distribution uses cash back as a medium of communication.

After user A makes a purchase, user A can get X% cashback. If the activity rules also allow user A to share with user B, after user B makes a purchase, not only will the cashback be given to user B, but user A can also get a certain percentage of the cashback after user B's purchase, which can produce a huge communication effect.

Of course, any refund beyond level 2 is now illegal in China.

(Figure: Distribution form, source: Internet)

"Cashback" activities are not limited to the form of distribution. There are also rewards for inviting friends, cash or points for promoting products, and more privileges for continuous consumption and transactions. These are all forms of cashback for user consumption behavior.

Of course, there are more traditional activities than just the four types mentioned above. There are many other ways of playing activities, which are performed very well by event marketers and the effects produced are also very good.

These activities can be carried out step by step to produce satisfactory results in the established activities; and if the execution of the activities is good enough, it is possible to have results that exceed expectations.

2. Creative activities, mainly sharing

If conventional activities fail to attract users, there are more creative activities worth exploring.

Creative activities often require longer preparation time than regular activities, and in terms of direct conversion effects, they are not necessarily better than traditional activities. However, these activities can have their own unique influence in other aspects, such as: activity exposure .

Creative activities on the Internet are mainly manifested in new forms. New forms bring new experiences. Curiosity drives users to watch and participate. Because it is fun, users are also willing to share.

1. New forms of activities

In 2017, Pechoin flooded the WeChat Moments with long text and pictures, which were eventually spread by hundreds of public accounts and received over 100 million views. Pechoin, a national time-honored brand of skin care products, has been introduced to tens of millions of people born in the 1990s. If it hadn't been for this screen-sweeping event, Pechoin would probably have been just a skin care brand in the memories of people born in the 1970s and 1980s.

With such a huge amount of traffic, is the conversion rate of these Pechoin products also very high?

In fact, according to statistics, the conversion rate of Pechoin products in these activities is very low, which is really not as good as a regular activity. However, Pechoin's appearance in such a creative form did not prevent the event from being positioned as a very successful one.

Official accounts have had pictures and texts for a long time, but Pechoin’s creative pictures and texts with the theme of “long narrative, shot from beginning to end” are a new species, relying on creative content + matrix communication to trigger such an event.

There is also the "NetEase Drama Queen" knowledge-based paid course activity that has been all over the screen with its posters. The poster promotion not only has endorsements from big names, but also distribution rewards.

"NetEase's 2018 New Year's Course: 4 star product line operation managers personally teach NetEase's internal operation SOP" + "Original price 199 yuan, current price 39.9, first-level distribution 60% profit, second-level distribution 30% profit". In this way, the "NetEase Drama Queen" poster achieved the effect of more than 100,000 paid views in just over a dozen hours, generated tens of millions of exposures, and became a landmark event in event marketing in 2018.

(Photo: Netease Drama Poster)

There are many new forms of activities that rely on creative graphics and posters. For example, H5, which was very popular in the past few years, brought in large amounts of traffic because of some changes in the new forms.

These activities are often more suitable for sharing, with the number of dissemination and exposure as the activity goals.

2. Cross-border activities

There is another type of activity that is not limited to new forms, but also plays new tricks in cross-border areas, which also achieves good results.

" Honor of Kings " is a national-level event. In May this year, it teamed up with McDonald's to launch the "55 Black Festival". McDonald's has customized themed meals for Honor of Kings, including Big Macs, French fries, drinks, etc. Honor of Kings provides users with McDonald’s coupons for players to spend in McDonald’s physical stores.

(Photo: "Honor of Kings" & McDonald's)

Games and fast-moving consumer goods are industries that have nothing to do with each other, but after one event, they can achieve a win-win marketing situation.

Other cross-border marketing activities include the joint operation between NetEase Cloud Music and Atour Hotel, the movie " Despicable Me 3 " and OFO small yellow car, etc. These are all very successful cross-border activities.

Creative activities can give users different experiences and make them happy to participate and share. This will definitely be a trend. Creativity is not limited to these. Short videos spread through social tools are also very creative ways of activities.

3. Activities on new technologies and new platforms should have new ways of playing

Changes in new technologies will change the way activities interact with users and the way they are disseminated. For example, mature H5 technology has generated many interesting activities. There are also new platforms, such as WeChat mini-programs , which feed super platforms such as Pinduoduo.

1. New Technology

In September, Starbucks took the WeChat Moments by storm with the H5 campaign titled “Hello World, Yunnan is Here.” The campaign focused on the entire growth process from a coffee sapling to a cup of coffee, conveying China’s Yunnan coffee bean culture to the world.

Such a simple activity, supported by new technologies, attracted millions of users to participate.

It is this H5 interactive technology that brings users a brand new user experience and also provides new ways of playing in event marketing.

If H5 technology is not new enough, then the guessing game launched by Google in its mini program is an activity that combines the current cutting-edge technology of artificial intelligence and the new platform mini program. Users draw corresponding graphics based on keyword prompts, and Google's artificial intelligence will infer what the user is drawing based on what the user draws and will also give suggestions.

This interesting form of interaction is a bit like the game "You Draw, I Guess" played between friends, except that this time the object guessing the user's drawing is artificial intelligence, not the user's friends.

(Picture: Guess the Picture Song)

With the help of new technologies, the activities we launch can often achieve twice the result with half the effort.

2. New Platform

The Internet, whose demographic dividend is gradually disappearing, is facing a situation where traffic is becoming increasingly expensive. For newly launched mini programs, this type of traffic is much cheaper than from search engines and app stores .

Not only that, this emerging platform also created the super unicorn company Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo, which relied on the group buying and fission of WeChat and mini programs, was finally listed on the US stock market.

Users can initiate a group purchase for a certain product on Pinduoduo, invite friends to accept the purchase or bargain. After a certain number of friends accept the invitation, the product can be purchased at a lower price. During the bargaining process, users can even get the item for free.

This model has triggered large-scale participation from friends. In just two or three years, Pinduoduo's GMV has reached a level that has forced its "predecessors" Taobao and JD.com to keep up. Among them, there are many single products in Pinduoduo with sales exceeding one million.

Pinduoduo has developed by relying on the natural social relationships among acquaintances such as WeChat mini-programs. Its user group has a high degree of overlap with Taobao. Users already have Taobao, but they still accept Pinduoduo. This is because the new platform brings new dividends. Group buying and bargaining activities are more attractive.

IV. Summary

In product activities, there should be both conventional activities and creative activities. It is also best to pay attention to the latest technological changes and the rise of new platforms. These methods can make an event achieve better results.

When these activity modes are combined together, they can also increase traffic, improve conversions and reduce costs. Explore more ways to play activities that bring your own traffic, but don’t stop here, welcome to participate.

Source: Fengshan Kaidao