Detailed introduction to activity operation (I): Preliminary preparation for the activity

In the next few articles, I will introduce to you what is involved in event operations , based on a UGC event that has been iterated for 7 consecutive months and 7 rounds. This article is suitable for operators with 1 to 3 years of experience , who want to look at event operations from a more global perspective.

Activity operation flow chart:

In theory, the above is the basic process of activities. Just looking at this, you may still have no corresponding concept of what you really need to do and what you will encounter when operating an event. See the analysis below.

Event Operation: Preliminary Preparation for the Event

For an operation-intensive activity, if it is large in scale and there is no relevant activity template in the early stage, a lot of time will be required in the early stage to build modules, prepare materials, and communicate across departments.

As shown in the following figure:

This diagram divides the preliminary preparations for event operation into:

1. Activity product line (online activity page and background production)
2. Operation line (specifically refers to the operation after the activity goes online)
3. Promotion line (exposure and communication preparation of the event)

Next, we will give a detailed introduction to what needs to be done in these three aspects of operations. At the same time, it should be noted that in actual work, these lines are carried out almost simultaneously, and most of the work needs to be completed before the activity goes online.

In addition, this diagram only shows what needs to be done after the activity goals are confirmed and approved by the boss. That is, the real positioning should be: confirming the activity objectives and the activities to be implemented, and their preliminary preparations are detailed.

(The omitted steps are: make an activity proposal, specify the activity background, gameplay, budget, effect, support from various departments and risks, etc., make it into a PPT, ask the superior to review it and ask the boss to approve it and get the money. After the boss agrees, the activity rules can be detailed and ready for implementation)

1.1 Product Line

Background: For an online activity, the most basic functional requirement is definitely a user acceptance page. Then, depending on the needs and complexity of the activity, it is also necessary to add corresponding operation background, user information extraction and display functions, etc.

Mental vaccination: R&D support may not necessarily be able to produce and meet the smoothest user experience process, and the level of support and cooperation from other departments may not be able to meet the needs of event operations, which may come at the cost of increased operating costs. Keep expecting to optimize the activity, and be aware that this optimization may have to be achieved gradually rather than all at once, so that you will not be discouraged when encountering obstacles during the activity.

1.1.1 Confirm product requirements

By clarifying the activity goals, detailed activity rules and user participation processes, basic product requirements can be derived. Combined with support and feedback from other departments, the first phase of product requirements can be basically finalized (but it does not mean that they will be truly realized).

[Support from other departments] The level of support from other departments will also affect product demand to a certain extent. Therefore, before (or at the same time) making relevant demands, you must try out the process yourself, and then sort out the support work of other departments (usually the Finance Department) that will be involved in this process, and find the corresponding department as soon as possible to discuss how to implement it. Then, based on the simplest participation process, output product requirements.

example:

When doing a UGC activity, since we need to give rewards to users, we hope that the steps and experience for users can be as simple as possible, and this involves finance.

Finance provides two ways for us to distribute bonuses:

1. Cash awards (follow the activity fund loan process);
2. Funds are transferred to the user account.

The first method involves a lot of manual actions such as operational inventory and awarding of prizes. The second method is simpler for both users and operations, but it requires an open financial process, and the relevant data of the financial system and the activity system need to be connected, and product development support is required.

We went through the process from method 1 to method 2. This push lasted for 4 to 5 months, like leveraging finances little by little to find ways to provide users with a simpler participation and winning experience. At the same time, the corresponding product functions are also iteratively adjusted bit by bit.

Product Involvement:

With the involvement of the product, what the operation has to do may be relatively simple. Just sort out what you need and hand it over to the product to draw a prototype. Communicate well during the process and make sure that the product perfectly displays and optimizes the operation needs. At the same time, a good product manager will help operations to optimize the user experience of the activity prototype within the executable range, and will also help operations communicate with various support departments to help realize related functions.

It should be noted that the product will have an internal demand meeting. Usually, when resources are limited, some product features of the activity may be cut after the internal demand meeting. Therefore, the premise here is to communicate clearly with the product and prioritize the features of the activity prototype product.

Thought vaccination: Demand will be cut, and it may also be presented in the form of a discount, so just keep pushing for continuous optimization. Being able to clearly articulate the priorities and benefits of needs is a prerequisite for realizing them more quickly.

1.1.2 Output the copy that needs to be filled in the product prototype

As mentioned above, the participation of products will save operations a lot of trouble and work. They will draw product prototypes, show the structure of the activity and interactive requirements, but other page copywriting needs to be provided by operations.

The general process is: implement product requirements - operations provide copywriting ( titles , rules, button copywriting, interactive copywriting, etc.) - design (page design) and technology (operation background production) production.

What are the copywritings: There are really a lot of copywritings.

• Page copy (main and subtitles, activity flow, activity rules, reward standards, button copy, etc.)
• Contact message copy (generally refers to the text message received by the user after registration, the text message received by the user after winning the award, etc., which are off-site prompt content generated based on a certain action of the user)
• Interactive copy, etc. (probably such as: pop-up reminders or next action guidance given after the user makes any expected interactive actions. For example, if the submission is successful, it may say "Congratulations on your successful submission", "Feedback will be given within XX working days", "Add XX WeChat to learn about the progress", etc.)
• Product copy (for example, on the background page, the information header that needs to be recorded, or information status judgment items, etc.)
• other……

In addition, some copywriting is to be handed over to the designer to be put into the picture, and some copywriting is to be adapted by the R&D department. Make adaptive copywriting, for example: a scrolling copy saying, "XX user won XX yuan" of this type. Whether the copy is displayed directly on the page or adapted depends on operational needs.

Example: All the text in the picture below is copywriting that needs to be provided by the operation, and the product only provides the structure and layout.

1.1.3 Follow-up and communication on event product design and development

In terms of event product lines, it is usually much easier if there is a product manager following up, but that doesn’t mean you can just ignore the operations. Because operations are the demand side of activities, their design and development requirements for activities are much clearer than those for products.

Design follow-up: If you want the event to be carried out with less effort and worry, when submitting the event design requirements, in addition to the product prototype provided by the product side, it would be best for the operation side to be able to find the expected style materials as a design reference .

The ideal process for communicating with design should be:

• Operation and design confirm the design style specifications of the design company;
• Operators search relevant websites for several design samples that match the activity style and the company's design specifications for design reference;
• After the design is done with the general style, communicate with the operation department in time;
• After confirming the style and elements are ok, the design is completed.

Now many inexperienced people follow the following process:

• After the operation puts forward the requirements, the designer designs the activity page for the activity based on the product prototype and activity theme;
• Design and complete basic page design and communicate with operations;
• If the operation thinks that the design style is quite different from what was imagined, it is necessary to communicate again to adjust the style;
• Design modification and continuous communication;
• Due to time constraints, the design cannot be adjusted on a large scale and is only finalized preliminarily.

Although there are cases where the designer is lucky enough to design the page that the operator wants, this situation requires too much tacit understanding between the designer and the operator. Therefore, in order to reduce back-and-forth communication, it is best to provide style references at the same time when giving design requirements.
(When doing this UGC activity, the operation team had an afternoon meeting with the design team to discuss the presentation of the header image. That afternoon, the operation team learned how specific and strict the design team was in terms of the design style and elements of the company's activity image.)

Development: The issues that operations and development usually communicate are basically to confirm the implementation of a certain function, and the complexity here is related to the background data of the product.
What I often encounter is that the developer asks: Are you going to implement XXX function here? If yes, please give me all the data definitions of its design.

example:

In order to achieve a certain operational purpose, a conceptual requirement was proposed to read the completion information of the order so that the operation can determine whether the order is eligible to participate in the activity. When this requirement reaches the development department, it should be translated into: read the background order status, where A, B, and C are defined as completed orders, D, E, and F are defined as incomplete orders, and G and H are defined as unknown. After reading, "Completed/Unfinished/Unknown" will be displayed in the activity background.

It is possible that when many functions are requested, operations and product managers are not aware of the complexity of the data involved. When R&D is actually implemented, this problem will be discovered and further implementation will be required from operations.

1.1.4 Pre-launch testing

Before going online, the operator should experience the activity once in a test environment according to the user participation process and operation logic. Although there are tests to help detect bugs, operations can detect whether there are bugs in the activity process logic (not consistent with expectations).

The above are the work issues related to product lines.

During the operation process, you will find that it does not take much time to raise demands, but more time may be spent on communication. Communication time with product managers is essential. The more product managers understand the needs of the activity, the more they can create a product prototype that meets operational expectations.

As for communication with design and development, operations can understand the thinking logic of design and development during each communication process, and try to follow their logic when raising requirements, which will reduce communication time.

1.2 Operation Line

The more preparation you do, the fewer problems you will have after the launch (of course, there will be problems, after all, it is impossible for ordinary people to exhaust all troublesome situations.)

Things you may want to consider:

• User inquiries about activities
• Procurement of prizes to be distributed after the event

example:

User inquiries about the event: Taking this UGC event as an example, since writing long UGC content is somewhat difficult, it requires operations intervention, guidance and encouragement, so it definitely involves a lot of communication. In the activity process, we confirmed the need to add users’ WeChat to ensure effective communication, so it is necessary to have an essential conversation with users.

Usually 80% of the questions and difficulties generated by users are similar. For this type of problem, we can predict the FAQ and organize the corresponding scripts so that we can deal with it more calmly after the activity goes online. If you encounter operations or content that is more complicated to understand, you can use pictures and text to increase readability.
In the past, the rule description we gave to users was a long paragraph of text on WeChat. Users were obviously not good at interpreting long paragraphs of text and would ask many questions again and again. However, after turning this complex text into pictures and text, the situation was improved a lot.

example:

Regarding the purchase of prizes distributed after the event: If the prize is a user side activity (to promote the main activity), then it is necessary to clarify the remaining prize quantity, application process and other details with the relevant department of prize management.

We once had a prize which was a stuffed doll. We had 20 of them left in stock, and people from four major departments might apply for them at the same time. It takes two weeks from the production to the arrival of the stuffed doll. If you want to apply for purchase, you need to go through the process and report it layer by layer. The entire application process takes at least two days.

Therefore, if you do not understand this information well in advance and rashly promise to give users some prizes, you may end up being caught out when the time comes to actually redeem the prize.

1.3 Promotion Line

Once an activity is launched, it must be promoted so that users will know about and participate. Different activity purposes require different promotional resources, different promotional resources have different traffic , and the materials that need to be provided are also different.

Generally, apps have flash (what you see when you open the app) and banner (some carousel banner ads). The flash frequency can be seen as soon as the app is opened, and the number of views and clicks is very high. The banner also has different click volumes depending on the page and location. So when we do an event, do we need a banner or a flash, or both?

• Depends on the purpose (Do I need such a large exposure/Do I have the ability and budget to undertake so many users?)
• Look at the function (my activity needs to be exposed to a specific type of users in a specific city at a specific time. Can these resources/ channels do this?)
• Look at the ranking (are these resource slots ranked?)

1.3.1 Sort out available promotional positions

Generally, promotional positions can be divided into internal and external. For an activity within a site, internal promotional positions may be sufficient. If external promotional positions are involved, they are usually related to the purpose of attracting new customers .

• Internally, there may be: various self-operated media (WeChat, Weibo, Douyin , Alipay Life Account , etc.), product resource positions (banners, flash, feed streams, push , etc.), EDM, and SMS;
• External promotion space: external resource cooperation (other online and offline advertising space ).

example:

This ongoing UGC activity has unearthed a lot of resource positions in the process of continuous iteration.

• Resource positions already in operation: flash, banner, and graded page banner. Especially for banner and graded page banner, we have booked fixed positions every month with the corresponding responsible departments in the later stage.
• Newly added resource locations: trigger type (push activity after user places order, push activity after user completes order), fixed location type (specific category in the menu bar, new button added to user order page).

ps: The mining logic for new resource positions is to bury exposure activity points in appropriate places based on the user's usage process and logic. Of course, the prerequisite for doing so is to have production and research support.

1.3.2 Arrange resource requirements with relevant departments according to the promotion rhythm of the activity

Some resource positions cannot be occupied for a long time, so the online time of the resource positions must be arranged according to the rhythm of the activity, such as: banners, flashes, pop-ups, etc.

Some resources may be able to be published for a long time, but the content needs to be changed frequently, such as social media such as Weibo and Tik Tok. In addition, emails, text messages, push, and WeChat tweets can also be considered as sub-types, but the frequency needs to be controlled within the range recommended by the department.

1.3.3 Determine resource requirements and submit requests to design, technology and other departments

Different resource positions require different materials (pictures, texts, etc.), and pictures require designer assistance in production. Some resource locations may require front-end image cutting, such as "pictures" with interactive effects in emails.

1.3.4 Output the corresponding copy required by the relevant resources

For example, Weibo: In different activity cycles (early, middle, and late), the copywriting required is different. You can think about the copywriting structure for different cycles in advance.

For example, tweets: The copy required for different positions is also different. For example, if you use a separate tweet to promote an event, or add a small part of the event introduction under a daily tweet, the copy will be different.

Therefore, the more and richer the promotion locations and rhythms are, the more copywriting the operation needs to output.

ps: Promotion also requires strong communication and strong output. When you are not familiar with the promotion position for the first event, try to arrange more time to follow up.

At this point, the preliminary preparations for the event are basically complete.

Final Thoughts

The above are just things to do in the early stages of the event. There will also be things to do after the event goes online, what to do after the first phase of the event ends, and so on. Please stay tuned.

In addition, it should be reminded that all the above descriptions are based on personal experience. Different companies, different activity purposes and R&D support will have different experiences and problems, so the above is for reference only. At the same time, friends are also welcome to discuss~~~