For event operation routines, just read this article!

Event Operations

1. Understanding Event Operations

Activity operation summary mind map

1. Definition of activity operation

An operational means of quickly improving relevant indicators in a short period of time by organizing activities.

Short term: Activities carried out over a short period of time.

Fast: Use simple and direct methods to achieve results in a shorter time.

Improve indicators: With clear objectives, improve the corresponding indicators of activities and achieve KPIs.

2. The value of event operation

a. Attract user attention

b. Driving user participation

c. Strengthen user awareness

3. Four core elements of activity operation

1) Event design and cost budget

a. First see if you can take advantage of the situation, then see if you can leverage the power. Activities that can leverage momentum can be conducted through raffles, and activities that can leverage power can share costs through cooperation.

b. If you have no power or strength, use data to convince your boss to either lower the activity expectations or increase the activity budget.

c. If you can’t convince your boss, do your best to design an attractive event.

Activity Operation Risk

2) Activity risk control and emergency response plan.

Operational level solutions

a. Therefore, after the planning of internal and external activities is completed, the person in charge of the activity will issue a detailed requirement definition document. After the review is passed, all developers and testers involved in the activity will communicate together to let everyone know the launch time of the activity and confirm it by email.

b. All documents, interactions, and designs must be summarized using redmine tools , and all relevant personnel must be notified when any updates occur.

c. In the event planning stage, several basic issues need to be considered:

Are there any loopholes in the design of the activity; whether the activity affects the experience of ordinary users; whether the reward setting is reasonable; how to control the operation rhythm; how to monitor the operation effect.

d. After confirming the requirements and schedule with developers and testers, you need to organize FAQs and customer service event templates

e. Prepare emergency plans and what means or methods can be used in case of extreme cases or abnormal data fluctuations.

Activity Risk

Systemic Risk

Risk Strategy

3) Activity data monitoring and corresponding strategies

First, do not monitor data that has no value, focus on core data, and ignore non-core data

Secondly, although core data is important, it does not mean that achieving data monitoring goals is the core of event operations. The essence of event operations is to drive indicators in the short term.

4) Determination and summary of activity effects

Activity effect evaluation

4. Type of activity:

a. Subsidy activities, such as the red envelopes issued by Didi Chuxing and Meituan Waimai .

b. Topic activities, such as Keep’s “I want to be on the headlines”, Weibo’s “Travel with Weibo” and other topic activities.

c. Activities with prizes, such as the film review activity for Kung Fu Panda 3 and lucky draw activities in Baidu Tieba .

d. Game activities, such as Alipay’s “collect photos and get cash” activity.

5. Purpose of the activity:

a. Attract new users, activate and start new users.

b. Promote activity, such as increasing the number of visits and increasing the number of UGC releases.

c. Sales promotion, such as increasing the number of orders for a certain product or category of product.

d. Brand maintenance, such as increasing brand awareness and brand recognition.

6. Entry requirements can also be differentiated:

a. Scenarios that meet user needs, such as Didi Chuxing’s Spring Festival carpooling service.

b. Hot topics that users are paying attention to, such as “Help Wang Feng get on the headlines” on Weibo.

c. Users’ profit-seeking mentality, such as the “full-discount promotion” on e-commerce websites.

2. How to use activity operations

1. Complete activity operation steps

Planning -> Development -> Testing -> Promotion -> Launch -> Index Monitoring -> Reward Distribution -> Effect Pre-evaluation

a. Planning: The design stage of an activity will clearly define the activity time, target, method, goal and budget, etc.

b. Development: The activity requires designers to design the interface and developers to implement the functions.

c. Testing: After an activity is developed, it is necessary to test and confirm whether the functions are available and easy to use.

d. Promotion: Find available channels to reach users and coordinate resources to carry out activities. This phase is carried out almost simultaneously with development and testing, and is used as a warm-up before going online.

e. Go online: Finally, the time to go online comes and the activity will be displayed online, allowing users to participate in the activity.

f. Indicator monitoring: After the activity goes online, it is necessary to test the corresponding indicators and make appropriate adjustments based on the problems reflected by the indicators.

g. Reward distribution: After the event ends, rewards will be distributed to users who meet the reward conditions.

h. Effect evaluation: After the activity is over, evaluate the effect of the activity and summarize the experience and lessons learned for reference for the next activity.

2. How to plan an event

1) Time Node

Time constraints are the most common reason for planning an event. There are many types of time nodes:

a.Holidays: statutory holidays and non-statutory holidays.

b. Seasonal changes: seasonal changes in traditional businesses.

c. Anniversary and this day in history: Anniversary celebrations

2) Planning based on the product or commodity itself

This practice is quite common in the e-commerce and online gaming sectors. Online games’ “service launch discount activities” and “battlefield ranking activities”, e-commerce’s “TV Festival” and “Refrigerator Festival”.

This type of activity requires operators to have sufficient understanding of the product or merchandise, and to be able to organize and guide consumers based on their greatest interest.

3) Hot topics, including social hot topics, entertainment hot topics, and life hot topics

You need to understand what the recent hot topics are, why people pay attention to them, and how they can be used. For example, the World Cup . Many activities can be organized in conjunction with the hot topics of the World Cup, such as guessing, lottery, quizzes, etc.

4) Homemade hotspot

Operators can choose to create their own hot spots by being good at utilizing current hot spots or marketing media. For example, JD.com ’s 618 and Tmall’s Double 11 .

5) Design guidelines for activity rules

The program is simple and requires less thinking, and the copy is clear and unambiguous.

6) How to write an event plan

a. Event theme: This is a part of the event copy that allows users to understand the theme of the event and whether it is attractive to them.

b. Target audience of the activity: Clarify the target group of the activity so that users can understand it, you can grasp it, and leaders can recognize it.

c.Activity time: the start time, end time, reward distribution time and collection time of the activity.

d. Event description: This is a part of the event copy that allows users to understand whether and how to participate after reading it.

e. Rule details: Part of the activity copy is for users to understand and for developers to understand. Part of it is displayed to users on the front end, and part of it is for developers to guide how to implement it.

f. Distribution channels: Let the marketing staff or you understand it. There should be distribution time, distribution channel selection, and budget.

g. Risk monitoring: Let developers understand what your risk links are and whether there are corresponding measures to solve them.

h. Monitoring indicators: covering most relevant indicators, including monitoring of delivery channels, user participation, and reward distribution.

i. Cost estimate: How much does an activity cost and what is the cost per person.

j. Effect evaluation: Which indicators of the website are helpful to your activity objectives and how to reflect them.

k. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): This is another document that can be provided to customer service or related personnel to help solve problems encountered by users when participating in the event.

The purpose of event planning is to make the event well-reasoned. The reasons for doing the event, the cost of operating the event, and the expected benefits after going online must all be reflected in the event planning.

What a campaign performance report typically includes

a. Activity Overview: Briefly summarize the activity theme, target, time, and content.

b. Activity effect statistics: describe the activity effect after the activity ends.

c. Promotional effect statistics: statistics on the effect of each distribution channel, and master the relevant data on traffic and conversion rate brought by each channel.

d. Reflection and summary: What experiences and lessons have been learned from the activity and publicity effects, and how adjustments and improvements should be made next time.

3.Activity operation steps

The first step is to determine the purpose of the activity

Step 2: Determine the activity goals and time

Step 3: Plan the event format

There are several key points in choosing the form of activity:

a. Relaxed and fun

b.Easy to operate

c. The rules are easy to understand

d. Highlight user benefits

e. Visual progress indicator

Step 4: Follow up on design, development and launch

Operations personnel need to follow up every aspect of the event, including product requirements, UI design, RD development and launch, as well as resource application, external cooperation, user feedback and other aspects.

Step 5: Promotion resources are ready

Operations personnel need to prepare promotion channels before the event goes online, including online scheduling, material design and data monitoring. Promotional resources are divided into on-site channels and off-site channels .

Step 6: Prepare risk control and alternative plans

Risks can be roughly divided into the following categories:

a. In terms of technology, the launch time is delayed or bugs occur after the launch.

b. In terms of promotion, resources were not in place on time or did not meet expectations.

c. From the user perspective, the main selling point of the activity did not reference user interests.

d. External environment: other sudden hot spots distract users’ attention.

e. In terms of law, there are illegal acts, such as pornographic content and infringement.

f. Cheating loopholes: users find loopholes in the rules, and activities are faked or flooded with transactions, etc.

Step 7: Pre-launch event warm-up

The most typical warm-up case : Didi Chuxing brand upgrade event

a. Release a promotional image with the words "Goodbye Didi Taxi " to arouse users' speculation.

b. Publicizing that something big is going to happen, which leads to speculation among users.

c. Start the countdown closer to the announcement date.

d. Embed this information into Didi red envelope.

e. Officially change the name and release an official notice.

f. Launch the “Pin D Contest” on Weibo and other platforms.

Step 8: Keep an eye on the progress of the event after going online

After the activity is launched, the main responsibilities of the operators shift to monitoring the results, paying attention to whether the activity data trends and user feedback are in line with expectations.

When monitoring the progress of an activity, operators also need to collect valuable information, such as:

a. The activity process or experience can be optimized;

b. Record the peaks and troughs of data

c. Collect user feedback and discussions

d. Materials with potential for dissemination that appear in the event

Step 9: Announce the results of the activity

Please note the following when publishing the results of an event:

a. Inform all audiences of the activity of the results

b. Provide users with feedback channels

c. Try to be completely transparent and fair

Step 10: Activity summary

The activity summary is first written for yourself, and it is a review of the work during this period. Secondly, the significance of the activity summary is to summarize the activity itself, continue to promote the good aspects, and avoid the bad aspects in the future. Finally, the activity summary is also for reporting to superiors and sharing with colleagues.

Elements that need to be included in the activity summary:

a. Background

b. Goals

c. Effect

d. Analysis

e. Specific measures

f. Lessons Learned

g. Follow-up plan

4. What to do after completing the activity design

1) Coordinate resources

How to coordinate resources:

First of all, is it very important to sort out the related indicators of this activity?

Then, determine whether the achievement of the associated indicators of this activity is very urgent

If the answer to the above is yes, you can arm wrestle with partners who occupy development resources

If the answer is no, ask yourself whether you need this activity.

2) Activity Development

It is necessary to communicate with development colleagues in advance to avoid unnecessary trouble by re-examining requirements after resources are ready.

3) Testing

4) Write a solid activity summary

First, the so-called evaluation of the effectiveness of an activity is by no means as simple as writing an activity report after the activity.

Second, the purpose of effect evaluation is more to draw experience and lessons from the first event, which will help improve the effectiveness of future event operations.

Format and content of activity summary

There is no fixed format for activity summaries. You can use Word documents, PPT or Excel, or even mind maps.

The content includes: activity time, activity content, activity effect, and lessons learned.

The key and core of activity summary

The most critical and core part of any activity summary is your judgment of the activity’s effectiveness and summary of lessons learned: make bold assumptions and actively reproduce them.

5) Two principles for determining the effectiveness of an activity

a. Cost measurement principle: The so-called cost measurement principle refers to designing a total cost, per capita cost and activity target value during the activity design phase. After the activity is completed, assessing whether the cost is within the expected cost.

The expectation of the cost measurement principle is to control the total cost of the activity within the total budgeted cost without over-budgeting, and at the same time, the cost of a single indicator is as low as possible.

b. KPI achievement principle: This means that during the activity design phase, although the total cost and per capita cost are proposed, the activity target value is also proposed. After the activity is over, an assessment is conducted to determine whether the activity’s KPI has been achieved.

The expectation of KPI achievement principle is to offset the negative impact of improper cost control with results exceeding expectations.

5. Treat event planning with a systematic perspective

1) There are roughly the following types of activities:

a. Lucky draw activities

b. Red envelope activities

c. Collection activities

d. Rebate activities

e. Guessing activities

2) Purpose of the activity:

a. Purposes related to promoting user behaviors : registration, activity, payment or conversion , and other user behaviors that need to be improved in the short term.

b. The purpose of promoting website-related indicators: frequency of function usage, average order value per e-commerce customer, conversion rate, amount of community UGC, etc.

6. System reuse

1) Definition: A system can be used in multiple scenarios. For operations, one system can support multiple activity operation modes without the need for development.

2) Why do we need “system reuse”? It can help save development resources, shorten testing time, and quickly complete the launch.

3) What kind of systems can be reused: Systems with the following characteristics can be reused

a. Extensible, the system itself is highly open and can be compatible with multiple product design solutions;

b. Configurable, adjusting the configuration can produce various effects

c. Universal. The system has core functions and extended functions. The less targeted the core functions are, the higher the reusability is.

7. Periodic Activities

a. Check-in function

b. User promotion plan

8. Internal and joint activities

a. Internal activities: Activity operators are the drivers and demanders of activities. Operators have great authority and can decide what activities to do, how to implement them, apply for activity budgets, maintain the entire activity process, and implement the activities.

b. Joint activities: Activity operators are the mediators, undertakers and collaborators of activity needs.

Joint activities must clearly define the party from which the resources you need will be transferred, which requires accurate demand confirmation.