How does an e-commerce newbie plan a Chinese Valentine’s Day promotion from 0 to 1?

Suppose you are currently working for an e-commerce platform mainly focusing on skin care/beauty, and you have received a task to "increase sales to 10 million on the Chinese Valentine's Day." This article will use this as a case to teach you how to do e-commerce activities from 0 to 1.

Every time when words like Valentine's Day , 520, 618 , Chinese Valentine's Day, Double 11, Christmas , etc. are mentioned, e-commerce operators will grit their teeth and say that they are going to have another big promotion. Recently, it is the eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, and all e-commerce operators are scratching their heads to think of ways to play and activities to empty users' pockets.

Suppose you are currently working for an e-commerce platform mainly focusing on skin care/beauty, and you have received a task to "increase sales to 10 million on the Chinese Valentine's Day." This article will use this as a case to teach you how to do e-commerce activities from 0 to 1.

1. After getting the target, how to start?

First of all, when you see the sales target of 10 million, you who have just started to get involved in e-commerce will feel at a loss and don’t know what to do to achieve the goal. If you rashly plan an event under this state, you will find many problems during the implementation process. So the first thing you need to do is break down your goals and understand the components of sales (GMV).

From the above figure, we can see that GMV is closely related to UV (unique visitors), payment conversion rate and average order value. First, let's explain what each noun means:

①UV (Uniquevisitor): the number of unique visitors, which refers to the natural person who visits and browses this webpage/APP through the Internet ;

②Paid conversion rate: the proportion of visitors converted into paying users , that is, paid conversion rate

③ Average order value: the average amount of goods purchased by each user, that is, the average transaction amount

After understanding the meaning of each noun, you will realize that improving GMV should actually be divided into three modules: increasing UV, improving payment conversion rate, and increasing average order value. So how should we start with each aspect? Here are some ideas:

1. How to add UV

Chinese Valentine’s Day is China’s Valentine’s Day. Most couples like to go out to celebrate the festival, and boys usually give gifts to girls. So what should an e-commerce company focusing on skin care/beauty do?

① Channel placement : Carry out promotional activities through different channels inside and outside the platform to increase the influence of the activities. The content of the placement is mainly to teach boys what Chinese Valentine's Day gifts to give to guide them to enter the platform. The specific placement channels are as follows:

Own traffic channels (Weibo, public accounts , social networks , own apps, staff friends circle ...),

Platform traffic channels ( social media , community products, live broadcast platforms , video platforms, self-media platforms , audio platforms...),

Paid online traffic ( Guangdiantong , Fanstong , KOL , App Market , Points Wall , etc.),

Paid offline channels (print advertising, mobile advertising , celebrity endorsements, etc.);

If you still don’t know how to do it, you can check how JD.com’s 618 and Tmall’s Double 11 were launched in the early stages.

For example, during the 618 event that just passed, JD.com did some of the following eye-catching things:

• Invited Jin Zhiwen to create a 618 theme song;
• Launched the "618 Nostalgia" video;
• Several digital advertisements were shot to reinforce the concept of "618";
• Cooperate with "Happy Comedians" to create multiple humorous short films to promote promotional information;
• Plan a massive coupon distribution event for nine "consumption gods", called "Super God Coupon Day";
• United Golden Investment Awards launched the "Trust is Gold - Brand Creative Proposition Competition" on Weibo;
• Joined N brands to launch the "Like Style" topic on Weibo;
• Launched 6 major rankings and 30 small rankings to recommend good products to consumers;
• On the night before 618, huge “618” advertisements were lit up on landmark buildings in major cities across the country
• …

Of course, most platforms do not have such capabilities, so they need to make adjustments based on the attributes and budget of their own brands. As far as skin care/beauty products are concerned, they can promote them through methods such as investing in internet celebrities and bloggers and cooperating with the Xiaohongshu platform.

② CRM strategy : Users are stratified according to their browsing history and shopping habits, and different activities and content are pushed through SMS and APP Push. For example, discounts on beauty products are pushed to users who have browsed or purchased beauty products in the past three months, and coupons are directly pushed to users who have not browsed in the past six months.

③ Social sharing - through social sharing functions, such as bargaining, group buying, invitation gifts, sharing gifts, etc., users are encouraged to spread the word spontaneously; examples are as follows:

Daily Youxian’s bargaining, group buying, inviting friends and other gameplay

④ Ground promotion activities - select target user cities and locations with large traffic flow, expand influence through offline ground promotion activities, and increase the number of community users.

A more popular method in recent years is to set up pop-up stores in major shopping malls and commercial centers, which is cost-controlled and convenient for promotion.

2. How to improve paid conversion rate

First of all, we need to consider what is the paid conversion path? Then optimize the path, assuming that the platform payment conversion path is as follows:

From the above picture, we can see that the conversion path from download to payment is very long, and we need to ensure that the path is smooth at each conversion node.

① Lower the registration/login threshold - you can log in directly by obtaining a verification code through your mobile phone number, and add regular third-party logins, such as WeChat and Weibo;

② The homepage attracts attention - create an atmosphere on the website during the Qixi Festival event, highlight the features of the platform products and the Qixi Festival event gameplay on the homepage to attract users to view and click, and try to be as unified and exquisite as possible in terms of visuals;

③ Product introduction page optimization : By optimizing the copywriting on the product details page, we can refine the product features and selling points, encourage users to reduce price comparisons and place orders quickly;

④ Give away coupons - amplify the information about coupons for the Qixi Festival event to encourage users to make order decisions quickly;

The Qixi Festival event page launched in the Taobao mobile app is aimed at issuing coupons

⑤ Set a countdown for product discounts or run out of stock - create a sense of urgency and a feeling that you will miss it if you miss it, so as to encourage users to buy as soon as possible;

⑥ Lucky draw activities - the number of orders or amount is used as the threshold for obtaining lucky draws. Prizes can be divided into physical prizes and virtual prizes. Physical prizes include couple travel packages, skin care product sets, lipsticks, iPhones, etc. Virtual prizes can be unthreshold coupons, platform memberships, points, etc. (Note that the value of prizes in lucky draw activities cannot exceed RMB 4,999);

⑦ Increase payment platforms - By connecting to multiple payment methods, such as WeChat Pay , Alipay , ApplePay, UnionPay, etc., reduce payment loss caused by the payment methods used by users not being connected to the platform.

3. How to increase the average order value

Depending on the characteristics of the goods sold on the platform, the corresponding average order value is different. Assuming that the daily average order value on our platform is around 300-400, what methods can be used to increase the average order value?

① Launch combination packages - Qixi Festival is mainly a gift-giving occasion, so if boys only give girls single items, it will seem very thin, so launching combination packages is more appropriate; in addition, buying in combination is more cost-effective than buying single items, which can further attract users to pay;

② Full discount and full gift strategy - encourage users to place orders by offering an immediate discount of XX yuan for purchases of XX amount or more and giving away prizes for purchases of XX pieces or more of designated products;

③ Give coupons - set coupons with different thresholds, such as 30 off for 200 or 50 off for 300, and remind users on the shopping cart page and checkout page how much more they need to spend to get the discount;

④Lottery activity : the purchase amount is used as the threshold for participating in the lottery, and the prizes drawn are as close to the Chinese Valentine's Day as possible, such as limited edition haute couture, Chinese Valentine's Day travel packages, etc.

After considering the above three points, think about whether there is an indicator closely related to the platform that has been missed, that is, the number of SKUs . If the number of products on the platform is small and the products that users like are not on the platform, will even the subsequent work become futile? So we also need to consider how to increase the number of SKUs:

① Through the analysis of user groups, independently develop/access more products suitable for users;

② Add categories. In addition to existing categories, research which products we do not have or which they have relatively less of on competing platforms.

Of course, in addition to the above content, there are many ways for e-commerce platforms to promote sales. Here is a promotional method chart for your reference, from the Internet:

2. After breaking down the goals, how do we implement them?

Through the relevant content just mentioned, you can basically understand which indicators a sales target is composed of and how to improve each indicator. So after having these ideas, how do you implement them and carry out an e-commerce event?

We can first understand the concept of "people, goods, and place" . People are users, goods are commodities, and place is the platform. What the platform needs to do is to build a bridge for users and commodities to establish relationships on the platform. Activities are generated by the platform to increase the frequency of relationships between users and commodities.

The implementation of the event will inevitably involve these three aspects, so we first need to hold the first production, supply and marketing coordination meeting. The meeting participants include: marketing , product development, merchandise department, content operations , and event operations . We will communicate the goals of this event, the current traffic gap, product demand, content packaging atmosphere, and product development support required for the event gameplay.

At the meeting, goals are set for each module, such as which traffic entrances are available and what the traffic targets are; how much discounts are offered for the event and what the approximate total value of goods is; what the main gameplay of the event is, whether technical development is required, and how long the development and launch cycle is... After the meeting, an SOP Gantt chart is drawn up and emailed to all participants for promotion.

How to draw an SOP? Let me take the example of achieving a sales volume of 10 million on Chinese Valentine's Day. First, I will divide the work into several modules: event planning , content planning, product development, page design, product submission, traffic grabber, and logistics distribution. Then I will specify each module to the person in charge, target requirements, and completion time point. The specific table is as follows:

3. Pitfalls in Activity Execution

Through the above methods, we can advance step by step from breaking down the goals to implementing the SOP. However, we still need to control some key points, otherwise it is easy to fall into pitfalls. Here are a few points to note:

① When planning an event, don’t be constrained by existing functions, development cycles, etc. Brainstorm first, and then think about whether they can be implemented and whether they can catch up with the event time;

② During the execution of the activity, you need to keep a close eye on and confirm the progress of each module, and don’t be a hands-off manager;

③ The main products of the big promotion will involve all aspects, including front-end exposure, external publicity, content packaging, etc., so you need to confirm with the product department in advance and don’t delay;

④ In designing the main visual of the activity, you need to communicate with the designer in advance about the presentation effect and atmosphere. Don’t wait until the picture is finished before making changes if you are not satisfied with it.

⑤ After the activity is launched, you need to keep an eye on inventory, product sales dynamics, sales completion, adjust product sorting, and whether to add activity gameplay;

⑥Usually the activity lasts for 3-5 days. You can adjust product filling, visual design, external publicity, etc. according to the UV, sales, CTR and other data of the previous day. Don’t stick to it.

IV. Conclusion

In addition to knowing how to break down goals, clearly knowing where to improve indicators, and implementing SOPs, an e-commerce operator also needs to keep an eye on current market play, competitor activities, popular trends, product iterations, etc., so that they can stay ahead of the activities instead of being chased by them.

This article analyzes how to run an e-commerce event from 0 to 1 by breaking down goals, improving indicators, and implementing SOPs. The core content here is the coordination between the event and various departments to ensure that each module can be implemented and meet expectations. For e-commerce operations, in addition to being able to plan events, you also need to understand products and people. This article is just a starting point, and I hope you can gain something from it if you are working in e-commerce operations.