Case review | Marketing strategy, execution and highlights of NetEase Yanxuan’s 411 anniversary event

When we talk about a company, it is no longer about stereotyped symbols or a sense of distance from a superior position, but about the founder's cute emoticons, the product experience with excellent reputation, the inadvertent knowing smile, and a little bit of emotion beyond business. I think this company can be said to be "deeply rooted in the hearts of the people" and is a bit cute.

NetEase is the kind of company I am talking about. I once worked at NetEase for a period of time, and since then I have kept the habit of using NetEase products, writing articles with Youdao Cloud Notes, listening to NetEase Cloud Music , and browsing NetEase Lofter. Later, when I saw NetEase Yanxuan for the first time, I was naturally unable to resist the "cold" literary style. I thought I must write a few articles to see the various products of the NetEase system.

I have talked to you about NetEase Cloud Music before. You can click on the link: NetEase is going to launch a cloud music classroom? A comprehensive analysis of commercial monetization methods. In this article, I would like to talk to you about NetEase Yanxuan, which just concluded its 411 anniversary celebration.

At the beginning of 2017, Ding Lei announced at NetEase’s financial report conference that NetEase Yanxuan’s goal for 2017 was to achieve a GMV of 7 billion yuan, which is a considerable goal. Of course, behind setting such a goal must be NetEase's prediction and requirements of its own strength, as well as its determination to devote all resources and team to do such a thing.

The 411 anniversary celebration not only serves as a preliminary test for the completion of the annual KPI, but also guides how the next two major events, the 618 Mid-Year Sale and Double 11, will be conducted, and what adjustments and changes will be made. The marketing results of 411 will directly affect Yanxuan's subsequent products, markets, operations , and supply chain. Secondly, as the anniversary day after a short holiday, there happens to be no direct confrontation with major e-commerce platforms, and various resources can be maximized, which tests the Yanxuan team's marketing model and operational skills.

Today I will talk to you about the e-commerce tactics I observed for Yanxuan’s 411 anniversary celebration, which can be divided into three parts.

1. Marketing strategy for 411 anniversary event
2. The execution and highlights of the entire marketing
3. Final summary

1 Marketing strategy for 411 anniversary event

NetEase Yanxuan’s 411th anniversary promotion event, while continuing last year’s theme of “Three Pieces of Life Aesthetics”, proposes to create a “sense of ritual in life”. The core marketing method is "20% off for three items in one store".

There are two lines in the marketing strategy. One is the public relations level. Through the hype of a series of topic events by Ding Lei, the whole society's attention is attracted, which arouses concern and spreads. Then, the slogan #Can't afford a house, but can afford a home# is used to trigger a national discussion, and Mimi Meng 's articles are used to push the topic to the top. The other line is the market channel level, which makes efforts both online and offline, and puts advertisements through online high-precision user group products such as WeChat Moments , Weibo, Zhihu , Douban , and Toutiao, and offline subways, bus stations, etc. to cover the target user group 360 degrees without dead ends.

On the day of the event, a 20% off sale on all items brought the entire anniversary celebration to a climax, and it was finally concluded with a return of the event.

Overall, the warm-up and promotion in the early stages of the event were particularly sufficient, and the rhythm was also very tight.

2 Implementation and highlights of the overall marketing strategy

The execution of the entire marketing strategy is shown in the figure, which is divided into early warm-up (off-site), mid-term full-site promotion (on-site), and late-stage closing activities. I will briefly talk about the execution of the activity from both off-site and on-site perspectives.

1. Off-site part

The main purpose of off-site marketing is to promote the brand, warm up activities, and attract new customers . Through a series of online and offline marketing combinations, it occupies the minds of users, increases the sense of presence, and then guides users to experience the platform. I and many of my friends were completely covered by NetEase Yanxuan’s anniversary communication activities. It can be said that Yanxuan’s brand exposure and event warm-up highlights were sufficient.

First, the iron-clad strict selection and Ding Lei who brings his own traffic

The head of the company, Boss Ding, is one of the few "people who know how to have fun" in the Internet industry. He loves drinking tea and raising pigs. He is known as a "lifestyle expert". As an early Internet monopoly, he has his own aura of traffic. Using the boss to advertise Yanxuan, this deal is totally worth it!

On March 21, Ding Lei wore a straw hat and a bamboo hat and transformed himself into a tea farmer to pick tea leaves. He also started a live interactive show . In an instant, Ding Lei's tea-picking emoticon package quickly became popular on NetEase employees' circle of friends.

That’s not all. Ding Lei also left five handwritten notes for pre-order users. Users who received the notes can also share a whole NetEase Weiyuan Black Pig! And the biggest surprise is that after buying NetEase Yanxuan tea, you can also get a NetEase stock certificate worth an unknown number of shares. Mr. Sanshi really worked hard. This series of actions first made the emoticons popular, and then made NetEase stocks popular, without stopping.

Later on April 5, Ding Lei accepted an interview with Yitiao. He talked about his products with great ease and recommended the advertisements perfectly. He also said some shocking words, such as "money only accounts for 5% of happiness in life." There is another big shot in the pretentious world, and the video went viral on the Internet.

Second, the theme of the event is “If you can’t afford a house, you can afford a home”

The boss has made a good start, and the next important task will be handed over to the marketing team of NetEase Yanxuan. While playing the Ding Lei card well, they also have insight into the market. They launched the topic of "Can't afford a house but can afford a home" targeting urban youth, and firmly grasped the topics of house and home that young people are most concerned about today. Through contradictory and opposing sentences, they aroused people's thinking about life and attention to NetEase Yanxuan, making the brand image of "good life is not that expensive" deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The topic is being released on various channels.

1) Weibo

As of now, the Weibo topic #Can't afford a house, but can afford a home# has been read more than 64 million times. On the homepage of the topic, NetEase Yanxuan launched a video titled "Life is like opening a courier box. Every time you open it, it’s an expectation", telling the life story of a person at different stages. It is warm and touching, and I believe it will be very touching to Yanxuan’s old users. The video has been played 570,000 times.

2) Mi Meng’s official account

On April 6, Mimi Meng posted “I can’t afford a house, but I can afford a home”, and the article alone received over 10,000 likes. Judging from the number of readers and the ratio of likes, it is clear how widely Mimi Meng’s article was read and the level of discussion it brought about.

3) APP opening page

NetEase Yanxuan advertisements have appeared on the startup pages of various apps such as Zhihu, Weibo, Douban, and Toutiao, and most of the copywriting focuses on "house" and "life." Once again, "A good life is not that expensive."

4) Metropolitan newspapers

In addition to online promotion , offline activities were also coordinated, with Southern Metropolis Daily publishing a full-page advertisement for NetEase Yanxuan.

5) Bus advertising

On the buses in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, there are words like "Beijing", "Shanghai" or "Guangzhou" that can be bought for more than 2,000 yuan. In fact, they are made up of piles of goods from NetEase Yanxuan, and these goods are worth exactly more than 2,000 yuan.

6) Song "NetEase Yanxuan's First Anniversary"

To sum up, NetEase Yanxuan’s series of marketing and promotion activities are closely centered around housing prices and life, which are of most concern to people, making the topic of “can’t afford a house but can afford a home” a breath of fresh air in urban life. The strategy of focusing on a single breakthrough point made NetEase Yanxuan a hot topic for discussion after dinner.

2. Internal part of the site

When evaluating the activities operation within the site, I will focus on the following aspects: the first is the activity schedule and venue setting within the site; the second is the guidance, acceptance and conversion of new users; and the third is the maintenance and activity of old users. Yanxuan’s basic skills in these aspects are quite good, and there are also some highlights.

1) On-site event schedule and venue settings

The 411 anniversary event schedule is shown in the figure. From April 1st to April 6th, there will be preheating coupons and the first release of store anniversary products; April 1st will be a mobile phone special; April 2nd will be a limited-time store anniversary week; April 3rd will be a one-yuan special group. A store-wide promotion will be launched from April 7th to April 11th; there will be a 411 store anniversary carnival and a return event from April 12th to 15th.

In addition to special events held in different time periods, Yanxuan also organized sub-venues by category: home life, outdoor luggage, clothing and shoes, personal care and beauty, and mother and baby. Meet the needs of different consumer groups.

In general, during the warm-up period from April 1st to 3rd, every day a sufficiently eye-catching point was thrown out to stimulate users to continue visiting, and different venues also played up the characteristics of lifestyle e-commerce. However, perhaps because the SKU is not rich enough, the products in the special event are a bit thin.

2) New user guidance

a. APP download and update

NetEase Yanxuan app launched a new version long before its anniversary celebration, using the new 411 anniversary style to create a festive atmosphere. It also wrote a poem in the dynamic update, which is really great! If the event schedule is attached, wouldn’t it be better if the new version preview image uses anniversary celebration pictures?

b. Opening page

As soon as you open the screen, you can see the words "Get 20% off on all orders" and "Get a 10 yuan lucky bag for free with orders over 30 yuan". Words such as limited time, limited quantity, free gifts for orders over 30 yuan, and discount stimulate the user's nerves.

c. Pop-up page

After the opening page, enter the app and the "Get 20% Discount Card" pops up as shown in the picture

d. NetEase Yanxuan group buying

NetEase Yanxuan’s group buying can be said to be a highlight activity for attracting new customers. In fact, there are also group buying activities on ordinary days, but the group buying on the 411 holiday is slightly different.

The group buying scenario on the 411 holiday is: users see a product that can be purchased in a group, but it is too expensive to pay individually, so they might as well join a group. One way is to choose to be the group leader (that is, the first person to successfully pay), and then send the group purchase link to friends to buy together. The specified number of people must be reached within the specified time. After the group purchase is successful, the group leader can get an additional 20% off coupon for the entire store. Or you can choose another way and join other teams that have already been successfully launched, which is also very convenient.

The biggest advantage of the group buying model is that it uses social relationship chains to bring new users to the e-commerce platform. When e-commerce traffic has been almost monopolized by large platforms, the strict selection of quality assurance plus the endorsement of friends can be said to be a very economical and effective means. Moreover, the group buying model has already created a dark horse in the e-commerce field.

3) Retention of old users

For old users, Yanxuan has prepared exclusive gifts for members on the store anniversary day. In the strictly selected membership system, we can see different upgrade gift package benefits. However, the upgraded welfare package can only be used for a limited time period, other rights and interests seem a bit useless, and the user incentive system is a bit crudely designed. I believe there will be greater improvements in future version updates.

3 Conclusion

The Double Eleven event has been held for 8 years. Various e-commerce marketing activities have emerged in an endless stream. Users have become more rational and are increasingly tired of consumption discount activities. It has become increasingly difficult to make users motivated to consume, willing to open the website, select and purchase step by step, and finally complete the conversion. NetEase Yanxuan’s slogan and advocacy of “Three Pieces of Life Aesthetics” is a rational move. It is better to buy good quality than to buy more. Advocating the careful selection of three items is actually managing users’ shopping expectations and experience. Of course, there are also considerations about the scheduling capabilities of its own ODM model inventory supply chain management during promotions.

Looking at the entire NetEase Yanxuan anniversary celebration, its event marketing warm-up phase is very bright. The event process during the promotion and the on-site operations seem to be within the basic routine of e-commerce activities. What will NetEase Yanxuan do in the upcoming 618 and Double 11? We are looking forward to some different gameplay and surprises.

The horn has been sounded, let us see how the Yanxuan team will charge forward and conquer the city. The battle of e-commerce is huge and raging, the generals have emerged, and the world has been divided. However, as consumption upgrades and people pay more and more attention to the pursuit of quality of life, NetEase Yanxuan's early layout of the ODM model may be an opportunity.

Finally, the author is not from the e-commerce background. The above are just observations and summaries of Yanxuan’s 411 anniversary celebration. There are inevitably omissions and inappropriate words. If there are professionals, you are welcome to meet with us for exchanges .

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising

The author of this article is Mr. @StarYan and it is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map