Does the 2018 Marketing Calendar Work? How should operators plan the timing of activities correctly?

An auspicious day must be chosen for the start of construction of a real estate project or the shooting of a movie . Do we also have to worship the gods and ask for divination on the first day of the event? From what perspectives do we need to plan activity time?

Some operations partners, holding the "2018 Marketing Calendar", look at the hundreds of large and small activities throughout the year, compare them with the marketing calendar below, and then select a few well-known ones every month and tick them, and start to establish an overall holiday marketing timeline, which is a living holiday reminder, for fear that your users don’t know what holiday is coming.

Some operating partners will refer to the event calendars of Taobao , Tmall , and JD.com , and try to plan according to the rhythm of the events created by the big platforms. However, you may have only learned the operating form of holding a small event every 3 days and a large event every 5 days. Not many people can learn the true essence of festival creation, and you may be dragged down by frequent event arrangements at any time.

To correctly plan the timing of an event, you must think deeply about the following three points:

1. Understand the business characteristics

What is your business? What are the characteristics? Is it a high-frequency and urgent need? Is there a cyclical nature to using or purchasing the product? Can we stock up or adopt a pre-sale model?

For example:

1. Takeout is a high-frequency and rigid-demand business with obvious cyclicality, such as the peak order volume at noon and evening, the peak order volume on weekends, and the counter-cyclicality between residential and white-collar areas.
2. The peak of tourism business obviously follows holidays, while the peak of outbound browsing occurs on weekdays, and the decision cycle is very long;
3. Car wash services must be avoided on rainy days;
4. The home improvement industry also has its own industry logic.

Taking the Home Decoration Festival as an example, when I was planning the March event, I found that starting from March 1st, almost all platforms launched marketing activities related to Goddess Day and Women's Day around March 7/38, while Tmall started the annual Tmall Home Decoration Festival from March 1st to 2nd, 2017! I began to wonder why they didn’t do the preheating for the 37/38 event, but instead did home decoration? The difficulty is that Tmall’s consumption data gives the operators a reason to arrange the event in this way, so why is it in early March?

As the saying goes, different trades are like different mountains. I searched [What season is better for decoration] and saw the following description:

The temperature and humidity in spring are very moderate, and the wooden and plaster products used in decoration are not easy to deform or crack after completion. The mortar and cement used to stick tiles are not easy to lose their markings due to the suitable temperature and humidity, making the tiles more firmly stuck. The weather is warm in spring and windows can be opened for ventilation. The paint and latex paint applied during construction will evaporate and dry faster, and the smoothness of the application will also be better.

Most of the construction workers in the home decoration industry come from the south and are not adapted to the cold climate in the north in winter. The warmer temperature in spring makes it suitable for these southern workers to work. After a holiday break, decoration companies or construction teams are more open-minded and energetic. The designer will also provide the customer with a good design plan, and the construction team will also have a good mental outlook and will not be working in fatigue like at the end of the year.

Why do so many people start decorating in March? What are the benefits? After each house decoration project is completed, the doors and windows must be opened for ventilation to allow harmful substances and toxic gases in decoration materials such as paint and formaldehyde to evaporate. At the same time, Jiuzheng Home Furnishing Network recommends that the adhesives used during the decoration process also need to be dried. The temperature in spring is moderate, ventilation is good, and volatilization is easy, while in summer it is rainy and the air is humid, and decoration materials are prone to warping and deformation. The weather in autumn is dry and decorative materials are prone to cracking. If you renovate your home during the winter heating period, the heating costs will be quite a lot, which will undoubtedly waste resources and increase renovation costs.

Tmall Home Improvement Festival begins in early spring in March. The traditional home improvement peak season starts in March, which gives users who need home improvement a very good shopping opportunity.

Of course, autumn has clear skies and a suitable temperature, making it a suitable season for decoration. However, the weather in autumn is relatively dry, so you must pay attention to safety and fire prevention. Moreover, the climate in autumn is dry and the air humidity is relatively suitable. Some wall tiles will take less time to solidify, and it is a very good choice to complete the decoration in autumn and move in in time for winter. JD.com, which missed the spring, also held a platform home decoration festival in autumn .

Therefore, understanding the characteristics of your business is a must for you to operate it well.

2. Understand the activity objectives

What you often see are undoubtedly milestone industry PR articles related to order volume and transaction volume, but not every activity’s goal is just to increase order volume and transaction volume. To determine the goal of an activity, it is necessary to consider factors such as company development, competitive environment, and development strategy. Only with clear activity goals can the best plan be determined.

Take the following three goals as an example:

1. Do you want to achieve a new peak in platform order volume and transaction volume through this activity?

The purpose of big promotions is basically to attract more traffic , bring in more orders and transaction volume. At this time, the launch of the activity should have a relatively good warm-up period. The start day of the activity needs to be set at the peak traffic day on weekdays (business characteristics) to stimulate user demand again when demand is highest and increase the overall order volume and transaction amount of the platform.

2. Activate off-peak orders through activities and improve the operational efficiency of the entire organization?

The peak time for takeout orders is lunch and dinner time, with 11-12 noon and 17-18 o'clock being the peak time for orders. These two periods put a lot of pressure on riders and merchants. In the morning, afternoon and midnight snack time, the number of orders from merchants decreases and riders are also idle. At this time, activities such as breakfast, afternoon tea, and supper can effectively improve the operational efficiency of the entire organization. Off-peak purchases or limited-time flash sales can also be carried out during free time.

3. Targeted operations to support specific categories and brands ?

Although full meals are the core category of food delivery platforms and generate the largest proportion of orders and transaction volume, as a platform-based enterprise, meeting more consumer demands is beneficial to the development of the entire business. For some specific categories, the more resources you give them, the better it is not the case. For example, in the categories of afternoon tea and midnight snacks, starting from May, as the weather gradually gets hotter, the demand for afternoon tea and midnight snacks will be even greater. If they are made in winter, the results will be disastrous.

Of course, there are many different goals that require your deep understanding.

3. Determine the rhythm of the activity

The rhythm of an activity is very important. A good rhythm of an activity can form a pulse and cultivate user habits, just like brand communication, forming cognition in the user's brain. The duration of a single event with the same theme also needs to be considered. If it is too long, the supply of participants in the event will be exhausted, and users will not feel fresh, and the data will get worse and worse in the later stages. Hundreds of activities have verified that the life cycle of a single theme activity is 3 days. It will reach its peak on the first or second day and will decline on the third day. The data will continue to decline after the fourth day, which is similar to the life cycle of news.

In order to extend the online time of a big promotion and maintain a certain degree of freshness, the method is to warm up the event, split the event homepage into multiple sub-activities, and promote one sub-activity in each stage until the final big promotion is launched. 618 and Double Eleven basically follow this routine. Preheating starts more than ten days or even half a month in advance, and more than a dozen sub-venues are set up. However, the actual promotion period is only one day. After the outbreak, in order to avoid a quick fall from the highs, another event will be held to return to the event.

2017 Suning.com Double 11 Events

The timing of your event's outbreak period can basically be determined by matching your business characteristics and event purpose. Multiple branch venues will be used as warm-up events. Each branch venue will be online for 1-2 days, and then an encore event will be added. The time of the event can be basically determined.

Having said that, an auspicious day must be chosen to start construction of a real estate project or the shooting of a movie. On the first day of the event, do we also have to worship the gods and ask for divination? Anyway, I have experienced event delays, and the reason turned out to be that I had consulted a fortune teller, who said that a delay of a few days would provide better results. This is the most plausible reason for delay I have ever heard of. It seems that I should also take a minor course in Qi Men Dun Jia to avoid being fooled.

Experienced operators are welcome to add us as friends to discuss and give feedback!

The author of this article @周健衡 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services Advertising platform Longyou Century