The three stages of event operation: How to plan an event with 10,000 participants

Event operations stimulate the improvement of short-term operational indicators through online and offline activities . In the short term, a certain indicator or N indicators can be quickly improved to N times the amount of the daily non-stimulating situation. Ideas for event operations usually come from: festivals, the product itself, anniversaries, and competing products. Event operations play a vital role in maintaining user retention and stimulating activity. How can we operate activities to achieve satisfactory results?

Let’s take an example and review our experience on the key factors that led to the success of a voting campaign that involved tens of thousands of participants. What are the universal rules for event operations and what can be used as reference?

Phase 1: Event Planning

Voting Activity Background

1. The company is striving to achieve revenue targets by the end of the year. We sow in spring and plant in autumn, and hope to get a big red envelope at the end of the year.

2. The payment for AiTouGuo’s products comes from the paid internal references of the broadcaster. These paid internal references are investment consulting suggestions shared with stock friends. The cycle is more than one month, the average price is about one thousand yuan, and the update time is more than one month.

3. Tips to increase income:

Total website revenue = the sum of the paid internal reference revenue of the host

In other words, the paid income of the broadcaster is a driving force. Only when more people participate in the activities of the broadcaster and the average number of internal parameters ordered will be greater, the final income will be higher.

The significance of the activity to ordinary users

Ordinary users can increase their chances of winning in stock trading (premium insider information) as well as spiritual enjoyment - a sense of participation, accomplishment, and security - through such a voting carnival event.

1. Sense of participation

With the host's company 365 days a year, we develop feelings for each other. Stock trading is a lonely job, and the host plays the role of a mentor, friend, and playmate. You can use your own heart to help the host win the championship of the voting event, and feel the sense of participation by canvassing, voting and interacting with other fan users. In an introverted country like China, people still value collectivism. Individuals with limited strength unite into small groups to fight against the outside world together.

2. Sense of accomplishment

Every vote you cast can potentially help the host’s ranking rise. If the host you support rises to a good position at the front, you will feel a sense of accomplishment, thinking, “See, the host I support is good, isn’t he?” The relationship between fans and stars is a hundred times greater than this.

3. Sense of security

Participating in a grand event with other people can eliminate the loneliness in people's hearts and gain a sense of security through collaboration. Purchasing insider information about broadcasters who are supported by more people can also give users a sense of financial security.

According to Maslow's needs principle , from low to high - physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect needs, and self-actualization needs. Users who participated in this event gained security needs (the collective unconscious security of voting), social needs (getting to know a broadcaster and a small group of stock traders through participating in an event), and respect needs (the broadcaster gains glory and reputation, and watching their favorite broadcaster achieve success is equivalent to their own success).

The background of the event and its significance to users have already been determined, so a detailed plan needs to be set up for this event. We have done several things to address these user needs:

1. Voting is set up , and you can vote for any broadcaster you like. The voting information (voting amount, nickname) of the user is public in the voting record. To protect the privacy of the user, the nickname is marked with *.
2. A sign-in session has been set up . You can sign in once a day during the event and get coupons by signing in. Accumulated sign-ins can get coupons of larger value.
3. A lottery session has been set up , and a threshold has been set for the lottery. Users who cast more than 10 votes can participate in the lottery, and sharing can increase the chance of sharing once. Setting a lottery threshold is to stimulate more people to pay, and sharing is to stimulate everyone to share outside and get more lottery opportunities.

Activity Objectives

The first question to be answered in event planning is what is the goal of the event? If there is no activity goal, the entire activity will fall into a state of disorder. So how can we set a reasonable goal?

Activity goals need to follow the SMART principle :

• Specific
• Measureable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time

Using this formula, the goals of the activity are:

From the start time of the activity ____ to the end time of the activity ____, this activity needs to increase revenue _______ and the number of participating users _______.

How many activity goals can be set at most? It is best not to have more than three answers. There must be a main goal, and the others are auxiliary goals. The main goal is the direction to be conquered. Most of the time, as long as the main goal is achieved, other secondary goals will be achieved one after another, and there will often be other unexpected gains.

The activity goals are consistent with the company's strategic direction. Once confirmed to be problem-free, the next step of goal decomposition and path implementation can be carried out. Goal decomposition can divide a big goal into several small goals, and the sum of the small goals is highly consistent with the big goal.

What needs to be noted in path implementation is that small goals should be connected together. Use whatever can serve as the skeleton and veins. A stupid mistake we often make sometimes is that after breaking down the goal, we get stuck in the small goals and fail to analyze them from a higher perspective. In fact, these small goals can be connected together using a tree structure.

We were very clear when setting our goal, which was to increase paid revenue. This is the main goal, and the secondary goal is to increase the number of new paying users. Use newly discovered broadcasters to drive external fans to convert into paying users. s

The path to achieve your goal must be straightforward and exciting.

We plan to use voting as a path to achieve our goal. As for what to use for voting, there were some internal differences. The previous rule was to vote with cash, which was eventually exchanged for corresponding internal reference services for users. After looking at the relevant data, it is not very ideal. From the user's perspective, there is a waiting time difference after paying cash and then receiving the goods. Users do not have the patience to wait for something they have already paid for to come out. Even if they wait, their enthusiasm will drop from 100 degrees to 50 degrees. So my idea is to directly count the amount of money spent on purchasing the internal reference as the number of votes. When discussing with product managers and other operational partners, they wondered whether there would be users purchasing internal reference materials and whether the voting threshold should be increased. It turns out that buying insider references in exchange for votes is much more stimulating than exchanging votes with cash.

• First of all, the host can send paid internal content and set up various gameplays in the paid internal content, such as extending the internal content period, VIP exclusivity, special offers, etc. This is a good opportunity for the host to customize his own product and interact with users.
• Secondly, the number of votes generated by users purchasing internal references is directly displayed in the total number of votes, and users receive real services. This sense of security is given directly to users.
• Finally, if a live broadcast room wants to surpass the votes of other live broadcast rooms, it can manipulate the update time, update price, and update frequency of the internal reference.

When planning an event, you can actually rehearse your implementation path. If achieving your goal requires several steps and the path is too long, change the path and remove the intermediate links. The Internet is meant to solve problems in the middle links, remove unnecessary links, and make the remaining links logically coherent, so that the stimulating ones can stay.

In terms of goal decomposition, we break down the revenue target into the goals of each live broadcast room, and estimate the revenue target and the number of participants target based on previous sales data. One advantage of decomposing the goals in this way is that the people responsible for achieving the goals are transferred. It is not just you who works hard to achieve the goal, but many people work together to achieve the goal out of their own interests.

You need a good model to mobilize the surrounding resources. Your model should enable everyone to achieve a win-win situation, so that your goal can become everyone's goal. This requires you to pay attention to a systematic and structured thinking model.

A beginner event operator already knows how to write event process rules and may have copied an event from a competitor. Similarly, a good event operator focuses on organically integrating products, users, and event models. Play around with the functions of your own products, such as Taobao's AR real-life red envelopes, where you can scan objects to get red envelopes. The experience is not very smooth, but it has mobilized everyone to use Alipay and enjoy the fun of socializing.

Generally speaking, any activity model such as likes, lotteries, flash sales, grabbing posts, comments, guessing, etc. can be implemented anywhere. If it is just a formality, users will not remember the product. These must be organically combined with one’s own products .

After the path is clear, the next step is to write the activity rules: activity participation rules, prize collection rules, and disclaimer. In particular, I would like to add a statement that this has nothing to do with Apple. The principles of the rules are logical coherence, complete structure,

Remember: your brain is no worse than the brains of a dozen people put together, so the copywriting for external communication and event planning must be strong.

Phase 2: Event Communication and Execution

If you think the event planning is perfect from logic to creativity, you can communicate with the relevant departments. These departments include the execution department, the cooperation department, and the knowledge department. The mistake many people make is that they think they have thought enough and then go to other people to communicate. In fact, when the event copy is not perfect enough or even makes no sense, when they go to other departments, they will not only suffer discriminatory looks, but also be branded as wasting other people's time. Check every detail and correct any problems you find.

At least several files are used during the operation of the activity:

1. Event planning copywriting
2. Active Product Documentation
3. Activity Prototype
4. Activities List
5. Activity execution division table
6. Activity Award Budget
7. User Feedback Record Form

These forms are organized in a table so that they are easy to find and can be quickly displayed to other staff members.

The key to event operation is communication

Continuous communication and follow-up ensure that every colleague involved in the project is supportive, understands and can execute immediately. The most effective way to communicate is to organize a meeting with everyone. Some students always want to prove their abilities by talking nonstop. However, meetings are the best time to absorb other people's suggestions. Listening to other people's views and absorbing other people's opinions openly and honestly can better help improve the activities.

When the activity is carried out, it is necessary to track the activity data in real time. The number of participants in the activity and the income obtained from the activity need to be shared with the participating users and colleagues. Only when everyone shares in real time can everyone's sense of participation be further stimulated. The rise and fall of data can stir people's emotions. Fluctuations can stimulate nerves. Taobao’s Double Eleven data is very comprehensive, with nationwide participation, and the current box office data is also frequently released. In fact, the data cannot be directly connected to us, but with the fluctuation of data, we can see a sense of pleasure that the climax is about to come.

Show your data and let the data speak for itself

We yearn for exciting things, and even in the most dull and boring times, we still hope that something will happen and make us excited. We released the data one hour after the launch of our event. This data was unprecedented. The G-spot was ignited, and almost half of the goal was achieved in just a few days. The drums of war were beating, and with one push, we finally achieved 150% of the target.

The activity lasts for one month, during which there will inevitably be a period of weakness. What should we do at this time? To further stimulate the discussion, we organized an activity to guess the number of votes for the champion. This was an idea that came up during our group chat. Sometimes creativity sparks from inadvertent collisions. After this sub-activity was launched, it added vitality to the original main activity. During a longer event, you can add some sub-activities to increase the atmosphere, stabilize popularity, and further stimulate users' participation in the event.

Collect every feedback from users and make timely improvements

Treat every user's feedback sincerely. Even if it is only one in ten thousand of an event, you should listen carefully to what he thinks and how he views the significance of this event. The user may participate in some links during the participation process. If he has a good experience in every detail, he will think that the overall activity is good. Of course, if the experience is poor in just one place, this feeling will be magnified tenfold. Therefore, polishing of details and timely communication and feedback are of great help in timely adjustment and modification of activities.

Phase 3: Data summary and analysis

The final review of the advantages and disadvantages of the event is very helpful for the next event. Assuming that a different employee is appointed to execute this activity, the templates accumulated previously can be reused and optimized. When we summarize, we need to collect the opinions of all parties involved in the event project, including the progress of the project, the smoothness of the event process and user experience, problems in operational communication, and design feedback. These all need to be summarized into a document and sent to relevant colleagues after the event.

Event operation requires systematic and structured thinking guidance, efficient communication skills assistance, and uncompromising execution. Only with these key factors can an event be successfully run. The success of event operation is also relative. It may be a success for you, but a failure in the eyes of others. When you look at a mountain from the front, you see different peaks. However, you can gradually improve your operational capabilities in every activity you do.

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

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