Operational addition and subtraction that you must know

This year, a large part of my work focus has been on event planning . Planning an event is not an easy task. It is not fundamentally different from planning an APP. Moreover, because the event cycle is short, the feedback is fast, the goals are simple, and the functions are pure, it is easier to expose problems in the planning and design during the event. Through these experiences, my team and I have encountered difficulties, made mistakes, and also gained some ideas and experiences. In this article, I would like to look at where we need to do subtraction and where we need to do more addition in an operational activity from the perspective of addition and subtraction. Although I cannot teach you how to plan a “successful” event, I hope I can help you understand how to plan an event “correctly”.

First, subtract from your thoughts

It is very important to identify a single “activity purpose” early on. It has three functions:

First, provide guidance in developing activity plans. In the process of discussing activity plans, there are often new ideas, or further extensions on the original basis. These are often not closely related to the purpose of the activity and are low-cost designs that are not worth doing.

Secondly, guide the formulation of quantitative indicators. The mission that an event can undertake is limited. We have always emphasized that an event has only one purpose, which is to achieve only one indicator, such as page PV, number of participants, conversion rate , number of shares, and number of new user installations. These may all be important indicators, but for example, the purpose of the World Cup guessing event is user activity, then we should focus on the number of participants and put aside things like new user installations.

Finally, guide user flow and interactive page design. We often get caught up in a dilemma of "not wanting to give up anything that is beneficial to us", such as getting users to share more, getting users to download the client, getting users to participate every day, etc. If we really do this, we may design a lengthy user process, a dazzling interface, and an immeasurable result.

Subtract from the activity plan

Let me give you an example. Take the lottery as an example. It sounds like a very simple activity: "Put a few prizes on a turntable, users click on it to win a prize, and then receive the prize." But in fact, its requirements document contains at least the following 13 aspects, which are multiplied by the workload of interaction, vision, development and testing. Therefore, we must strictly subtract from the activity plan and eliminate any unnecessary requirements.

Here are a few small examples about this:

Subtracting processes and interactions

The participation conversion rate of event pages has always been very low. Imagine an ordinary user is attracted by your promotional text and pictures, and subconsciously clicks to the event page. If he cannot understand what the event is for at first glance, and cannot feel the fun or value after a few clicks, then the user will definitely leave. The ideal process and interface should be that the user does not need to read and think, but can complete the most important part after a few blind clicks, and then he can decide whether to continue or share. Taking the activity main page as an example, we tend to put all the important information and function entrances on the main page, making the page dazzling. However, the space of WAP pages is limited, and it is often only suitable to highlight one BUTTON. If you want to highlight 2 to 3 information or BUTTON entrances on one page, it is likely to make users lost. At this time, you must know how to make choices.

Regarding the problem of the dazzling main page, the most impressive lesson was the design of the World Cup betting WAP page. We placed 5 important functions in a small area, including guessing the outcome, checking the standings, collecting points and prizes, checking the betting records, and checking the activity rules. After the activity went online, we immediately discovered that users did not have the patience to read all the text carefully and understand the meaning of each entrance. Users often directly click on the most conspicuous place and then ignore all the rest. To this end, we also specially added a toast effect in the "Points are rewarded" area to attract users' attention and tell them to claim their prizes here.

Since then, our team has paid special attention to this kind of problem in design. One page only does one thing, and arranges the tasks that users must complete vertically. For example, in a later activity design, we streamlined the test result page. In addition to the test results, the original plan also had three operation buttons: "Share", "Download Client", and "Test Again". First, we weakened the "Test Again" because this is not what we want to guide. After discussion, we moved the "download client" to the last page of the process, because on this page what we most want users to do is "share". The download client itself is not in the closed loop of the user process. If it is placed on the page, maybe only 1 out of 100 people will download it, but it will interfere with 99 people. Finally, leaving only one “Share” button on the page helps maximize the chances of users completing the sharing action.

Adding creativity to activities

In fact, whenever I see team members working hard to design and develop an event, but the results are always mediocre, as the initiator and planner of the event, I will feel guilty and reflect. We must not only learn to do subtraction, but also go back to the source of event planning to do addition. But so far, we have not done very well. We don’t think any of the activities we have organized this year can be called very successful. We may attribute the reasons for the lack of success of the activities to various aspects, such as: the prizes are not attractive; the target users do not match; there are too few promotional resources; or even the time is too short and there are insufficient design and development resources. However, I still believe that what can change the effect of an event the most is the creativity of the event. For a team, insufficient funds, tight time and too few promotional resources will be long-term practical problems. Event creativity and promotion innovation are the key to a successful event.

In conclusion: simplicity is subtraction, fun is addition

The recently popular book "Sense of Participation" tells a lot of operational promotion experience. The core of the book is the three words "sense of participation", which also provides us with a clearer direction for planning activities. Ordinary activities use prizes and promotional space to promote an event, and use benefits to stimulate user participation or consumption. A better activity plan should be one that aims to make users feel fun in the activity, participate because they like it, and share and spread the word spontaneously. It’s not easy to talk about it. Users have been spoiled by the overwhelming raffles, discounts, and free activities on the Internet, but are the users who participate in “Taobao Double Eleven ” still going there to grab bargains? Maybe it’s the first year, but now I believe more people are influenced by the festive atmosphere and are participating.

Planning activities from the perspective of "fun" is an approach we should try. The activity format should be more fun and the sharing copy should be more interesting. If I were to simply summarize how to plan better operations, I think it would be "simple and fun". Make something interesting and let users play with it.

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

This article was compiled and published by @错石由( Qinggua Media ). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!