Blind box event marketing is a blast!

Blind boxes have now become a new type of marketing method. Many businesses use blind boxes to attract the attention of young people during festivals. In this article, the author analyzes the blind box marketing case he planned and shares it with everyone.

"Blind box" is a relatively innovative marketing method. Starting from POPmart, blind box products with various themes are novel and interesting, attracting many young users. However, from blind boxes of figures to blind boxes of air tickets, this method has gone through a complete process from scarcity to universality. In the past six months, we have also used the "blind box" method to plan many successful marketing activities, which played a huge role in attracting traffic for 618 and Chinese Valentine's Day.

1. Background

The way we play blind boxes is that users can purchase a "super value hot-selling blind box" combination at a lower price. Every product in the blind box is great value for money. The company will randomly distribute products based on the user's purchase time, consumption habits, and product preferences. The probability of a user getting each product is different.

The "blind box fission" gameplay is a new attempt we developed from the blind box gameplay. If there are products in the blind box that the user clearly dislikes, he can invite friends to add WeChat for Enterprise and complete the task of helping fission to help himself remove the disliked products. For every new user invited to add WeChat for Enterprise, one disliked product can be removed, and up to five can be removed.

With the help of this simple method, we conducted a small-scale test among users and achieved very good results. However, there were also some issues that were not considered enough. Today, I would like to share some of my experiences and thoughts with you, hoping to provide some useful reference for you.

II. Review of goals

First of all, this is a clear test task, so we designed a simple task goal with the help of OKR:

• O: The new blind box fission gameplay was successfully tested and became a new killer weapon for Qiwei to attract new users;
• KR1: Successfully invite 10% of seed users to complete the fission task through mature fission tools;
• KR: Through the setting of blind box bait, the number of blind box buyers exceeds 10% of the number of seed users;
• KR3: Through the setting of fission ladder, achieve the effect of attracting more than 2 new users per capita by initiating fission.

3. User Path

4. Page screenshots

5. Review of each node

1. Sending seed to users

We randomly selected 10% of corporate WeChat users for testing and pushed the first round of blind box recommendations to them. However, the push time was chosen at 11:40, which was perfectly timed for users’ lunch breaks. As a result, users did not have enough time to do fission sharing, and when they did share, there was a lack of user support.

The specific content of the blind box in the copy is not clear, and users do not know what information is included in the blind box and what attracts them.

The link title directly points out the benefit, but the subtitle can contain the underlying product information. The main title attracts user interest, while the subtitle strengthens the value.

There are no support links or posters in the copy, so users cannot directly initiate support. In addition, since there are no posters, the text content is too long, resulting in insufficient information transmission effect.

Iteration suggestions:

• Add support links in the copy;
• Add support posters, and the content is centered on blind box + support.

2. Purchase link

The product details page we purchased this time used the previous blind box design and lacked novelty in design. Although the product information in the header of the product details page was relatively clear and we could clearly know which products were available, which compensated for the lack of external information, users who did not click in could not see it at all.

At the same time, the product details page does not have any blind box support, removes disliked products, or adds company WeChat information, which causes users to not know how to participate in fission activities after actively forwarding the product details page.

Iteration suggestions:

• The product details page can add content to support the event, and the header image can also add the company WeChat QR code;
• Design needs to change its style and provide fresher ideas.

3. Support links

The first round of support methods and links were manually pushed by the company’s WeChat operations staff, and the push time was too late, and it was separated from the blind box purchase process. It not only added obstacles to user participation, but also took up a lot of time for operations partners to process data, which was very inefficient.

Iteration suggestion: Add support entrances and posters in group messages to increase the number of people initiating support.

4. Support details

The task hierarchy of this activity is too simple, with only one level for 5 people to help. Although users can remove a product every time they complete the help of a new person, the display of only 1 level for 5 people will give users who do not read the rules carefully the illusion that only by recruiting 5 people can they remove the products they don’t like, causing unnecessary user loss.

Iteration suggestions:

• You can set the 1st level task to 5th level tasks, so that users can get a positive incentive every time they invite someone, which is good for users to continue inviting people.
• It can also be set into 3 levels: 1 person, 3 people, and 5 people. The advantage of this is that users can get positive feedback immediately if one person helps, which stimulates users to continue to help and invite new users.

5. User assistance

When the support poster was displayed in the circle of friends, it looked too messy, and the header copy and physical product were not clear.

There is no user nickname set, and the user's avatar is placed on the far right, which discards the key information of friend recommendations in social fission and does not conform to the user's reading habits.

Due to the lack of brand endorsement, users lack trust in unfamiliar brands after seeing their friends’ posts. We need to increase sales and user testimonials in posters to reduce users’ concerns.

Iteration suggestions:

• The poster design has been updated to suit the reading patterns of the WeChat Moments;
• Place the user's avatar on the left and add the user's nickname.

6. Progress reminder

Every time a friend helps, WeChat for Business will send the user an instant reminder of the successful help. However, this time the copywriting hides the friend’s name strictly, making the most important information the least conspicuous, reducing the conspicuousness of the user’s nickname.

At the same time, the copy lacks reminders for the user's next behavior. If the user invites one friend, we can remind him/her "Congratulations, you can now remove one product you don't like. If you invite four more people, you can remove four more. All that are left are surprises", guiding the user to continue to help.

Iteration suggestion: You can move the user nickname to the front or within [ ].

7. Remove products you don’t like

The statistical table in which users remove products they don't like is called a "wish list". Due to time constraints, we did not develop it ourselves, and finally chose Tencent Questionnaire. Users do not need to register additionally and can edit it multiple times, which makes it convenient to change it by themselves after changing their minds. However, the membership number in the wish list requires users to query, which will reduce user participation. In fact, collecting a mobile phone number is enough.

The rule for filling out the wish list is to select 5 products that you don’t like (you can also select 3 or 2). This results in the user being able to select 5 disliked products when completing 1 or 5 new customers. This causes data confusion and also confuses users. I invited 1 user, so do I fill in 1? Or 5?

Iteration suggestions:

• The wish list allows users to select the 5 least favorite items and rank them. We will exclude users based on the number of people they have actually helped complete;
• Users can complete the selection of 5 products at one time, which also avoids the need for users to make changes multiple times.

8. Second reminder of the activity

In order to increase the sales and fission effect of blind boxes, we set up a second reminder notification during the event, and used WeChat Enterprise’s label grouping to send group messages. The effect was significantly improved, but the copy was basically the same as the first round, which made it easy for users to selectively ignore it.

At the same time, we also added short videos of operations to help users reduce the difficulty of operation, which also significantly promoted the improvement of user participation; however, there is still a lack of highly attractive poster images, and users still need to read too much text.

Iteration suggestions:

• The second reminder can further emphasize the urgency of time and quantity;
• Add countdown posters and low stock posters.

6. Data review

Due to the confidentiality of internal data, I cannot share very detailed data analysis with you, but I can share some useful findings with you.

Zero-cost customer acquisition: Because the sale of blind boxes is a feedback to users and an expenditure on user rights, and removing a product option does not increase additional costs, this type of fission can basically be defined as zero cost.

Each user brings in 3 new users: Each user who participates in the fission can bring an average of 3 new users to Qiwei. The maximum number of people a user can invite is 25, and 22 new users are successfully brought in, far exceeding the requirements of the activity rules (we decided to contact him/her by phone and give him/her the product he/she wants most)!

Since the system can help deduplicate old users, it can effectively control the invalid addition of old users, which is very suitable for the fission and new user acquisition of fast-moving consumer goods.

4 times the effect of attracting new users: This test is a small activity, and about 10% of seed users were selected. The effect of attracting new users is 4 times the daily effect. Next time we will increase our efforts, so that we can complete the number of new users attracted in a month in one day.

New users double the fission: After the event, we found that more than half of the users who initiated fission were secondary participants from users coming from fission, and more than half of the new users were brought by new users. In other words, users coming from fission doubled the overall effect of our event.

The test goals of this OKR were all exceeded, verifying the feasibility of the gameplay, the attractiveness of the blind box, and the fission effect. Therefore, although this test has many loopholes and shortcomings, it has already achieved our original goals very well. Partners who follow us will soon be able to see our "blind box fission" in the next heavyweight platform promotion.

7. Overall review

First, the time for mass messaging should allow at least one hour for the fission support to ferment. If your user activity peaks at 12 o'clock, then 11 o'clock is the time for mass messaging. If it is 8 o'clock in the evening, then 7 o'clock is the time for mass messaging. This is because the user's willingness to help is the strongest after the initial purchase. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult to mobilize user motivation again.

Second, during the activities, there are cross-system fragmentation issues when it comes to user purchases, fission, and wish list filling. When choosing tools, you either have to develop them yourself or use products from the same company. Otherwise, operations staff will need to design very detailed user paths to avoid user loss.

Second, in fission, posters and copywriting are the key factors for success or failure, especially in the circle of friends and chat boxes where attention is more precious than gold. An eye-catching poster may very likely determine your conversion effect, and constant change and innovation are the basic requirements.

Fourth, if there are complex operations that users need to perform during the event, you need to pay extreme attention to details to avoid users filling out the form multiple times and repeatedly. For example, if I have to fill out the wish list every time I invite someone, it will be very troublesome. If I fill in too much, too little, or miss anything, it will be a problem. So it is best to take all these complex situations into consideration. Before users initiate assistance, you can ask users to fill out a wish list, and then arrange the appropriate level of benefits based on their completion progress.

Author: Bingo Love Operation

Source: Bingo Love Operation