A set of online event planning templates

Activity Objectives

When planning an event, the first question to consider is: What is the goal?

There is a misunderstanding here. Many companies hold events just for the sake of holding events. For example, the Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon, and the boss says to organize a Dragon Boat Festival activity, and the subordinates start to work hard without considering the effectiveness of the activity at all? Will users be satisfied?

Therefore, when organizing an event, the most important thing is to first clarify the goal. There are usually four types of goals: attracting new customers, promoting activation, brand communication, and conversion. Different goals have different corresponding populations and result data, as shown in the following figure:

It should be noted that people who set goals should fully consider the actual situation and not blindly set a goal that is impossible to achieve . Doing so will not only fail to achieve the goal, but will also cause dissatisfaction among employees.

Activity Budget

The budget for online activities is easier to calculate than that for offline activities. It usually includes advertising costs, prize costs, postage costs, software costs , etc., which are all easier to record and estimate.

It is best to record all the resources you need in a table, such as the following figure:

There are 3 common considerations to note:

First, spend your money wisely. According to the goal of the event, choose to spend money primarily. For example, if the main purpose of the event is to promote activation and attract new customers, then you need to spend more money on setting up event prizes; if the main purpose of the event is to gain exposure, then you need to spend more money on distribution channels.

Second, pay attention to the calculation of tax points. Especially when newcomers in the workplace face some quotations, they often ignore the tax points. If the amount involved is large, the tax points will also be a considerable number.

Third, pay attention to the approval and use of expenses. If it is a small event, the event manager or operator can advance the money and then get reimbursed; if it is a large event, the approval process must be followed in a timely manner so as not to affect the normal progress of the event.

Event Time

As the name suggests, the activity time is mainly reflected in the entire activity SOP process. The operation personnel need to remember each time node clearly. This will be discussed in detail later.

When we plan in the early stage, we can simply plan the date, for example:

Activity preparation period: x month x day - x month x day Activity warm-up period: x month x day - x month x day

Activity launch time: x month x day - x month x day

Activity end (finishing work): x month x day - x month x day

It should be noted that when producing and promoting materials such as posters, the time information must be strictly checked. If it is a holiday time such as 618 or Double 11, it must be highlighted and magnified.

Activity Theme

When selecting an activity theme, you need to first determine the general direction , which can also be understood as the reason for launching the activity, making it easy for users to accept it through a certain point. Then decide on the format of the event , and finally add in the details.

Regarding the direction of the activity, here are a few methods:

Borrowing festivals is the most common reason for organizing activities. Users have already formed common sense about this and there is no need to educate them further.

For example, during the 618 e-commerce festival promotion, users will naturally accept to participate in your event. Of course, there is naturally fierce competition when holding activities during festivals, and if you are not original, you will inevitably fall into clichés.

This is also a common reason for holding events, such as company anniversary celebrations and new product launches. It is a good excuse and is not affected by time or season.

Doing this kind of activities can also strengthen the user's mind and leave an impression on the user about your brand.

Currently, both new consumer brands and traditional brands are very keen on this type of activity. By combining strengths and aggregating users from both sides, they can even achieve the effect of 1+1>2 through marketing means.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the brand must have a certain influence and that you must be able to find a brand that is willing to cooperate.

Taking advantage of hot topics is also a very effective way to organize activities. For example, during the Winter Olympics at the beginning of the year, many brands that had signed contracts with Olympic champions actively launched marketing, and brand popularity also skyrocketed.

However, you must be careful to keep within limits when chasing hot topics. If you accidentally step on a landmine, your brand may be "destroyed and people may die", which will not be worth the loss.

Regarding the form of activities, here are a few references (mainly for online activities):

1) Live broadcast type: online lectures, live sales, online forums... 2) Game type: H5 games, social games, lottery games...

3) Fission type: bargaining activities, group buying activities, support activities...

4) User co-creation: questionnaire survey, user collection…

5) Brand activities: studio live broadcast, press conference…

6) Others: Metaverse…

After establishing the theme and format, event planners can start designing copy, posters and other content.

You can also refer to other people’s excellent event cases and take their essence, but don’t plagiarize. The recent Audi plagiarism incident is a living negative example.

Activity Schedule

The activity process includes two aspects: the first is the user participation process, and the second is the activity execution process.

The user participation process is very simple, especially for activities involving user sharing and fission. We need to draw out each user's participation links and steps, and look for unreasonable and optimized areas.

The execution process of an activity is mainly for the convenience of operations personnel, so that the entire activity can be completed in an orderly manner . It requires clear time nodes, schedules, and persons in charge of each step, so that all participants have a clear execution direction.

Generally speaking, based on the timeline and the activity time nodes, the work, processes, standards and responsible persons of each link should be clearly stated .

It is recommended that the event leader hold a process meeting before the event officially starts, which requires the participation of all event participants. The meeting included three parts:

1) Meeting start: the person in charge introduces the background, reasons, goals and form of the activity; 2) Breakdown of key time nodes: according to each key time point, confirm the work and deadline of each person;

3) Inquiry and confirmation: It is necessary to clarify the work situation of each person and ask if they have any suggestions or opinions

Promotion

The promotion of the event is also an extremely important part. The success of an online event depends largely on how much exposure the event gets.

Because it is mainly aimed at online activities, the means of promotion are also mainly through online channels. We need to design the promotion path and budget for each channel in the early stage.

I won’t say much about the current mainstream self-media platforms such as Tik Tok, Xiaohongshu, and official accounts. The prices for their placements can be found online, and the prices of bidding advertisements from Tencent and Baidu can also be found.

It is best to make a table and compare the delivery of each channel. Of course, the input-output ratio should also be calculated to ensure that the delivery is effective.

Another thing that needs attention is whether the channels, promotion labels, promotion areas and populations chosen are close to your own brand, so as to maximize the conversion rate.

Several tags are mainly used for reference when selecting delivery:

1. Age 2. Occupation

3. Region

4. Income level

5. Interests

6. Whether it is a new or old customer

Data Feedback

The importance of data is self-evident. It can objectively reflect whether the activity is successful and whether it meets expectations at each stage.

For example, in a fission activity, the user scanning rate has not reached the expected level or is even very low. There may be two reasons:

First, the poster design is not attractive, and there are problems with the copywriting and layout; second, the prizes are not attractive, the bait is not big enough, and users do not want to participate;

Third, there are problems with the fission software and problems with user operations.

Then, based on the causes, we improve the tests one by one and solve the problems.

Therefore, there should be dedicated personnel responsible for collecting statistics on key data indicators and reporting them every morning. If it is found that the data indicators do not meet expectations, the strategy should be adjusted in a timely manner.

Review summary

A complete event planning should have a beginning and an end. It is unacceptable to start well but not end well. When the event ends, the rules for stopping the event should be clearly stated, and a channel should be provided for users to ask for feedback.

After the event, the person in charge of the event will analyze and summarize the experience, and review the overall situation, which can play a great reference role in the subsequent activities. It mainly focuses on three aspects:

1) Overall overview of the activity

Completion of activity objectives Input-output situation

Comparison of the estimated effect and the actual effect

…

2) Detailed data analysis

Overall transaction status User participation

Comparison of the effects and inputs of various channels

Product sales ranking

…

3) Activity summary

Activity highlights completion status

Areas for improvement

…