The purpose of marketing activities is mainly to achieve rapid fission and dissemination effects by attracting users to participate in activities, acquiring new customers at low cost, and achieving the ultimate business goal.

Next, let’s talk about the business and users that designers should first understand after receiving requests for marketing activities.

1. Business

Before starting design, designers need to first understand business demands, goals, activity cycles, incentives, rules, etc. to prepare for the subsequent specific design work.

The background objectives of the event involve specific business, such as whether the event is held on a fixed holiday or a big promotion? Is the product currently in the start-up phase or the mature phase?

Different background stages have different target demands. Designers need to accurately control the demands and balance business and experience. Understanding the background objectives of the activity will help you grasp the overall design direction and lay the foundation for the subsequent design plan.

The length of activity cycles varies, so corresponding presentation and guidance are required during design so that users have psychological expectations of the activity cycle. For short-term activities, users need to have a clearer understanding of the activity duration. For long-term activities, time nodes are no longer the focus of page presentation.

Only by promising great benefits can people be motivated, and prizes are essential for building relationships. The winning threshold and winning time are positively correlated with the prize value, and directly affect the user's willingness and enthusiasm to participate.

If the prizes offered by the event have low value, the prizes need to be obtained within a relatively short period of time. If the time is too long, it will reduce users' enthusiasm for participation. For those with a higher sense of value, the participation cycle can be appropriately extended to cultivate users' long-term participation habits.

Similarly, for activities with a higher threshold for winning, the value of the prizes needs to be increased accordingly to attract users to have sufficient motivation to participate in the activities.

2. Users

Appeal: Users participate in online activities to get prizes, kill time, and interact with friends.

Usage scenarios: Any environment with network, including office, home, subway, public transportation, etc., where user operations may be interrupted at any time. It is necessary to ensure that the page operation is stable and smooth, the status is clear and understandable, and reduce cognition.

User psychology: Analyze the psychological demands of users when participating in activities, maximize user motivation, and promote user participation behavior.

1. User participation process analysis

2. Participation phase

User participation in activities can be divided into "before participation", "first participation", "after participation", and "end of activity". The psychological needs and motivations at different stages are different, and designers need to display information that meets the user's current psychological expectations based on different emphases.

Balance business and user experience by motivating users, guiding behaviors, and promoting conversions.

3. Analysis of key points in each stage

• Before participating in the event: The page focuses on attracting users to learn about the event and quickly form an understanding of the event in a short period of time;
• First time participating in an activity: Lower the threshold for participation as much as possible to allow users to participate smoothly. A higher level of difficulty will reduce users’ enthusiasm and willingness to participate. Provide step-by-step guidance, with different types of feedback given in different forms and visuals according to their priority;
• After participating in the activity: Users are generally more concerned about their current interests. Designers can accurately guide, retain, and motivate users to continue participating based on the depth of user participation to achieve the ultimate activity goal;
• The activity has ended: For instant-play-and-win rewards activities, a prompt should be provided to let users know that the activity has ended;
• If the activity is a play-first-then-win activity, users are more concerned about whether they have won and the distribution of prizes, and they need to be informed of winning tips and reward tracking information. In the case of not winning a prize, try to make users feel happy after the event.

3. Case Analysis

Here are a few examples to illustrate the analysis:

1. Important information is displayed on one screen

Users participate in activities largely because they are attracted by the content of the activities. The information presented on the first screen will directly affect the user's decision-making, allowing users to have a clear understanding of the activity and build trust in it in a short period of time.

As shown in the above example:

Through the processing of scenes and visual effects, users can be fully brought into the atmosphere of the event. The overall atmosphere of the page echoes the theme and brings a strong sense of immersion, increasing users' perception of the event (Figure 1).

Taking advantage of the psychology of getting a bargain, presenting the remaining time of a time-limited activity creates a sense of scarcity and urgency of the activity, thereby increasing user participation (Figure 2).

In addition to trust in the product's own brand, the trust given by the event will also affect the user's ultimate willingness to participate. Displaying the user information of the awarded users at the top of the page undoubtedly increases the user's trust in the event and satisfies the user's herd mentality (Figure 2).

Activity rewards attract users through high-exposure displays, and participation methods guide user actions with titles and button copy to promote conversions. Users can quickly determine whether they are interested in participating in the event based on the content presented on the page.

2. Low threshold for participation, increasing participation enthusiasm

The simpler the activity process is, the better. Only by getting users involved can the ultimate goal of the activity be achieved.

The example above adopts the strategy of giving users "sweets" before entering the activity, allowing users to naturally transition to participating in the activity, reducing the bounce rate midway, simplifying the user operation process, and at the same time improving the user participation rate and increasing user participation enthusiasm.

3. Keep users engaged

For users who have already participated, the page aims to increase the frequency of participation and promote dissemination, and the focus is on motivating users to continue participating.

As shown in the above example:

Visualize the user's current progress and achievements to inform you that they are about to enter the next goal. Use the goal gradient effect (the closer people get to their goals, the more determination and motivation they have, and the faster they act) to increase users' anticipation and motivate them to continue participating.

The activity process combines the concerns of users' own interests, and provides corresponding prompts and feedback at each milestone node on the information related to the current interests of participating users, so as to continuously motivate users.

4. Retain users

When users want to leave the activity, you can increase retention by reminding them and encourage them to continue participating in the activity.

As shown in the above example:

• First, the copywriting reminds users that they can get rewards if they persist, which keeps them participating to get the final rewards. At the same time, it reminds users that there are rewards that have not been claimed, which arouses their curiosity and encourages them to continue participating.
• Secondly, by taking advantage of the inertia of closing pop-up windows and exiting the activity page, users subconsciously click "Close" to only close the prompt pop-up window, leaving the user still on the activity page;
• Finally, guiding other product operations in pop-up windows and directing traffic to other sections of the product when retention is unsuccessful is also a good option.

IV. Conclusion

After understanding the business, designers can analyze users’ current demands based on the different stages of user participation in activities, and try to make the form of product activities meet users’ psychological expectations.

The above are some simple sharing on designing activities. For different types of activities, specific circumstances need to be considered comprehensively. There are more ideas waiting to be explored in depth.