Unveiling the promotional activities of mainstream e-commerce platforms!

Nowadays, there are more and more e-commerce activities, from the annual Double Eleven Carnival to Double Twelve, Goddess Festival, and New Year’s Goods Festival, various e-commerce promotional activities seem to be overwhelming.

As we all know, 2020 is an ordinary yet extraordinary year. Double 11, which is under the epidemic, does not seem to be affected, and even comes with two waves of "pre-sales". The strong and hard-working workers have become the ones who have to pay the final payments in November, feeling a mixed feeling of heaviness and joy (from shopping).

Double 11 has passed, Double 12 has passed, 2020 has passed, and even 2021 is almost a quarter of the way through. This time, we will not rush to review the promotions of Double 11 or Double 12. Instead, we would like to ask everyone to think carefully about the past year. Out of 365 days, have you been shopping in various promotions, big or small, for nearly 300 days?

Of course, this ratio may be a bit exaggerated, but after sorting it out, promotional activities have been continuously pushed to the market in various forms or themes to stimulate consumers to shop, and Double 11 is just the one with the longest duration, the greatest exposure, the hottest topic, and the most superimposed benefits among countless promotions.

Therefore, today I would like to introduce to you the ideas and rhythm that mainstream e-commerce platforms use to design annual, monthly, weekly and even daily promotional activities. If you have friends in the e-commerce industry, you can also use the following analysis to compare the current status of the e-commerce platform you are responsible for, how to be more effective in the future, and how to design or guide promotions at a more reasonable pace.

After all, if there is no strategy, even if the promotion is frequent, it may not achieve the goal. If the promotion follows certain rules and hits the mark, it will definitely bring unexpected results. Then, combining the "framework thinking" that the author has been learning and practicing recently to disassemble and explain the promotion of e-commerce platforms, this article will be divided into the following three parts to decipher the promotion rhythm of e-commerce platforms:

1. Promotion in the broad and narrow sense
2. Six elements of e-commerce promotion
3. How to formulate promotion rhythm according to platform characteristics

1. Promotion in the broad and narrow sense

Promotion is essentially a communication activity, that is, marketers (information providers or senders) send various information to stimulate consumption and pass the information to one or more target objects (i.e. information recipients, such as listeners, viewers, readers, consumers or users, etc.) to influence their attitudes and behaviors. - Baidu Encyclopedia

From the perspective of ordinary consumers, promotions in a broad sense are equivalent to coupon deductions, discounts, discounts for purchases over a certain amount, stacking coupons, giving away gifts, etc. As long as the same product has a discount compared to the usual price, no matter what form of promotion it is, it may stimulate us to press the payment button.

But have we ever thought carefully about why a mere small discount can make us buy things that we may not use in normal times? In fact, this involves a series of links, from vision to cognition, and then to a full "routine" of behavioral triggers.

On the visual level, during the promotion period, each e-commerce application will use a unified new visual style in various marketing areas, traffic entrances and user touchpoints, so that the entire interface is full of promotional festive atmosphere. Whether it’s the splash screen ads, the home page banner area, the home page skin, or even the product area borders and product labels… in short, as soon as you enter the App, you can clearly feel “Oh~ there’s a promotion!”.

Through strong visual contrast and stimulation with usual days, customers will subconsciously form a perception that differentiated "dressing" generally means promotion. This process only requires a short period of accumulation to complete the connection from vision to cognition. With long-term accumulation of knowledge, the relationship between the two will naturally be strengthened.

More or less, everyone has downloaded at least two e-commerce apps (after all, we are all workers, how can we save money on food if we don’t compare three stores?). The promotional visuals of each app may be different, but in the end they all lead to the same destination.

Whenever there is a promotional festival (generally, the time nodes of major promotions on various e-commerce platforms are almost the same), no matter which App you open, you can see strong visuals around the same promotional theme, which will prompt you to further understand and compare the rules and intensity of promotions on different platforms, and then check whether the items you usually add to the shopping cart are participating in the promotion. If the items you added happen to be participating in the promotion, you naturally want to buy them while you can.

When you press the checkout button, you have completed the last step of the entire "routine" - triggering the purchase behavior. It can be seen that the e-commerce platform's interlocking routines, from visual stimulation to cognitive reinforcement to the final completion of the purchase chain, make every purchase you make traceable. Every purchase you make is actually a promotion in a broad sense.

In addition to the specific global visual stimulation of promotions, daily small promotions will also stimulate consumers at different touchpoints. For example, Taobao has recently discovered a "little trick" on the order list page - for products that customers have already ordered, not only is a small label "Get coupon and deduct x (discount amount)" added to the upper left corner of the add-to-cart BTN, but a new promotion reminder column is also added for the products that the purchased products are participating in.

These small interactive and visual optimizations virtually expand the scenarios in which promotional activities reach consumers:

1. As a customer who has placed an order, you will definitely pay attention to the order logistics status and count the days until you can get the desired product. Therefore, this page will inevitably be frequently viewed and the information on the page will also be frequently viewed.
2. The goods that customers have already placed orders for are necessities for them, or goods with a very high probability of repurchase. Under this premise, there are discounts or coupons, which further promote the next repurchase.

Combining the above necessary conditions - frequent viewing + purchasing needs + promotional discounts, it is simply a famous scene that naturally leads to repeat purchases. This kind of "little trick" is unique! (Without further ado, I will give you a sea-dog-style applause…)

Taobao order list page

So, what does promotion in a narrow sense mean?

The so-called broad and narrow meanings are actually the promotions in common perception and the segmented promotions on e-commerce platforms. We have just introduced the general understanding of promotions. Next, we will introduce how promotions are segmented from the perspective of the platform.

E-commerce platforms can consider traffic, creativity, gameplay, data, resources, promotion intensity and other aspects for promotions, and subdivide them into four marketing activity levels: S, A, B, and C, among which S>A>B>C.

1. S-Class

Those who often play games should be familiar with it. They all know that it means excellent, good at playing, and top in the rankings.

S is actually the abbreviation of Super, so S-level promotion is the top promotion as the name suggests. No matter in terms of scale, popularity exposure, sales volume or consumer awareness, S-level promotion always ranks first. The most typical one is the Double 11 every year.

• From the original Singles' Day to now, preheating and pre-sales started a month in advance, and the early traffic was continuously accumulated through various sign-ins or games, and the traffic exploded on the Double 11 day. Double 11 has now become the most important and most promotional e-commerce festival in the minds of consumers. At the same time, it can also be seen that S-level promotions may require multiple investments in overall promotion planning, cost investment and implementation strategies compared to other levels of promotions. Of course, the promotion results may also correspond to exponential gains.
• Therefore, for an e-commerce platform, it is necessary to plan at least one S-level promotion every year (but not too many, otherwise it may have a counterproductive effect in terms of cost and effect). It is the promotion that requires the most brainpower and energy to prepare in advance. After all, this greatly affects the exposure and influence of the platform, and it needs to be repeatedly stimulated at similar time points every year to form long-term memories in consumers and form inherent cognition in their minds, which is convenient for each subsequent contact and repeat purchase.

2. Grade A

Although it may not be as good as the S-level in terms of initial investment, traffic and exposure during the promotion period, it wins in frequency. For example, on Taobao Juhuasuan, there are many products participating in the event, and there is often a wave of new products every once in a while, so the sales brought by A-level promotions to the e-commerce platform are also quite considerable.

Therefore, A-level promotions may be more cost-effective than S-level promotions. Then for the platform, A-level promotions are also necessary. Their positioning is more daily, and they are somewhat "one-time" in terms of planning and cost investment. They use relatively inherent promotional plans repeatedly to achieve the purpose of continuously stimulating consumers to repurchase.

3. B and C grades

Compared with the first two levels, this promotion is a very small one, and can basically be used as a backup plan to continue to acquire customers on a small scale or maintain a certain level of sales.

But don’t underestimate the role of small promotions, such as promotions in vertical categories or for specific groups of people. Because they are more targeted, although the cost is low, the results may be very good. Moreover, small promotions are relatively flexible. If they are found to be effective during review, they can be quickly reused again within a short period of time to maximize profits.

Summary of S, A, B, and C-level promotion features

The above mainly introduces the definitions of e-commerce promotions in a broad and narrow sense. The middle part will introduce the six elements of e-commerce promotions - goals, means or gameplay, product selection, event themes (gimmicks + profit points), event rhythm, and data indicators. It will deeply analyze a seemingly simple promotion and find out what kind of early "hammering" it needs to go through before it can be launched to consumers.

Author: Product girl vc

Source: Product Girl vc