A complete list of middleware product models for marketing activities

There are endless definitions of marketing middle platforms in the market. The author of this article combines personal work experience to share a complete list of marketing middle platform product models and analysis of marketing activities in various business scenarios. I hope it will be helpful to you.

1. Definition of Marketing Middle Platform

The definitions of marketing middle platforms on the market are complex and diverse, and there is no unified standard.

Some large companies often focus on the definition of the middle platform, believing that the middle platform is to connect the front and back ends, abstract common requirements and reuse them as much as possible to reduce project cycles and R&D costs.

There are also many companies that have explored the middle-office system, especially from practice. The marketing middle-office refers more to: a complete set of marketing solutions that organize and connect various marketing capabilities, product front-end and back-end interfaces, system rules and processes to meet the company's marketing actions and goals.

Under this definition, the synonym of marketing middle platform is marketing system.

Regardless of the definition, the industry still has some consensus on the marketing middle platform, such as the core goals or requirements of the marketing middle platform.

The three core goals/requirements of the marketing platform:

1. The marketing capabilities built match the business scenarios, can truly produce results, and be responsible for business indicators such as revenue;
2. Abstract common requirements for multiple businesses, multiple scenarios, and multiple marketing capabilities to achieve functional reuse, improve labor efficiency, and reduce development;
3. The platform is easy to use, combining efficiency and flexibility to meet the demands of various users (operations, sales, business, products).

Among these three points, the first one is the most important.

Below, based on more than seven years of work experience in the field of marketing middle platform, the author will explain the framework and design of the marketing middle platform in the following directions.

Due to the lack of authoritative information, it may be somewhat subjective and can be used as a reference at your discretion.

2. Product Framework of Marketing Middle Platform

1. User front-end layer:

① Activity page capabilities:

• a. Basic page capabilities: rich text, activity title, insert multiple images and texts, insert audio and video, buttons (button position, single button, double button, left text and right button), etc.;
• b. Basic components: activity labels, prices, coupons, countdowns, sharing components, etc.;
• c. Layout capabilities: double-column, single-column, sliding, container, diamond area, pop-up window, etc.;
• d. Advanced capability components: appointment, registration, attention, subscription, APP download, ranking, poster generation, etc.

② User contact method:

• a. In the APP: APP push, large pictures in the app, private messages, etc.;
• b. Outside the APP: APP offline messages, text messages, AI calls, WeChat public account messages, WeChat private chat tasks (which can be automatically sent through the system), etc.

③ User data tracking:

User click behavior, active behavior, visit depth, full-link conversion, unpaid orders, paid orders, etc.

2. Activity page building platform

Use common components to build pages. The component capabilities correspond to the above-mentioned activity page capabilities, that is, it is necessary to provide front-end H5, web, and native display capabilities, and also to provide back-end operation pages.

The general layout of a page is generally divided into three major structures. The following is a simple framework diagram.

3. Activity system rules and capabilities (core)

① Participation rules: user participation conditions, participation restrictions, and activity rules.

a. User participation conditions:

• Basic features: new and old users, user levels, paying users/non-paying users, member users/non-member users;
• Business attributes: Define user conditions based on your own business scenario requirements.

b. Participation restrictions: time limit, number limit, platform limit, geographical limit, etc.

c. Activity rules: This is the focus of the entire marketing platform. Different business scenarios have different demands for activities. For details on which marketing activities to adopt, priorities, how to conduct business analysis, etc., please see Chapter 2 "Marketing Function Analysis in Different Scenarios" for detailed description.

② Funds Settlement Rules:

• The preferential treatment or cash back settlement with users needs to be considered in marketing activities such as coupons, discounts, flash sales, packages, group purchases, scholarships, and rebates.
• For the profit sharing settlement with content creators , under the models of settled content/cooperative content/B2B2C, etc., for the content involving creators' profit sharing, it is necessary to formulate profit sharing settlement rules under various marketing policies. In particular, whether the profit-sharing action is before marketing (original price of the product) or after marketing (actual price paid) depends on the contract agreement. If it is before marketing, the platform will use part of its own revenue to carry out the activity, and the profit margin needs to be calculated. If it is after marketing, there needs to be a transparent settlement system for the marketing order income in order to build trust with the partner.
• The commission settlement with internal sales personnel involves activities involving roles such as sales/tutors/class teachers/planners/business who need commission and performance settlement, and the sales personnel improvement settlement rules also need to be considered.
• The distribution settlement with external distributors has users/partners/anchors as distribution roles, that is, they use their own traffic and circles to complete the conversion of goods, and they need to settle the profit sharing with them.

In addition, channel sharing (such as iOS channel sharing, etc.) needs to be considered.

The above are all single-point settlement rules. The settlement rules under some mixed modes are actively complex. The settlement rules should be as complete and applicable as possible, and the settlement system should be as cohesive and low-coupled as possible.

For example, membership is the collection and integration of content by multiple different content creators, and the settlement methods of the members themselves may include buying out copyrights, profit sharing based on the amount, and profit sharing based on the number of views.

When engaging in membership marketing activities, it is necessary to consider the content creator sharing rules under the superimposed activity rules, calculate the input-output ratio and expected income, and profit and loss risks. At the same time, it is also necessary to communicate the special sharing rules under the activities in order to maximize the interests of the enterprise.

③ Reward rules: electronic products such as membership, goods, points, etc., cash rewards, and physical rewards.

• Electronic merchandise rewards: membership, merchandise, points, coupons, etc.
• Cash rewards, red envelopes, etc.
• In-kind rewards.

There are three difficulties in the reward rules:

1. The reward system must be universal. You can’t modify the system every time you add a new type of reward. This would be very costly.
2. Various types of rewards may involve fund settlement systems and financial cost accounting, which need to be considered complete and clearly connected;
3. The procurement, warehousing and logistics of physical rewards are very complicated. If physical rewards are not a critical and high-frequency action for the company, you can try to graft a third-party system as much as possible.

To review, this article mainly talked about the author’s understanding of the marketing middle platform and the three major product frameworks of the marketing middle platform: user layer, including activity pages, contact methods, and user data tracking; activity page construction; activity system and rules, including activity rules, settlement rules, and reward rules.

Author: Box Xiaochi

Source: Box Xiaochi