How to avoid the pitfalls of marketing planning activities?

In the current market environment, product promotion activities can be seen everywhere. If you don’t want to cause user disgust through simple promotional activities, perhaps you can adopt a combination of marketing methods. In the process of designing a combination marketing campaign plan, planners can start thinking from aspects such as creativity, channel media, etc.

The author discovered some interesting things during the course of the project. Some bosses have one-sided evaluation criteria for projects. They hope that an activity plan will have good-looking indicators in all processes from traffic generation, registration, consumption, to repeat purchases, but they do not like to do too many matching activities or provide benefits to users.

Next, let’s talk about our understanding of combination activities based on the pitfalls we encountered before.

1. Newbie pitfall: Thinking that the fewer activities for users, the better; that the simpler the activity reach, the better.

1. Complaints

In product design, the process from entering the App to registering and paying should be as short as possible. The reason is that it allows users to quickly use the core functions of the App and turn them into core value users. Do you still remember the “Bullet Messenger” back then?

The heavy subsidies that Bullet Messenger received when it was launched brought it hundreds of millions of users. Of course, we have to leave aside the scene where the wool-grabbing party leaves after taking all the wool from the sheep.

Judging from the number of users, the "wool" program is successful. In the early stages of an App’s release, subsidy strategies often work better. Simple promotional/marketing activities and platform subsidies can bring about certain growth.

The above situation has caused some bosses to believe that the fewer activities there are for users, the better, and that the simpler the way an activity reaches users, the more perfect it is. In fact, the more derived meanings within the company are that event planning is very simple and this module is not difficult.

Off topic: Have you ever submitted a combination activity plan, and then after it was modified based on various non-professional suggestions, it became simpler and simpler and turned into a pure promotional plan? In addition to the reduction in investment resources, this has finally turned into a fancy activity, and you will still be responsible for the effects.

2. Why do we need to carry out combination marketing activities?

1) Market environment factors

In the current market environment, all walks of life are flooded with product promotion activities. For users, they are exposed to various promotional discount information every day, which makes them insensitive to such discount promotions.

Even if a company does invest certain marketing resources in promotions, promotional activities alone may hardly bring about good user perception.

2) Brand Factor

A large number of product promotions may have an impact on the corporate brand. Because when a user purchases a certain product, the product is promoted and the price is cheaper than when the user purchased it, which will cause the user to be disgusted. Example: Tesla owners’ rights protection incident.

3) User perception factors

Whether it is a marketing campaign or a promotional activity, its ultimate goal is to bring users a better and more affordable shopping or service experience. Compared with the "directness" of promotional activities, the user participation path of marketing activities is longer, but user perception is better.

For example, the Air Dior, a pair of shoes jointly created by Dior and Nike, which has become very popular recently, is priced at RMB 18,000 per pair, and the market transaction price is RMB 100,000+. Not to mention how much limited sales this joint activity has brought (all pre-orders have been sold out), judging from the traffic and pre-order volume on Dior’s WeChat channel alone, it is already a high-quality marketing activity.

Pay attention to a small detail of an event. Dior has three official accounts on the WeChat portal.

(Mobile) This activity was pushed on one of the official WeChat accounts [DIOR]. After the user clicked to enter the mini program, the homepage of the mini program was not the content of the activity, but other products. The activity could only be seen after pulling down.

After the user clicks on the event to register, the follow-up result page pops up. The winning information of the event must be viewed through another official WeChat account [DIOR Fashion Service Account].

Through high-quality brand linkage, we bring in potential users who have strong purchasing intentions, so we design a longer path within the event to bring more fans and consumer information to the company's new media resources (required to fill in for reservations).

3. Combined activity case (not analyzed in depth)

Tmall Double 11 is a shopping carnival for the whole nation, and I believe no one doubts the success of this shopping carnival.

Based on platform subsidies and merchant subsidies, Tmall has put a lot of effort in warming up before the Double 11 event. Through the joint operation of various channels and Alibaba ecosystem modules, Tmall Double 11 has established itself as the cheapest day for shopping in the year in the minds of consumers.

It can be seen from the figure below that the direction of the main promotion activities of Double 11 tends to be a marketing + promotion model. The marketing modules include Tmall Super Star Wish, National Cat Shop, Building Challenge, Tmall Customized Gift Boxes, 40 Superstars Giving Free Bill Opportunities, Member Exclusive and other activities, using the gimmick of sharing 2 billion red envelopes to attract users to participate in the activities. It ensures the real engagement and fission behavior of users, laying the foundation for the real user traffic of the event.

The promotional modules include pre-sale, 0-point discount, discount upon discount, etc. It ensures the pre-sale sales of platform products before the event and the platform traffic when the event starts.

PS: We put a lot of thought into the contact channels. Whether it is the information flow platform UC Browser, the video platform Youku, or even the voice platform Tmall Genie. All traffic channel platforms of Alibaba are safeguarding the publicity effect of Double 11 during this period.

4. Conclusion

Judging from the current market scenario, simple promotional activities cannot bring the best results. The art of marketing campaign design lies in the close connection between promotional activities and marketing activities.

The idea that simply having a short user participation path can bring about excellent activity results is outdated.

2. The pitfall of the hard-core: I can now plan a combination of plans! Just write them all down with a wave of your hand!

1. Complaints

Being able to plan a decent marketing plan is the foundation of a planner. If you understand the content described in the previous step and know how to plan a combination of plans, you will be even better.

However, the common "self-entertainment" will also follow. "Self-entertainment" is a common problem for most people who do activities, content, or even products. "I suddenly came up with an awesome idea, listen to me!", "You don't like low-probability gameplay, but our users do!", do these words sound familiar to you?

You cannot represent your target audience. Don't plan activities based on your subjective feelings, and don't make things based on your subjective thinking. Therefore, before planning an event, try to communicate with groups similar to your target audience to understand their needs. After deciding on a few preliminary ideas, plan the event based on your personal market judgment.

The plans made by the marketing department may occupy the company's marketing resources, which are real money; even if they are brand-related, they will affect a certain product or the company's future operating trends. If you are not sure about it, the plans you write will be castles in the air.

2. How to design a combination marketing plan?

1) What is a combination marketing plan? What is the purpose of your plan?

The author believes that we should start with this topic: What is a combination marketing plan?

A combination marketing plan is not just the combination of marketing and promotion as described in the above example, it can also be the coordination between marketing plans.

For example, when PuPu (an app similar to Taobao Taoxianda) was developing the market in Xiamen, it adopted the method of offline promotion + online marketing.

PuPu sets up stalls online to attract new users. Users can register with PuPu to get 3 boxes of Qingfeng tissue paper, and newly registered users can also buy 12 bottles of mineral water (or other great discounts) for 1 yuan through the new user interface.

Through this marketing method, PuPu quickly entered the Xiamen fresh food delivery market. Let’s analyze Pu Pu’s action.

First of all, PuPu attracted a large number of offline users to register by attracting new users offline (setting up stalls) and allowing users to receive gifts when they register. The places for attracting new users are offline traffic entrances such as residential areas, business districts or software parks, which ensures the accuracy of user acquisition.

Moreover, the current Internet traffic dividend has been divided up, and the cost of attracting new users in the Internet industry has increased to between 15 and 30 yuan per person, and there is still no way to fully guarantee that new users are accurate target users. On the other hand, for PuPu, the corporate purchasing price of 3 boxes of Qingfeng tissue paper (or other gifts) is between 1-1.5 yuan/pack, which means that the offline customer acquisition cost is between 3-4.5 yuan/person, which is an outstanding effect.

Secondly, after registering, users can enter the new member area and purchase 12 bottles of mineral water or other discounted products for 1 yuan. Analyzing from the enterprise purchase price of the goods, the subsidy amount is approximately 4-7 yuan per person, which means that the cost for PuPu to acquire a new user who has fully used the core function of the platform (shopping) is approximately 7-11.5 yuan per person, which is far lower than the current user acquisition cost in the Internet industry.

From the above plan, we can see that the purpose of PuPu’s user acquisition activities is to acquire users and make them pay. It can also be seen from data analysis that PuPu’s user acquisition (offline + online) combined marketing activities save companies a lot of marketing costs.

A good marketing combination plan is to help the company save money and spend money more efficiently (PS: This is one of the reasons why the author has always disagreed with some bosses who think that the marketing department is a wasteful department).

When planning such a plan, the first thing to do is to clarify what your core purpose is?

• If the goal is to attract new customers, then plan channel cooperation and resources based on this goal.
• If the goal is activity, in addition to considering active content activities, you also need to consider whether the existing platform traffic pool can meet the activity expectations and whether it needs to be combined with new customer acquisition activities.
• If the goal is payment, then the rest is the same as above, except that you need to consider paid activity guidance.

2) What should we pay attention to when designing a combination marketing plan?

For this question, the author would like to discuss it from three key modules: program creativity, channels/media, and execution.

① Solution Creativity——User Communication

This point has been mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. When planning a plan, you cannot just do whatever you think is best. The plan needs to be implemented, which will take up the company's resources and may even affect the company's future development direction. So, how to make a good plan creative, the process is as follows:

1. Before planning a plan, think carefully about what your purpose is?
2. Then, based on this goal, anticipate several types of activities;
3. Take the activity plan and communicate with more similar target users to see if they are aware of it.
4. After choosing the general direction, I finally used my own market thinking to design and improve the creative points of the plan.

② Channel/Media——Multi-dimensional judgment/channel selection

Some planners are very simplistic and crude in choosing promotional channels, and only look at the number of users or readings on the platform. Often, a large amount of money is spent on promotion, only to find that the conversion rate of the activity is extremely poor. Do you still remember the news about the “viral video” on Weibo that had millions of views but 0 conversions?

Whether choosing a platform or selecting KOL for promotion, it requires multi-dimensional and comprehensive evaluation.

Invest in KOL

• First, you need to match your products or brands with the attributes of your fans and select the right influencers;
• Secondly, we use new media analysis tools to conduct a preliminary analysis of the quality of these big V accounts, for example: WeChat public account - Xigua Data;
• Finally, manually open the accounts that have been screened for the second time and use your own "eagle eyes" to check the quality of the comments, which can basically eliminate most of the parallel import accounts.

Delivery platform

The choice of delivery platform is similar to that of KOL.

• First, we need to determine whether its user composition matches its own product or brand. For example, Zhihu corresponds to highly educated working people, and Bilibili corresponds to the pan-ACG young group.
• Secondly, research the advertising methods of the platform. For example, Zhihu can guide topics, which is free but requires content writing; Bilibili can place videos, but if you don’t invest certain resources, you may be drowned in the vast number of high-quality content videos;
• Finally, design the optimal advertising combination to ensure the achievement of advertising effects.

③ Execution: Fast/Accurate/Ruthless

quick

Fast means to act quickly. From planning to implementation, marketing plans need to follow time nodes. How to ensure the cooperation of all aspects of the team and implement the plan quickly, effectively and orderly is something that every marketer needs to pay attention to.

In the process of plan implementation, some problems will be encountered, especially in the implementation of combination plans, which requires grasping multiple factors and the probability of problems will be greater. At this point, the author believes that the execution of the entire plan can be controlled from the following aspects:

• Repeated verification of the plan itself;
• Test the implementation capabilities of technical modules multiple times;
• Be prepared for Plan B;
• Do a good job in writing customer service documents.

Going a little deeper, you can also think about the following questions:

• If the effect of the activity exceeds expectations, how will operations respond? Can the technical level support it? (Will a large amount of traffic cause the system to freeze or even crash?)
• What should I do if the activity is not effective? (You can’t just sit there and wait to die)
• What should I do if a bug occurs during the execution of an activity? (Taobao sellers set the wrong price, resulting in huge losses overnight)

allow

Accurate means that the target population must be accurate.

For example, assuming your target audience is young and middle-aged people aged 20-40, don’t use the product platform as the distribution channel or the poster design as a Q-version cartoon, otherwise you will waste your money and attract a group of child users aged 5-15.

ruthless

Fierce means that the intensity of the activity must be sufficient.

I once had a boss who liked to cut the resources invested in it in half and then in half every time she designed an event. Then, the cost and ROI calculations must also be based on annual indicators. Such a boss is simply dreaming.

PS: So the company’s turnover rate is super high ~ 20% of employees can leave in one and a half months.

Please remember that whether you are rich or poor, there is an eternal law - when you have the same perception of multiple brands of the same dimension and service level, the one that stands out in terms of discounts will surely stand out.

In other words, everyone has a little mentality of taking advantage. So, if you’ve spent money on promotion, don’t skimp on the prizes.

3) How to match resources when designing a combination marketing plan?

Let’s go back to the PuPu case. We can see that the offline marketing cost of attracting new customers is less than the online marketing cost of encouraging users to purchase. Therefore, the key points of the project are two:

1. Rapidly attract new users, because both offline and online resources are aimed at new platform users and do not conflict in promotion;
2. Allow new platform users to quickly use the platform's core functions (shopping). User purchasing behavior is more cumbersome than user registration because users have to pay money for it.

If the main goal is to attract new customers, then when designing a combination marketing plan, more resources should be allocated to guiding user registration behavior.

If the main goal is payment, then when designing, you need to be more inclined to guide users' purchasing behavior, just as PuPu did.

3. Hardcore pit: It’s over! This activity didn’t work, oh my god, help me!

Every planner may have gone through such a stage. After planning a project, he or she is extremely worried about whether his or her plan can bring good results.

As I get older, I become less concerned about these issues. The author believes that the quality of the planning proposal and its final results are influenced by many factors.

Even many planners with successful project experience don’t know why their plans suddenly become popular. Instead of letting the project fail due to a certain factor, it is better to do a good project review, understand the loopholes in project coordination, and avoid making the same mistakes next time.

A combination marketing plan is inherently more complicated than an ordinary single activity plan. If you lose confidence in your own plan due to a lack of control over a certain node, then you will lose both the wife and the army.

Author: Mr. Orange's work notes

Source: Mr. Ju's work notes