Analysis of Pinduoduo’s “Shake for Cash” campaign operations!

Have you participated in Pinduoduo’s “Shake for Cash” event? Pinduoduo, which once created the "Help to Cut Prices" campaign, has its own unique approach to campaign operations and has achieved good results. This article analyzes the "Shake for Cash" activity and hopes it will be helpful to you.

Recently, Pinduoduo launched another popular event called "Shake for Cash".

A special opening is also made in the bottom navigation bar to direct traffic to this activity, and its priority is very high.

Xiaobei's mood when playing this activity was like this: from being "a little excited" in the beginning to having his "anger value increasing continuously" after being tricked step by step, and finally feeling that there was no hope of cashing out and "being so angry that he threw his phone".

Does the whole process sound familiar? That’s right, this is Pinduoduo’s usual “operation”.

Next, Xiaobei will analyze the "Shake Cash" activity from the following aspects:

• Why does Pinduoduo want to do this activity?
• What are the tricks behind the activities?
• Why are there so many customer complaints, but the event effect is still so good?

1. Why does Pinduoduo want to hold this event?

1. Stimulate the continuous growth of user scale

According to Pinduoduo's fourth-quarter 2020 financial report, as of the end of 2020, the platform's annual active buyers were 788.4 million. With 57.1 million new users in a single quarter, it has surpassed Alibaba to become the e-commerce platform with the largest number of users.

It's not easy to get first place, so don't you have to fight hard to keep the position? After all, the gap between now and Alibaba's 779 million is very small. If we don’t try hard to come up with new ideas to stimulate continued growth in the user base, how will we put our faces when we are overtaken by Alibaba next season?

2. Increase DAU and activity

Every day when you open the cash shake page, the system will give you a cash red envelope that will be deposited into your account immediately without any effort. In other words, if users want to take advantage of this benefit, they must open the app at least once a day and go to the activity page to claim it.

In addition, the validity period of a single cash shake activity is about 12 hours, and you can withdraw cash when the amount reaches 100 yuan. If I want to get the 100 yuan, I must keep looking for people to compete with me within the validity period of the event, and at the same time, I must collect the scheduled red envelopes every few hours in order to successfully withdraw the money. If you don't complete the task within the validity period, sorry, please try again.

Therefore, in this process, users invisibly helped Pinduoduo achieve the goal of increasing DAU and activity.

3. Empowering “Duoduo Shopping”

Duoduomaicai occupies the largest traffic diversion position on the activity page, and its strategic position is self-evident.

It is reported that in the fourth quarter of 2020, Pinduoduo achieved revenue of 26.548 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 145.97%, which was mainly due to the contribution of merchandise sales revenue brought by the Duoduo Maicai business. In February of this year, Duoduomaicai’s daily sales volume reached 75 million yuan, and the goal for Q1 2021 is to achieve daily sales of 400 million yuan, a five-fold increase!

Under such a heavy KPI, Pinduoduo must try every means to direct traffic to Duoduo Maicai, so that more people can place orders on Duoduo Maicai, promote the development of community group buying business, and achieve sustained growth in overall revenue.

4. Build social relationship chains and help “Pinxiaoquan”

I can add as friends all those who have competed with me for red envelopes.

When I add him/her successfully, he/she will appear in my friend list of "Pin Xiaoquan". In the future, I will be able to see his/her group buying behavior and the product reviews he/she posted, etc.

Previously, due to privacy issues, "Pin Xiaoquan" has been criticized and not many people play it. However, Pinduoduo's policy of establishing a "real evaluation system to solve the trust problem" will not change. Well, this is a good opportunity to boost this business.

2. What are the tricks behind the activities?

1. Large amounts tempt you

Pinduoduo is well aware that human nature is greedy and profit-seeking. The greater the benefits, the stronger the user's motivation to participate.

So he sets the amount very high every time to entice you to participate.

2. Give you a little sweetness before "exploiting you"

If Pinduoduo wants users to participate in this activity and continue to invest, it needs to give users some "sweetness" first.

The first red envelope a user receives when participating in an event for the first time is a real cash red envelope (transferred directly to WeChat, very quickly).

So, the user was happy and thought: There is such a good thing? Is it so easy to get a red envelope? Then wouldn’t I make a fortune if I opened a few more red envelopes? Great, keep playing!

3. Take advantage of the “anchoring effect”

When people make decisions, their thinking is often influenced by the first information they get, that is, preconceived ideas.

Because I got a red envelope of a few cents the first time, I thought that I would get red envelopes of a few cents each time afterwards; because the first red envelope I received was directly transferred to WeChat, I thought that the red envelopes I received afterwards would also be directly transferred to WeChat.

But the fact is, the red envelopes opened later only had a few cents at most, and some did not even have a few cents at all, just cash coins.

If you are lucky enough to win cash, it will not be transferred to you directly, but will be credited to your withdrawal account, and you can only withdraw it when it reaches 100 yuan. If the total amount is less than 100 yuan, the money will be taken away as soon as it is divided.

4. Make it easy to achieve your goals by comparing the numbers

I have already earned 99.41 after opening just a few red envelopes. Now I am only 0.59 yuan away from my goal. If I open a few more, I will achieve my goal. Go for it! ! !

So you keep inviting your friends to compete for red envelopes, thinking that you can withdraw 100 yuan if you get a few more red envelopes. But Pinduoduo is not that stupid! He sets the probability of winning a cash red envelope to a very low level, and gives you a bunch of cash coins, but no money. Are you angry?

Finally you realize that the furthest distance in the world is 0.59 yuan away from 100 yuan!

5. Only let you notice the information that is beneficial to him

Humans spend very little time reading most text, often just scanning (skimming) it, looking for words or phrases that catch our attention.

Why scan? Because in most cases, we have tasks to accomplish and usually want to complete them as quickly as possible, so we ignore most of the content.

So how does Pinduoduo confuse you based on this fact? Let’s look at the following pop-up window.

At first glance, I can withdraw 0.05 yuan by inviting "Ke Ke"! Since I was already feeling depressed because of the pile of cash coins, I was very excited when I suddenly received a cash red envelope. Without further ado, invite Ke Ke to go!

After the invitation was successful, I found out that it was only 0.01 yuan!

Wasn’t it agreed to be 0.05 yuan? ? ? How did it become 0.01 yuan? ?

When I went back to look at the pop-up window again (luckily I took a screenshot), I realized that there was a “chance” to win 0.05 yuan! Although this routine is very common, can the color of this prompt be lighter? ? ?

6. Take advantage of the psychology of “loss aversion”

Loss aversion refers to the phenomenon that when people are faced with the same amount of gains and losses, they find the losses more unbearable. The negative effect of the same amount of loss is 2.5 times the positive effect of the same amount of gain.

In other words, the motivation given to me by “I don’t want to lose the 100 yuan that I worked hard for” is 2.5 times that of “I want to get this 100 yuan”!

Because I have invested a lot of time, energy and connections in this event. So I don’t want to give up, I don’t want all my previous efforts to go to waste, I have to keep fighting!

So I fell into Pinduoduo's trap again.

3. Why are there so many customer complaints, but the event effect is still so good?

I often see many people complaining about Pinduoduo’s activities, and some people even go to court to sue Pinduoduo for fraud. Then why does Pinduoduo continue to do this despite so many customer complaints, and why is the effect still so good? I think there are two main reasons:

1. The core user group is highly motivated

Users who are dissatisfied with Pinduoduo's activities mainly come from first- and second-tier cities. This group of people are very "smart". After they understand Pinduoduo's routines, they do the math and find that the cost of paying for the 100 yuan is too high. Not only will it consume a lot of time and energy, but it will also consume a lot of connections. It’s not cost-effective, so give up! Instead of spending this time on accumulating good fortune, you might as well get a promotion and a raise in salary as soon as possible.

Most of the more motivated users come from third- and fourth-tier cities, which are also Pinduoduo's core user groups. Their income is relatively low but they have more free time. For them, it is worthwhile to exchange their time, energy and connections for the 100 yuan. Even if they are dissatisfied, they will continue to play in order to get the money.

2. At Pinduoduo’s scale, activity benefits are more important than user experience

Why does Pinduoduo dare to keep using the same routine? Because it is powerful enough, so powerful that you will not really uninstall it just because of a bad experience with this event. When the day comes that something you want to buy is more affordable on Pinduoduo, you will be tempted again.

So when Pinduoduo discovered that sacrificing part of the user experience could bring better activity benefits, and that even if there were many customer complaints, users did not actually get lost, why not do it?

4. Final Thoughts

Pinduoduo's activities are legendary in the marketing world. From the initial "bargaining" to the later "receiving cash every day", all platforms have followed suit.

Behind these hot-selling products, there are actually the same routines. It’s just packaged in a different form to give you a sense of freshness.

Xiaobei suggests that everyone should think more about the logic behind an event before doing it, and not just copy it immediately because it becomes popular. Instead, you should make choices based on the situation of your own business. If your platform is not enough to make users "devoted to you", then you should be less routine and more sincere~

Author: Xiaobei talks about products

Source: Xiaobei talks about products