Based on a large-scale electrical appliance marketing activity that the author personally experienced, this article specifically analyzes the process of this activity and the marketing principles that attracted people to participate.

A little background information – a large-scale electrical appliance marketing campaign.

As a rational person, I vowed before I went there that I would get the free prize and leave within 30 minutes. However, in the end I got the prize, the event lasted 2 hours and I sat through it until the end.

How come I'm sitting here for 2 hours? What made me slap in the face? What made me willing to stay so long?

As a patient with "tangled cancer", I decided to analyze this event.

I first sorted out the main process of participating in the event, as shown below:

The core points are also briefly summarized as shown below:

1. Convenient activities, free gifts

Make phone calls to promote your event. Taking myself as an example, there are three points in the speech that ultimately attracted me to participate in the event:

First, the event store is relatively close to me, both my home address and my workplace, especially my workplace, which is within one kilometer and is a walkable distance.

Second, the event starts at 6pm, which is exactly when I get off work.

Third, the event will give away a vacuum cleaner for free. To sum up: the event location is not far away, it does not interfere with working hours, and there are free gifts to be won.

2. A notification message that looks formal

SMS notification to participating users. Several key points of SMS notification:

(1) Event organizer;

(2) Time and location of the event;

(3) How to participate in the event and receive free gifts;

(4) Admission code;

(5)Bus routes.

Judging from the layout and content of this short message, it is a very formal text message, which is different from other marketing text messages. This is a plus point here, as it improves the psychological image of this event in my mind.

3. A return call that won’t be frowned upon

This move may be the marketing team's consideration of their own KPIs, or to ensure that the on-site arrangements are correct, but from my point of view, it is a minus point.

It's like you've set your eyes on a refrigerator and everything about it seems good, and suddenly a salesperson comes over and keeps saying to you, "This one is good, especially good, it's really good to buy this one, buy it quickly, blah blah blah~", then you will definitely start to suspect that there must be something fishy going on and start to resist.

Based on my personal experience of this telephone confirmation, it was probably because the wording was not expressed well, so this is a problem of wording. So repeated confirmation is okay, as long as it does not make the participants feel that the organizer is "getting the duck in the mouth, don't let it fly away".

4. Exciting activities

Let me first talk about the layout of the scene: a TV, a pile of gifts stacked as high as the wall, a group of staff in uniform, rows of neatly arranged seats, and extremely tacky BGM. The activity location is next to the elevator and can be seen when going upstairs.

In terms of process:

1. Collect your admission number with your admission code.

2. Watch the promotional video on site. This process is commonly known as "brainwashing".

3. Prizes will be given out through lucky draw. The winning number is the entry ticket number.

4. Reissue prizes. Because some people win the prize and some don’t, and then a few more places will be deliberately issued.

5. Invite Mr. X to give a speech. The award quota will be reissued before the speech.

6. Introduce the topic. Through CCTV reports, the endorsement of investigative reports by Bai Yansong and others, and the indoctrination of some health concepts, we began to introduce the topic and raise questions.

7. Launch the product. Summarize the issues raised in the previous step and invite on-site participants to conduct experiments together to verify product effects and answer questions.

8. Announce product prices. What is announced is the market guide price of the product.

9. Publish prices for on-site events. The on-site price is 50% of the market guidance price.

10. Select participants to experience the product. Inform participants that all products will be sent to a few lucky viewers to experience half of the products.

11. Issue experience certificate.

12. Take a group photo at the event and share it on your Moments.

13. Give away free prizes. Each participant will receive a free gift with their admission ticket at the end.

Let me analyze it from my personal perspective. When I received the admission ticket, the staff told me that there would be a lucky draw later and I could receive a prize with this ticket.

In fact, although I didn't really believe it, I still prepared myself mentally that there would be a lottery.

But when I arrived at the event site, the first thing that caught my eye was a huge wall of prizes. I was already feeling a little excited at this point. Although it didn’t mean that these were definitely prizes for the participants, this was because the psychological foreshadowing of “there would be a lottery” had created an illusion for me.

Psychologically speaking, I was still rational at this time and felt that this was all a trick used by the merchants. After the lottery started, someone really won a prize. My mentality changed again at this time (especially when the person sitting next to me won a prize). I began to believe in this activity a little bit and felt that I could really win a prize (although I didn’t win in the end). Moreover, “Mr. X” kept saying that there would be bigger prizes in the future, which made me start to think about the high-end goods on the prize wall.

By having a small number of people win the prize, the participants have overcome their doubts in the previous stage, and at the same time, they are constantly psychologically prepared for the possibility that "there are bigger prizes", allowing them to associate the prizes with the illusion created earlier through psychological suggestion (the high-end products on the product wall are the prizes). I just want to say "they have successfully attracted my attention".

There are several details here:

First, when the staff is drawing the prizes, they lay the groundwork for Mr. Tian to come and give out bigger prizes, which makes people look forward to it.

Second, when Mr. X appeared, he spoke only a few words and an audience member clapped a few times. Mr. X immediately gave him a similar prize (from the high-end goods), and the audience's interaction level was very high in the subsequent activities.

Third, Mr. X immediately fulfilled his promise upon arrival and added 5 first prize places. The constant foreshadowing of "there will be a big surprise when the big boss appears" whetted the appetite of the participants.

After the boss appeared, he not only fulfilled his promise, but also was generous. He would give a big prize to his supporters at will. The jealous participants immediately flocked to it, and soon there were many more supporters, making the event extremely active.

The endorsement of authoritative organizations and individuals, as well as scientific comparative experiments, may not be very useful to people like me, but judging from the on-site observation, they are still very lethal to the aunts.

Compared with the market guide price, the on-site price is 50% off. However, in this event, all products will be sent to a few lucky viewers for them to experience and use for half a year, and they can buy them if they like them.

The market guide price is set very high. Participants feel that they will not buy these, but it is okay to try them out. If the experience is good, they can buy them at half price.

Once again, the participants were successfully captured.

• The number of places is limited, so we simply used hunger marketing.
• Awarding certificates reflects scarcity and creates a sense of achievement.
• Repost the photo and spread it on social media.

5. End of the event

Give out free prizes and successfully retain participants until the end through a free prize.

I thought carefully about my own psychological changes, as shown below:

Why would I sit here for 2 hours?

I initially wanted to participate because it had no entry threshold, suitable factors, and free gifts.

I didn't leave halfway because I was actually "greedy". In the end, only one of the "high-end goods" that were written there was given out. The organizer didn't promise to give out all of them. It was all my imagination. I thought I would be the one who got drawn in the lottery.

Finally, because the "sunk cost" is too high, I still want to wait until the end of the event to get a free gift as compensation.

We often see such activities in daily life, such as real estate, insurance, etc. There must be a reason for their repeated use. In fact, we often see a lot of marketing, whether online or offline, that exploits the weaknesses of human nature. We fall into them again and again, and fail in our struggle against human nature.

Product marketing is a topic that is talked about a lot. Although the marketing appearance is ever-changing, I believe its core remains unchanged.

In the past, marketing was often labeled as "taking advantage of human weaknesses and deceiving consumers", but now it is gratifying that, as in this case, authoritative endorsements, scientific experiments, and health theories have been introduced to allow consumers to experience first and then consume in a reasonable marketing manner, rather than being solely sales-oriented.

This may be the balance point that business and product intentions are looking for.