How to run a perfect event?

Just recently, the finals of the official King of Glory KPL competition became a laughing stock in the event operation industry.

The thing is, in order to create a gimmick, the event was held in an open-air venue outside the Daming Palace. You know, open-air venues have high requirements in all aspects, especially the weather.

As luck would have it, during the second game of the finals, a sudden strong wind blew up. Many fans who had traveled thousands of miles to buy tickets to watch the game ended up watching the wind, and the game was eventually postponed.

After the competition was postponed, many friends who were in charge of event operations started to curse in the notification column, saying that they didn’t even have an emergency plan, so how could they have the nerve to hold such a competition?

The end result was that, although it was clearly a money-making competition, in the end, in order to appease public anger, the fans had to be compensated for their travel expenses. Not only did they not gain any benefits, but they also lost money and damaged their image.

This is an example of an offline activity. There are even more cases of failure online. Many plans have been planned for a long time and are considered to be very awesome, but once they are launched online, they are deserted and only have less than a hundred participants.

This shows that event operation is not something that everyone can do.

In this module, I will teach you how to run a qualified and perfect event.

First, let’s learn about the relevant knowledge of event operations

Excuse me:

What is event operation?

Editor:

Activity operation is an operational means to quickly improve product-related indicators within a certain period of time by planning and executing short-term activities based on established goals.

Excuse me:

What is the value of event operations?

Editor:

There are three points of value.

The first point is the explosiveness of the effect. Compared with the gradual approach of other operating methods, event operations are more explosive and stimulating. And most of this excitement comes from the sense of urgency he creates. It is time-sensitive, cannot be sustained, and will decline reasonably.

The second point is user perception. Event operations can effectively make up for the lack of product experience and make it easier to send information to customers. At the same time, users are more willing to perceive your products or services by participating in events.

The third point is the relevance of the product. A mature form of activity can be developed into a fixed product, such as grabbing red envelopes and group buying. In terms of expressing the vitality of products, activities can also strengthen the company's product culture, reflect the brand's tone from the entire activity, and deepen the brand impression.

Excuse me:

What is the process of event operation?

answer

Editor:

The activity process is divided into four steps.

The first step is preliminary preparation, which requires target demand analysis to clarify what effect you want to achieve through this activity and what message you want to convey. Then, integrate resources, identify available resources to be utilized, and finally, determine the nature of the activities and the implementation platform.

The second step is event planning. Create the theme, process and rules of the event. The theme here must be creative. Don’t use themes that have been played out, such as “A New Beginning”, “Start from the Heart”, etc. They are too LOW. After that, we need to do a good job of cost and risk control, evaluate the effects, and anticipate possible situations. At the same time, make a good promotion plan. If you only do an activity without any follow-up, the activity will become meaningless. Therefore, make a good promotion plan in advance, find good media, and write good activity copy, so that the activity process can be more prepared.

The third step is program implementation. In general, it can be summarized as event development, event launch, and event promotion. For example, before an event starts, some warm-up activities should be carried out to attract people to participate. Then the event is launched. You need to keep an eye on the data and pay attention to the developments of the event. To promote the event, you need to use some means to make the impact of this event greater.

The last step is to review and summarize. Conducting data statistics and review analysis on a completed activity can effectively collect data, allowing the next activity to take its essence and remove its dross, making it more perfect.

Finally, I would like to recommend that you use the PDCA management model to analyze event operations. This was first proposed by American quality management experts and is also known as the Deming Circle. Quality management is divided into four stages: planning, doing, checking and adjusting. It is required to make plans for all tasks, implement them, check and test the results, then include the successful ones into the standards and leave the unsuccessful ones to be solved in the next cycle. If used skillfully, your activities will get better and better.

Now that all the issues have been clarified, let's move on to the main focus of this lesson - the preliminary preparations for the activity.

Here, I will talk to you in three modules.

01. The first module is target demand analysis.

Indicator Setting

Clear goals can quickly determine the direction of activities. If you want to stimulate consumption, you can give gifts by recharging, giving gifts when you reach a certain amount, etc. If you want to increase the ARPU value, you can try group buying, discounts, etc. If you want to increase consumer users, you can use topic discussions, attract new users and interesting interactions, etc.

Of course, when setting a goal, the goal must be quantifiable. It can be done from four points: submitting plans, calculating results, quantitatively modifying goals, short-term goals and long-term goals.

Product and user analysis

When promoting a product, you should highlight its strengths and avoid exposing its weaknesses. If they are unavoidable, try to downplay them. A few years ago, a friend of mine started a Korean milk powder brand. Its advantage was the source of milk, but its disadvantage was that it was produced in Korea. It was difficult to operate in the environment that rejected Korean products at the time. So, they highlighted their advantages and weakened the origin as much as possible. In the end, they did very well.

Then we need to assess the situation, go with the flow, analyze product users and activity users, and figure out their characteristics and preferences so that we can create targeted activity plans.

Competitive product analysis

There are three types of competitors: direct competitors are those that anyone with a discerning eye can tell are making the same thing as you. Alternative competitors, for example, people who sell rice and meal replacements are competitors. Although not directly, their appearance can replace your existence, which is a substitute competitor. Potential competitors are products that have not yet appeared, but may become your competitors in the future.

You need to understand the daily activities of your competitors, remain neutral in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors' activities, conduct rational analysis, and investigate the market's response, so that you can apply this data in subsequent activities.

02. The second module is to clarify the required resources.

Make resource allocation more rhythmic

It's the same feeling as playing chess. You feel like you have a lot of chess pieces that you can move, but if you don't use them properly and maximize the effect of each move, you will most likely lose the game in the end.

Before operating an event, you need to plan the event schedule in advance, arrange projects at different times of the day, and prioritize them appropriately to avoid wasting resources.

Budget

The budget is divided into three parts.

First of all, there is the cost of event prizes. We need to save costs here, use forwarding lotteries, business cooperation, and the method of old customers bringing in new customers, so that we can spend less money and do more. Improve the input-output ratio and find a reasonable balance.

The second is the cost of executing the event. Here you can evaluate the development resources in advance, such as interaction design, visual design, front-end development, back-end development, event coordination, event testing, difficulty and labor costs. In addition, the development cycle must be considered.

Finally, there are the costs of marketing. Here, we need to integrate resources and consider free resources, such as product resources or company resources. Then look for cooperative resources, such as business cooperation and event joint operations. Finally, there are paid resources, such as advertising, public relations articles, event marketing, cross-industry cooperation, etc.

03. The third module is the nature of the activity and the implementation platform.

There are five types of activities.

Independent online activities have simple purposes, not too many task indicators, short cycles, multiple styles, and flexibility.

Offline activities, also called ground promotion activities, pay attention to covering the crowd and have high trial and error costs.

Comprehensive activities have a certain influence in themselves. Most of them have fixed venues. The styles of activities are also rich and varied, and the preparation time is relatively long.

Systematic activities are relatively fixed and have unified activity templates. For example, the official account has a special activity column with a fixed update frequency and activity plan.

Joint activities are fair and beneficial, and everyone gets what they need.

There are two types of platforms: internal and external.

The internal platform includes PC activity page, mobile activity page, and activity page within the APP. Because it is our own platform, all aspects are easier to control.

The operability of external platforms is smaller, so you must pay attention to some issues.

For example, pay attention to the account login system, reduce user loss, comply with the activity plans of other platforms, and always remember to direct users to your own platform. Common platforms include WeChat, Weibo and various new media.

A good start is half the success. Only by understanding the operation of an event, learning the early planning of event operations, and making good preparations in advance can we lay a good foundation for subsequent activities.

Next, let’s talk specifically about how to plan an event.

First of all, to plan an event well, you need to know the characteristics of a good event. Here, I have summarized it for you.

The first point is matching. The planning must match the product and the users. Event planning should be designed around the goal, with the paths reduced as much as possible. At the same time, highly matching partners and promotion channels are prerequisites for the success of the event.

The second point is appeal. The activity must have the ability to attract people's attention and gain their recognition. To achieve this, you can break the rules and create unexpected things. For example, TCL's ultra-large-screen new product campaign allows you to experience the large screen in places where it is absolutely impossible to enjoy the large-screen experience. It makes people feel surprised and interesting, so it is a success. At the same time, it is necessary to arouse people's emotions and create suspense. One thing to note here is that attracting users' attention is about gaining their recognition, not just pandering to the public.

The third point is credibility, which reflects the credibility and credibility of the event from all aspects. For example, event copywriting, interactive design, visual design, planning, customer service channels, etc. Voith held an event during the Dragon Boat Festival, shaking rice dumplings and giving away gifts. A lot of people participated, but due to untimely customer service, users began to doubt the company's credibility. This was a failed case.

The fourth point is satisfaction. The satisfaction generated by the activity will be proportional to the value that can be brought about in the future. We cannot let users feel that their emotions have been cheated after participating in an event. Being more sincere and less formulaic will win more hearts and minds. If you cannot satisfy everyone, then just satisfy some of the stratified users. After all, you are not RMB, and you can't make everyone like you.

The fifth point is the sense of presence, following the crowd, the influence of external behavior on individuals, and timely feedback, which is based on perfect interaction. Therefore, the technical requirements here are very high, and low-level mistakes must not be made.

The sixth point is understandability. Use one sentence to clearly state what you want to express and let users understand how to play within 3 seconds. Here you can get feedback from colleagues, users, relatives and friends. People nowadays are very lazy. If you want to get everyone moving, don’t give them too much time to think. Keeping it simple and easy to understand will increase the success rate of your event.

Now that you know what kind of activities can be called good activities, the next step is to create good activities yourself.

The core of event planning is divided into three steps. Let’s talk about it step by step.

01. The first step is time and subject.

This point can be found based on festivals, hot spots, topics, etc.

For example, there are traditional festivals, such as the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, etc., new online festivals, such as various Valentine's Days, and self-created festivals, such as JD.com's 618.

One thing you need to understand here is that it is easy to take advantage of hot spots, but hot spots are time-sensitive and are only valid for a period of time. After this time, reheating cold food will make people feel nauseous. At the same time, we must be prepared, have a clear stance, and most importantly, be consistent with the product and not be vague.

Finally, we need to extend the topic and determine the theme based on the characteristics of the product.

02. The second step is to determine the form of the activity.

For example, an activity with profit-giving nature can attract users through money or other benefits to achieve the goal of your activity. Like coupons, red envelopes, experience money, lucky draws, etc.

Game-related activities can attract user attention, forwarding and dissemination through some interactive games.

Topic-based activities can trigger topic discussions and turn them into activities to attract users to participate and achieve goals.

Interactive activities can trigger user interaction by establishing interesting rules and providing an interactive platform.

03. The last step is to determine the plan and process.

Several principles should be followed here: simple participation, low threshold, easy to understand, reasonable, smooth at a single point, and orderly at multiple points.

The correct way to express an activity should be overview + guidelines + details + activity rules.

The summary should be as simple as possible. If pictures can express it, don’t use words, because pictures are more direct and easy to understand.

When giving instructions, you must imagine the user as someone who knows nothing and start from scratch.

The details should include a complete query channel, plus the activity risks, to reduce customer service pressure and fully explain the entire activity.

The rules of the event should clearly state the rules of how to play the event, and declare the right to host the event, the right to interpret it, etc.

After completing the three steps, the next thing to do is to consider things beyond the main body of the activity, so that the entire activity is considered perfect and there is no possibility of disclosure.

Author: Drunk Uncle

Source: Drunk Uncle

Related reading:

1. Event operation from entry to advanced: review

2. Activity operation review data indicators!

3. Event operation from entry to advanced: program design

4. A complete method for event operation!

5. The most comprehensive guide to event operations from entry level to advanced level!