In today's environment where there is no e-commerce without promotions, event operators need to rack their brains to come up with all kinds of tricks. Although there are many ways to play, they all remain essentially the same. In order to formulate phased promotional activities and gameplay more scientifically and efficiently, this article classifies the current mainstream promotional methods and gameplay and analyzes their advantages and disadvantages.

1. Mainstream gameplay collection:

1. Discounts

2. Flash Sales

3. Free of charge

4. Full discount

5. Free gift

6. Full refund

7. Buy-one-get-one-free/Bundle

8. Bundling

9. Free shipping

10. Post pictures of positive reviews

11. Trial

12. Lucky Draw

13. Points/Membership

14. Group Buying

15. Pre-sale

16. Crowdfunding

17. Games/H5

18. Cross-border cooperation

2. Expand the analysis

Next, we will explain the above gameplay one by one, and analyze the advantages, disadvantages and usage precautions.

1. Discount (direct discount promotion)

Advantages: fast, accurate and can stimulate consumption in the short term, boost sales and increase purchases; it is in a proactive competitive position compared to competing products.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; once prices drop, it is difficult to return to previous levels, affecting registration for subsequent official activities (prices may be lowered by store clerks); decreased brand loyalty; vicious price competition.

Notes for use: In order to avoid the product being tortured by the store manager to the point of having no profit, it is best to set the price of the product to three levels from the beginning: original price, promotional price, and big sale price. The original price is the daily sales price, the promotional price is used to register for A/B/C/D level general official event slots and periodic store promotions (such as New Year's Day, Teacher's Day, etc.), and the big sale price is used to register for S-level promotional activities (Double 11, Double 12).

2. Flash sale

Compared with discounts, flash sales are more powerful (often flash sales within 10 yuan/half-price and 50% off). Merchants set the event time, flash sale price, whether it is limited to quantity or region, whether shipping is free, etc.

Advantages: It is easy to attract traffic, increase store attention and collection, and increase sales to a certain extent.

Disadvantages: Most of the fans attracted are junk fans (price sensitivity is 100%), resulting in reduced profits or even losses.

Notes for use: The calculation of activity costs must be carefully controlled to determine how many UVs the flash sale can bring and whether it is worth doing the flash sale. In order to carry out the flash sale better, it is best to preheat the event and release the news in advance to guide customers to collect and add to the shopping cart. This is more suitable for store products with larger daily UV and higher conversion rate.

For example: The marinated steak set meal, originally priced at RMB 188, will be sold at RMB 1 at 10 pm on Christmas Eve, with a limited number of 3 servings.

3. Free of charge

It is divided into limited quantity free orders and limited time free orders. As one of the promotional means, it is actually a derivative of the free shipping trial, and it belongs to the free trial. The difference is that to get a free order, you need to purchase first, and the system will automatically refund you or you can directly place an order with the actual amount = 0.

Advantages: It can stimulate consumption to a greater extent, attract attention, add products to shopping carts, and improve the natural search ranking of products.

Disadvantages: Except for Tmall platform which can set up free orders through system settings, the free order strategies of other platforms are not fair and controllable, and there is a trust issue.

Notes for use: The free-of-charge information will be released in advance, followed by two words: "credit". Don't get yourself into trouble and be accused of fraud.

4. Full discount

It is divided into coupons for getting discounts on a certain amount/automatic discounts on a certain amount by the system, and multiple levels and gears can be set.

Advantages: Stimulates consumption, especially coupon-based discounts, which attracts customers to visit the store again.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; if the instructions and operations are not in place (for example, the customer service staff is absent-minded about whether the products can be used in combination), it is likely to have the opposite effect and cause customer dissatisfaction.

Notes for use: Calculate the overall profit margin of the event; the specific amount of discount should refer to the average customer unit price during the event. It is best to purchase one more item to enjoy the first level of discount. For example, if the average customer order value is 150 and the average price of the best-selling item is 30, the first discount level can be set to 10 off for purchases over 180.

5. Free gift

When you spend a certain amount, you can get physical goods or virtual coupons, which can be set in multiple levels.

Advantages: It can stimulate consumption to varying degrees depending on the actual value of the gifts and increase the average order value. Create product differentiation and enhance appeal.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; if the gifts are too bad, it will damage the brand and sales.

Notes on use: Calculate the overall profit margin of the activity, and focus on checking whether it overlaps with the full-discount strategy (reference 4); Requirements for selecting gifts: Do not choose inferior or low-quality products; Timeliness, such as not giving away items in winter that can only be used in summer. If you want to encourage repeat purchases, you can give free shipping cards, large coupons and other gifts to stimulate repeat purchases.

6. Full refund

The refund includes: cash, coupons, etc. You can set all the products in the store or specify the products to participate, either manually or automatically.

Advantages: Little impact on brand image; does not trigger price competition among competing products; stimulates consumption.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; limited incentives that cannot generate strong enthusiasm for participation.

Notes for use: Calculate the overall profit margin of the activity, and focus on checking whether it overlaps with the strategies of full discount (reference 4) and full gift (reference 5); the difficulty of implementing the "return". If manual operation increases the workload and error rate of customer service, you need to consider whether it is worth doing.

7. Buy-one-get-one-free/Bundle

A disguised form of discount, buy-one-get-one-free can be divided into buy A get A free (same item) and buy A get B free (other item).

Advantages: A disguised discount that stimulates consumption without causing a series of problems caused by direct price cuts (reference 1)

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; if the bundled products are too poor, it will affect the evaluation of the products sold.

Notes for use: Calculate the profit margin of the product to support which type of buy-one-get-one-free (buy A get A free or B free). The essence of buy A get A free is actually a 50% discount, and the discount for buy A get B free depends on the gift. If free shipping, don't forget to add the shipping cost.

8. Bundling

Combination sales are divided into sales of X items in combination and exchange for X items for an additional X yuan.

Advantages: Package sales reduce the amount of money spent on individual items to make a purchase for consumers. The combination of traffic-generating products and popular products converts traffic into conversion; related sales increase conversion rates. Divert traffic to other products.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; if the matching products are not selected well, it is easy to have a counterproductive effect.

Notes on use: If product A is a traffic-generating item, it is recommended to bundle it with product B, a popular item with a higher conversion rate, to convert traffic into orders; when adding X yuan to exchange for items, try to choose complementary items with a lower average order value. For example, after purchasing a steak meal, you can choose complementary products such as knives and forks, pasta, and soup as the exchange products.

9. Free shipping

Free shipping is a kind of psychological comfort for customers: the postage itself is a cost beyond the purchase of goods, and paying the postage will only increase the expenses of this shopping trip, and will not have any impact on the quality of the goods themselves. Therefore, if you can avoid paying it, you will inevitably save a small part of the fee. Now for consumers, whether the shipping is free or not will be regarded as the final deciding factor in whether to place an order. In fact, all merchants know that the wool comes from the sheep, but this is the consumer psychology.

Advantages: The free shipping strategy cooperates with the internal related sales of the store to reduce the product bounce rate and increase the average order value.

Disadvantages: If you choose a courier company that is too bad because of the postage price, resulting in poor delivery timeliness and insufficient delivery range, it will cause too many negative reviews and lead to a lower score, which is not worth the loss.

Notes for use: The limit price of free shipping standard should not exceed 150% of the average order value. For example, if 70% of customers spend around 70 yuan, then the standard for free shipping should be between 88 and 98 yuan, and the store should also have corresponding products priced above 18 yuan or 28 yuan to match.

10. Praise/Review

The content of "rebate" includes but is not limited to: physical goods, coupons, and cash. User Psychology 1: If customers purchase satisfactory products, they may not necessarily give positive reviews, but if they buy products of poor quality, they are very likely to give negative reviews. User Psychology 2: Buy things → Check store ratings → Check reviews (especially buyer reviews) → Place an order.

Advantages: Improve credibility and store ratings; increase new customer purchase conversion rate; cultivate users' shopping habits. Speed ​​up capital turnover (once the goods are received, the money will be deposited into the merchant’s account).

Disadvantages: Decreased profits; if the customer service is not familiar with this policy, it may lead to bad reviews; too much is as bad as too little, and a shoddy product that uses this method may attract more criticism.

Notes on use: This is inducement, not coercion. The evolved form of posting positive reviews. Calculate the profit margin of the overall activity; customer service needs to be relatively familiar with this strategy and emergencies.

11. Trial

Give goods (usually new products or trial packs) to potential target customers and induce them to buy. The trial is divided into paid trial (applicants need to pay the postage) and free trial.

Advantages: Increase the speed of product entry into the market; select target consumer groups in a targeted manner; form a communication effect, increase brand awareness and affinity; enhance interaction.

Disadvantages: Relatively high cost; less effective for products with strong homogeneity or weak individuality.

Notes for use: This policy can be adopted for fast-moving consumer goods, cosmetics and high-consumable goods if recommended by the merchant, but should be used with caution in other industry products.

If you want to pay for a trial, the value of the sample must be higher than the postage.

12. Lucky Draw

Prizes can be physical or virtual goods, and merchants set lottery conditions, gimmick prizes, general prizes, and participation prizes.

Advantages: Covering a wide range of target consumer groups and promoting consumption; attracting new customers to try to buy and old customers to buy again.

Disadvantages: Limited stimulating effect, no surprise; useless for brand promotion. Increase the workload of the event (early stage, rack your brains to find products, calculate costs, mid-term statistics on the number of participants to adjust strategies, and later announce the list of winners)

Notes for use: Prizes are divided into gimmicks, general prizes and participation prizes. The gimmick is the eye-catching product (Kidney 6). The amount and number of prizes generally depend on the effect of the event and the budget (a steak frying pan for ￥199). The participation prize is as the name suggests, set up to stimulate secondary consumption (coupons, vouchers). The authenticity of the lottery results must be guaranteed to a certain extent: participants must be informed of the progress and results of the event through emails, announcements, etc. For example: During Christmas 12.21-12.26, all friends who place an order can get a chance to participate in the lottery, with the first prize being XX, the second prize being XX, and the consolation prize being XX. The list of winners will be announced within 3 working days after the event ends.

13. Points/Membership

Establish a membership system and a points system, including member-exclusive discounts, points redemption, etc.

Advantages: stimulate multiple consumption, enhance brand loyalty, and improve product competitiveness; low operating costs;

Disadvantages: less attractive to new customers; slow returns and requires regular maintenance; due to the long cycle, the effect is difficult to evaluate;

Points to note when using: Issues with the entire pricing system, whether member discounts can be used in conjunction with daily discounts, calculation of points exchange discounts, etc.

14. Group buying

Set parameters such as single person or multi-person group, group size, tiered price, time, etc. Discounts for single groups are limited, while discounts for multiple groups vary depending on the number of people.

Advantages: Strong increase in fans. The recently popular [Friends] and [U Shopkeeper] adopt this model.

Disadvantages: Decreased profits;

Notes for use: If you are doing group buying based on WeChat (which has more social attributes), you should pay special attention to user experience and repurchase rate when selecting products for group buying. That is, while keeping the price low, you should also care more about the quality of the products to generate dissemination and secondary purchases. On the platform, the price sensitivity of group formation is greater than the product's stickiness and repetition rate attributes.

15. Pre-sale

Pay a deposit in advance and pay the balance later. It is equivalent to deciding on the product now, but the goods have to wait for the unified announced time to be shipped.

Advantages: The pre-sale production process is more like a job order production process, which reduces the pressure on the day of the big promotion (such as Double 11 and Double 12). Merchants can prepare goods in advance according to the order volume, avoid overstock, avoid unnecessary labor costs and production costs; increase product exposure, extend the sales time line, and increase sales.

Disadvantages: After placing an order, customers generally hope that the product arrives as early as possible. Pre-sales basically make people wait impatiently. If the product quality is not good, it is easy to get a bad review. The deposit paid for Tmall pre-sales cannot be withdrawn.

Notes for use: The pre-sale price must be lower than the price during the promotion period.

16. Crowdfunding

Group buying is for products that are already available in the market, with standard quality, and are offered at lower prices through group buying, with user reviews to help with purchasing decisions. Crowdfunding is at most a pre-sale, not a group purchase, and is very different from a group purchase.

Advantages: A good publicity platform; more likely to be noticed by the media and potential investors.

Disadvantages: Not suitable for the trial and error stage of start-up teams; fundraising cannot be successful due to large traffic.

Notes for use: Crowdfunding = 1 good story + 1 possibility + 1 expected product; packaging is important, price is not the decisive factor.

17. Games/H5

Advantages: Enhanced sense of participation, attracting participation with targeted games to achieve the goal of promoting product sales. It is mainly to preheat the product and the market before the product is launched.

Disadvantages: Being too exaggerated or too low-level can easily make people feel disgusted.

Notes for use: The entire activity design and page design need to be repeatedly considered. It’s classy, ​​fun and interesting, and gives consumers a sense of urgency with limited-time specials.

18. Cross-border/joint

Two or more brands or companies cooperate to carry out promotional activities to promote products and services in order to expand the influence of the activities and enhance their respective brands and services. At the same time, the promotional activities are held on the principle of profit sharing and cost sharing. Including mutual traffic diversion, fan exchange, product supply and so on.

Advantages: quickly approach the target and reduce corresponding promotion costs; select target consumer groups in a targeted manner to form product complementarity.

Disadvantages: The coordination process is slow; the advantages of each product cannot be displayed in a centralized manner, which can easily create a vague impression of the product's advantages.

Notes for use: You need to find a merchant with whom you have an equal relationship to cooperate. If one party is in an advantageous position and the other party is in a disadvantageous position, the cooperation is often a weak relationship. When choosing partners, it is best to look for complementary products and increase demand. For example: Merchant 1 is a product supplier, and Merchant 2 is a movie ticket supplier. Merchant 1: Buy X items and get X movie tickets for free. Merchant 2: Buy X movie tickets and have a chance to win one item of X.

Source: Operation Dog Growth Notes

Author: Liao Xiaochong loves to eat meat

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