How to complete a high-quality event promotion?

I was having dinner and chatting with a friend a few days ago, and he told me that it is too tiring to organize activities nowadays. Firstly, it is difficult to innovate in the form, and we can only adopt the commonly used methods in the market such as discounts, promotions, lotteries, etc. Moreover, every time he executes it, he always feels inexplicably nervous, not knowing what the final effect will be. In fact, this should be the most common problem encountered by many novices.

Although objectively speaking, a big hit event does require a little bit of luck, as a good operator, what you need to do is to minimize the proportion of luck. This enables you to have control over activities and be accountable for KPIs.

So let’s talk about event operations today. This article mainly approaches the topic from the perspective of the overall idea of ​​event operation, and talks about event planning, implementation, review, etc. I believe it will help you have a deeper understanding of event operation and solve some specific problems in practical operations to a certain extent. (This article is long, more than 7,600 words, please read it patiently, I believe you will gain something)

1. Nature of activity operations

Event operation is a relatively important position in operations work, and it is necessary to operate activities for different purposes and of different natures. In some ways, it is different from other operations positions, such as content operation, user operation, etc. Event operations are more explosive and require the completion of a certain indicator in a short period of time, while content operations and user operations require relatively more accumulation. It is a longer process and cannot be achieved overnight.

The work content of event operation usually includes three aspects: planning, implementation and review. So let’s talk about these three aspects in detail:

Event Planning

1: Activity goal breakdown

Before planning an event, we first need to clarify the purpose of the event. Different purposes require different operations. When your boss asks you to achieve a certain target by planning an event, such as attracting XX new people, achieving XX sales, etc., how do you combine these goals with the event? This requires us to break down this ultimate goal.

According to my habit, I am used to quantitatively breaking down activities according to the AARRR model. To put it simply, I try to make each step as formalized as possible so that each step can be calculated using data. Because in this way we can improve each data through operational means.

Everyone who does operations knows the AARRR model, and this model can actually be used in event operations:

Organizing an event usually requires going through these five stages. In other words, when organizing an event, the target users actually go through this process as well. And every link may lead to user loss. So our goal is to increase conversion rates at every step and reduce churn.

For example:

When we need to achieve the final sales target of 100,000 through activities, then according to the formula:

Sales = average order value × target users × conversion rate

The average order value of the product is fixed, so what we need to do is to increase the number of target users and improve the conversion rate. As shown in the figure above, we can set specific target numbers and conversion rates at each stage.

For example, we start from the fourth level and work backwards (assuming the average customer spending is 150 yuan):

The fourth layer (monetization layer): target traffic is 1000, and the corresponding conversion rate is 90%

The third layer (retention layer): target traffic 1500, corresponding conversion rate 70%

The second layer (activation layer): target traffic 3750, corresponding conversion rate 40%

First layer (customer acquisition layer): target traffic 25,000, corresponding conversion rate 15%

Once we have set the specific values ​​for each stage, we have successfully broken down the final activity goal in a quantitative form.

When we set specific conversion rates and target traffic, we mainly follow two principles:

First: Based on the experience of past activities, make data assumptions;

Second: If the company has no experience in past activities, refer to the industry average and obtain it from third-party tools or data reports released by authoritative organizations.

The benefit of breaking down the activity goals is that it allows us to clearly understand every aspect of the entire activity and grasp the overall progress of the activity, which will also be helpful for later review. You will know which step is not done well enough and needs to be adjusted, and you will also know clearly what needs to be done to achieve the goal at a certain node, etc.

For example: According to the first layer (customer acquisition layer) above, the target traffic needs to be 25,000. Based on the normal conversion rate of 3%, the exposure of our event needs to reach more than 800,000. Based on the current normal CPM of 50 yuan/1,000 times, an advertising budget of about 40,000 may be required.

Of course, it is the nature of normal companies to not spend money on activities if possible, or the boss usually sets a fixed budget in advance. At this time, we need to adjust the conversion rate. Within a limited budget, find ways to improve the conversion rate of each link to achieve the event goals.

The above are just examples. The specifics still need to be determined according to the actual situation, but the ideas are the same.

2: Gimmicks and benefits

Gimmick

What is a gimmick? It is to give the event a reason that can attract people's attention. In ancient times, wars between countries also required reasons for everything, and you could only send troops if you had a righteous cause. And the event also needs such a reason. To put it bluntly, it is to tell users why I am doing this event?

For enterprises, organizing activities is nothing more than realizing profit realization, and for operators, it is to complete the tasks assigned by the boss. But you can't tell your customers so bluntly, right? So we need to package the event. The most common way is to use holiday marketing to carry out activities. The subtext is: because of a certain holiday, in order to reward old customers, we have to hold a promotional event, and users should pay quickly~~~

In addition to using holidays for event marketing, there are also anniversary celebrations, seasonal sales, opening celebrations, etc. There are also various other reasons that can be used as gimmicks, the key lies in how the operator packages it.

For example: Double Eleven is just a gimmick! A festival originally for singles was turned into an e-commerce carnival by Jack Ma, which not only robbed singles of their days but also robbed their wallets. On this day every year, almost all e-commerce merchants hold events. This has become a trend that cannot be missed. Even traditional businesses and physical stores are getting in on the action.

Another example is the "Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" campaign planned by Xin Shixiang in 2017. Escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou is actually a social phenomenon, but it was used directly by Xin Shixiang as a gimmick for the event, which not only instantly attracted the attention of users, but also aroused the attention and discussion of most people.

A good gimmick can not only attract users' attention, but also make the event strategically invincible. Common event gimmicks include: various holidays, major events (such as the World Cup, the Olympics, etc.), hot emergencies or self-created hot spots, etc.

It is worth noting that when looking for activity gimmicks, it is still necessary to determine according to one's own actual situation. For example, self-created hot spots such as "Double Eleven" and "618 E-Commerce Festival" are not something that every company can create on its own. In addition, although hot spot activities are a good thing, what kind of hot spots to use and how to use them are more of a test of the operator's skills.

There is also another kind of regular activities, such as the long-term activities often organized by banks, such as CITIC Bank’s “Wonderful 365”, transportation’s “Redst Friday”, and various supermarkets’ half-price activities for members, etc. From a certain perspective, this type of activity is no longer in the scope of event operation, but in the scope of brand marketing, so I won’t talk about it here.

Benefit

Now that you have a gimmick for the event, the next step is to clarify the benefits of the event, that is, what benefits users can enjoy by participating in your event. You said that users were attracted by your event, but when they came in they saw that everything was 10% off? Then what's the point? Forget about the effectiveness of the activity, you are already being polite if users don’t complain to you.

There is actually not much to say about the benefits of the activity. Each company has different interests. The only thing you need to pay attention to is that the actual benefits of the activity must be greater than the user's expectations. The higher the expectations are exceeded, the better the event will be!

Event gimmicks and utilization can be said to be the basic conditions for the success of an event, and are also the focus of event promotion. There is a golden rule of banners: excellent event promotion = gimmicks + benefits + hot pictures

3: Activity gameplay

There are many ways to play activities, such as punching in/signing in, lucky draws, group buying, etc. It can be a single one or a combination of multiple ways. It can also be a certain element that is replaced, for example, checking in to receive a red envelope can be changed to checking in to receive a medal of honor, etc. I won’t go into details here.

The key point here is that when designing activity gameplay, you should follow these two principles: creativity and operability.

Creativity

The creativity of an activity can be improved by innovating the specific ways of playing. For example, the most common forms in the past were instant discounts and free gifts for purchases over a certain amount, but now there are ways to help with bargaining, group buying, and various challenges, etc.

If it is impossible to innovate in the specific gameplay, then we can innovate in the event gimmicks, the form of benefit distribution, and even the event promotion, such as the "Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" event mentioned above: the essence of this event is to attract traffic to the official account by giving away free air tickets. However, from the gimmick of the event to the way of collecting the event benefits, as well as the pre-event promotion, it can be said to be full of creativity. (If you don’t know about this activity, you can search it online directly)

Operability

The operability of the activity is reflected in two aspects:

First: From the perspective of operational planning, the event you plan must be executable. This should be relatively easy to understand, that is, you must have the ability to carry out the activities you are doing. For example, for an event like Double Eleven, even if you are given enough budget, you may not be able to implement it. Therefore, when planning an event, it must be feasible to implement it on the ground, rather than flying in the air.

Second: From the user's perspective, the lower the cost of participating in an activity, the higher the level of participation. If users want to participate in your event and need to spend a lot of time and brainpower just to understand the rules of your event, then your event is doomed to fail.

Of course, when it comes to this, some friends will definitely question you. Look at the Double Eleven event. The rules of the game are so complicated and difficult to understand. But isn’t it still very popular? !

Actually, you are wrong. Do you think the rules of the Double Eleven game are designed for consumers? Every year when the Double Eleven rules come out, there will be thousands of operators and self-media people like me, who have studied the rules of the entire event thoroughly early on. Consumers don’t need to study it themselves at all. A random search on the Internet will find a lot of guides, and users just need to follow them.

Why is the Double Eleven event called a national carnival? Because the users it attracts are not just people with shopping needs, but also people from all walks of life. Some people want to take advantage of the popularity, some people want to use this event to achieve their own goals, and so on. In fact, activities like Double Eleven can no longer be called events. They have long gone beyond the scope of the game between merchants and customers. Behind them there are platforms, capital, traffic, etc.

Let’s get back to the topic. Regarding the gameplay of the activity, whether it is creativity or operability, the summary is that user experience should be the prefix of the gameplay of the activity. When you plan an event, you first need to let your colleagues and friends experience it to see if there are any problems with the overall event process, whether the topic is attractive, whether the gameplay can stimulate user participation, etc.

2. Implementation of activity operations

After breaking down the event goals, event gimmicks and benefits, and event gameplay, it’s time to talk about the practical part of the event. If the previous part mainly focuses on the theoretical knowledge of the early planning of the event, then the next part will be the problems in the specific implementation of the event.

The specific implementation part of the activity is mainly divided into four stages: warm-up stage, start-up stage, climax stage and closing stage. The most important thing in this part is the grasp of rhythm, which is also the part that tests the operator the most.

Warm-up period:

The main purpose of this stage is to tell users that we are going to have an event.

Warm-up period: Generally, it is about 2 weeks to 1 month before the event. The warm-up period will be adjusted according to the specific event. The larger the scale of the event, the earlier the warm-up period should start. Of course, the budget required will be higher accordingly.

Main content: The main content of this stage is to attract attention. You can attract users by throwing out some suspense, topics, etc.

For example, if you want to launch the "Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou" campaign, you can preheat the event on Weibo and WeChat before launching it.

Judging from the entire event preheating, the message it conveys to users is only one: Xin Shixiang is going to launch an event. The specific practices and participation conditions of the event are all kept confidential, leaving enough suspense. However, the warm-up copy of the event can attract enough attention from users. This is an activity warm-up that is very worth learning from.

Start-up period:

The event launch period can also be called the momentum-building period. The biggest difference between this stage and the previous warm-up period is the shift in focus. The former may be more about promoting the gimmick of your event, such as the topic of escaping from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. It does not involve the event itself, but is to resonate with users and generate attention.

During the hype period, or the start-up period, the focus shifts from the gimmick (topic) of the event to the event itself. During this stage, the focus should be on highlighting the highlights and benefits of the event. The more significant the event, the greater the energy investment during this period. In theory, this stage is generally about 3-5 days before the official start of the event, and adjustments will be made based on the specific scale and budget of the event.

At this stage, the theme, gameplay, etc. of the activity must be explained clearly so that users can understand it. At the same time, some topics can be combined at this stage. For example, if some large-scale activities invite celebrities to participate, they can be announced at this stage, using the celebrity effect to hype the topic. For some small and medium-sized enterprises, this stage can also use event gimmicks to package and produce some topics that can arouse empathy and carry out emotional marketing.

If the activity is innovative in terms of gameplay, you can focus on highlighting the gameplay. For example, for activities such as challenge competitions, you can market the challenge content to allow users to participate in advance.

Climax:

The main content of this stage is to optimize the activities and adjust various problems that may arise during the activities at any time.

If it is a purely online activity, first of all, we need to ensure the smoothness of each link, the entire path for users to participate in the activity is smooth, and there are no problems with various jump links. If it includes a shopping part, then we must ensure that shopping is smooth. The background data of the entire activity can be fed back at any time.

If it is a brand communication event or an offline event, it is necessary to ensure that the user's on-site experience exceeds expectations.

Regardless of the type of event, there is another important content at this stage, which is to find ways to convert users into fans, use the feedback from users who have already participated in the event, conduct secondary marketing, and induce users to spread the word spontaneously. For an excellent operations staff, usually during the event planning stage, various topics that can be used during the event, as well as responses to the topics, are prepared in advance. And these things can be thrown out at this stage. At the same time, use the media, especially some core communication resources, to amplify the influence of the event.

For example, for some challenge-type activities, it is necessary to update the rankings at any time and use the rankings to stimulate users. The same principle applies to activities such as collecting likes, group buying, and bargaining.

Closing period:

This stage is basically the final part of the activity, which is divided into internal and external. The internal part is actually the review, which will be discussed below, and here we will talk about the external part. The event has reached its final stage, and it seems that it has come to an end, but an excellent operator can often use the content of the final stage to push the event to a climax again in the final stage.

Let’s take the most obvious example: Alipay Koi Activity

I believe everyone knows about the Alipay Koi event, which is to draw a lucky user and give away a Koi gift package for free. According to this activity, once a lucky user is drawn, the activity will come to an end. But it’s far from over. With a Weibo post from a winning user, this event was once again pushed to a climax:

@信小呆 also became an Internet celebrity because of this, and even his Weibo certification was changed to "2018 Alipay China Koi". The comments under the Weibo were like a large-scale family recognition scene.

By using a comment from a winning user, the event effect can be pushed to a climax again, thereby expanding the brand influence.

In fact, no matter how the winning user reacts to winning, even if he does not respond at all, it is a point that can be exploited by Alipay.

At the end of the event, in addition to the old-fashioned announcement of the successful conclusion of the event, it is more important to make a beautiful summary of the event highlights, exposure and other data to conduct a perfect public relations. Even use user feedback for secondary marketing.

3. Activity Operation Review

Event operation can be said to be the busiest of all operation positions. Especially during events, people usually have to work overtime and are busy all day long. And as mentioned at the beginning of the article, event operations need to plan targeted activities based on different purposes and corporate backgrounds, so this kind of busyness is often different. If the operator does not know how to settle down and accumulate, even if he has several years of event operation experience, it will not be of much use.

For event operators, if they want to have some accumulation rather than just being busy, then event review is a very, very important thing. From some perspectives, event review is even more important to operators than event success! After all, no operator dares to say that the activities he plans will be successful, but activity review can definitely help operators grow!

It is important to note that activity review ≠ activity summary. The purpose of activity review is to improve the quality of the activity with each iteration. So if you treat activity review as an activity summary, you will not be able to learn lessons from the previous activity and improve your operational capabilities.

Activity review is usually divided into four steps:

Step 1: Review the goals and analyze the completion rate of each indicator

As we mentioned earlier, the first step before event planning is to break down the goals. Therefore, when we review an activity, the first step is to review each step of the goal decomposition, and then look at the actual results of each step, including completion rate, target difference, etc. At this step, statistics should be compiled based on actual conditions as much as possible, and they should be presented in a simple and data-based form.

Step 2: Analyze the reasons for data differences

When we map the final data results to each step of the goal decomposition, we will be able to know which step has not achieved the goal and the respective differences. Then we will analyze the reasons behind this.

There are two main things to do in this step. The first thing is to find out the reasons for the specific data differences. Here you need to provide data, screenshots, etc. in the process. For example, through backend analysis, it is found that when users participate in an activity, they stay on a certain page for too long, the bounce rate of users in a certain link is too high, or there is a lack of cooperation when communicating with the partner company, resulting in the promotional page being posted one day later than expected, or the exposure of the advertisement is far lower than expected, etc.

The second thing: Based on the difference between the goal and the actual result, make a hypothesis about the reasons analyzed above: For example: On the activity rules page, the user bounce rate is too high. Is it because our activity rules are too complicated? The conversion rate of event advertising exposure is far lower than the industry level of 3%. Is it because our soft article titles and highlights fail to capture the user's pain points? etc.

Step 3: Sandbox simulation

After we have analyzed the reasons for the data differences through process data, screenshots, etc., and put forward hypotheses about these reasons, we need to conduct a sandbox simulation. It is to hypothetically adjust the data for a certain reason to see if the ultimate goal can be achieved at least in theory. I'll give a simple example as follows:

From the above picture, we can clearly see that the conversion rate of 2% at the event exposure stage is lower than the target conversion rate. If we assume that the conversion rate of this step can reach 3%, then we can easily calculate that the final sales can exceed the target.

So we can focus on analyzing why the conversion rate of this step cannot be achieved? Since the actual traffic is higher than the target traffic, it means that there is no problem with the activity exposure on this channel. However, the low conversion rate may be because our advertising copy did not attract user clicks, or it may be that the users of this channel are not our target users. So, should we continue to run advertising on this channel next time we do an activity? etc.

Of course, the above case is relatively simple. In actual practice, the failure of an activity often involves multiple nodes, so we need to conduct repeated theoretical tests to determine the final problem and sort this series of problems.

The purpose of sandbox simulation is to find out the key to the problem. For some companies that have the conditions, they can even conduct testing through AB Testing. Through this whole set of review ideas, operators can learn from every event, regardless of whether it is successful or not.

Step 4: Export Experience

When we complete the above three steps, the review work is basically completed. At this time, we need to organize the entire process into a review report in the form of text or PPT.

There is actually no fixed template for a review report. The key is to find out the essence of things through review and extract regular factors to avoid falling into the same pit in the future.

At the same time, it should be noted that whether in analyzing the reasons for data differences or in the process of sandbox simulation, one should not be superficial or easily draw conclusions about a certain phenomenon. Every point needs to be verified by data or evidence. Therefore, the review report also needs to include these. Only in this way can you know what caused a certain result and why this cause can lead to such a result.

The importance of review for operational work is self-evident. Any good operator will have the habit of reviewing, whether it is doing activities or in other aspects. As you grow from a novice to an expert, each review report you write is actually the accumulation of your work experience. Operational work can sometimes be tedious, and if you want to accumulate experience from these complicated tasks and form your own system, you need to constantly review your work. Through repeated review, you will clearly see the improvement in your abilities as well as your shortcomings.

IV. Conclusion

It is actually not that difficult to run a successful event: from breaking down the event goals, to designing event gimmicks and benefits, to the implementation of the event, do each step well and fully, and then cooperate with the specific event gameplay. As long as you can achieve one or two points of excellence in the whole process, you can maximize the effect of the event and ensure its success.

But the really difficult thing about an event is to become a huge hit, or to use a more trendy term, to go viral! An excellent event can often attract customer groups beyond the target users and even cause widespread attention and discussion in the entire market. However, this kind of activity is difficult to accomplish by one person alone. It often requires the strength of a team, and sometimes the right time, place, and luck.

Therefore, as an event operator, you also need to adjust your mentality. Don’t expect to achieve a big hit with just one event, and don’t think that as long as you do every step well, you can leave behind a classic and excellent event case. In fact, those who plan classic events may have experienced countless failures before.

There are always many articles about event operations on the market, such as if you learn these routines, you can also plan a high-quality event, etc. These articles themselves do have many points worth learning, but the problem is that you who read the articles, don’t be naive to think that just reading a few more articles will really be enough.

When running an event, you must first ensure that every event you plan is correct, then ensure that every event can actually achieve the KPI, and finally rely on the strength of the team to ensure the success of each event. As for those popular events, when you have accumulated a certain amount of experience, the luck of the right time and place will naturally come to you.

Author: Piye Operation

Source: Piye Operation