The most comprehensive case analysis of event planning and operation strategies

Today I’d like to talk to you about how to run a complete event. The article has more than 5,000 words, so take your time to savor it.

First, please think about these questions:

1. Why do we need to organize activities? What are the purposes (benefits) of doing activities?

The purpose of organizing activities is nothing more than to quickly improve operational indicators in a short period of time, which can be simply summarized as: ① Attract new potential users; ② Activate existing users; ③ Increase product sales and improve conversion rates; ④ Enhance or shape brand image.

2. What types of activities are there? What are the presentation methods (online and offline)?

After determining the purpose and objectives of the event, the operator must begin to think about the specific presentation of the event.

The reason why the purpose and goal are listed separately here is that there is still a big difference between the two in the actual operation of the activity . We often plan an event or a series of events for a certain purpose; after having this idea, we need to think deeply about the event's goals, time, form, promotional channels, etc. The event goal is the datafication of the purpose.

For example, an app operator wants to design an activity to "attract new users". After clarifying the purpose of "attracting new users", he proposes that the goal of the activity is "50,000 new users". These "50,000 new users" are the purpose of the activity operation and the KPI. One thing to note here is that an excellent operations staff should not only focus on the KPI of the activity, but should think from the overall perspective of product operations. There are many ways to achieve this KPI, but you should choose a solution that can not only achieve the activity goal of "50,000 new users" but also activate existing users, and even help shape the product and brand image.

After clarifying the purpose and objectives of the activity, what are the forms of the activity?

Common activities:

(1) Voting (Migu Huishu Music Alliance Best Popular Singer Weibo Voting, Semi-acquaintance Crowdfunding Voting)

(2) Subsidies (Meituan, Ele.me discounts)

(3) Lucky draw (please add your favorite stores to participate in the lucky draw)

(4) Interaction (topic interaction: construction site collapse in Yichun, Jiangxi#, #6.7 magnitude earthquake in Akto County, Xinjiang#; live interaction: Liu Qiangdong cooking live)

(5) Games (catching cats on Singles’ Day, posting personality tags on WeChat Moments, posting “suitable soldiers” on QQ Space, etc.)

3. What are the steps of a complete activity? What is the core of the entire event operation?

(1) A complete online activity operation generally includes:

Determine the purpose → Event planning → Event development → Event testing → Promotion warm-up → Online promotion → Data monitoring → Announcement of results → Review and summary

(2) A complete offline activity operation generally includes:

Determine the purpose → Event planning → Event promotion → User registration → Wait for the event to start → Event hosting → Review and summary

Whether it is an online or offline activity, it can cover many links, and each link can be broken down into many small execution details. For example, in the promotion of offline activities, you need to consider the time, frequency, channel, degree of promotion of the event copy, etc.

During the user registration stage, you need to consider the user registration mechanism, the number of participants in the activity, etc. The user registration mechanism is generally based on the purpose of the event. Consider whether some registration thresholds can be set. Users need to complete a small task before they can complete the registration, such as forwarding event copywriting, which makes the opportunity to participate in the event scarce. The number of people attending an event is generally based on your event venue, event budget, on-site staff and other considerations.

While waiting for the event to start, you need to remind registered users of the event, warm up the event, interact with users, etc. What are the event reminder methods? SMS or email; what is the reminder content? Instead of a simple text invitation, you can consider making a high-end electronic invitation. Obviously, the latter is more labor-intensive than the former, but will the high-end electronic invitation provide a better user experience? Will users be more willing to share it on their Moments, and what will the corresponding publicity and promotion bring to the entire event?

Based on the above considerations, there are many factors that affect the final effect of an activity, but the following four points are the key core points of the entire activity operation:

• Determination of activity objectives and goals;
• Monitoring and analysis of activity data;
• Prediction and planning of activity risks;
• Review and summary of the activity process.

Specific steps for online event planning:

1. Determine the purpose and theme of the event

Why do we need to do activities? What is the purpose? Be sure to think about this before you start planning your event. The purpose of an activity is like the steering wheel of a car or the rudder of a ship. Only when the activity operators have a clear purpose can they avoid deviating from the main line and the original intention in the later activity operation process, just like a car or a ship can only reach the destination successfully if the driver has a good grasp of the steering wheel and rudder.

After the purpose of the activity is determined, it is best to convert the purpose of the activity into a goal, that is, convert the purpose into a specific KPI. This has been mentioned before and will not be elaborated here.

The next step is to determine a theme for the event, which is simply the gimmick of the event. The theme is formulated to achieve your event goals, so the theme of the event must be attractive enough. The determination of the theme provides a specific and powerful focus for the subsequent promotion of the event. Users can also form a preliminary impression of the products to be promoted in the event through the event theme!

For example, the "NetEase Weiyuan Black Pork" which has been very popular these days is the promotional theme of NetEase's cross-border work - "NetEase pigs that do not need injections or medicine, sit on the toilet and eat NetEase customized pig feed." In Chinese history, never before has a pig farm received such attention, nor has a pork brand received so much attention before it was launched.

At the just concluded World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, NetEase Weiyang's debut as a cross-border work of an Internet company took a path that was somewhat different from traditional meat brands. In addition, bigwigs such as Lenovo President Yang Yuanqing also endorsed it, saying, "I can prove that Ding Lei's pork is indeed delicious." It can be said to be full of gimmicks.

Case analysis: If Papi Jiang’s advertising auction in April this year was the “first auction in new media”, then NetEase Weiyuan Black Pork can be called the “first auction in Internet agriculture”. NetEase’s black pork auction: ① The cross-border pig farming by Internet companies is a big enough gimmick, and the outside world has very high curiosity and expectations about NetEase pork. ② As consumption continues to upgrade, Chinese users have a higher demand for safe and delicious products, and NetEase Weiyang is meeting their expectations. ③After the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Internet giants endorsed Weiyang Pork.

2. Analysis and determination of activity target users

To put it simply, which users do I develop this activity for and what are their characteristics. Determining the characteristics of the target users of an activity is mainly to guide the selection of channels for subsequent promotion and preheating of the activity, because the user portraits of different channel platforms are different. Only by choosing channels whose target user portraits match the user portraits of a certain platform can better publicity, preheating, and momentum be achieved.

3. Determination of activity time

Many time nodes are not only very beneficial for promoting activities, but can also often serve as reasons for holding activities. Traditional offline activities like to be held during store anniversaries, holidays, and seasonal changes; the advantages of mobile Internet have given online activities more ways to play and choices. Not only store anniversaries, holidays, and seasonal changes, but also a hot event can be a good choice. Of course, if you choose a hot spot for an activity, the material of the activity must be consistent with the hot event in order to achieve twice the result with half the effort.

If you cannot take advantage of certain time points, you should try to avoid them. For example, Tmall Double Eleven and JD 6.18, during these two days, apart from their daily work, most of the time is busy shopping and they have basically no time or energy to pay attention to other irrelevant activities.

Different holidays have their own labels. Such as roses, chocolates, confessions, dates, etc. on Valentine's Day; red envelopes, Spring Festival travel, gift giving, blind dates, etc. on Spring Festival; travel and reading on National Day, etc.

4. Determination of the activity form

After determining the purpose, goal, theme, users, and time of the event, you have planned the main line of the event. This step is to determine the interactive mode, rules, and tone of the event, that is, how you want to interact with users and how users participate in your event. This step is a key step, which will directly affect the number of participants in the event and thus affect the final effect of the event.

Criteria for determining activity interaction modes and rules:

①Simple process and less thinking

Many times when planning an event, if we are not careful, we will fall into self-thinking. This is because we are too familiar with our own products, so all actions become natural, thus ignoring the psychology of first-time participants in an event. It is difficult to break out of one’s own vicious thinking cycle, so when designing activities, you should communicate with everyone frequently and consider issues from the perspective of a novice user.

The activity process should be such that users can participate in the game without thinking or with simple thinking, thus simplifying the participation process. If the task can be done by scanning a QR code, never ask users to search for a public account on WeChat or click to follow it; if the task can be given directly, never ask users to share a link or send a screenshot; if the task can be done by filling in their name and phone number, never ask users to fill in any other additional information. The number of users from seeing an activity to completing it is like a funnel, decreasing at each step. In order to avoid user loss, it is very important to simplify the participation steps!

②Interesting and fun micro-innovation

The activity itself is interesting and gives users a good reason to participate, which is a favorable factor to stimulate users to participate and share. Capture users' interests, meet the personalized needs of different users, and satisfy users' vanity.

It is often difficult for operators to design a new event, so most event planning is done based on the experience gained.

Make micro-innovations based on successful activities. Micro-innovation refers to drawing on previous successful activity models and seeking partial changes. The changes here can be the theme, participation rules, participation platform, etc., but the main activity model is basically the same, such as the following two activities.

Case analysis: a. Personality themes are highly topical and are relevant to everyone; b. They meet the personalized needs of different users. Each picture is different, giving users a sense of exclusivity, making it easy for users to share. The C language is easy and fun, the degree of praise and criticism of the labels is well handled, the compliments and self-deprecating words on the labels are well handled, and the labels are mainly compliments, supplemented by self-deprecation. dThe participation threshold is low, the gameplay is simple, and the path is short.

③Users are profitable

Rewards can be physical objects, coupons, virtual currency, props, titles, etc. If it is a physical item, buy it first, take a photo and put it in the most conspicuous place on the event page. Many times, although users know that the winning rate is very low and they may not win the prize even if they participate, they will recognize this activity from the bottom of their hearts when they see the actual photos of the prizes, catering to the users' desire to get a bargain.

④Take advantage of opportunities (holidays, hot events)

Psychology has a "psychological arousal" effect. When planning activities, operators should promptly grasp current hot news events and hot figures, combine their own activity plans, and go with the flow to achieve the purpose of communication.

A Holidays and Holidays Tips:

• Holidays are predictable, so you can warm up activities and prepare for launch in advance;
• Deeply explore the most compatible points between activities and holidays, and combine the two organically;
• Good at using festival characteristics to target precise event crowds and effectively leverage the momentum;
• Compile a holiday schedule, including holiday labels and classic cases.

B. Tips for leveraging on hot events:

Hot events often occur suddenly and are unpredictable. Of course, some events are predictable (such as the U.S. presidential election, the release of iPhone 7s, the Olympics, the World Cup, etc.). The techniques for leveraging predictable events when running activities are the same as holidays.

Tips for taking advantage of unpredictable hot events:

• Pay close attention to hot spots and plan responses in a timely manner;
• The activity is simple to operate, interesting and fun, and highly relevant;
• Be cautious when leveraging trends and avoid negative hot spots.

What kind of sparks will be created when event planning meets leveraging the trend?

Case analysis: Alipay's lucky draw activity, a. The huge cash red envelope of 215 million satisfied users' profit-seeking mentality; b. The activity started to warm up more than 20 days before the Spring Festival, went online 10 days in advance, and released a lucky draw guide, giving users enough time to participate in the collection; c. The lucky draw activity was competitive and challenging, satisfying users' desire to compare and show off; d. The entire lucky draw activity took advantage of the gimmicks of the Spring Festival, the Spring Festival Gala, and sending blessings, and conformed to the Chinese people's love of excitement and festivity.

5.Activity development and testing

Event operators must also follow up the process of designers designing the event interface and developers implementing event functions, and continuously coordinate and optimize the activities. After the activity is completed, it must be tested to confirm that the functions are complete.

6. Event promotion, preheating, and momentum building

Preheating and promotion before the launch of an event is very necessary. It not only serves to convey information and inform the launch of the event, but also determines whether it can attract hot spots in advance. Preheating can convey the direct interest points of the event, allowing hot spots to be discovered in advance and consciously become a topic of dissemination, just like the Alipay Jifu event mentioned earlier. Operations personnel can also estimate the effect of the activity after it is launched based on the preheating effect. The reason why it is necessary to estimate the effect of the activity after it is launched will be mentioned later.

For example, if an operator wants to plan an online sharing event, he or she can use posters or article push to inform the event audience one week in advance what event will be launched on which day. It is crucial that event information can be delivered to the target audience accurately and in a timely manner. Notification is a prerequisite for the execution of all activities, and preheating can achieve the purpose of notification. Therefore, warm-up before the event is essential.

7. Prediction and contingency plan for activity risks

Possible risks and solutions of the activity:

a A bug occurred after the activity went online.

Solution: Work with developers to resolve quickly.

b. Inadequate promotion of the activity resulted in mediocre results.

Solution: Increase the number of channels for event promotion and choose channels with greater traffic; change the event promotion copy.

c. The activity prizes are not very attractive and users are not interested.

Plan: Change the event prizes; modify the event prize-winning mechanism and increase the number of prizes.

d User cheating, fake account data, water injection

Solution: Modify the activity rules to restrict smurfs; monitor activity data in real time and seal up accounts suspected of cheating.

e. The rules of the online platform for the activity are not clearly interpreted, and the activity has problems such as inducing sharing or attention.

Plan: Adjust the event participation mechanism; prepare more accounts and domain names.

8. Activity launch and data monitoring

Activities are a means of stimulating operational indicators in the short term. As an activity operator, only by real-time monitoring of activity data can you understand what is happening during the activity, and the operator also needs to understand the information reflected by the data.

If the activity is not effective, the operations staff can discover problems in the activity by interpreting the real-time data of the activity, and make timely adjustments and optimizations to get the activity back on track and achieve the expected results.

9. Announcement of event results

It is very necessary to announce the results of the event in a timely, open and transparent manner. This will not only allow users who have worked hard to participate in the event to know whether they have won a prize, but also accumulate word-of-mouth for the next event, because this will allow users who participated in the event to realize that the event planned by ×× Company does have the potential to win prizes, but they just did not win.

Moreover, when announcing the winning users’ information, it should be as detailed as possible (user ID, score obtained, ranking, corresponding prizes…), indicating that the organizer has indeed selected the winning users according to the activity rules, and the activity is fair, just and without any tricks, thus enhancing the brand image.

10. Activity review summary

Without a retrospective summary of the activities, the activities will only get worse and worse. Only by carefully sorting out, analyzing and summarizing the entire process of the activity can it be condensed into your experience, not just experience.

A review and summary can help you find the shortcomings of the event itself: Have the goals of the event been achieved and how well they were achieved? Is user interaction during the activity not smooth enough? Where can it be optimized? What emergencies may occur during activities and what are the solutions to these emergencies? What causes fluctuations in activity data? And conduct a detailed analysis of the reasons that lead to data fluctuations, dividing them into primary and secondary, internal and external factors, etc.

The review and summary can help you understand whether any competitors have copied the event during the event. If so, whether you can set up some technical barriers to increase the difficulty of copying the next time you run the event. For example, on the day when personality labels became popular, many versions actually appeared in the circle of friends.

The review summary can also help you collect user preferences (user feedback during the event) and screen out high-quality channels, making it easier to choose promotional channels for the next event.

Related reading:

How to plan a successful and beautiful event?

How to write a promotion plan for new media operations?

Practical methods and operational thinking for lottery event planning

4 key points for an excellent event planning!