From 0 to 1, build a promotion and marketing center!

It would be too simplistic if the marketing center simply viewed it as a coupon issuing platform. The complete marketing center is a one-stop solution that integrates activities, coupons, rules, issuance, review, and data. Help operations personnel identify problems, assist in decision-making, and complete the formulation of operations plans; help product personnel mine effective data and build portraits.

Marketing centers come in various forms and can be roughly divided into: e-commerce, stores and third-party marketing platforms.

The merchant side of e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com are equipped with a marketing center, which is mainly used for issuing coupons, setting up activities and data statistical analysis; food delivery or new retail platforms such as Ele.me, Meituan, and Hema are mainly rooted in physical stores, helping stores to complete the distribution of marketing activities for online stores and in-store activities for offline stores; third-party marketing platforms may not provide online store services, but only exist as channel operators, providing the distribution of operational activities such as coupons and promotions.

The marketing center that I share with you is universal and can be compatible with various online and offline scenarios.

1. The essence of the marketing center

The word "marketing center" is so vast that it is difficult to fully explain it in just one article. What I am going to talk about next are some practical experiences. If there is anything I don’t understand, please feel free to speak up and discuss.

1. main body

The distribution/creation subject of the marketing center is a theme. For example, a theme event is created - "March 8th Women's Day, I'll pay for shopping, eating and drinking". This event may include online shopping mall coupons, store coupons, and may also include full-discount activities. Secondly, the theme can also be spread through H5 pages, and can also be promoted through offline roll-up banners.

This combination maximizes the separation of topics and content, making the marketing platform clearer to use, data statistics more precise, and user portraits more accurate; at the same time, it also brings many benefits in the subsequent creation, review and distribution stages.

1. rule

The picture above is a screenshot of the rule setting page of a certain platform. Basically, the rules are similar. The picture below shows some rules set by the author based on themes and activity concepts.

A few points to emphasize here:

Rules need to be preset:

I have seen some marketing platforms where rules are added on the spot, and some even worse, they are added directly into the code for creating the activity. This is highly undesirable. On the one hand, it is too troublesome, and on the other hand, it is not convenient for data statistics and analysis. It is difficult to correct unexpected situations such as BUGs during the event.

The rules cannot cover everything:

At first, I naively thought that it would be enough to incorporate all the rules into the system logic, but I found this to be unlikely during planning. Because there are thousands of forms of activities, new forms of activities are also being updated every day, and some new activities have new rules, so there is no need to pursue comprehensiveness too much in the setting of rules, just cover the current forms of activities as much as possible.

It is not recommended to use unified rule settings:

Some marketing systems will place restriction rules in the distribution stage as a unified closing point.

But the author does not recommend doing so. First, the restriction rules for different activities may be different (although rules such as validity period are the same, there are still many differences); second, unified closing may cause problems in the collaborative office of multiple personnel and multiple departments. The people who create activities and those who finally review and distribute them in the company may be different people, and they focus on different points. The person who creates the activity pays more attention to the details of the activity, and the person who reviews it pays more attention to the overall situation of the activity. It is not appropriate to let the person who reviews it set unified rules.

1. Audit

Auditing is an optional step, and two main points are emphasized here:

If no review is required, please also write in the system logic:

Audits can be skipped in many small businesses, but we hope that everyone will urge back-end developers to write them into the underlying logic. Whether to audit or not will depend on actual business needs. If you need to add audit logic in the future, you don't need to worry about major logic changes.

Multi-level review logic:

The concept of multi-level review means that multiple people at different levels go through a multi-stage review process to approve or reject the application.

Here, I emphasize the need to set up review logic separately for themes, coupons, and activities, and to consider the reverse process. As mentioned above, different people have different focuses. Leaders review the macro information of the subject, such as profit, cost, time, etc., while operations staff review the content details of the activities and coupons.

1. Issue

Distribution is the most complex and important module in my opinion. Distribution takes over the theme (including activity content) and sets the distribution information. The final data summary will also be affected by the information set during distribution.

The following information is mainly set during the issuance phase:

Distribution channels: Channels are generally divided into online (apps, mini programs, official accounts, Weibo and WeChat, etc.) and offline (stores, shopping malls, outdoor, etc.); online and offline can be further divided into many scenarios, such as: after offline self-service POS payment, before offline POS payment, scanning the code in the store activity area, online sharing, advertising car/float parade, promotional posters, flyers, etc.

Consumption method restrictions: also known as verification restrictions, mainly serve as restrictions on consumption channels. They can separate different online and offline operating methods, effectively guide traffic and facilitate data collection.

Recipients: This is not done when setting up activities and coupons because the recipients are based on the theme and serve as a unified rule for closing restrictions.

Distribution location: This mainly takes into account different online and offline scenarios; at the same time, it is convenient for operators to complete the delivery of operational activities without the cooperation of development.

1. data

The data module in the marketing center mainly displays activity-related information, such as: activity GMV, profit, new customer acquisition, activation, number of transactions, number of receipts, number of uses, number of shares, user portraits, etc.

Data is a key factor in operational analysis and decision-making, but the data module is too large, so I will not discuss it here. If you want to know more, you can search for related articles on your own.

2. Differentiation between coupons and activities

When I was talking about the topic just now, I mentioned the concepts of coupons and activities. So, let’s talk about this now: Why do we deliberately divide the forms of activities into two types: coupons and activities (which can also be understood as promotions)?

Confusing the two in general will cause logical confusion in system design and development - the rule settings, data statistics, and operational purposes are all different. The concept of coupons is similar to that of red envelopes, which come in two types: instant discount and discount for purchases above a certain amount. Both meet consumers' needs in terms of amount; however, the activities are more diversified and the rules are more flexible.

During checkout, you can usually see that the activity is automatically calculated after entering the checkout page, while coupons (red envelopes, bonuses, etc.) need to be manually selected and used. At the same time, separate designs can also maximize the scalability of both.

3. Rule Restrictions and Mutual Exclusivity

The rules were mentioned above, but mutual exclusivity was not elaborated. The main purposes of mutual exclusion are:

1. Clarify system and business logic

Mutual exclusivity can sort out the usage relationship between activities, activities and coupons, and coupons and coupons, which is of great help to operators in controlling the progress of activities and developers in writing codes. At the same time, consumers can be clearer when using or explaining to consumers, thus avoiding disputes and arguments.

1. Convenient for the payment and cash register system to make verification judgments

The marketing center’s responsibilities are not just to create activities and coupons and then distribute and use them. It also has a profound impact on subsequent cashier payments. If mutual exclusivity is not clear, the system will not be able to perform verification or will directly skip verification during settlement, which will directly lead to operating losses or system errors.

1. Control costs

Mutual Exclusivity Controlling costs is a very big responsibility for operations personnel.

Everyone who uses Ele.me or Meituan takeout will find that: there are many activities among merchants, but not many of them are shared together. A discount of X yuan for purchases over X yuan cannot be effective at the same time as a special offer on goods.

This is the decision that merchants make after calculating costs and profits when running promotional activities.

1. Avoid large-scale losses caused by system bugs as much as possible

Mutual exclusivity can mitigate the serious consequences caused by system bugs to a certain extent. For example, setting mutual exclusivity between coupons and activities can avoid possible losses caused by unlimited coupons.

So, how do I set up mutual exclusion?

Completely free combination:

This is what the author thought after scratching his head in the face of numerous activities and rules.

Completely free combination means: when mutual exclusivity needs to be set, the applicable scope of the current activity or coupon (product, store, category, brand, etc.) is used to determine whether there are any ongoing or under review activities or coupons in the applicable scope, and they can be mutually exclusive after freely checking.

For example: when setting up a discount activity for all NIKE products, you can see all the activities and coupon information currently in progress and under review by NIKE. After checking an activity, the checked activity and the currently set full-discount activity will form a mutually exclusive relationship.

There is only one benefit to doing this: convenience.

The author is not a lazy person. In terms of the logic of conceiving a completely free combination, it is not because it is convenient for design, but because of the potential problems in the subsequent online and offline joint operations.

I used to be a department head in a large supermarket, so I have a clear understanding of offline activities and I know that the degree of freedom involved is actually very high. If too many restrictions are placed in the design of the marketing center, it will undoubtedly ruin a lot of offline financial resources.

Therefore, the author uses rules to constrain and free mutual exclusion settings to open up the possibility of activity combinations.

V. Conclusion

Finally, I would like to add that this article is the underlying logic that was discussed, deliberated, and sorted out by the author, developers, and operations personnel. It does not involve prototype design, nor does it teach you how to design.

What the author emphasizes is the underlying logic. Only by clarifying the general framework and context flow can we design the correct interaction prototype and write a complete product PRD document.

If you have any questions or find any problems with this article, please point them out and leave a message for communication.

Source: Chicken drumstick