Ximalaya's "423 Listening Festival" promotion strategy

Friends who don’t pay much attention to the knowledge payment industry may not know that April 23 is World Book Day, but since when, this day has been marketed as a consumption day for the knowledge payment industry.

Major organizations including Himalaya and蜻蜓FM will launch large-scale marketing activities on this day.

The event launched by Himalaya on this day is the "423 Listening Book Festival", which has been held for three sessions so far.

As an audio sharing platform with 600 million users, Himalaya can almost always achieve good data at every audiobook festival, and this year is no exception. According to the data released to the public, the number of paying users of this year's audiobook festival has increased by 4.38 times compared to last year.

In order to find out what form of activity this 423 Listening Book Festival is, why it has achieved such impressive activity data, and what highlights are worth learning from.

I have completely analyzed the 423 Listening Book Festival and compiled it into a text, hoping to provide reference and inspiration for everyone to organize similar activities in the future. The article analyzes three aspects: event warm-up, event format, and channel promotion, hoping to fully restore the entire process of the event.

01. 423 Listening Book Festival warm-up

For a large-scale marketing campaign, before the event officially starts, there will be a large-scale promotion bombardment through online and offline channels to warm up the event in advance.

Preheating is an essential and important part of a large-scale marketing campaign.

If the preheating is done well, it can not only whet users' appetite and create expectations, but also often bring out some topics and discussions, which will attract attention and spread quickly before the event goes online, thus creating momentum for the official launch of the event in advance.

The Double 11, 618 and other events that we are familiar with basically start preheating one month before the event goes online. The same is true for Himalaya's 423 Listening Book Festival, although in terms of user size and public opinion, the 423 Listening Book Festival cannot be compared with the e-commerce Double 11.

However, the warm-up for Himalaya's 423 Listening Book Festival was well organized and methodical, which is of great reference significance for our subsequent activities of this kind.

First bullet: "Guess the title of the book"

The first warm-up for Himalaya’s 423 Listening Book Festival was a subway joint event co-organized with emoji company: Guess the title of a book.

The activity is very creative. Multiple emoji expressions are combined into a puzzle on the poster, asking users to guess the title of the book. If they can't guess it, they can scan the QR code on the puzzle poster and enter the Himalaya App to view the answer.

The event was held on April 18, and the posters were displayed at more than 20 Guangzhou Metro stations. The event poster is shown below:

Second bullet: "It's too difficult to guess the title of the book using emojis"

In response to the offline subway joint event, on April 20, Himalaya also launched an interesting topic activity on the Weibo platform: It is too difficult to guess the title of a book using emoticons.

Compared with offline marketing, online marketing methods are more diverse.

In order to increase the popularity of the topic, Himalaya launched a wave of Weibo activities with forwarding prizes, guiding fans to spread the topic.

In addition, Himalaya has invited many internet celebrities, actors and big Vs to participate in the topic.

They posted emoticons on Weibo, asking fans to guess the title of the book, which brought the popularity of this Weibo topic to a new level in a short period of time. As of the time of posting, this Weibo topic activity has been read 230 million times.

Part 3: Audio Library

The third warm-up campaign launched by Himalaya is an activity on the App: Audio Library.

This is the highlight of the event warm-up.

On April 15, one week before the 423 Listening Book Festival went online, Himalaya launched this event on the App.

During the event, when users open the Himalaya App, the top of the App will automatically pull down and collapse, revealing the audio library's event information to users and enticing them to pull down to enter the event page.

I believe everyone is familiar with this "pull down to enter a new page" design. This is a popular product design for apps in recent years. It originated from Taobao's "Taobao Second Floor" and was later gradually adopted by major companies such as Tencent and JD.com.

Himalaya also often uses this design to promote some activities within the App, and with reference to the "Second Floor of Taobao", Himalaya will name the new page that is pulled down as "The Second Floor of Himalaya".

Back to the event, when the user scrolls down to enter the second floor of Xima, he will see a celebrity recommending a book to the audio library and explaining the reason for the recommendation in one sentence. The page is as follows:

During the event, the page will invite a celebrity every day to recommend a book to the audio library, including top celebrities such as Yu Qiuyu and Kai-Fu Lee.

When users click anywhere on this page, they will be redirected to the audio library's event landing page.

Only when users come to this activity landing page can they clearly understand the specific gameplay and rules of the audio library:

1. Users can recommend books they think are valuable to the audio library.
2. The activity will create a ranking list based on the number of user recommendations for each book. Books that are high on the ranking list will be given priority for audio conversion by Hima officials.

The gameplay of the activity can be described as very Buddhist. It neither guides users to invite friends nor converts users to pay. It simply asks users to recommend books, and the link design is also quite simple.

First, select the book you want to recommend on the activity page, then click to enter the book page and click the "I want to listen" button to complete the recommendation. After completing the recommendation, the page will automatically jump to guide users to share the poster.

The schematic diagram of the entire link is as follows:

Compared with the gameplay of the activity, the gimmick and packaging of the activity are the biggest highlights of the audio library.

From the text on the page, we can learn that the event is jointly organized by Himalaya and the China Blind Association. The audio library will be open to the visually impaired free of charge. Blind people can log in to the disabled area in the Himalaya APP and enter the platform for free reading with their disability certificate number.

Himalaya’s vision is to build such a great audio library together with users so that everyone can acquire knowledge and information through the audio library.

Anyway, through this series of emotional copywriting packaging, the event instantly became a lot more upscale, and added some public welfare color of "doing good for the disabled", which greatly stimulated users' enthusiasm for participation.

The event also invited a number of celebrities such as Yu Qiuyu, Yu Qian, and Ma Weidu to endorse it, which paved the way for the hype of the concept of "audio library."

The above is all the content for the warm-up of the 423 Listening Book Festival. In short, Himalaya completed the warm-up for the Audiobook Festival through the above three activities. Among them, the "Audio Library" launched in the App is undoubtedly the highlight and the destination of the warm-up traffic.

The event was officially launched in the early morning of April 22. Next, I will take you to restore the event site and see what the 423 Listening Book Festival is like.

02. Analysis of the 423 Listening Book Festival

On April 22, as long as users open the Himalaya APP, they will receive a very cool animated pop-up window. As soon as users see the pop-up window, they can realize that this event is extraordinary.

The user clicks on the pop-up window and arrives at the event landing page of the 423 Listening Book Festival. Since the entire event contains multiple modules, all of these activity modules must be presented through this landing page, so the length of this page is quite long.

Although the page is long, after sorting it out, we will find that the entire event consists of 5 modules, namely audio library, allowance, members' area, good book recommendations, and book list activities.

Among them, the "Audio Library" module has been disassembled above and will not be repeated below; and the "Good Book Recommendations" is just a simple aggregation of various audio books, and there are not many points worth disassembling.

Therefore, the activities of the 423 Listening Book Festival will be broken down into three modules: allowances, member areas and book list sharing.

First, let’s take a look at what the “subsidy” of the 423 Listening Book Festival means.

1. Allowance

The allowance is equivalent to the points currency of the 423 Listening Book Festival. Himalaya adopted a points system in the event, which is considered the biggest highlight of the event.

There are five ways for users to get subsidies in this event:

1. Sign in. You can receive a 25 yuan allowance by signing in at the 423 activity page every day.
2. Listen to the show. You can get a 5 yuan allowance by listening to any program for 5 minutes every day.
3. Listen to the designated program. You can get 30 allowances by listening to the designated program for 30 minutes every day.
4. Create a book list. You can get a subsidy of 4.23 yuan for each book list you create.
5. Book list sharing. After the user shares the book list with friends, the user will receive a subsidy of 6.6 yuan for each friend who picks up the book.

In addition to the above five ways, Himalaya will also give users some subsidies from time to time to encourage users to participate in activities.

As shown in the figure below, on the last day of the event, in order to encourage users to make the final sprint, Himalaya added a subsidy of 42.3 yuan to each user's account.

After receiving the allowance, users can use it in the following two consumption scenarios.

1. Redeem free listening rights for audiobooks. One thing that should be noted here is that the listening rights that users redeem with allowances are only for 12 hours and are not permanent.

2. Purchase audiobooks or annual membership at a low price. The allowance can offset part of the price, allowing users to purchase audiobooks or memberships at a cheaper price.

In my personal opinion, the most ingenious part of the allowance mechanism is that even if users receive a large amount of allowances, they can only redeem them for 12 hours of listening rights. In fact, it is equivalent to that users are only redeeming a trial listening right. If they think it is good after the trial listening, they still have to spend money to buy it.

When users have finished listening to the product and are hesitating whether to buy it, the allowance can offset part of the price, which is equivalent to a discount promotion, giving users a strong reason to buy again.

In short, the subsidy mechanism is designed to promote users' payment conversion. When users intend to consume the subsidies in their hands, they have already entered the layers of routines designed by the activity. Next, under the siege of a series of combined punches such as auditions and discounts, users can only surrender and pay.

2. Members Area

Now that we’ve discussed the perks, let’s talk about the members area.

The member area occupies a front position on the event landing page. Right below the place where users sign in to receive allowances is the member area. This position is enough to show that in this event, Hima attaches great importance to and has high expectations for the sales of annual memberships.

In order to promote the sales of Himalaya annual card memberships, Himalaya designed an interesting card flipping and lottery session. I think the card flipping and lottery is the biggest highlight of this area.

As shown in the figure below, the copy in the member area clearly tells users that they can get additional membership time by flipping the card, and the winning rate is 100%, inducing users to click the "Go Now" button to participate in the card flipping lottery.

The user clicks the "Go Now" button to jump to the lottery page, which provides 6 cards and the user needs to randomly draw one for the lottery.

After the user draws a card, they receive a pop-up window indicating the winning number, as shown below. The large characters in the middle of the card remind users to obtain a 40-day membership, and the small characters at the bottom of the card remind users that the 40-day membership can only be credited to their account after purchasing an annual card.

I believe everyone has realized by now that flipping cards to draw a lottery actually takes advantage of the psychology of loss aversion.

If 40 days of membership are given away in advance through a lottery before users purchase the annual membership, driven by the psychology of loss aversion, users will not want to lose the prize and will have the urge to purchase the annual membership.

However, if a 40-day membership is given away through a lottery after the user purchases an annual membership, this effect will definitely not occur.

3. Book list activity

The book list activity is not unfamiliar to old users of Hima. As early as last year's 423 Listening Book Festival, Himalaya had already held a book list activity. Last year's book list activity had a simple process and clear logic, which can be regarded as the biggest highlight of the event at that time.

Speaking of last year's book list event, here is a brief introduction to the event rules:

1. Users can select 6 audiobooks they want to listen to and form a wish list.
2. After forming your wish list, invite 5 friends to click and support, and you can unlock the list.
3. After the book list is successfully unlocked, users can receive a book listening gift package, which includes 7 days of free listening rights to these 6 books, as well as a 50% off book voucher and a 20 yuan coupon.
4. If your friends help, you will receive a thank-you package, which includes a 50% off book voucher and a 5 yuan coupon.

Last year's book list event had many highlights in terms of fission and traffic diversion. In comparison, this year's book list event was mediocre and did not have many highlights.

Let’s take a look at how this year’s book list activity is designed.

As shown in the figure above, the user comes to the book list activity module, clicks the "Create My Book List" button, and jumps to the book list creation page, see the figure below.

Users can select 3 books to create a book list. After creation, click the "Publish Now" button, and then you will receive a pop-up window reminding you to receive a 4.23 yuan subsidy, as shown in the picture below.

The small words next to the share button still remind users: You can get a 6.6 yuan allowance for every friend you share with.

When the user shares the book list with friends, after the friends click on the book list link, they will come to the following page.

The visual focus of the page is on the "Get Books for Free" button at the bottom. When a friend clicks the button, he will receive a pop-up window reminding him that he has successfully received the book list, which means that the user has obtained the right to listen to these three books.

The above is the introduction to the content of this book list activity. In short, the rules for this year's book list are:

1. Users select 3 books and create a wish list. They can receive a 4.23 yuan subsidy by creating a book list.
2. Users can share the book list, and receive an additional 6.6 yuan allowance for each friend who receives it.
3. After friends receive the user's book list, they can get 12 hours of listening rights to these three books.

Personally, I think this year's book list activity is much inferior to last year's book list activity.

Last year’s book list activity had a clear and complete fission and traffic diversion logic, while this year’s book list activity’s fission logic was somewhat confusing. This is reflected in the fact that the bait that drives users to share book lists is no longer the books themselves, but the 6.6 yuan subsidy.

However, allowances can be obtained through easier means such as signing in, listening to programs, etc. What's more, the act of creating a book list itself can earn allowances, so users can just continue to create book lists. Why bother sharing them?

After my tests, I found that a user can create up to 25 book lists, which means that the user can get a maximum of 105 subsidies by making book lists, which is basically enough.

Therefore, users will not be very motivated to share book lists, and this activity is unlikely to take off. Of course, I believe that Xima officials have a clear understanding of this point. Judging from the overall event, this 423 Listening Book Festival focuses more on revenue conversion rather than fission and attracting new customers.

The above content is a detailed analysis of the 423 Listening Book Festival event.

However, these contents alone are not enough to fully analyze the 423 Listening Book Festival. Compared with the event itself, how to promote the event , how to increase the exposure of the event and get more users involved are also important aspects that the event should consider.

Therefore, in the third part of the article, I will take you to analyze the channel promotion strategy of the 423 Listening Book Festival.

03. 423 Listening Book Festival Channel Promotion

1. The first step in channel promotion is to integrate and utilize BD resources.

Before the 423 event went online, Himalaya had already joined forces with 36 external organizations including Caixin Audiovisual, Southern Daily, and NIO to promote the 423 Audiobook Festival by having these organizations distribute audiobook gift packages to users.

The audiobook gift pack contains 100 audiobooks, and users can listen to them for free for 14 days.

These organizations distribute audiobook gift packages through their official Weibo and WeChat public accounts.

After receiving the gift package, users need to enter the Himalaya App to complete the consumption of the gift package contents, which can bring a wave of traffic to the 423 Listening Book Festival in the short term.

2. The second method of channel promotion is to comprehensively bombard the own channels.

On the day the event was launched, Himalaya’s official Weibo, WeChat public account and other channels worked at full capacity to promote the event.

In addition to regular promotion by publishing articles on WeChat official accounts, it is important to mention the Koi event launched by Himalaya on Weibo.

On April 22, the day when the Listening Book Festival was launched, Himalaya launched a Koi event on Weibo to find the "Listening Book Koi". The format of the event was exactly the same as the Alipay Koi of that year.

Currently, this Koi Weibo post on Himalaya has been forwarded 140,000 times, received 160,000 comments, and received 240,000 likes, and the scene is quite popular.

The third channel promotion method is paid placement in some external channels.

On April 22, the day the event went online, Yi Yang Qianxi’s Weibo promoted the Himalaya 423 Listening Festival.

Judging from the number of reposts and comments, the effect of this Weibo post should be explosive.

In addition, Himalaya also has ads on the WeChat platform. On April 23, World Book Day, the big accounts I follow, such as Caoz’s Mengyi, also released soft articles about the 423 Book Festival on the same day.

04. Last

It is difficult to cover all the details and highlights of the 423 Listening Book Festival in one article. There are some other contents of the event, which are not fully expanded in this article due to the length of the article.

However, these do not affect the article's analysis of the overall logic of the event. The value of the article lies in recording and sharing. I hope that after reading it, everyone can gain some inspiration and thinking on how to organize a large-scale event.

Finally, let’s summarize the framework of the Himalaya 423 Listening Festival:

The warm-up activities for the 1,423 Listening Book Festival consist of three activities, namely, a subway joint event jointly organized with the emoji company, a topic activity initiated by Himalaya’s official Weibo account “It’s too difficult to guess the title of a book using emojis”, and the “Audio Library” launched on the Himalaya App.

2. In the early morning of April 22, the 423 Listening Book Festival was launched. The event is generally divided into 5 modules: audio library, allowance, member area, good book recommendations, and book list activities. The overall activity focuses more on revenue and conversion, and the efforts to attract new customers are slightly insufficient.

3. In terms of channel promotion of the event, Himalaya first attracted a wave of external traffic through the promotion of BD channels, then activated its own traffic through publicity and promotion of its own channels, and finally promoted the event smoothly by paying for some external channels.

Author: Su Tanbin

Source: Su Tanbin