Why build event marketing tools? What is the purpose of building it? The author of this article answers this question for us, and analyzes in detail the external form and underlying logic of the activity, and introduces 6 creation steps. I hope it will be helpful to you after reading it.

1. Is it necessary to build activity operation tools?

1. Why: Why build an event operation tool

My previous job was in a bank’s credit card center. As I mentioned before, everyone knows that credit card activities are very rich. Therefore, it also provided me with a lot of sample references for abstracting the activity logic and rebuilding the activity management platform in the later stage.

At the beginning of the reconstruction, I was also thinking whether I had to develop an event management platform myself:

1. On the one hand: there are third-party event marketing tools that can be accessed, such as Fanke Interactive-marketing tools, Event Box-event operation tools, etc.;
2. On the other hand: customized development activities are also an option. After all, the activities are too flexible and varied in form, making it difficult to configure them with unified standards.

However, after I analyzed hundreds of activities in the card center, I found that the activities are divided into online activities and offline activities. Offline activities will be promoted through online advertising, and online participation activities are mainly divided into two categories:

1. One type of e-commerce activities is mainly for sales promotion;
2. Another type of activity is task-based, which requires target users to complete tasks and then issue rewards.

At that time, the mall’s business was independent of the product scope I was responsible for, so I didn’t study it in depth later. After I unraveled the task-based activities, I was able to abstract the entire activity strategy.

Later, because third-party tools could not fully meet business needs in terms of customer groups and rules, the card center activities were iterated quickly, but development resources were limited; at the same time, the design context of task-based activities was sorted out, and it was finally determined that it was necessary to build an activity management background.

However, the situation of each company is different and requires specific analysis based on the specific circumstances.

2. Who: Who will use the activity operation tool?

Operations staff.

3. When & Where: When and in what scenarios will the activity operation tools be used?

In order to achieve business targets, we act on target objects in the form of activities.

4. What: What does the activity operation tool do?

Activities are created through activity operation tools and delivered to corresponding channels. When users participate in the activities, the rule engine is called to determine whether the activities meet the standards. Finally, the equity system is called to distribute rewards.

5. How: How to build activity operation tools

Based on the entire process of activity creation, delivery, message notification to users, user participation, achievement of requirements, and prize collection, the following business product structure diagram has been compiled for your reference.

Among them, event creation is the core function of the internal system of the event operation background, which I will focus on below. For event delivery, you can select specific delivery channels after creating the event, or you can directly configure the corresponding event link in the ad slot configuration module.

The compliance judgment in the activity can be undertaken by the rule engine, the message push can be undertaken by the message center, and the reward distribution can be undertaken by the corresponding rights and interests system. The activity operation platform only needs to call the relevant interfaces.

2. Activity creation core - activity external form & underlying logic

As mentioned above, I have abstracted the design context of task-based activities, but this context only applies to the underlying logic of the activity, not the rich external forms of expression of the activity.

The form of expression here can be understood as the visuals, gameplay, etc. presented by the activity. For example, for a lottery, I can use different visual expressions such as a nine-square grid/big roulette wheel, or I can use different gameplay methods such as slot machines, scratch cards, and treasure chests.

Therefore, in view of the external expression, I introduced the concept of activity templates, and broadened the external expression of activities by continuously enriching activity templates.

As for the underlying logic, I abstracted the logical architecture of task-reward-award distribution, which can support 1-to-many, many-to-1, and many-to-many relationships between tasks and rewards, so as to apply to different activities, as shown in the following figure:

1. Mission

Tasks are things that users need to complete and exist in the form of task groups. Different tasks in a task group can be open to different customer groups.

Based on the number of completions, it can be divided into single-task and multi-task; based on the number of completions, it can be completed once or multiple times.

Multitasking can be divided into progressive tasks and parallel tasks. Progressive tasks mean that users need to complete a task group in sequence, while parallel tasks mean that users can complete tasks in the task group at will without restrictions.

2. Rewards

Rewards are prizes given to users after they meet certain requirements. They exist in the form of a prize pool, and different prizes in the prize pool may be open to different customer groups.

In terms of quantity, it can be divided into single prizes and multiple prizes (gift packages).

3. Award method

The reward distribution method refers to the way users obtain rewards after completing tasks. It can be configured in multiple forms such as direct collection, lottery, redemption, etc. Different forms have different corresponding configuration parameters. For example, lottery involves probability settings.

3. Activity creation steps - functional architecture construction

After the above core logic is confirmed, it is time to start building the overall functional architecture.

From the above description, we know that: first we need to select the activity form (activity template) we want, and then configure the specific activity strategy.

I divided it into 5 parts: basic information of the activity, task configuration, reward configuration, award distribution method and sharing configuration. Of course, if there is no template you want, you can also customize the activity page and only configure the underlying logic.

The following article will give you a prototype designed for the business I encountered in my previous work, giving you a reference direction.

1. Activity Template

Choose a different event template:

2. Basic information of the event

Configure the basic elements of the activity, such as activity name, time, customer group, rule description, etc.

3. Task Configuration

Configure the basic elements of the task: such as task description, task link, task achievement rules, task completion time, etc.

If it is a single task, configure a task group and associate one task under one task group; if it is a multi-task, configure a task group and associate multiple tasks under one task group.

4. Reward Configuration

Configure the basic elements of rewards, such as prize ID, prize name, inventory, and recipient group.

The prize ID is the coupon ID generated in a rights system such as a coupon system, and is associated with the activity through the ID. The prize winning page and the prize not winning page can be set as universal pages to adapt to different activities.

5. Award method

Below I have listed the two forms of collection and lottery, which are mainly controlled from the perspective of collection time and collection quantity. In addition to this, the lottery has more settings for the probability of drawing a prize, providing two forms of distribution: distribution based on the flow of people and distribution evenly over time.

6. Shared Configuration

Configure the sharing information of the activity, such as sharing channels, sharing pages, shared content, etc.

4. Final Thoughts

Whether to build your own event marketing tools is a question that requires careful consideration in the early stages.

The first phase of building the entire event operation tool is very tedious and time-consuming, and after it is built, it needs to be connected with other external systems to complete the closed loop of the entire marketing event business process.

However, after it is built, it can indeed quickly meet business needs and reduce development costs to a certain extent. Each product needs to be analyzed based on the specific situation of the company.

At the same time, the ideas for building task-based activities that I provide are also abstracted from the business areas that I have been exposed to. If you have better ideas, you are welcome to communicate with me in the future~

Author: kinga

Source: kinga