How to plan a successful event marketing? You need these 3 traits!

Before officially launching event marketing , you need to prepare at least three things: a contrasting event, a visual communication source, and a theme sentence with a built-in memory point.

"The company is short of money, so cutting the marketing budget is a priority." This sentence exists almost like an iron law.

In recent years, if you have worked in a startup company or had the opportunity to deal with a large number of entrepreneurs. It is not difficult to feel that when people talk about marketing, the conversation may be more like this:

Q: Mr. Wang, what are the main channels for your company to place advertisements? How do you acquire users now?

Answer: To be precise, we rarely do advertising anymore because the cost of acquiring customers is too high. Actually, there is more operational work now. We have our own WeChat community. The users in the group were attracted by our early marketing. Now we are working hard to operate this group of users and use some incentives to get them to bring their friends. In addition, we often plan some fun and popular activities that don’t cost much but can bring in a certain number of users. Oh, by the way, we are also considering doing a fission recently...

Yes. If the marketing industry also has to select the keyword of the year, then the marketing keyword for 2018 will almost certainly be - low-cost customer acquisition.

When you find that "fission service providers" are rising in large numbers, when you see "Growth Hacker" placed in the most prominent position in bookstores, and when you gradually realize that marketing skills are no longer useful, then you will no longer be surprised by many behaviors of startups - most of them have begun to reduce or even cut advertising, and instead look for breakthroughs in some growth activities in order to obtain traffic at low cost and high efficiency.

Among various growth methods, event marketing is undoubtedly the most popular one among startups, and it is also the starting point for many startups to cold start.

Although Xiao Ou did write an article before titled "Viral Spread is God's Gift to Marketers". (Main point of the article: Promotion should still be based on conventional advertising. The probability of success of event marketing is not high and luck plays a big role, so you don’t need to spend too much energy on it)

However, considering that many startups now use event marketing as a regular method of acquiring customers, and I happen to have experience in event marketing before, I think it is still necessary to write an article: How can startups conduct event marketing scientifically to achieve viral effects with a greater probability?

(Yes, I still think the probability of this happening is not high, we are just discussing how to increase the probability a little bit)

Of course, "event marketing" is not a science after all, and no one can guarantee that following "steps one, two, three, four" can lead to viral spread. We can only summarize the experiences of some successful people and with the help of some basic theories of communication, roughly analyze and summarize the methods, striving to increase the probability of success.

Now please recall which virus transmission incidents are still fresh in your memory? What part of it can you still recall?

(ps: This excludes virus spreads led by large companies with huge budgets)

For example, the first thing that came to my mind was the heavy rain in Beijing on July 21 a few years ago. At that time, there was a very popular Weibo post. The photo showed a person putting Durex on his shoes to prevent water from entering the shoes.

Maybe you might think of these:

• Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 24 hours. Xin Shi Xiang launched a "free air ticket" campaign to encourage urban white-collar workers to reduce their burden and go out to see the world.
• Hundred dollar brother. I still remember that video, and I also remember what Brother Hundred Dollar said, “You don’t even give me a hundred dollars”;
• Touch your belly button and pot belly with your back hand. At that time, many people in the circle of friends were posting photos to show off their superiority;
• Chen Ou style. I still remember that commercial and Chen Ou’s classic line “I am Chen Ou, I represent myself”
• Some time ago, Shunfeng took advantage of the popularity of the comic "Who Are We" and cosplayed "Who Are We" by real people, which attracted massive attention.
• …

I wonder if you have discovered the commonality between them. For any successful event communication (whether initiated by a company or the public), there are usually only two points that remain in our memory:

(1) Visual communication sources , such as photos of Durex overshoes and video clips of the 100 Yuan Brother;

(2) Topic sentences that come out of your mouth , such as “Escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 24 hours” and “I speak for myself”.

This is not special or coincidental; it is the fundamental principle of communication. Think about it, are those brands we are familiar with also remembered by us in this way:

• The “pink delivery truck and packaging box” of Vipshop, a website that specializes in special sales;
• Wang Laoji's "Red Can", drink Wang Laoji if you are afraid of getting angry;
• Melatonin's "dancing cartoon elderly" will not accept gifts during the holidays this year, and if they do accept gifts, they will accept Melatonin;

Inspired by these two points, I think before officially starting an event marketing, at least the following three things need to be prepared:

1. An event full of contrasts;
2. Visualizable communication sources;
3. Topic sentences with built-in mnemonics.

Now, we can use these three points to briefly review the classic case of "Durex Overshoes".

• An event full of contrast: On July 21, there was a heavy rainstorm in Beijing, and someone posted a Weibo saying that if you put Durex on your shoes, you don’t have to worry about water getting in. It creates a very strong sense of contrast - "Wow, condoms can be used this way, why didn't I think of it? What a genius!"
• Visualizable source of communication: There is no way to know whether it was a "staged" photo. In short, the source of communication is very simple, which is a photo of Durex overshoes, which also provides strong visual evidence for this incident. Frankly speaking, even if only this photo is reproduced N years later, most people can still associate it with this incident;
• Topic sentence with built-in memory point: When people talk about this matter on social platforms, the chat content usually includes the core phrase "Durex overshoes". Just a few simple words can make the matter clear, which is easy to remember and spread.

1. The event itself should create a sense of contrast

The essence of virus transmission is secondary transmission that extends infinitely based on social relationships. In fact, most of the events we encounter in our daily lives are not enough to trigger our sharing behavior. In other words, they are far from reaching the threshold for us to actively share.

Why?

The lack of contrast is an important reason. Humans are insensitive to what they see every day, but are particularly sensitive to abnormal information.

Of course, this is easy to explain in evolutionary psychology: in ancient times, when your companion was walking normally, you would not pay special attention, but if he suddenly accelerated (abnormal information), you would notice it instantly and be ready to run.

Perhaps he noticed the ferocious lion and was running away, or perhaps he saw the long-lost prey and was chasing it. In short, if your companion behaves abnormally, something major must have happened that affects their survival.

So what happens if you ignore this anomalous information?

Obviously, there are two possible outcomes: you don’t even know a lion is coming and end up being eaten; or you don’t see the prey and don’t put in the effort to hunt it, so you can only watch others enjoy a delicious dinner alone that night.

Therefore, in order to survive, humans are naturally extremely sensitive to abnormal information. That’s why, even if you’re already familiar with the sound of fire truck sirens, you still can’t help but perk up whenever you hear it.

Therefore, if an event can eventually go viral, it is often because it takes advantage of this psychology of people.

A typical example is the famous "Spartan Warrior" incident. One day three years ago, a real-life version of "300 Spartans" was staged on the streets of Beijing. A group of tall and mighty white Europeans dressed in costumes from the movie walked in a line on the streets of Beijing. The scene was spectacular and grand. People passing by took out their mobile phones to take pictures and post them on WeChat Moments.

But later the situation changed. The police officers pinned the "Spartan Warrior" to the ground for disturbing social order, and photos of the scene were uploaded to the Internet by passers-by. The abnormality and unexpected twist caused this incident to quickly dominate major social media platforms.

For example, the "Chen Ou style" became popular on the Internet back then, which was also due to the creation of abnormal information. As the boss of Jumei, Chen Ou changed the old tradition of many brands looking for celebrities to endorse their products and chose himself as the spokesperson, which created a strong contrast. In addition, the golden sentences he created also triggered strong resonance among the post-80s generation and eventually led to large-scale dissemination.

So, if you plan to do a successful event marketing. The first thing to consider is the choice of event. Creating an event that is extremely contrasting and contrary to what the public sees and thinks in their daily lives is often a key factor in triggering dissemination.

2. Create a visual communication source

What is the source of transmission? The source of communication is the material that you prepare for the public to spread. Simply put, the source of communication is a concrete representation of an event (such as a picture).

It is conceivable that if an event occurs but the audience cannot see a visual presentation, it will also be detrimental to subsequent secondary dissemination.

So, what issues should we pay attention to when creating communication sources?

(1) Focus

This is of paramount importance. When creating a source of communication, avoid being obsessed with multiple forms of expression. Rather than casting a wide net and trying every form, it is better to carefully polish a "staged" picture for the public to spread, and the final effect will be much better.

(2) Binding marketing targets

We always see that some event marketing has very good communication effects, with a high number of reposts and hot topics, but there is one thing - it cannot bring exposure to the brand (or conversion to the product).

why is that?

Because before launching event marketing, the executors did not set the marketing target as an important link in communication.

For example, in the “Spartan Warrior” case, from the European men queuing up on the street to being pinned to the ground by the police, we did not see any obvious brand exposure from beginning to end. The whole incident seemed like a game without purpose, existing independently of the brand.

Looking back now, if the brand could have given "Spartan Warriors" a name that was strongly associated with the brand in advance and made a highly visible logo, the brand's exposure would naturally have increased significantly during the mass communication process.

Of course, this incident did have a certain effect at the time. After the police intervened, the brand was finally forced to issue an apology statement, and somehow it became known to everyone.

Therefore, before launching an event marketing, brands must remember to strongly bind and associate themselves with the created event, making themselves an indispensable link in the communication process.

(ps: This is why fission technology is so popular today. Because every fission will bring real users to the merchants, such as following the official account, using the mini program, or completing the registration, etc.)

3. Write a topic sentence containing a memorable point

The incident happened and the source of transmission came into our hands. At this time, we are often particularly eager to tell our friends about something new and interesting.

But now that I have the material in hand, what kind of copy should I write?

This is when the topic sentence you prepared in advance comes into play. The so-called topic sentence is a condensed, easy-to-remember and easy-to-spread sentence about the entire event, which is provided to each node to help them lower the threshold for sharing and dissemination.

For example, we did an event marketing called “Xi’erqi Internet Celebrity Bus Stop” before. The theme sentence is "Xi'erqi Internet Celebrity Bus Stop", and we have been emphasizing this point. Therefore, whether you tell your friends in person or share it with them on WeChat, you will use this sentence as a vehicle to spread it. This will greatly reduce the resistance to communication and allow events to be spread more smoothly.

That said so much. How can this topic sentence be designed?

In fact, there is a book that can give us a good inspiration, that is, "Making Ideas Stickier" by the Heath Brothers. The Heath brothers concluded in the book that some ideas or information can be quickly understood and remembered by people, and they are willing to spread them. This is mainly because the idea or information contains six elements: simplicity, surprise, concreteness, credibility, emotion and story.

Of course, it is impossible for a short topic sentence to fully meet these six points. Generally speaking, as long as three or four of them are met, it can basically meet the standard of word of mouth. At the same time, it should be noted that because it is used for event marketing, the topic sentence must at least present the attribute of "unexpected".

for example:

• "Xi'erqi Internet Celebrity Bus Stop" is simple, unexpected and specific;
• "No matter how big the world is, it is not bigger than a plate of fried rice", accidents, emotions, stories;
• "24-hour escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou", unexpected, specific, and emotional;

(For more inspiration on writing topic sentences, please refer to Weibo's hot search list)

Summarize

Whether we admit it or not, one obvious fact is that today, a large number of startups have reduced their investment in marketing and instead tried various growth activities. The most popular among them may be the event marketing that can achieve great results with little effort.

But we also need to know that the success rate of event marketing is not high, especially for startups, which have neither professional teams nor successful experience. Often some small details can lead to the failure of the entire event.

But given that a large number of startups are doing this, I think it is still necessary to write this article. This article is not an operational methodology for event marketing, but a summary of some important principles. It is far from guaranteeing success, but it can at least give entrepreneurs a reminder to avoid mistakes in unworthy places.

What principles can we refer to?

I think that before launching an event marketing, these three things are especially important to note:

1. Is there a sense of contrast in the events?
2. Is the source of transmission visible?
3. Is there a memorable point in the topic sentence?

Source: Xiaoouyanshang (ID: sijiuchengdewo)