How to plan a promotional event that will attract a lot of people’s participation? Just read this one

This article introduces four strategies for planning promotional activities: free, small probability and high return, based on a sense of control, and beneficial to both parties.

As a marketing planner, planning promotion activities is a skill that must be mastered! When we think about promotional activities, we cannot just think about how to lower prices or give discounts, but we need to be strategic.

Strategy 1: Free

If you want to plan a promotional campaign that will take the entire Internet by storm, from what angle would you start? Remember, it’s not a communication campaign that will set off the entire network, but a promotional campaign. From what perspective would you think? My answer is: free. When talking about free, everyone will think of the book "Free", but the fundamentals are different.

The book "Free" talks about a broader thinking, it talks about a business model . A typical example is that searching on Baidu is free, chatting on QQ is free, and reading Toutiao is also free...

So, why can these free things become giants in the business? Because their profit model is not the traditional selling thinking, but to provide value-added services or make money by selling advertising space .

Therefore, there is another saying that "free is the most expensive!"

But the "free" activity strategy we are talking about today is different, it is truly free!

Look at the poster below:

I have seen this poster several times on WeChat Moments , and I believe a lot of people have participated in it!

This type of activity can quickly spread and guide participation with the help of the effects of social networks .

The general steps are: scan the QR code – enter a certain activity page or a certain group – require forwarding this poster to your circle of friends to get this thing for free – when you forward this poster, you become a communicator of the merchant – enter a new round of promotion and dissemination

This is the famous fission propagation!

However, if you think about it further, you will find that this activity has limitations. Not all products can use this model. Only virtual products or certain services can use this type of fission propagation.

For example, online courses, obtaining an e-book, or VIP membership qualifications...

Their characteristic is that no matter whether it is a virtual product or a service, the cost of copying it is very low. That is to say, whether it is sold to one person or ten thousand people, their costs are the same, except for operating costs!

So, if physical products want to achieve the goal of triggering activities across the entire network, from what angle should we start? Please think about it!

Strategy 2: Small probability, big return

The idea behind promoting virtual products is to think in terms of free products. So, what about physical products? Because physical products are expensive to reproduce, the bigger the event, the greater the marketing cost. So, what is our thinking about physical products? My answer is: small probability, big reward!

Everyone knows that Pinduoduo has become a dark horse in the e-commerce industry . According to the data provided by Cheetah Mobile, its activity has surpassed JD.com . Regardless of its business model, being able to achieve such a scale is itself a remarkable thing!

But do you know how Pinduoduo acquires users? Do you think it's a group fight? If you think about it deeply, you will find that it is not the case at all. It is just a strategy of small probability and high return. To put it more simply, it is a variation of the lottery!

You’ll often see on WeChat Moments that Pinduoduo is offering a Three Squirrels gift pack for 1 yuan (I’ve been scammed before!), or an iPhone X for 1 yuan, and ten people can join in the group purchase. Of course, you won’t miss such a good opportunity!

However, Pinduoduo’s routine is: if 10 people successfully form a group, they are actually eligible for a lottery draw. You think that 10 people can buy at a low price and get clothes!

And the rules are not explicit. When you click on the rule details, the following icon will appear:

Pinduoduo's strategy is social networking + group buying (essentially a lottery) which has attracted a large number of users.

Let me give you another classic example, which was provided by Zhou Yue, a veteran in marketing. Brother Zhou’s public account “Brother Yue Marketing” is worth paying attention to, it is full of very practical and useful information ! I got a lot of inspiration from it!

The approximate content is:

• The young man accepted a promotion task in a shopping mall.
• Find a 4S store and buy a car at a low price as a prize for the event.
• He asked the Meituan platform to help him distribute flyers (each flyer cost five yuan, he took a two-yuan commission, and three yuan went to Meituan) to local restaurants (the restaurants paid for the flyers).
• Consumers can get this leaflet as long as they spend a certain amount.
• Take this flyer and fold it into a paper airplane. As long as the airplane can fly into the gap of the car window, the car will be yours!

What can we learn from looking back at this chain? One is a typical case of resource integration, because all participants in the entire chain have gained something, and it is a win-win situation for all five parties! That’s what good activities are all about!

Another is the essence of small probability and big rewards. In fact, this activity is also a variation of the lottery, but consumers are more motivated because the prizes are obtained through their own hard work, rather than randomly distributed!

Well, you might say that a small company generally doesn’t have the funds for a prize as big as a car. So, what kind of approach should a small company adopt when organizing an event with a limited budget?

Strategy 3: Provide a sense of control

As mentioned above, for a general small company, the car itself is a very large marketing cost. So for small companies with little marketing budget, what kind of promotional activities can both make the event popular and not cost a lot? The answer I give is: planned activities should be based on consumers’ sense of control! What does it mean? Let me explain with a case. Let’s take a look at the following activity:

It is a promotional bargaining event planned by Self-service Seafood. As long as you find enough people, you can bargain the price from 225 yuan to 98 yuan. The event was very successful, with a large number of people participating in it within a short period of time, and all the prizes were sold out. Many brands are using it, which shows that this promotional strategy is effective.

At first glance, this is actually a bargaining activity that adopts a tiered discount method. But if we think about it carefully, you will understand why bargaining is so popular. Bargaining gives consumers a sense of control:

1. I was able to grab this prize.
2. I can find more people to bargain for me faster than others.

But in fact, this sense of control is illusory. There are only 50 prizes in the bargaining event above. Are you sure you can grab them? Can you get more than a hundred people to bargain for you? (Personal experience shows that each person’s bargaining power will not exceed one yuan.) To give another example, recently Zhixing Train Tickets launched an activity to help you grab tickets faster, which also uses the same principle. It’s just that it has changed from helping people bargain to helping them grab tickets faster.

Therefore, if we want to plan a promotion and want it to be a big hit, we have to take advantage of this psychology of people. You can’t just give a discount of 20% or 50% because consumers won’t be aware of it and it doesn’t seem very attractive in a market with fierce promotions. But if you give consumers a choice to control themselves, it will be different. They can mobilize their own resources to achieve something, which is a sense of accomplishment for them.

For example, people who have many WeChat friends can quickly bargain down to 98 yuan, and they will show off. But you might say that if there are too many such activities, consumers will become tired. Today you help me bargain for you, tomorrow you help me bargain for him, and the day after tomorrow... In fact, this is a bad strategy. We can solve this problem as long as we think one step further.

Strategy 4: Both parties benefit

Now let's solve the problem of consumer fatigue with promotions. In fact, when we are planning promotions, if we think one step further, the situation may be much better. For example, in the seafood bargaining activity mentioned above, it would be great if those who participate in the bargaining can benefit from it after helping others check the price.

You click in to help someone bargain, and then it will show “Congratulations! You have successfully bargained for XX yuan and received a 10% discount meal coupon!”

Another example is an activity that helps people speed up ticket grabbing. After helping people speed up ticket grabbing, it will display: "Congratulations, you have successfully accelerated XX! At the same time, you also get an acceleration package, use it immediately!" In other words, when the promotional activities you designed require them to help you spread, you not only reward the person who initiated the activity, but also reward those who participated in the activity. This is the principle that both the initiator and the participants benefit.

Source: Marketing Learning Society