E-commerce operation full-year marketing activity plan layout

This sharing session is divided into three parts: the first part is about how to formulate a promotional calendar based on the planning of the entire year cycle; the second part takes the store anniversary promotion as an example to help everyone understand the key ideas and methods of promotion activities and various places; the last part is an analysis of common promotional methods.

Sales are the theme of e-commerce operations , and sales volume is the core indicator of e-commerce. On the platform side, it may be the GMV target of the entire platform within a period of time, or it may be that sales changes require promotional activities; on the merchant or brand side, it may be that new brands or new merchants have settled in, and promotional resources are needed to increase the exposure of new brands; on the user side, when there are problems with the average number of user consumption times or the average order value, there will be a great risk of churn, and promotion is an effective and direct means at this time.

When doing e-commerce related work, sales volume is the core indicator, and promotion is an important way to achieve sales volume. According to the working experience of e-commerce platforms, more than 70% of the platform's annual sales come from promotions. The promotion here not only refers to large-scale promotions but also includes daily promotions, such as full-reduction discounts, coupon issuance, price reductions, pre-sales, etc. Large-scale promotions refer to activities such as 10 billion subsidies, 618, Double 11, New Year's Festival, Membership Day, etc. These are all promotional activities and promotional methods.

1. At the beginning of a new year, how to plan the layout of promotional activities throughout the year?

1. Why are promotions effective?

There are two core components to a promotion: the product and the offer. Because e-commerce platforms meet users' demand for goods, it is important to provide good goods during promotional activities. The core of the goods is the supply chain capability, product selection capability, and planning capability of the entire platform. For example, on the operational side, more consideration will be given to the hierarchical operation of products and the matching of user needs, that is, matching the right products to the right users. The same principle applies to promotional activities, which is to select different products to match different users under different promotional activities.

Another focus of promotions is discounts, because promotions give users the perception of discounts. If users can enjoy price discounts on the basis of satisfactory products, the conversion effect will be better. There are two ways to create discounts: one is to create price advantages, such as direct price cuts, subsidies, coupons or discounts to achieve price discounts, which requires the corresponding platform or merchants to share the costs; the second is the long-term development direction after the promotion, which is to influence the user's mind and amplify the discount through promotional activities, rather than just spending money on subsidies. Ways to influence the user's mind include time, scene, theme, gamification, etc.

For example, users are now educated to have a clear understanding of promotion time. They know that products will be most favorable during Double 11 and 618. With time awareness, they will have a stronger perception of discounts in promotional activities, and the corresponding conversion effect will also be better. In promotional activities, more attention is paid to preferential methods, such as using scenes, themes and other non-subsidized methods to enhance user perception and conversion.

2. Promotional activity classification

Promotional activities exist for a long time, and discount perception is to plan and layout promotional activities in combination with cycle nodes, so as to improve the promotion effect. There will be activity calendars within e-commerce companies. Activity calendars have different granularities. Some will have a more overall framework of monthly activities as shown in the figure above. Although the activity calendar can be planned according to holiday nodes, a more complete approach is to grade promotional activities.

Because there are so many types of promotional activities, e-commerce companies generally have a graded system for promotional activities, which is usually divided into three levels: S-level promotion, A-level promotion, and B-level promotion. Some leading platforms such as Taobao originally had a C-level promotion grade.

S-level promotions refer to platform-level and industry-level promotions, such as the common Double 11 and 618. Double 11 is a promotional festival first initiated by Taobao Tmall, and later became a major promotion for the entire e-commerce industry; then JD.com was not to be outdone and launched the particularly important 618 promotional event in the name of store anniversary. In addition to the two major promotions of Double 11 and 618, if it is an e-commerce platform of a certain scale, it must also have its own anniversary celebration or its own platform promotion, and then use its own platform promotion as an S-level promotion.

Because once the platform has a certain user scale, it needs to form its own brand influence to influence user perception. Rather than just following industry-level promotions, it needs to consider having its own promotional festivals. For example, cross-border products will have S-level promotions on Black Friday; and some platforms will regard Double 12 and New Year’s Festival as S-level promotions. This varies depending on the user characteristics and category characteristics of different platforms.

The scale of Class A promotions is also relatively large, and is more suitable for promotional activities combined with important festivals and events. Common ones include New Year’s Goods Festival, Holidays on December 1 and December 2, National Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, the start of the school year, and the Summer Heat Relief Festival.

The scope of Class B promotions is relatively smaller, and they are more focused on promoting activities based on themes or vertical categories, such as the Hot Pot Festival, Beauty Week, or some very strong brands will have their own brand days and brand weeks; if the platform has a large number of member users, it can also create member-exclusive promotions.

Comparison of three types of promotional activities:
S-level promotions have the largest participation range. Basically all categories will participate in the S-level promotion. In the event market, S-level promotions are divided into a preparation period and an online operation period. The preparation period is generally 1 to 3 months. For example, Taobao and JD’s 618 or Double 11 basically have a preparation period of more than two months, and the online operation period is generally 10 to 30 days.

S-level promotions have the largest resource investment and subsidies, and the gameplay is relatively rich. In addition to various venues, there are also deposit pre-sales, game interactions and other gameplay. At the same time, the resource investment inside and outside the site is also the largest. In addition to the support of the entire platform, there is also external resource investment such as advertising. Because S-level promotions are large in scale, require strong resources, and have a huge impact on the user's consumption needs, the number of promotions will be relatively small, 3 to 5 times a year, and are generally distributed according to quarterly or semi-annual plans.

Level A promotions also belong to large-scale promotions across all or multiple categories, with a relatively large scope. The preparation period is generally less than 1 month, and the online operation period is about one week. The resource investment and subsidies for Class A are also relatively large, and there are also multiple gameplays and venues. However, because A-level promotions rarely involve purchasing external resources, external resources are relatively scarce, and more emphasis will be placed on resource support for the entire site. The main marketing and promotion resources come from within the site. About 6 to 12 times a year, planned and distributed according to the single-month or double-month cycle.

Class B promotions are generally vertical categories, which may be a single category or a few categories together for promotion, with a relatively small scope. The preparation period is generally within two weeks, and the online operation period is 3 to 5 days. The subsidy intensity varies according to different categories. Because the gross profit margins of different categories are different, the subsidy intensity is also different; the gameplay is also relatively simple, there will be no gameplay with a strong interactive nature, and more of a subsidy and coupon gameplay; it is mainly supported by strategic resources within the site, and there are basically no external resources; the annual number of times is about 20 to 30 times, with a planning method of 2 times a month.

In addition to large-scale promotions, regular daily promotions are also an important way to cultivate user habits and contribute to sales. Some e-commerce products do not have particularly large-scale promotions, but there will be different forms of promotions, such as discounts, coupons, etc. Regular daily promotions can be divided into three categories:

The first category is column promotion, which refers to relatively fixed columns/channels in e-commerce products, such as group buying, flash sales, 10 billion subsidies, etc., which are very fixed promotion methods and promotion channels. Users will have stable expectations about these things. They know that they can enjoy different discounts when they come to the group buying and flash sales channels. There are different ways to play column promotions, and users will be more familiar with them.

The second type is theme/scenario promotion, which is a relatively frequent type of promotional activities nowadays. Unlike other promotions that emphasize categories or discounts, theme/scenario promotion is more about exploring the corresponding needs based on the user's segmented needs.

For example, the stockpiling venue refers to promoting some popular commodities during the Chinese New Year or other nodes to encourage users to stock up, especially in the context of the epidemic, there will be a demand for stockpiling; the anti-epidemic zone is a more targeted scenario. Due to the epidemic, users have a demand for epidemic-related commodities, such as epidemic prevention materials or daily necessities. By building a theme venue, it is possible to better tap into user needs and improve conversion, rather than simply subsidizing; gift-giving is also a theme venue, and special promotions will be held on holidays such as Valentine's Day to tap into user needs. This type of promotion is also becoming more and more important in daily promotions;

The third category is category/brand promotion. This category may not be a first-level or particularly large category, such as small home appliances, clothing brand seasonal clearance or brand day, which will also be planned as daily promotions.

The above is an analysis of promotional activities on e-commerce platforms. In addition to S, A and B levels, there are also regular promotional activities and gameplay. Based on these levels, you can plan the activity calendar.

3. Plan a year-round calendar of promotional activities

The planning method is based on the entire annual cycle from January to December, and distinguishes between S, A and B grades at each time. You can refer to the example in the PPT above:

S-level events are held only three times a year, namely the anniversary celebration in March, 618 in June, and Double 11 in November. This results in a plan where the anniversary celebration is held in the first half of the year, 618 in the middle of the year, and Double 11 in the second half of the year.

There are six A-level promotions, such as the New Year Goods Festival in January, the Women's Day in March, and the Mother and Baby Care Week in May. We combine the characteristics of specific nodes to explore user needs and product potential to conduct corresponding promotions.

There are fewer Class B activities listed in the above picture because Class B activities are held about two or three times a month. They also explore the highlights of the activities and create corresponding promotional activities based on different time nodes, frequencies, and topics. However, e-commerce companies generally do not set a calendar for Class B events at the beginning of the year, because the frequency of Class B events is relatively high and there is a certain degree of uncertainty.

At the beginning of the year, the calendar of S-level and A-level promotional activities can be basically determined, such as what kind of promotional activities will be carried out at what stage, how long the preparation and operation cycle will take, etc. Class B promotions can be specifically planned from a quarterly or semi-annual perspective, which will be more in line with actual work and business needs.

To sum up, when formulating a year-round promotional calendar, we must first understand the levels and types of promotional activities, and then make plans based on the platform characteristics and time nodes throughout the year.

2. Take the S-level store anniversary promotion as an example to play with e-commerce promotion activities

1. Promotional activity target logic

First of all, we should emphasize the underlying logic of promotional activities: because promotional activities will generate new costs for the platform, we need to pay attention to the benefits brought by the new promotional costs, that is, the overall input-output ratio. Because even if there is no promotion or subsidy, there will still be sales if the goods are sold at the venue normally, that is, the sales volume, gross profit or number of consumer users without promotion.

Promotions require corresponding marketing costs, subsidy costs, etc., but it does not necessarily bring incremental growth. Of course, in most cases promotional subsidies will bring incremental growth. After all, incremental growth is the prerequisite. Because promotional subsidies bring about increases in sales, gross profit, and consumer users, we must also pay attention to ROI. That is, after paying the cost, do the incremental sales and gross profit brought about by this cost meet demand and satisfy cost-benefit?

If a subsidy of one million is invested and it ultimately only results in an increase in sales of one million, this is a very poor result because the ROI is only 1; if a subsidy of one million is invested and ultimately results in an increase in sales of ten million, this is a very effective promotion, so we need to pay attention to the incremental sales brought about by the promotion subsidy and the input-output ratio brought about by the cost.

2. Promotional activity target strategy

There are several key ideas to ensure high ROI and high profitability:

First of all, the overall gross profit margin must be guaranteed. The platform's overall gross profit margin, category gross profit margin, and gross profit margin under subsidies all have basic data. For example, if the gross profit margin is 20%, the gross profit margin cannot be reduced to zero or even negative when subsidies are provided. This is not allowed. The subsidy intensity must be formulated based on the monitoring of the platform's overall and category gross profit margins.

Secondly, we need to pay attention to predicting sales. The purpose of promotions is to bring about incremental sales. The greater the incremental sales, the more resources can be invested in the activities, so it is necessary to use data and models to predict overall sales. The prediction basis can be based on the effects of similar promotional activities in the past, recent daily sales data, changes in the overall user scale, etc., combined with data features to predict the sales increase during the promotion.

Finally, it is about optimizing cost allocation. How to share the costs? Is it necessary for the platform and merchants to share the burden? How to allocate marketing investment outside of subsidies? Is it necessary to invest in off-site advertising?

This is a very important part of promotional activities. It is necessary to understand the core logic of promotional activities, that is, how to seek incremental growth and high ROI after cost investment.

3. Promotional activity project process

There are five key parts to a large-scale promotion: the breakdown and formulation of activity goals, promotion strategies and rhythm, the overall coordination of product categories, the formulation of specific plans, promotion implementation and overall online operations. Each part has its own tasks, ideas and methods that need to be focused on.

The first part is to break down and set the goals. The core goal of a promotion is GMV, which generally does not change. Especially for larger promotions, the core indicator must be sales. There are also guardrail indicators, which can be understood as auxiliary indicators. They mean that while pursuing sales indicators, we must ensure that there are no problems with basic indicators, such as gross profit margin, number of consumer users, etc. Although we hope to obtain more actual revenue during promotions, we must also ensure that the gross profit is profitable and cannot blindly subsidize. At the same time, we must also pay attention to the number of consumer users, so as to further break down data such as the user's average order value and gross profit margin.

When setting goals, we usually start with sales. Only after sales are broken down can we do the subsequent project division of labor, team division of labor and collaboration. There are three dimensions for breaking down sales:

The first is the decomposition based on the user life cycle dimension, because sales are contributed by user consumption, such as new users, repeat users, loyal member users, and users recalled through promotional activities in the event of churn. Different users will have different contributions, proportions, and characteristics to sales. After breaking down the user cycle, the user operation team or the strategic operation team will have a basic understanding and can formulate different strategies and methods for different activities when carrying out promotional activities;

The second is the analysis from the channel source dimension. E-commerce platforms will not only serve as one channel. They will have their own main site, mini-programs, private domains, cross-industry cooperation, live broadcasts, advertising resources, etc. These are all sources of users and sales for promotional activities. By reviewing the historical data of different channels, we can guide the breakdown of promotional activities. For example, different channels require different investments, methods, and costs.

The third is the breakdown by product category, that is, how much sales each category needs to contribute. For example, how much do categories such as clothing, beauty, home appliances, and food need to contribute to the overall sales target? Then each category should take inventory of its own products, problems and shortcomings, and what resources are needed? This will make planning your gameplay more targeted.

The second part is the promotion strategy and rhythm, which is a very important stage when the entire activity is finally presented to users.

The first is the core promotional gameplay. When users participate in a big sale, what kind of promotional gameplay will be displayed to users to improve sales results. Common ones include deposit pre-sales, tiered discounts, and game interactive gameplay that is very common in S-level promotions and is even standard for medium and large e-commerce products.

The second is the very important promotion cycle rhythm, which involves the progress of the project. From an internal perspective, the rhythm of the promotion cycle includes a preparation period, during which users have basically no perception or impact; followed by a water storage period, such as early publicity; then there is a warm-up period, a sales period, an outbreak period, and a return period.

The most critical parts are the sales opening period and the explosion period. The sales opening period is generally one week before the explosion period. For example, an S-level promotion will have a sales opening period of about one week, and then the explosion period is 1 to 3 days. We should focus on the explosion period to boost sales. Sometimes, in order to make better use of the traffic brought by a big promotion, a return period will be added after the outbreak period, and some special return events will be conducted based on sales data and user characteristics.

Finally, the allocation and calculation of marketing subsidy resources, such as how to determine the subsidy intensity, subsidy scope, how to promote resources, and cost investment, are all issues that need to be resolved at this stage.

The third part is the coordination of product categories, which is also very important. Because e-commerce itself is a business of selling goods, the products largely determine the promotion effect.

First, we need to analyze the current status of the categories of goods on the platform, such as which ones are core categories, auxiliary categories, open categories or self-operated categories;
Secondly, we need to classify the ways to play the products, because different products have different categories and gross profit characteristics, and are suitable for different ways to play. For example, some products are suitable for full discounts and flash sales, while some products with strong brand names are not suitable for price reductions, but are suitable for gifts or exchanges, etc. We need to sort out and classify the ways to play the products;

Finally, there is the expected sales of the goods, because the big promotion will focus on increasing sales in the short term, especially for self-operated categories, which need to consider the synchronization of product procurement, stocking and supply chain.

The fourth part is the formulation of specific plans. The first is the planning and development of gameplay: the construction of the main venue, the layout of goods and categories; interactive gameplay has become the standard for gamification of large e-commerce platforms; the task system and interactive gameplay are generally strongly combined, because large promotion activities need to distribute traffic, gather users at the main venue and in the interactive gameplay, and then make processes and accumulate water, and then distribute them to different venues and categories for conversion to increase sales;

The second is the classification of venues, which means that the venues are divided into category venues, gameplay venues, content venues, etc. Category venues refer to venues for different categories, such as beauty, digital home appliances, etc.; gameplay venues refer to venues for group buying, flash sales, pre-sales or deposits; content venues have different themes, such as hot product rankings, new product venues, etc., so it is necessary to plan sub-venues outside the main venue, and different sub-venues have different characteristics;

Finally, there is support team collaboration, which involves the overall visual design coordination, promotion and marketing cooperation, customer service and community support, etc. During the big promotion, these must be prepared in advance and completed simultaneously.

The fifth part is promotion and implementation operations, which requires continuous monitoring and optimization of many details and issues. First, we need to promote and reach the entire campaign. We need to carry out online operations such as online promotion and the issuance of subsidies and discounts according to the rhythm of the entire campaign. Secondly, we need to monitor and optimize data, because big promotions have a certain continuous cycle and need to monitor data, especially follow up on abnormal issues and make timely adjustments.

Finally, emergency strategies are launched, including resource adjustment and allocation, goal adjustment and promotion, etc. For example, some categories sell very well and are out of stock; or the conversion effects of some categories and venues are very poor and have not reached the original goals; or the conversion effect of new users is very poor. How do we need to adjust the strategy and gameplay to ensure that the overall online promotion activities are moving towards the goal.

Author: Wu Yijiu

Source: Wu Yijiu