Start event planning from scratch!

When it comes to event planning , let’s start with this picture.

[When planning an event, you need to consider these dimensions]

That’s right, the first thing we think of is the “WH” method - 3W&1H.

You should think about the purpose of the activity first, the more detailed the better.

In a broad sense, is the purpose of organizing activities to expand brand awareness, deepen brand reputation, or is it purely for selling products and generating sales?

In actual operation, of course there is overlap between them.

However, it is best to have an expected weight in mind at the beginning of planning.

Only with goals can there be results. Only with initial judgments and expectations can we learn from the subsequent review.

Enter the HOW section.

The picture is relatively simple.

About platforms and resources.

What about the platform? Are you doing the activity offline or online?

Is the online store on Tmall, Taobao, JD.com or your own e-commerce platform? What does the population on each platform look like? What are your hobbies? What are the rules and customs of the platform? What are the specific models on each platform?

For example, JD.com is divided into JD.com self-operated stores and POP stores (FBP&SOP) ...so the specific traffic composition will be relatively different.

Traffic, simply put, is passenger flow.

For the sake of ease of understanding, we will not talk about the so-called UV (number of visitors) and PV (page views) .

Offline activities generally target people based on relationships and regions.

Acquaintance activities are relationship-oriented. Such as opening ceremony, wedding, birthday, corporate event...

Strangers' activities are oriented towards the region. Corporate roadshows, new product launches, flash mobs (Sparta was arrested in 2015) , including some bus stop advertisements, etc. are also targeted at regionally oriented groups of people.

Just like subway advertisements, the passenger flow and quality of each station, as well as the peak and trough curves of passenger flow, are all different. So an offline event usually has limited effects.

Offline activities focus on activity process and time arrangements, personnel arrangements, preparation of scene props, etc.

I won’t go into details here.

Let’s talk about online event planning.

The knowledge points about drifting nets played a big role, like a pair of glasses.

Beilian faces many customers, like different scenery.

As for Niu, we are deeply rooted in the field of smart travel and can plan activities in multiple dimensions, allowing us to go further on the road.

Let’s talk about sales activities first.

Since the purpose is sales, it can be analyzed according to the sales logic of e-commerce.

Sales = Traffic * Conversion Rate * Average Order Value

At the beginning of an event, you need to differentiate the traffic groups of your own brand and store. The regular traffic sources can be divided into new customer traffic and old customer traffic.

New customer traffic comes from [free traffic] and [paid traffic]

[Free traffic] refers to official activities (Tmall or JD platform promotional activities or category resource positions) and search traffic.

[Paid traffic] refers to the traffic charging display method on the Internet that matches the different habits of consumers, such as CPC, CPM and CPS.

I won’t go into details here, you can search on Baidu yourself.

The traffic from old customers comes from [independent visit traffic], which usually means that consumers are aware of your brand and have added it to their browser favorites for frequent reference. The "Favorites" and "Shopping Carts" provided by e-commerce platforms are also sources of this type of traffic. Generally, e-commerce websites will push the dynamics of your store to friends who have collected your store.

For example, if you put new products on the shelves in your store, or the price of a product in his collection is reduced, he will be notified.

Finished talking about traffic.

Let’s talk about average order value and conversion rate .

The average order value is mainly determined by the quantity of your products, product prices, store promotion plans and product mix.

The conversion rate can generally be understood as an inverted triangle funnel.

Because every user's action and jump will involve conversion.

Some customers like to chat with customer service when buying things, on the one hand to see if there are more discounts, and on the other hand to learn about the product information they are interested in.

So how many customers consulted, and how many chose to buy after consultation? The key data here is the "inquiry conversion rate".

Mainly used as a consideration to guide customer service purchasing behavior.

Of course, the purchasing action in e-commerce itself defines multiple actions such as collecting & adding to shopping cart, bidding and payment, and users are screened in each action.

This screening action is the birth of different prefix conversion rates.

In addition to the conversion of customer service consultations, what is more important is that now merchant pages are becoming more and more detailed, beautiful, and guiding.

More users simply choose not to chat with customer service and pay directly.

So, by dividing the sales volume into two parts, we can understand that this part of the conversion can be called the "silent order rate".

The main consideration is how well the page is guided. This will adjust the page.

The above is the main data interpretation on the PC side.

When doing activities, the current mainstream approach is to consider the PC and mobile sides separately.

The above three key data are different for different ports.

Generally speaking, PCs and mobile phones each account for 50% of the traffic layer.

But the conversion rate on PC will be higher than that on mobile phones. The conversion rate on mobile phones is higher than that on PCs.

Therefore, when organizing activities, we must also consider PC and mobile phones separately.

For example, on mobile phones, the display page can be slightly shorter, the pictures and text can be larger, the most popular products can be directly packaged into combination packs and given to consumers, etc.

Move on to the next step, the structure of the HOW part of event planning.

When we do an event, we usually find a gimmick for this sale.

Teacher Xiao Zhao gave an analysis framework called the three major clues of event planning.

The "three major clues" of event planning mentioned here are based on the page order of Taobao and Tmall stores as an example.

Of course, in fact, this framework is also completely valuable for offline activities.

After all, as a framework, its core value is that it can be used to analyze cases, discover patterns, and replicate them.

They are story clues, marketing clues and design clues.

Today we start by talking about the [story clues] .

【Story clues】

The gimmick is the [story clue] in this event planning.

This gimmick, in simple terms, is to tell consumers that a product is on sale or discounted.

Or the reason for selling.

At the same time, in order to make a monotonous sale, it is more in line with the brand's values ​​around a theme, making it more beautiful and impressive.

An event that closely follows your brand values ​​can help consumers understand your brand’s promotional points more clearly.

Better understanding of the brand's spiritual core.

So how do you find the theme of an event?

The leftmost part of the table below contains the main sources of gimmicks that we consider when organizing activities.

The essence of storytelling is insight into consumer behavior.

Conventional consumer behavior mainly comes from two aspects: on the one hand, "food, clothing, housing and transportation", and on the other hand, "emotional appeal".

Of course, the common factor is "having time"~

【Marketing leads】

From the marketing clues.

As the name suggests, marketing leads correspond to the skeleton of the activity, that is, the activity mechanism.

For most Taobao stores, holding activities basically means promotion, so let’s keep it simple and directly see what promotion mechanisms are there.

The former former boss shared a very practical simple combination table.

The first step is to [buy or fill]

The second step is [Gift/Reduction/Discount]

The third step is [limited time/limited quantity]

The first step is to design a threshold.

For example, for a new store with almost no traffic, there is no need for a threshold.

The most important thing is to allow users to place orders quickly and complete transactions.

Then we can tell users, come and buy it, as long as you buy A, I will give you B for free.

Well, if the price of A is not high and the temptation of B is good, then this promotion mechanism is entirely possible to help users make a decision before placing an order.

As for “full”?

When you have a certain user base, it would be best if you have one or two hit products.

When you don’t have any promotions, you can directly satisfy orders for popular products by relying on user searches alone.

At this time, what we need is to increase the average order value so that consumers can make related purchases in the store.

This will increase the transaction volume of the entire order.

Then by using the combination mechanism of "full purchase" + "gift/reduction/discount", you can achieve good results.

A consumer buys a T-shirt for 96 yuan. If the store offers "free shipping for orders over 99 yuan" or "10 yuan off for orders over 99 yuan", etc.

If there happens to be a pair of socks for 20 yuan, then consumers are likely to be willing to buy another one.

I believe many business friends are more familiar with the second part "gifts/reductions/discounts", so I will not explain it here.

For example, building a gift pool where you get one for every 2 items you spend, or building universal red envelopes where you get 100 back for every 100 items you spend, or store coupons are all common logics.

The third part, "limited time and limited quantity", serves several purposes.

On the one hand, it creates scarcity, and on the other hand, it sounds the "alarm"

In 2014, I was running Juhuasuan, a children’s clothing store.

Faced with 45 slots, I will use different styles and different price products for boys and girls to arrange the products in different styles and price ranges.

On the one hand, the inventory of low-priced and simple styles can serve as a hook, making consumers feel "wow, what a cheap price".

On the one hand, the psychological "anchor point" can also allow consumers to compare prices and choose the middle range among the three.

During Tmall’s Double 11 period, a small number of high-value products are sold out at flash sales at the top of each hour. This allows consumers to know the mechanism in advance and have a reason to come back and take a look.

At this point he may have already shopped in your store, but everyone loves bargains, and when an iPhone 6 is sold for just 1 yuan, everyone still thinks, “What if?”

But even if I didn’t get it, I would feel uncomfortable. Maybe at this time you see other things you want to buy, and since they are not expensive, you can buy one to comfort yourself, and then you have placed another order.

So limited time or limited quantity are both hooks. It cannot be used frequently, but it works every time.

In actual operation, there are two parts to consider when generating marketing leads.

One part is whether the promotion mechanism you proposed can be implemented in the background.

Have platforms such as Tmall, Taobao or JD already provided the tools? Or it’s your own e-commerce platform that needs a new definition.

Whether it is feasible to communicate with the product in advance is the prerequisite to ensure that your event planning will not fail at the beginning.

Another point that may kill your event idea is the financial aspect.

The key to our business is to make money.

You can’t always use the excuse of “strategic losses” to deceive your boss.

So when you are running an event, it is also important to calculate in advance how much promotional effort you can afford.

Unless, of course, you're in a situation like mine.

Niu Electric's products are in short supply and the products themselves have almost no profit, so we don't have much room to mobilize for promotions.

You don’t have to calculate it at this time... (In fact, you only don’t have to calculate it for operations, the finance department directly tells you that no discounts are allowed, oh yeah) .

Calculate your product profit margin and turnover rate, and calculate the rate of return.

Ensure healthy cash flow and continuously pursue growth, then whether it is a brand or a store, at least staying alive is the greatest hope.

In case you are in the same situation as me, the product cannot be discounted.

Then we need to come up with new ideas in marketing.

About the story line.

To put it simply, it refers to the theme of an event.

When consumers see that you are offering a discount or not, they will make their judgment based on the reasons you give.

For example, during Tmall’s Double 11, everyone is offering discounts, and if you don’t, people will be unhappy.

Everyone knows that you offer the biggest discounts of the year during Double 11.

But in daily life, no one offers discounts, so the reason why you offer a discount may be used as a criterion for judgment.

For example, if you are celebrating your store anniversary, or if you are a sentimental boss and want to give discounts to customers...

For the second type, obviously everyone knows that the discount is not big.

At the same time, if the story clues are closely integrated with the marketing clues, you can simply hide the marketing clues in the story clues by changing their wording.

Let people not read your story clues and have no idea how to buy, which directly disrupts the consumer's psychological price comparison system.

At this time, if the product you are promoting happens to be one that he likes, then he probably won’t care whether it is really cheap or not.

Just follow your guidance step by step.

For example, you tell him that we have a "moving maze" game here.

Keep your finger on the little man on the phone and don't let go. Follow the little man out of the maze and you will get a chance to win a prize...
It not only adds fun, but also offers discounts. Since everyone wants to buy things anyway, they naturally participate enthusiastically. Finally, we tell consumers that it is available when they spend 20 yuan.

You don't spend a penny, but you get the effect of a full gift, and make consumers feel that this 20 yuan coupon is obtained through their own efforts, and you offer it as a silent flattery.

We will not talk about the value chain part for now and keep it in suspense.

Let’s first talk about how to understand “ being relevant to brand tone is the standard for event creativity ”.

Recently, we are analyzing and connecting the entire Baidu campaign and official website traffic.

I have a deeper understanding of this one.

For a brand, it is not easy to raise its tone, but it can easily fall.

So all the activities you want to do, whether or not there is a promotion, should be consistent with the brand's original values ​​so as not to be too inconsistent.

If luxury goods are always sold at 70% off, then they are not worth envying.

It is a bit like talking to a deaf person for a trendy brand to insist on promoting itself to domestic mobile phone users.

I think you understand the tonality I want to convey.

Then let’s go deeper into the topic of tone. The specific communication will still come down to the hope of resonating with consumers’ behavior.

Then this resonance can actually be simply summarized into two parts: "food, clothing, housing and transportation" and "emotional appeal".

How to understand it? Simply put, we can see from the table below that most of consumers' actions have actually never deviated from their basic human needs.

You need to change clothes in different seasons throughout the year, and each season and festival has special physical tendencies, right?

Spring and autumn are suitable seasons for travel, but during the May Day Golden Week and the seven-day National Day holiday, the country also finds ways to let us go out and play in order to expand domestic demand.

Housing is a major consumption item in our lives.

Buy a desktop computer to play games, buy home appliances to make life more convenient, buy a better reading machine Kindle to protect your eyes and read to show off...

Even if we just buy a shoe rack or clothes rack, we do it to make the living experience better.

The emotional appeal is also very practical.

The loneliness every night, the sadness every time I graduate, the gloating at the military training for freshmen every time school starts, the need to be filial to parents during the New Year and other festivals, and the need to pay attention to "family fire prevention" on Valentine's Day...

All our love, hate, and vengeance are insights and materials for a planner.

I often feel that the reason why Zhihu is so popular is largely because, after many people asked a certain question in their hearts, they found that so many people in the world were thinking about the same thing as they were.

This is the long tail effect brought by the Internet.

It also gives planners an opportunity to quickly gain insight into consumer psychology.

"I pray to have a transparent heart and glasses that can shed tears", sing it loudly a hundred times...

As a benefit, I have organized the two main logics of "food, clothing, housing and transportation and emotional appeals", as well as the rhythm of e-commerce sales in the picture below. I hope it will give you more convenience when you read the article.

【Design clues】

Just do the above. It won't be too wrong.

A VI system that fits the brand tone and a UED logic that fits the shopping path.

Add textured graphics and creative typography.

"Dachui, you have already mastered the Nine-Layer Nine Yang Divine Art... Go kill the Meat Mountain Demon King and save the princess."

Let’s look at some cases below. After all, even if you have a skill, you won’t be able to master it quickly without practice.

1) 360 cooperates with the famous IP "Transformers" based on the company's selling point to tell the story of "safety".

2) Taobao has cooperated with several crayfish-making restaurants in Qianjiang to launch the "King of Midnight Snacks" event, which offers different ways of eating and teaches you how to make it.

With videos and characters as endorsements, it teaches you how to experience "trust" marketing like a textbook

3) In 2015, during the Double 11 period, Niu Electric was listed on JD.com.

We made a new attempt for the Mavericks brand.

We added music to the web page and asked the front-end students to add sound effects to the light tube design on the page.

Click on the video to see the video on the homepage:

Author: Wang Weichen (Xia Fox)

Source: Wang Weichen