Abstract:

By fully considering the informative utility and sales output of consumer’s sharing behavior, this paper develops a mathematical model to analyze the effectiveness of two different sharing reward mechanisms (“share-click” reward mechanism and “share-convert” reward mechanism). In the “share-click” reward mechanism, the merchant rewards the sharer when his or her sharing behavior produces valid browsing. In the “share-convert” reward mechanism, the merchant rewards the sharer when his or her sharing behavior produces product sale. This paper further discusses the optimal selection of these two reward mechanisms and the corresponding optimal price and reward. The results show that, only when the consumer’s unit sharing cost is lower than a certain level can the merchant benefit from the sharing reward mechanisms. Under this condition, the higher the proportion of target consumers who have demand for the product, the more effective the “share-convert” reward mechanism is, and the merchant is more inclined to choose “share-convert” reward mechanism, and vice versa. When the unit sharing cost is at a higher level, the merchant is also willing to pay the existing consumers the reward above price.

Key words: social marketing, sharing behavior, reward mechanism, informative utility

摘要：

充分考虑消费者分享行为的信息性效用产出和产品销售收入产出，构建数学模型，分析对分享产生的有效产品信息浏览进行奖励（“分享-点击”奖励机制）和对分享产生的产品新销售进行奖励（“分享-转化”奖励机制）两种不同分享奖励机制的有效性，在此基础上，讨论商家对两种奖励机制的最优选择策略以及对应的产品价格和奖励金额最优决策。研究结果表明：只有当消费者单位分享成本低于一定水平时，商家才能从分享奖励机制中获益，且在此条件下，市场中对产品有需求的目标消费者比例越高，“分享-转化”奖励机制的营销优势越明显，商家应越倾向于选择“分享-转化”奖励机制，反之则选择“分享-点击”奖励机制；在分享者单位分享成本处于较高水平时，商家愿意支付比价格更高的奖励促进已有消费者进行分享，以有效获取信息性效用产出。

关键词: 社交营销, 分享行为, 奖励机制, 信息性效用