2 major Douyin e-commerce self-broadcasting models!

Douyin e-commerce is playing out a hundred possibilities.

Some people watched CCTV host Wang Ning and actress Yan Ni discuss "Dream of Red Mansions" online, some people waited for flash sales to get coupons to stock up on coffee for the next six months; some people bought 5,000+ winter coats in the brand's live broadcast room, some people placed an order for the first floor scrubber in their life, and some people put the intangible cultural heritage leather-carved Chinese chess in their pockets.

Since Douyin E-commerce proposed the concept of "interest e-commerce" in 2020, the Daofa Research Institute has seen more and more brands, supply chains, and influencers settle in Douyin E-commerce, looking for their own possibilities.

The more players enter the market, the more intense the competition becomes, and the more specific the challenges everyone faces: it is difficult to create an account. How can an account with zero followers quickly attract fans to ensure subsequent stable traffic conversion? It is difficult to increase the volume. The quality of content materials determines the upper limit of investment. It is more painful to have money but not be able to invest than to have no money? It is difficult to make a profit. Faced with the low-price strategies of white-label and factory brands, brands with higher costs are still losing money if they achieve a 1:1 ROI; it is unstable. There is no shortage of stories of Douyin e-commerce becoming popular overnight, but without long-term planning, few people can achieve continuous compound interest.

Some people began to ask: Are there any brands that really make money on Douyin e-commerce? Is the ultimate goal of Douyin e-commerce to sell goods at a good price, or to truly achieve product and effect integration? The starting point of all these confusions is: How should brands do Douyin e-commerce?

Any "methodology" that has not been verified in practice is just a scam. Recently, we talked with Zhu Zongyin, head of Bosideng's e-commerce live streaming, and Wan Weining, head of Swisse's Douyin, about how they operate Douyin e-commerce. The former set a record of 15 million GMV for a single brand self-broadcast in November, and the latter's brand matrix account had a cross-border output of 7.13 million during the 818 Shopping Festival, a 325% increase compared to 618.

After chatting with them, we summarized two Douyin e-commerce brand self-broadcasting strategies for your reference.

01With an average order of 3,500 yuan, how did Bosideng achieve the explosion of new products on Douyin e-commerce?

Bosideng’s strategy on the Douyin e-commerce channel can be summarized as: stable output from daily brand self-broadcasting + during brand marketing campaigns, linking with hot topics on the platform and increasing GMV through single-game bursts. The specific operation takes November this year as an example.

November is the "harvest month" for Bosideng.

This down jacket brand, which was founded in 1976 and has presence in 72 countries, announced its new brand spokesperson in November this year and launched the new windbreaker down jacket and top-of-the-line down jacket "Peak 2.0" series that had been in preparation for two years. This series of actions also left Zhu Zongyin, the person in charge of Bosideng's e-commerce live broadcast, with two impressive brand self-broadcasting experiences.

The first one was Douyin Super Product Day. On the day when Bosideng’s new windbreaker and down jacket were released, the brand’s self-broadcast GMV exceeded 14.2 million, and the average customer spending reached 3,500+. At the same time, the new product sold at the original price of 3,222 yuan became the first on Douyin’s e-commerce product list.

The second was the brand’s official announcement that Xiao Zhan became the brand spokesperson, with sales reaching 15 million throughout the day, of which Xiao Zhan’s same series accounted for 90% of the sales.

Looking back on the successful experiences of these two broadcasts, we will find that each explosive self-broadcast just hits the aggregation point of the brand marketing rhythm - not only on Douyin, but also links all social media channels. With the joint efforts of both inside and outside, it quickly ignites brand topic interaction on Douyin e-commerce, and continuously attracts target users to enter the brand's self-broadcast room for conversion.

Taking the self-broadcast of new windbreakers and down jackets as an example, it can achieve the goal of "new products are hot-selling products", thanks to Bosideng's voice from the brand side to the short video planting and live broadcast content on Douyin e-commerce, which are all centered around the two core presentations of "product characteristics" and "new product debut".

In order to solve the pain points of consumers who prefer light business attributes, that down jackets make them bloated, and windbreakers alone are not warm enough, Bosideng has created this innovative category of "windbreaker and down jacket" that combines style and warmth, while also demonstrating its strength in product research and development to consumers.

How can we attract high-volume consumers who value product quality and prefer elegant daily attire on the Douyin e-commerce platform?

On the brand voice side, the immersive theme show of "The First Bosideng Windbreaker and Down Jacket" and the Dreamy Wind and Rain Concert were moved online. The high-quality brand activities enhanced consumers' perception of Bosideng's "high-end" positioning.

On the marketing side of the platform, it collaborated with top influencers Crazy Sisters to release new product content, coupled with the interesting topic of "What is the basic respect for cooling", which aroused heated discussions on the site. It ranked No. 1 on the Douyin hot search list 1 hour after the product was first released, with 120 million views.

After the hot topic has ignited traffic, through Douyin e-commerce's unique "in-site short video marketing-live broadcast room conversion" short link, the brand's self-broadcasting + top influencers/celebrity live broadcast matrix is ​​used to quickly take over traffic and accumulate accurate and high-quality user assets for the brand.

In order to improve the conversion rate of new products with a high customer order value of 3,222 yuan, Bosideng, while focusing on traffic and accurately targeting the target audience, also provided users with a 12-month interest-free DOU installment service, ultimately achieving a single product penetration rate of 62.5% for windbreakers and down jackets, and a total sales volume of over 30.74 million yuan for the first launch, achieving product and sales integration.

This case also reflects the difference between Douyin e-commerce and other platforms - timely feedback on marketing effects, fast and short traffic conversion, and avoidance of waste in the middle links to a large extent.

In an environment where the "content planting" cycle is getting longer and longer, other content platforms need at least 3 days, 7 days, or 3-6 months to complete the entire traffic cycle from "content preparation-topic fermentation-content planting-user conversion". On Douyin e-commerce, once a brand or product has a hot topic or marketing campaign, it can be linked to the platform, and the traffic feedback is particularly direct, accelerating the outbreak.

This characteristic also makes Douyin e-commerce a "new product incubator" and a "hit-selling machine."

Douyin’s ability to incubate new e-commerce categories benefits from its positioning as “interest e-commerce”.

As we all know, new products require a large amount of grass-roots content to reach users and help them build awareness. In traditional shelf e-commerce, merchants often need to use methods such as off-site promotion, direct access within the site, and "Guess What You Like" to make new products reach the public. This requires constant trial and error, and the user entry path is funnel-shaped.

On Douyin e-commerce, the user interest-oriented mechanism gives new products the opportunity to be "actively" displayed to precise users, and once the user group is identified, the background will continuously direct similar people to this type of content. Once you find the precise user pool, it becomes much easier to make a product a hit.

A survey of the 2021 Douyin e-commerce "Douyin Hot-selling List" trend insight report shows that 76% of users have purchased hot-selling products on Douyin e-commerce in the past year, and 51% of them will buy them again next time. Among those who purchase popular products, 80% choose to buy them on Douyin e-commerce.

But if you want to operate Douyin e-commerce into a long-term business, relying solely on a single outburst is not enough. A brand’s own live broadcast room is increasingly like an online “store” opened by a brand. As long as it starts broadcasting, consumers will “pass by” from time to time.

Now Bosideng’s daily brand self-broadcasting time is stable at 15 hours or more, and live broadcast sales account for more than 97%. In order to create such a brand-owned live broadcast room with stable output, Bosideng believes that people and goods are the most critical factors.

People: The anchor is the soul, and the operation team is the backing

The anchor is the focus of brand self-broadcasting. Zhu Zongyin, head of Bosideng's e-commerce live streaming, hopes that the brand and the anchors can grow together like a family. Many clothing brands on the market select anchors based on good looks and eloquence. Bosideng also requires anchors to have cultural background and strong learning ability.

The anchor not only needs to be familiar with the product's selling points and materials, but also needs to be familiar with the popular colors of the season and the same styles as KOLs/celebrity models. As Bosideng is working on improving its brand value and benchmarking its target audience against luxury goods, the anchor will use the standards of luxury goods for users’ reference when making dressing suggestions. After the live broadcast, the anchor also needs to review the live broadcast with the operation team and continuously iterate the words and the order of product arrangement.

It is also very important to have an operations team that works well with the anchor. Bosideng has now established a fixed team to correspond to the live broadcast scenes in different time periods.

Goods: The ultimate combination of goods to increase conversion rate and average order value

Product management has always been a pain point in the apparel industry. Bosideng selected the following three categories of products based on the platform characteristics:

First, innovative products that follow industry trends, such as this year's windbreaker and down jacket, to open up new market segments;

The second is topical products, such as celebrity-themed products and brand co-branded products, which increase the popularity of the brand on the platform and make it easier to create a hit product;

The third is professional high-end products, such as the recently launched "Dengfeng 2.0" series, which enhance the brand's professional image.

In terms of product pricing, Bosideng directly targets the high customer unit price range of more than RMB 1,500, thus avoiding low-price competition with competitors. According to official data, Bosideng's average customer spending in November reached 1,900 yuan, and the new product rate reached 95%.

Field: Constantly changing according to time period

The extremely long live broadcast time of 15 hours per day means that the user groups faced in different time periods are also different. Most of the audiences in the morning are mothers, so the early morning anchors will look sweeter and more friendly, the background music will be more relaxing and natural, and the average order value of the products will be slightly lower; while the evening audiences are mainly office workers with higher purchasing power, so the evening anchors will have a more diversified image, the background music will be current hot songs, and the average order value of the products will be higher.

02 Swisse entered the market in March and started quickly. How did it “penetrate” the Douyin e-commerce channel?

Swisse only joined Douyin e-commerce in March this year. However, the company's strategy is to fully develop Douyin e-commerce, and it has currently established a brand self-broadcasting matrix on the platform with five major accounts as the main force.

According to Chanmama Swisse's sales in the past 30 days were 22.43 million yuan. Wan Weining, head of Swisse's Douyin account, said that 85% of Swisse's GMV comes from new customers, while 30%-40% of the sales of its core accounts are contributed by fans.

Health care products are a category with high customer orders and heavy decision-making, and the platform's supervision is also very strict. What did Swisse do right to achieve rapid growth and steady expansion on Douyin e-commerce?

After talking with Wan Weining, the Knife Skills Research Institute found that Swisse implemented a "large-scale penetration" strategy in the single channel of Douyin e-commerce.

Brand penetration = marketing penetration + channel penetration.

Marketing penetration = marketing scale (number of consumers reached) * marketing efficiency (efficiency in reaching consumers)

Channel penetration = channel scale (number of channels that reach consumers) * channel efficiency (channel convenience)

Because this is only Swisse's strategy for Douyin's e-commerce channel, the formula is slightly modified here:

Channel penetration in Douyin e-commerce = user path scale (the number of user paths that reach consumers on the Douyin platform, i.e. short videos, live broadcasts, information flow ads, etc.) * user path efficiency (the convenience of jumping to purchases through different paths, i.e. short video trailers, live broadcasts by influencers/brands, and three-way jumps)

The significance of large-scale marketing penetration is to enhance brand awareness in the minds of users by constantly showing your presence in front of them, so that users can think of you first when they want to buy related products; the significance of large-scale channel penetration is that consumers can easily find ways to buy.

Before officially entering Douyin e-commerce, Swisse had already carried out a large-scale marketing penetration layout on the platform, made a large amount of brand advertising investment, and accumulated a large number of aware people. After Swisse settled in, the brand still insisted on reaching the target audience through multiple touchpoints. Through multiple forms such as brand advertising, live broadcast rooms, short videos, etc., it continued to make efforts to increase the number of exposures of a single user, so that more potential user groups can be reached by the brand multiple times in a certain period of time.

Every time a person is touched, educated and inspired by the brand, he or she has the potential to be converted into a brand user, allowing him or her to gradually develop the mindset of "Swisse as their first choice of health products."

Setting up a brand’s own broadcasting matrix is ​​an important means for it to penetrate Douyin’s e-commerce channels.

In the early days of the brand’s entry into Douyin e-commerce, Swisse opened about 10-20 accounts for brand self-broadcasting. This strategy is based on multiple considerations:

First of all, brands hope to use the DP horse racing mechanism to eliminate the weak and promote the weak, and select brand live broadcast rooms with better results and the ability to operate sustainably in the long term.

Secondly, Swisse has a relatively rich product line. Although it has only launched oral beauty products on Douyin e-commerce, the product lines under the oral beauty category have also been differentiated and allocated to the self-broadcasting matrix of each brand. Through differentiated operational ideas, anchor selection, and different scene positioning settings and other details, it acquires users with different population labels on the platform, accumulating experience for its subsequent expansion of other product lines on the Douyin e-commerce platform.

Inviting experts to promote products through short videos + live broadcast conversion is the core means of its marketing penetration.

Swisse operates influencer and brand stores separately.

Influencers have accumulated fans on the platform and have great appeal and influence on the site. Therefore, brands will reach long-term cooperation with top influencers, such as the "Jia Ge Pengyou Live Room" and Wang Fang, etc., using their appeal to fans to strengthen fans' trust and favorability in the brand.

Influencers are better at recommending fast-moving consumer goods that require little decision-making and have low customer orders. On the one hand, this is because a single influencer may introduce 50+ SKUs in a live broadcast, and is unable to give a very detailed description or recommendation of a single SKU; on the other hand, most influencers have medium-potential personalities such as "friends" or "besties", and are unable to sell products with high customer unit prices.

However, the average customer spending on health products is high, the decision-making costs are high, and it takes a long time to cultivate interest. In response to this feature, Swisse has developed basic nutritional products with lower average order values ​​that are suitable for influencers to promote their products, to help them better spread their products and deliver them to consumers.

In the brand's own live broadcast room, Swisse will choose some high-order or upgraded nutritional products as the main products to achieve consumer repurchase and consumption upgrade, so that consumers will gradually develop stickiness or loyalty to the brand.

Swisse believes that Douyin e-commerce has a huge traffic pool and there is still a lot of room to be developed. Therefore, they will optimize the live broadcast room and delivery, and do more to "penetrate" the existing users on the Douyin e-commerce platform.

Currently, Swisse’s daily brand live broadcast duration is stable at 16 hours, with the ratio of brand self-broadcasting to expert live broadcasting being 6:4, and monthly sales at the level of tens of millions. This is inseparable from the brand’s continuous iteration and polishing of “people, goods, and venues”.

People: Empower anchors with professional skills and strengthen the operation team to maintain the account operation

Swisse has established a complete anchor training system, arranging training instructors every week to provide training on everything from explanations of promotional mechanisms to professional knowledge points related to health products. At the same time, the brand has also set up a quick mini-program exam to assist anchors in understanding product selling points and ensure the accuracy of the information output by the anchors.

Today, the Swisse brand has established a team of nearly 100 people for Douyin e-commerce self-broadcasting , including internal brand members and DP operators.

Goods: Diversified product lines support brand self-broadcasting, and short videos of experts promote differentiated content

Swisse leverages the advantages of its rich brand product line to establish a differentiated brand self-broadcasting matrix targeting different scenarios and groups of people, creating explosive products that meet segmented needs. And with the help of the company's strategic support, product resources are allocated to Douyin's e-commerce channels, including some exclusive discount mechanisms (special specifications of product packaging and gifts), to help brands better match consumer needs within the Douyin e-commerce channel. For example, during the 818 Good Products Festival, Swisse made some concessions, and the overall product conversion rate during the event was 50% higher than usual.

Field: A/B test live broadcast room details configuration based on core data

Brands will also conduct A/B testing when choosing live broadcast backgrounds. Swisse's live broadcast backgrounds are mostly solid colors. The color selection will be optimized by changing the color of the same anchor for testing, and the click-through rate of the live broadcast room under different colors during this period of time.

In terms of sales pitch, brands will adjust selling points according to platform rules, and will also conduct A/B testing on sales pitch that ultimately leads to conversions, adjusting the proportion and rhythm of 15 seconds, 35 seconds, and 45 seconds to explain the product.

03 What experiences can Bosideng and Swisse replicate?

In addition to the most critical "people, goods and places" elements of live streaming, the two brands also have their own strengths in their ability to acquire traffic on the Douyin e-commerce platform. Here, the Daofa Research Institute breaks it down into content marketing capabilities, expert matrix building capabilities, and advertising traffic capabilities, which can be used as a reference for brands with mature supply chain strengths and e-commerce operation capabilities.

Content marketing capabilities:

Bosideng regards Douyin e-commerce as a platform that integrates communication + content planting + brand transformation, hoping to fully and to a greater extent expose the overall brand content to the consumer groups on this channel. Therefore, the strategy driven by brand integrated marketing content has provided great support for Bosideng's explosion in Douyin e-commerce this year.

It is very challenging to produce health care product content on Douyin. Swisse chose the young first-line star Dilraba Dilmurat as its brand spokesperson to communicate with consumers. However, in the process of communication, brands still hope to maintain professionalism and rigor, and when it comes to selecting influencers, they prefer professional but non-daddy-like content to promote their brands. We will try some story-based accounts in the future to allow consumers to understand the product selling points in a more friendly and lifelike scenario.

Producing content around the brand's overall marketing rhythm can help brands convey their core information more comprehensively, professionally and accurately, deepen consumers' understanding of the brand, and make it easier to mobilize the power of external channels to achieve a concentrated outbreak. Relying on celebrities, KOLs' scene-based and life-like daily grass-growing content is beneficial for brands to accumulate potential energy and pave the way for subsequent marketing activities.

Talent matrix building ability:

Bosideng’s average customer spending is over 1,000 yuan, so the threshold for influencers to sell products through short videos is relatively high. Therefore, the brand has deployed a large number of short video content to increase the exposure of hot new products. On the other hand, it has also cooperated with celebrities Qi Wei, Batu & Bogu, experts Yang Fafa, Wang Xiaoqian and other influencers from different circles to achieve diversified product promotion.

When Swisse cooperates with influencers, it will provide corresponding products based on the influencer's fan portrait. For example, those who choose to go on the "Make Friends Live Room" will prefer men's health products; Wang Fang will prefer women-related functional nutrition products, including children, mother and baby products, in order to obtain exposure and dissemination of more dimensional products.

In a nutshell, whether it is selling products through short videos on Douyin, or the brand’s own broadcast to complete the rapid transformation from planting grass to pulling grass, the selection of influencers and anchors needs to be matched according to the depth and width of the brand’s own product line, and different segmented products should be used to penetrate the segmented circles.

Advertising traffic capacity:

During the cold start period of a brand, they often choose to launch a large amount of paid traffic to help the system recognize the crowd tags of the live broadcast room; during the promotion period, they will also obtain more exposure and GMV by purchasing paid traffic. For example, the "Swisse Beauty Consultant" account maintains about 40%-50% natural traffic on a daily basis, but during promotional periods the proportion of paid traffic will reach 60%-70%.

We also found that both brands adopted the strategy of "short video content marketing to promote advertising, and brand-owned broadcasts to upgrade high customer unit prices" because the brands need a higher-profit product portfolio to support their investment in paid traffic and thereby maintain healthy growth of the brand.

Going back to the operational pain points of Douyin e-commerce mentioned at the beginning of the article, such as "difficulty in creating an account, difficulty in increasing volume, difficulty in making profits, and instability", Douyin e-commerce is also making some active attempts. For example, it attributes some of the Douyin-style "explosive products" from the data level and product tool level; it has created a centralized entrance, including the Douyin Mall and search, to help merchants do business more stably on Douyin e-commerce.

Lu Xun once said: There are no roads in the world, but when more people walk on it, it becomes a road.

The rapid rise of Douyin's interest-based e-commerce is inseparable from the continuous trial and error and accumulation of a large number of brand merchants and influencers. Daofa also welcomes all operators to discuss the operating methodology of Douyin e-commerce with us.

Author: Knife Research Institute

Source: Knife Skills Research Institute