Taobao live streaming methodology!

Brands’ self-broadcasting on Tmall presents both opportunities and challenges.

The opportunity lies in that Tmall will vigorously support brand merchants to broadcast their own content in the future.

Wei Ya’s downfall may just be the trigger for Tmall to do this.

Taobao Live became famous in the field of live streaming by supporting these two top anchors.

But what was unexpected was the huge impact that the "siphon effect" has brought to the platform today.

Compared with the increasing number of brand merchants opening stores and live streaming on Douyin, Tmall feels threatened.

Therefore, Taobao Live will inevitably undergo major reforms in the future to support brand merchants in broadcasting their own content.

The challenge lies in the second half of live streaming. Brands need to overcome the following pain points when broadcasting their own content:

• The "siphon effect" of live broadcast rooms is serious, and the cost of self-broadcast paid traffic is high;
• Over-reliance on discounts and price cuts, and weak mentality in selling high-priced genuine products;
• The live broadcast room lacks operations for high-value fans/members of the brand;
• The penetration rate of live broadcasting cannot be increased. It is necessary to increase the contribution of live broadcasting rooms without affecting the store.

For brand merchants, how can they break through in the Tmall self-broadcasting battlefield which is full of opportunities and challenges?

In this article, let’s discuss the coping strategies in a systematic manner.

1. First, clearly define the three dimensions of the purpose of the self-broadcast room

The first dimension is the live broadcast penetration rate . In short, it is the percentage of live broadcast GMV to the total store GMV.

Please note that here we are not simply looking at the absolute value of the GMV of the live broadcast room, but the penetration percentage.

This means that the contribution of the live broadcast room needs to be increased without affecting the store itself.

The second dimension is the operation of fans/members , including the recruitment of new fans/members and the activation of existing ones.

This should be included as a very important indicator for brand self-broadcasting, because on the one hand, self-broadcasting is a good channel to do this, and on the other hand, fans/members’ contributions to both live broadcasting and stores are of very high value.

The third dimension is the brand/product marketing . Live streaming is a good three-dimensional communication window that can help establish brand preference and product popularity.

Why do we need to clearly define the purpose first? Because many people would take it for granted that live streaming is just for selling goods. Just do whatever it takes to sell the goods.

If we don’t correct this idea first, we may never be able to sell well in the second half of live streaming, which has long lost its benefits.

2. Link flagship stores, live broadcast rooms, and short videos to create a full-link efficiency-enhancing strategy for brand self-broadcasting

Live streaming definitely does not exist independently in the Tmall e-commerce ecosystem, and it will never end once it’s over.

High-efficiency brand self-broadcasting usually links the three major platforms of flagship store, live broadcast room and short video, corresponding to the full-link approach before, during and after the live broadcast.

Before, during and after the live broadcast, the corresponding core positions are the flagship store, live broadcast room and short video respectively.

Before live broadcast: There are two key things to do.

First, private channels can guide live broadcast traffic , including live broadcast reminders on the store homepage system. You can also consider customizing banners on the homepage, Taobao group chats, shopping, store messages and other channels;

The second is to plan the direction of the live broadcast in advance , including the planning of content and products. Of course, the two complement each other. A good brand’s own live broadcast room can be seen as a variety show that sells goods. Since it is a show, it will definitely require early program planning.

During live broadcast: the key is to operate and handle the traffic in the live broadcast room.

For some large-scale and important live broadcast sessions, you can use paid delivery and the gameplay of the live broadcast room to accurately secure a position and increase the flow of new customers.

Of course, the premise of this is to utilize the live broadcast operation team and the media delivery team to cooperate flexibly and in real time.

The following picture is a related SOP case:

When it is discovered that after paid delivery, traffic begins to surge, the site's ability to handle the traffic is put to the test. The anchor must respond quickly, emphasize the corresponding rights and interests, and explain the corresponding products that can handle this traffic, and strengthen the explanation of products with high customer orders and high conversions.

After the live broadcast: focus on linking the live broadcast content with short video channels to strengthen the capture of public domain traffic and reach of users in the post-link.

First of all, you can slice the live broadcast content and edit it into many Taobao short videos. Especially during big promotions, the number of short videos is very high. Editing the footage from the live broadcast is a relatively cost-effective approach.

These short videos are then submitted to corresponding channels as a means to obtain public domain traffic.

Here is some additional background: live streaming has been increasingly exposed in the public domain of Taobao Mobile. This year’s Double 11 investment promotion data shows that the proportion of public domain traffic has increased from 28% to 44%, which means that brand live streaming rooms will have the opportunity to obtain more public domain traffic.

So how can we obtain the platform’s public domain recommended traffic? content!

Short videos are currently the key content for obtaining public domain traffic, so the platform is promoting the linkage between live streaming and short videos.

After the live broadcast is sliced ​​into so many short videos and public domain traffic is obtained, the ability to obtain public domain traffic can be used according to different short video types to feed back into the arrangement of the content in the live broadcast room.

For example, if you find that short videos that explain in depth a product are the best at acquiring public domain traffic compared to unboxing videos or outfit showcases, then you need to increase the proportion of this part in the live broadcast content so that you can edit more high-quality short videos, thereby creating a two-way "snowball-like" empowerment between short videos and brand live broadcast rooms.

In the post-live broadcast link, another thing that can be done is to accumulate data on the people reached by the short video, and harvest the results through secondary reach through paid delivery.

Paid delivery can further enhance the system algorithm’s accuracy in matching short videos with recommended traffic.

This will form a full-link brand self-broadcasting strategy that links the flagship store, live broadcast room and short videos before, during and after the live broadcast.

3. The core of the creative support of live broadcast content is to enable products to create "selling points"

When it comes to the creativity of live broadcast content, many people may think of the live broadcast room with the Yanxi Palace theme scene that Herborist created on Douyin, where each show is broadcast live by a "noble lady" or "nanny".

I think it is indeed interesting, but if viewed from the perspective of live streaming with goods, it is not good content because its underlying logic is problematic. (Of course, it is also possible that the purpose of doing this is not to bring goods)

The core of truly good live broadcast content is to enable products to create "buying points" and thus drive consumers to buy.

How do you understand this “buying point”? To put it simply, it is the point that really makes them feel involved and can impress them. This is different from the selling point, although there is some overlap between the two.

For example, if you are selling down jackets in a live broadcast room in winter, most of the selling points are actually similar. So how can you create a "buying point" for your product that will impress consumers through content?

I have an insight based on my own experience:

One of the pain points when it comes to dressing in winter is that if we wear too much, we will feel hot even when we are indoors with the air conditioner on; but if we wear too little, we will feel cold.

So can we combine the 26-degree dressing rule that is very popular on the Internet with the differences in ambient temperature in different places to create a series of winter dressing scenes for the down jackets sold in the live broadcast room that will make consumers feel involved? For example, in the live broadcast room, you can create dressing rules for 26 degrees in winter in different regions and recommend matching products.

In fact, there are many areas where there can be a lot of room for creativity in the content of the live broadcast room. On a larger scale, the entire live broadcast can be made like a themed variety show; on a smaller scale, it can be the planning of one of the links, the entry point when the anchor explains a product, the creation of a sense of scene in the live broadcast room, background music, etc.

The most important thing is to enable the product to create a "buying point". If not, then don't do anything fancy.

4. Mobilize private, commercial and public domain channels to create a full-link refined traffic operation

In order to ensure that the brand live broadcast room has continuous and stable traffic, it is necessary to mobilize private, commercial and public domain channels to create a full-link refined traffic operation.

Let’s first talk about how to increase private traffic

We can use a formula to look at this:

Private domain traffic = private domain trailer exposure * on-air click-through rate * return visit rate

Therefore, the first solution to increase private domain traffic is to increase the broadcast preview channels to increase the exposure of live broadcast information previews.

The standard channels include: live broadcast reminders, product details page, store subscriptions, and shopping accounts set up by the homepage system. You can also add channels such as Taobao group chat and homepage banner

The second solution is to strengthen the live broadcast preview information to increase the click-through rate of the broadcast.

The attractiveness of the live broadcast preview information can be refined from three dimensions: rights, products and content gameplay. For example, in terms of rights and interests, you can strengthen information such as flash sales, large coupons, and gifts; in terms of goods, you can strengthen information on themed new products and limited-edition top products; in terms of content and gameplay, you can strengthen creative aspects and special highlights.

The third solution is to embed a live broadcast calendar applet in the live broadcast room to increase the return rate of users in the live broadcast room. Corresponding rewards will be given to users who check in for multiple consecutive days.

Let’s talk about business domain traffic.

We have actually mentioned this in Figure 1 above.

The platform has a media product [Super Recommendation] for paid promotion of live broadcasts. Brands can increase the commercial promotion of special live broadcast sessions and accurately position themselves in the live broadcast room to increase the flow of new customers to the live broadcast room.

In addition, during big promotions like 618 and Double 11, the platform will also have a super interactive city merchant booster package, allowing users to actively participate in live broadcast viewing and interaction, and attract traffic to the live broadcast room.

Figure 3

Finally, let’s talk about public domain traffic.

After a preliminary summary, there are three ways to help brands obtain public domain traffic in their own broadcast rooms:

The first one is, as mentioned earlier, using the "snowball" positive cycle of short videos and live broadcasts to continuously expand the public domain traffic pool. Of course, this is a process that needs to be accumulated slowly, and the results are not immediately visible.

The second way is to strive for Taobao Live’s marketing IP resources , including live broadcast marketing IPs such as brand live broadcast day and live broadcast membership day. This requires brands to PK with marketing plans.

The third way is to make good use of the “Live Highlights” function . Here is an introduction to this feature:

When the anchor is broadcasting live, each time before talking about a product's selling point, he/she needs to click the "Mark Highlights" button on the center console for this product (there must be one picture with a white background in the main picture of the product). The platform will generate "Live Highlights" content based on the anchor's marking behavior. When watching the live broadcast, viewers can switch to the designated baby explanation segment in the live broadcast room at any time according to their preferences to enhance the viewing experience.

In addition, live broadcast content that makes good use of the "Live Broadcast Highlights" function will be recommended by the platform to the WYSIWYG module and will gain more public domain traffic exposure.

The above is the traffic operation methodology for the brand’s Tmall self-broadcast room.

5. Deepen the fan/member base and use the live broadcast room as the main operation venue

Fans and members are high-value groups of people for the brand, and the live broadcast room provides a good venue and a variety of rich tools to carry out in-depth operations on them.

We will talk about this from the perspectives of recruitment and activation:

The first step is recruitment.

To improve recruitment, you can do three things in the live broadcast room with the help of the following formula.

Number of members recruited = amount of information received * membership rate * fission rate

The first is to strengthen the guidance information for adding fans/joining the club, so as to increase the reach of the guidance information, such as increasing the frequency of verbal guidance by the anchor, and highlighting the pop-up window of membership benefits on the live broadcast interface.

The second is to enrich the membership benefits and increase the membership rate. These include things like drawing a lottery ticket in the live broadcast room, continuously checking in in the live broadcast room to win Koi super benefits, and exclusive shopping credits for joining the club.

The third is to set up a mechanism for old employees to bring up new employees to improve the fission rate. For example, you can embed a mini program for the lottery of top products in the live broadcast room, which requires you to attract new people to register as members in order to win the qualification for the lottery.

Next is activation.

The core is to use the live broadcast room as the entrance to membership benefits, combining the rights of members of different levels within the membership system, such as birthday gifts, exclusive gift certificates, surprise draws, offline exclusive experiences, etc.

6. Create anchor personality and incentive management mechanism to enhance anchor power

The anchor is the most important role in the live broadcast room facing consumers. The strength of the anchor can largely determine the performance of the live broadcast room.

There are two main aspects to improving your anchoring skills.

The first is to build the host’s personality to create a sense of familiarity in the minds of consumers, which in layman’s terms is “recognizing people.” Of course, this requires that this or these anchors first select a better personality from among a large number of candidates and strongly bind them to the brand. Brands can also leverage their own communication resources to promote them like they do with internet celebrities and KOLs.

This can improve the problem of high anchor turnover rate and frequent anchor changes to the greatest extent.

The second is to strengthen the incentive management mechanism among anchors , especially during live broadcasts during some major promotional periods. The anchors can be regarded as distributors selling goods and engage in commission cooperation.

7. How to improve consumers’ interactivity in live broadcast rooms?

The interactive power mainly reflects the content quality of the live broadcast room, which is manifested through the comprehensive performance of the live broadcast room’s viewing UV, consumer stay time, interaction, conversion to fans, sharing, comments, and likes.

The live broadcast room can improve its interactivity mainly through the following two ways:

The first is to become a featured live broadcast room.

The featured live broadcast room is different from the traditional live broadcast room for selling goods. It increases the user interaction rate, stay time and conversion rate in the live broadcast room through content innovation and interactive mode upgrade. It also uses this as a starting point to discover new scenes/new groups/new categories in the live broadcast room and incubate live broadcast flagship stores.

So how to become a featured live broadcast room?

Pay attention to the categories in the live broadcast room and increase the proportion of high-quality products such as featured products/super new products/super cutting-edge products in the live broadcast room;

Pay attention to the way consumers interact with you. In addition to regular sales, increase the number of interactions with consumers.

Focus on content diversity, brand marketing events, IP mindset columns, and celebrity/CEO/KOL live broadcasts;

Pay attention to the user operation of the live broadcast room, members, new customers, and fans. From the perspective of rights allocation and exclusive content, do a good job in the crowd operation of the live broadcast room to improve conversion

The second method is to use the live broadcast room mini program.

In order to enrich the interaction between merchants and consumers in their own live broadcast rooms and enhance the interactivity of the live broadcast rooms, the platform has launched more than 40 live broadcast room mini-programs for selection. For example, mini-programs such as online capsule machines, surprise lucky bags, and blind boxes combine traditional raffles with innovative entertainment methods to effectively liven up the atmosphere of the live broadcast room. There are also mini-programs such as live broadcast previews and calendars that can help merchants complete product previews of the live broadcast room. Consumers can sign in and make appointments online and lock in the live broadcast room in advance, thereby increasing the return visit rate of the live broadcast room and indirectly improving the conversion rate.