A new brand live broadcast system from 0 to 1

In the past two years, short videos and live streaming have become very popular. A wave of brands have indeed tasted the sweetness and risen with the trend, but more companies have fallen into the pit, become confused themselves, and have also been tricked by various routines of intermediary agencies.

Therefore, it is particularly important to first learn from the lessons of predecessors and build your own brand live broadcast methodology in an orderly manner.

Including the currently popular brand self-broadcasting, how to understand the context and trends behind it, what are the key steps from 0 to 1, and how to select products and strengthen your brand power, these are all issues that new brands themselves need to clarify in depth.

At the recent New Wave Brand Club membership event, Yang Linchen, a senior brand live streaming operator and founder of Jiaodui Pengyou (brand operator of Haotai and Liby Paper, focusing on brand live streaming supply chain, and sales of multiple single products exceeding 10 million through live streaming), frankly shared his lessons learned from the million-dollar live streaming tuition fee and his practical experience in building a brand live streaming system from 0 to 1 around these issues.

In 2021, brand live streaming is no longer a trend or a gimmick, but something that founders must get involved in and do well. This sharing provides us with a non-exaggerated and in-depth perspective, which is a good introductory lesson for new brands.

My name is Yang Linchen, a new media entrepreneur born after 1995. The topic I want to share today is how to build a brand live broadcast system from 0 to 1.

Let me first talk to you about the opportunity that led me to enter the live streaming industry.

After my first contact with the short video community in 2018, I learned that as a cutting-edge platform like Douyin, it contains many new ways to play.

Through this community with five to six million fans, I also got to know some Douyin influencers. They all have very high traffic. The number of likes for one of their works can reach hundreds of thousands to millions, and the number of views can reach tens of millions.

After that, I tried short video live streaming to sell goods for the first time. At that time, one way to play was to post links. At that time, Douyin had not yet formed a closed loop, and all the links posted were from third parties such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.

One of these strategies is called natural traffic strategy. To put it simply, it means posting videos and links in batches on expert accounts.

At that time, I took a lipstick with a customer unit price of 29.9 and advertised it to nearly 50 influencer accounts. Three of the videos went viral, and I ended up receiving nearly 30,000 orders.

At that time, I thought it was amazing. Why could a short video produce such a large amount of results? Looking back, that was in 2018, the traffic dividend period of short videos in China.

Another approach is to find a Douyin influencer to promote the product. I found Niu Mama, a Douyin vertical IP who performs shuffle dance. Her fans are mainly mothers.

At that time, I chose a pair of canvas shoes. After discussing the samples with the manager of the Tmall store, I sent them to Niu Ma to shoot a video, and then posted it on her Douyin account. In the end, five or six videos brought in nearly three or four thousand pairs of shoes.

After these simple attempts, I found that this short video platform does have potential.

To give another example, I know a yoga expert named Teacher Yang. The yoga stick she was asked to bring at that time was also an external Taobao link. In the end, the video she posted received more than 600,000 likes, brought in nearly 4 million in sales, and directly sold out the yoga stick factory.

At that time, whether you rely on natural traffic, spend money to buy traffic to cooperate with expert accounts, or rely solely on content and links to promote products, you can become popular.

As time goes by, live streaming has gradually become popular. At the beginning, Douyin live streaming was not mature, and Taobao live streaming was relatively more recognized. Later, WeChat live streaming also became popular.

When WeChat first launched the live streaming function in 2018. Everyone thinks that a new trend or opportunity has emerged?

WeChat later opened up five service provider-like formats, such as the mini-program platform Jike Magic Cube, which was very popular at the time.

The founder of Youbo is my classmate. When WeChat live streaming really took off, its peak data reached 3 million daily active users. His 298 investment system achieved sales of nearly 20 to 30 million on the Tebaobao and Youbo platforms, with a revenue of more than 50 million. This is very crazy.

At that time, whenever people talked about WeChat live streaming, they would definitely talk about the Youbo model. Later, many people, including me, adopted this model.

The Mini Live broadcast I created also reaped a wave of dividends, but the one that really benefited from the WeChat live broadcast was YouBo, which later received a round of financing.

But the current data of Youbo Company is very bleak, with the number of daily active users dropping from 3 million to 30,000 now. They basically gave up on this platform this year and started incubating new platforms.

The story doesn't make sense anymore, so we need a new story point.

Then, after last year’s epidemic, celebrity live streaming became extremely popular. This includes leaders like Luo Yonghao and other celebrities going into the industry. All kinds of people, including celebrities like Wang Zulan, have come to do live broadcasts.

It was during that period that we entered the live broadcast sector. At the beginning we had our own factory but no brand. Later we got the authorization of a brand.

At that time, there was a lack of branded products in live broadcasts as there were too many miscellaneous brands. Products with brand recognition converted better in live broadcast rooms.

After obtaining the brand authorization, we carried out product development and design, and conducted live broadcasts in a similar form to OEM. But live streaming at that time was just like self-broadcasting now, the water is very complicated!

Therefore, the topic I am sharing today is not so much about how to build a brand live broadcast system, but more about how to avoid pitfalls in the live broadcast system.

1. My million-dollar tuition fee on the road of live streaming

1) The live broadcasting organization guarantees you a minimum wage, but then you basically stop.

I paid nearly 1 million in tuition.

At that time, many institutions would guarantee you live broadcasts by celebrities or top anchors, and guarantee you a 1:3 ratio. For example, we can guarantee you a commission of 20% or 30%, or a sales volume of 1 million with 200,000 yuan.

I had no experience with it and didn't understand the market, but I paid the tuition fee. At that time, as long as there was an institution that guaranteed me a minimum payment, I would sign the contract and make the payment. I transferred about 800,000 to 900,000 yuan in total. But anyone who signed a contract basically stopped working later.

These agencies just want to make a quick buck from you and will not actually help you complete sales. They rely purely on the fame of the celebrity anchors to collect your slot fees. At that time, many celebrities were recruited, including Uncle Da.

I have signed contracts with many companies like this, but there has been no follow-up.

There are still some good companies among them, like Suzhou Dayu, and you must have heard of the little monk Yichan. They started from Weibo and moved to Douyin to create content. They are really doing this.

They incubated some fashion and beauty bloggers and experts, who mainly relied on advertising as their source of income in the early days. Later, they started live streaming.

I have worked with Yan Jiu and Akagi. Although the volume is not large, they are serious about helping you bring products, introduce them to you, and sell them for you, and the sales are pretty good.

2) High-profile live streaming is also OK

Last year, Douyin also agreed to buy a Beijing-based group whose boss started out as a TV shopping company. It was one of the largest TV shopping platforms in China, and then entered the game in November last year.

They opened up their second line in March last year: private domain. Then in November last year, I started working on TikTok. Their boss personally went on stage to do the live broadcast in a high-profile manner.

Their strategy is to spend money on top entertainment anchors, to help them get on the charts and give them gifts, sometimes up to one or two million RMB.

If you spend money, you will be the big brother, and these top anchors will connect to you and direct traffic. Hundreds of thousands of people in his live broadcast room will come around and buy your products.

For example, the fans of these entertainment anchors are mainly male fans, so it is suitable for them to sell men's products, such as tea, razors, belts, etc.

At that time, they chose Xiaomi razors, and they just posted a link and talked about the product in the live broadcast room, and sold nearly 30,000 orders in a single session.

Through long-term cooperation with these entertainment anchors, the shopping fans among their entertainment fans will gradually settle down and be converted into their own fans. This approach is also relatively OK.

But for brands, how should they do live streaming? There are too many pitfalls here. Let’s discuss today how brands can build their own live broadcast systems.

2. How can enterprises build a live broadcast system from 0 to 1?

I just shared with you some of my experiences in stepping on the pitfalls. Last year, we accumulated some experience through some attempts on Douyin and Kuaishou.

Now, I would like to use some of my experiences and lessons to help new brands on the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms to build their own live broadcast systems and incubate our brands through live broadcast channels.

First of all, our products must adapt to the live broadcast channels, the tone of the anchors, and the mechanisms involved must be suitable for the live broadcast system. So how do we adapt to this system?

Let’s first solve the problem of whether or not it exists, and then solve the problem of whether it is good or not.

What is it? First of all, you need an operation team. Customer service is the foundation. Your main picture, detail page, links, shipping, and after-sales are basic skills. Only after you have a basic operation team can you try your hand at the live broadcast channel.

After that, you can open a small store on Douyin or Kuaishou, put your products on the market, and find anchors and experts to sell them.

There are two types of people who find people to sell: one is your own live broadcast team; or you can find popular live broadcast hosts in channels such as Douyin and Kuaishou.

Last year, we took our products to anchors, celebrities, and experts, sent them samples, and contacted them to schedule appointments. Through this fool-proof investment promotion, we have also achieved good results.

There are more and more brands coming in now, but when it comes to influencers selling products, the core competitiveness of the products ultimately depends on it.

It is important whether the product mechanism and brand tone are in line with this live broadcast channel.

If the average order value of your product is too high, it is not attractive enough, it is not differentiated, or the brand recognition is not high enough, you may not be able to get the anchor to sell your product.

1. Brand supply chain under the trend of live streaming

Last year, many brands fell into traps and found it tiring to hire influencers to promote their products, so we decided to do live streaming ourselves.

This gave rise to the Douyin self-broadcasting format.

But before that, I want everyone to think clearly: Are you suitable for self-broadcasting?

Not all brands are suitable for self-broadcasting. If you blindly follow the trend and imitate others, you will pay the tuition fee, which is the same as paying the pit fee.

First, you need to evaluate your products and brands to determine and control your stop-loss points.

For example, when we test a certain product, we may budget 100,000 or 200,000 yuan and stop there. You may make money from investment today, but it may not be the case tomorrow, you may even lose money. The platform is a bit like a casino. If you do it blindly, it’s like gambling.

For example, a friend of mine who does very well in the Taobao system can make 1.6 billion yuan a year. He went to Douyin to do live streaming to sell clothes, and the average order value was very high, and there was no brand. But he can still sell it.

The Douyin platform is a platform with a logical algorithm that can match goods with people. It doesn’t matter if the product is sold at a high price, as long as there is a mature team to operate it, it will work. Therefore, self-broadcasting gradually became popular.

2. Last year, it was the bonus of live broadcasting by experts, this year it is the bonus of self-broadcasting by enterprises

Last year, live streaming platforms were a golden period for influencers to bring goods. It can be seen that many live broadcast rooms of experts, such as the big wolfdog in Douyin, are very popular and have strong conversion capabilities. As long as you have no problem choosing the products, they sell very well.

There are several ways to play: one is to mix the venues, selling multiple products in a single venue and introducing them one by one. Normally, in a live broadcast room with 50,000 people and a conversion rate of 10%, 5,000 orders can be placed.

Another type of play is the vertical type. Last year, Big Wolf Dog held a live broadcast in which only two products were sold: Jierou paper towels and Liby laundry detergent beads. At that time, 100,000 units of laundry detergent beads were sold in four or five hours, and 600,000 units have been sold so far. It's crazy.

But by 2021, the platform's policy orientation had changed significantly. The trend of influencers promoting products has gradually shifted to brands broadcasting their own products.

The best ones, such as Peacebird, signed a bet with a team of anchors, and achieved very high sales that year;

For example, Suning.com hired Jia Nailiang to run a celebrity-plus-brand live streaming platform, and the sales were also very good.

There is no need to mention Xiaomi. Lei Jun has broadcast three times in total. Every time there is a new product launch conference, Lei Jun will personally go to the live broadcast room to do the promotion.

It also includes many snack brands, such as Bestore, Three Squirrels, Be & Cheery, etc. The one that is currently competing aggressively is Liangpin Puzi, which has set up a brand base in Jiubao, Hangzhou, and has very good relations with many top influencers.

I also attended the opening of the base and saw that many top influencers made videos for them. They played this trick very well.

At present, this kind of strategy of the head is not profitable, and the money is made back through capital cashing out. The stock daily limit involves tens of billions of dollars, while a loss of tens or millions of dollars is no big deal.

3. In 2021, traditional live streaming will become a thing of the past

The top celebrities who use influencers to sell products, such as Li Jiaqi and Viya, have quite impressive average statistics. Each single link can basically receive 30,000 to 50,000 orders, and sometimes even 100,000 orders.

The key to success of Douyin’s own broadcasts and brand’s own broadcasts is long-term sustainability. It is broadcasting and producing 24 hours a day, so it is relatively stable. Finding an influencer to promote your products is very unstable. If the influencer promotes your products today, there will be orders, but if the influencer doesn’t promote your products tomorrow, the orders will be zero.

Self-broadcasting is a stable and continuous form of output, so everyone is flocking to it.

So, what policies does Douyin e-commerce have this year to support you in self-broadcasting?

4. Four major initiatives of Douyin e-commerce All In brand self-broadcasting in 2021

First of all, the settlement period: T+7 is about 15 days. If you sign an annual contract, we can shorten your settlement period and reduce the service fee by one point.

Secondly, there is a very mature delivery platform: Juliang Qianchuan. From Doujia in 2018, to push traffic, and then to the current huge Qianchuan, the traffic system is constantly being optimized.

The platform sells traffic to you. You spend money to buy traffic, and then use this traffic to sell products to consumers. It’s a chain of events.

5. Brand-generated broadcasting is reshaping consumer relationships

Brand self-broadcasting has become a new content tool. The brand can achieve product and effect integration in its own live broadcast room. It has its own chopping board and can sell goods. It can also let more people know that my brand is being promoted and sold through new channels and new traffic.

Capital also pays more attention to the brand's promotion and marketing capabilities. The matrix of a company like Three Squirrels is relatively large. They have official live broadcast rooms, blue V accounts, specialty stores, IP accounts, and sales accounts in the form of personal IPs.

The purpose is simple, which is to produce as much content as possible, put it on the platform, and then increase sales.

6. New traffic opportunities and new brands entering the market

In essence, a new platform is a new channel. The new channel will have new traffic, and the new traffic will attract new platforms to enter.

But everyone should think twice before acting. The interest e-commerce, content e-commerce, and live streaming e-commerce platforms we are talking about now are actually all trying to attract you to join.

This place is like a big casino. If you try to make small moves, it will be easy to be reaped.

Let me share a case. XX previously received financing from ByteDance. I have never figured out why ByteDance invested in XX brand. This does not conform to ByteDance’s logic. Later I found out that XX spent nearly hundreds of millions on traffic on the Douyin platform.

After spending so much money, the channel will give you rebates, and the returned money can be used as investment to endorse the brand investor. This will raise your valuation and facilitate the next round of financing.

With new funds and new chips, you can return to the Douyin casino and continue gambling. If you win, you can make money. If you lose, you may lose money, but it will raise your valuation, so you can raise more money and continue playing.

This is what I just said, if you play in there, as long as you don’t come out, there will never be an end, you will keep burning inside, and whether you can burn out depends on your own ability.

Is there a methodology to avoid being a leek?

As a brand, there is no need to make things complicated. To put it simply, it means building your own live broadcast system, entering the ecosystem according to your own live broadcast system, and playing within an acceptable risk range.

There is currently no better platform that can surpass Douyin, which is equivalent to Taobao and Tmall in the past. So, I think there is still a chance and we still have to do it.

Douyin is actually the biggest winner. It first called on everyone to join in and play, because the currency circulating in it is Douyin Coin, which is equivalent to using financial methods to play with traffic and issuing currency by itself.

It makes sense why it is valued so highly.

1. Enterprise (Blue V)

Back to Douyin’s brand self-broadcasting. First of all, you need a blue V number, which is the brand platform certification.

There must also be a complete system: an operations team, a price distribution system, and points of product differentiation.

After that, you need to build your own channels. There are many types of channels: there are experts, short video channels, and also your own broadcasts.

2. Build a live broadcast supply chain team

So how do you build a supply chain team for live streaming?

There are many live broadcast bases that have emerged now, and they have many subdivided departments. The first step is product selection, finding your target product, and then operating customer service.

If you are making the main picture details page, you need art design and photography. If you are working on a live broadcast room, you need operations and site control. After the product is sold, you need a warehouse to pack and ship it, and after-sales customer service to handle pre-sales and after-sales.

It also includes some event promotion, personnel recruitment, financial settlement, etc. These are probably the basic equipment of the live broadcast base. After they are equipped, you can start working.

3. Build a brand live broadcast operation team

The self-broadcasting team is independent and needs an anchor, an assistant, and someone to manage the live broadcast room; there needs to be operations, assistants, and finally, traffic. Where does the traffic come from? As I just said, one part is providing traffic through content, and the second part is paid traffic.

4. Create a live supply chain venue

As a live broadcast base, there also needs to be a display area for the entire supply chain, such as a product showroom, live broadcast room, office area and rest area, shipping area, etc. This is the approximate plan for the brand live broadcast supply chain.

Nowadays, live streaming is more dependent on brand endorsement and product mechanisms.

We have just talked about brand endorsement. What’s also important is whether the host’s personality fits consumers’ preferences, whether the product has differentiation points, and whether the live broadcast scene can promote transactions.

5. In the live streaming boom, how can brands ride the wave?

Live streaming evolved from the 3D graphics era.

In the past, Taobao players relied on consumer searches, pictures and copywriting to build demand, but now short videos rely on content to stimulate your interest.

As for live streaming, it depends more on whether consumers agree with the settings of the live streaming room and the command or recommendation to place an order.

6. Building a matrix self-operated system for live e-commerce

There is a 1+4+N logic for self-broadcasting on Douyin. What is 1+4+N? First of all, 1 is a blue V number for the enterprise. Secondly, to have multiple anchors to take turns showing, you need to have three or four anchors and three or four live broadcast rooms.

In the future, every brand’s store will have a live broadcast account to broadcast live in the store. This is an idealized state, but it is likely to become the standard in the future.

For example, Xiaomi has 500 offline stores, and each store is equipped with a live broadcast account, which means 500 accounts are selling on it, which is also a crazy amount of traffic.

7. Case study of deep strategic cooperation model

How do we do live broadcast now? Let me give you some examples. I have four modes for live streaming:

The first one is to sign a contract to do the live broadcast section that the brand is lacking and help them improve it.

For example, for Liby’s paper segment, I helped them set the price system and the commission distribution system, and helped them find anchors and experts to connect with them, and do live broadcasts for this segment according to this system.

The second type is a brown sugar brand called "Yun Xiaonan". I am responsible for all operations from authorization, development to sales of the brand. He started out by selling brown sugar, and did very well on private public accounts, but was not good at live streaming.

After analysis, it was found that the channel competition for brown sugar is quite fierce, including Yun Gengwuzuo, Gufang Brown Sugar, Zhai Renjia, etc., and each has a bound anchor.

Therefore, for a brown sugar brand to do live streaming, the difficulty is definitely no less than the regional difficulty.

Therefore, I went to find out what products in Yunnan are suitable for live streaming. I found that flower cakes are good. First of all, the average order value is not high, it has high frequency of repurchase and is not expensive. It is suitable for all ages and has a very wide audience.

Afterwards, I found a local factory in Yunnan to do the OEM work, designed the product packaging and specifications myself, and asked Sister Wei Ya to help bring flower cakes and brown sugar to the Yunnan special event.

The third type, like the brand "Nuan Xiaotang", is a food matrix factory under the Yao Ming Group.

They are quite good in product development and packaging design, but they don’t quite understand the channel issue and many channels are not connected. After working with me, I helped him quickly expand his product categories to the anchor rooms of all the top anchors, big and small.

The fourth method is the same as last year, exclusive brand authorization. For example, last year we made the "Haotai Tai" laundry detergent beads. He gave me exclusive authorization for the brand, and I put my own label on it, developed it, and sold it. This is also a way of playing.

When doing live broadcasts now, you have to be good at inflection points. In the live broadcast channel, there must be mature anchors who can cooperate. For top anchors, we have been cooperating for a long time, and as their core supply chain, it will be easier for them to promote a new product.

It is difficult for a new supplier to be accepted by well-known anchors. We need a supply chain that can cooperate with professional anchors.

For example, Wei Ya has a bunch of supply chain companies, and her brand’s direct investment is basically saturated, so it is difficult for a new brand to squeeze in.

You can choose to go through Viya’s supply chain company and use their relationships to deliver your products to Viya’s live broadcast room. All top anchors are in a similar situation.

Therefore, channel relationships are very important, and you need a professional supply chain to help you complete channel construction.

When a brand first enters the live streaming sector and looks for influencers to promote its products, the most basic thing to note is that it must have a commission distribution system and a product mechanism system.

If you do live streaming without even doing this part well, you are doing it blindly and it is easy to be ripped off.

Q: How to attract traffic to the live broadcast room?

Answer: There are several ways to attract traffic to the live broadcast room. Generally speaking, on the Douyin platform, if you have high-quality content, the platform will give you basic traffic, which is a traffic pool built based on data such as likes, reposts, and comments.

If you broadcast yourself, in addition to creating the content yourself, you also have to spend money on traffic, that is, paid traffic. There are actually two forms of traffic.

Question: How to judge the current Douyin TP company?

Answer: Most of Douyin’s TP companies are derived from former advertising companies. Their original business was mainly focused on corporate promotional videos and commercials, but when their traditional customers died, they began to think that there was an opportunity in the Douyin platform.

If a company wants to create a Douyin Blue V account or a personal IP account, but does not know how to shoot, make videos, or edit, it can find an Internet planning company to produce content.

The second type is the brand’s agent operation company. Relatively speaking, most of their people haven’t figured out the game yet. Currently, there are relatively few professionals in this sector, and brand operations are divided into store operations and content operations.

Generally speaking, the operation of Douyin stores is not very different from that of Tmall and Pinduoduo, and may even be simpler. Store operation must be combined with product systems and mechanisms. After product differentiation is completed, short videos and live broadcasts can be launched.

Q: Which categories of products are suitable for live streaming now?

Answer: Product selection is 1, and all channel items are 0. The key to product selection lies in whether the product is suitable for live streaming.

In the previous era of short videos, products basically only needed to have low average order values ​​and exist pain points. In the past, people’s product selection logic was to choose products that could raise pain points and solve them in videos and had high gross profit margins.

But now, people will choose products with brand endorsement, and the quality of the products needs to be guaranteed.

Because too many people have been cheated when buying things on Douyin in the past, and found that the actual products they received were not reliable. But the platform certainly does not want this to happen, so the platform needs to have high-quality brand products entering the Douyin system.

As long as the product can be used in life, most of the products are suitable and can be made into short videos and live broadcasts.

Question: Compared with Pinduoduo and Taobao, what are the core barriers for Douyin and Kuaishou to sell products?

Answer: In fact, the Douyin and Kuaishou platforms are a mechanism of goods finding people, while Taobao and Pinduoduo are more of a mechanism of people finding goods. Their underlying logical algorithms are different. So it depends on what platform the product is suitable for. Different products are suitable for different channels.

Q: Are functional foods with high unit prices suitable for live streaming channels?

Answer: Functional foods with high customer orders are more suitable for private channels, such as social e-commerce. Because if you have such motivation, the channel will be clearer. But if the average order value of the products in the live broadcast room is too high, as a consumer, would you dare to buy it?

I dare not buy it. As a functional product with high customer orders, first of all, the direction of product selection is correct, because the general direction of food making in the future must be to make functional food. Only such products will have a premium, space, and sufficient profit points, and channels will have the motivation to help you promote them.

Q: What is the underlying logic behind product selection?

Answer: My personal logic for selecting products is this. First of all, the products you choose must have high frequency, must have strong repurchase demand, and the average order value cannot be too high. There must also be a certain gross profit margin.

This is the only way to keep buying and selling, and the anchor will be willing to promote your goods. Secondly, this product must have brand endorsement. For example, the products I sell: Haotai laundry detergent beads and Liby paper towels, consumers recognize these brands.

Let me share with you my logic behind product development. My live streaming sales method is relatively simple and crude. I just look for things that I think everyone can use. These products must be able to be produced in batches and on a large scale. Because once you increase the quantity, you don’t have to worry about not having enough goods.

Basically, I don’t need to keep stock of the things I make, I only need to prepare the raw materials, so there is no inventory risk. This is the basic logic behind my current product development: control risks first.

Q: Can new brands find young anchors?

Answer: New brands can find small anchors. As long as your products are differentiated, have highlights and selling points, anchors of all sizes can lead them.

Q: Is the difference between products and brands the repurchase rate?

Answer: Yes, the repurchase rate is exactly the difference between products and brands. For example, laundry detergent and paper towels are products with a high repurchase rate, and consumers are more concerned about brand endorsement.

If you are a no-name brand, consumers may not buy it. Household cleaning and daily chemicals are my main focus. These products meet the high-frequency, urgent and repurchase needs I just mentioned, low fast-moving customer orders and the ability to be mass-produced.

Q: How did you accumulate supply chain resources?

Answer: I mainly accumulate supply chain resources through live streaming. I adopt the form of targeted OEM, looking for high-quality factories with high cooperation and development capabilities, or factories that have their own finished products, and then do live broadcasts after negotiating and signing contracts with their products. I only make all the products myself, and only build them from the factory.

Q: How to find a high-quality factory?

Answer: In China, a country with relatively overcapacity, it is not difficult to find high-quality factories. The excess production capacity can definitely meet the demand for live streaming channels.

As long as you have enough materials and your products are differentiated, you can definitely achieve sales by finding a big anchor. Now OEM is very developed. The key to finding a factory is not how good the factory is, but the degree of cooperation of the factory.

For example, for a factory with an OEM mindset, you won’t be able to understand what you say about operations and branding. The boss is only concerned about how much money he can make from each OEM order for you. With this kind of thinking, talking to him about live streaming is nonsense.

Be sure to find a boss who is aware of this and willing to do live streaming.

For example, factory owners in Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places are more avant-garde and more willing to try new things; some factories in the north only consider immediate profits and not long-term interests.

Q: How do you view the short-term and long-term barriers to live streaming?

Answer: Last year, there were relatively few brands entering the live streaming industry, so they were relatively popular. But when the anchor has money and traffic, he will definitely think about making his own thing. Why sell traffic to you? Can't I sell my own goods?

Therefore, the future trend will definitely be that top anchors will incubate brands and sell them themselves. Chickens lay eggs, and eggs lay chickens.

The direction of long-term barriers in the future will definitely be to develop customized products for anchors. Brands are now everywhere and are no longer barriers.

The barriers lie more in your service capabilities to the anchors, your product development capabilities, your shipping and after-sales capabilities, and your team’s operational capabilities.

For example, one of the products I am planning to launch recently is garbage bags. In fact, it was not because I had a factory that I decided to launch this product. It was Viya who conveyed the fans’ needs to me. The fans’ needs forced the factory to develop corresponding products, and the anchor in turn sold them in the live broadcast room, so that this product could become a hit.

In the future, we aim to identify innovative consumer products and then do live streaming. If consumers have needs and the anchor can provide corresponding services, then the anchor will be valuable in the live broadcast room.

Including the products I am making now: laundry detergent beads and kitchen paper, they are all consumer innovation products. Therefore, we need to identify differentiated and innovative needs, convert these needs into supporting products, and then sell them in return.

Q: What do you think of beverage brands?

Answer: In the beverage category, barriers do exist because we already have two big brothers, Yuanqi Forest and Nongfu Spring, in the lead. In addition, the logic of beverages is based on offline. Whether you have mature offline channels determines how big you can scale.

If there is no offline channel to supply online, will the factory cooperate with you? Won't. Where there is quantity, there is price; where there is no quantity, there is no price.

For example, Yuanqi Forest initially looked for the Jianlibao factory to produce its products. The Jianlibao factory thought, your product is made by me, and I have a price advantage over you, so I will also make one. As a result, sales were in double digits because the factory did not understand marketing. When looking for a factory to cooperate with, you must find one whose boss has this kind of mindset, otherwise it will be very tiring.

Why is Yuanqi Forest so powerful? In fact, he also started offline and has made some progress in channel construction. If you market aggressively, you can get a premium, and it is because of the premium that the product can survive.

We are basically still following the logic of selling goods, not the logic of building a brand.

Q: How do you consider trademark and intellectual property issues involved in live streaming?

Answer: Before you do live streaming, you need to consider trademark protection. I do the same thing. I have registered nearly 300 trademarks.

Basically, when I make a product, I will register the relevant trademark six months in advance. Half a year later, once the trademark, copyright and other things are all in place, I will start making this kind of product.

Author: Inspur New Consumption

Source: Inspur New Consumption