Build a live broadcast operation system from 0 to 1!

More and more To B companies are starting to do live streaming, whether they are old and large companies like SAP/Microsoft/AWS, or many SaaS innovative companies, they have all joined the live streaming trend. After the outbreak of the epidemic, To B live broadcasts have sprung up like mushrooms after rain.

Many friends in To B companies want to do live streaming, but have not figured out what the positioning of live streaming is? How to do it? Which platform to use? Who should be responsible... Behind this small live broadcast are a series of problems and systematic thinking. I have summarized this article "To B Live Streaming Strategy: Building a Live Streaming Operation System from 0 to 1" and hope it will be helpful to everyone.

1. What are the differences between To B live broadcast and To C live broadcast?

1.1 Why are more and more To B companies starting to do live streaming?

There must be a reason behind this. I made a systematic analysis and summarized it into “three major driving forces” and “three basic conditions”.

First, let’s analyze why To B companies are willing to do live streaming and what the driving force behind it is, namely the “three major driving forces”.

(1) Brand and customer acquisition

This is the most fundamental reason. The marketing and operations departments of most companies are responsible for brand promotion. Some companies’ marketing/operations departments are also responsible for KPIs of leads, customers, and even revenue. Live streaming is an effective way to promote brands and acquire customers.

(2) COVID-19 pandemic

This is the most direct reason. The epidemic broke out during the Spring Festival in January 2020. Many companies stopped working starting in February. Even if they resumed work, they were unable to carry out offline activities or visit customers. Many offline salons, exhibitions, and conferences were basically suspended, and sales staff were unable to visit customers in person until June and July. Therefore, live streaming is actually done due to many unavoidable factors and is Plan B.

(3) Digital transformation

In particular, many traditional and physical enterprises were already undergoing digital transformation, and the epidemic has also accelerated this process. Everyone is doing live broadcasts, mini-programs, mobile websites, and online shopping malls.

Just because an enterprise has the willingness does not mean it can accomplish its goal. This requires a lot of infrastructure support, namely the “three basic conditions”.

(1) Developing the habit of watching live broadcasts

C-end live streaming began to explode in 2016, such as Yingke Live, Taobao Live, Douyin Live, etc. Many users have already developed the habit of watching live broadcasts and are familiar with the relevant processes and operations, or at least do not reject this type of activity.

(2) The emergence of live streaming SaaS tools

This is the advancement of live broadcast tools and technology. When I was doing live broadcasts in 2016, I used Webex. At that time, users had to download a mobile app or load a plug-in on their PC browser to watch the live broadcast, which resulted in a very low registration-viewing ratio. (I’m not sure how this tool works now, if you have used it recently, please add some information.)

But there weren’t many good live streaming tools to choose from at the time, so there was nothing we could do. In the past two years, many useful live broadcast tools, especially SaaS, have emerged. You can watch the live broadcast directly on the web by clicking on the live broadcast URL, which greatly facilitates corporate organizers and users.

(3) Internet speed increases and fees decrease

With the development of 4G and 5G, Internet speeds have greatly increased and costs have dropped significantly. Many people now watch live broadcasts directly on their mobile phones. According to incomplete statistics, even for B2B live broadcasts, 50%-70% of the live viewing traffic comes from mobile phones.

1.2 To B live broadcast VS To C live broadcast

There are actually huge differences between To B live streaming and To C live streaming. If you are not clear about these differences, you may fall into many pitfalls later.

In the table below, I have listed many differences, including marketing targets, purposes, scenarios, platforms, as well as technical thresholds, traffic sources, and user data. Among them, I think the biggest difference is in marketing purpose.

C-end live broadcasting is mainly divided into two categories:

• The first category is content/entertainment products, where live streaming may be a module of the product, and live streaming can be used to increase the activity and usage time of the application;

• The second category is e-commerce or shopping guide, which is generally linked to GMV and live streaming.

However, the unit price of TO B products is high, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands or even millions. It is difficult to close a deal in just one live broadcast, and it requires a long period of interactive cultivation. Therefore, the main purpose of To B live broadcast is: 1) brand communication, 2) obtaining leads, 3) cultivating leads and assisting transactions. Occasionally, a deal is concluded directly after a live broadcast, but many companies still go through offline business matchmaking.

Therefore, as long as your company/department has the tasks of brand communication, obtaining leads, and cultivating leads, live streaming is a direction that can be considered, and it is a very cost-effective solution.

2. Three common forms of To B live broadcast

Different from the common vertical screen live broadcast on the C-end, the B-end live broadcast is mainly horizontal screen, and is accompanied by the sharing and exchange of a large amount of in-depth industry content. So what are the forms of To B live streaming?

I summarize To B live broadcast into three types: PPT sharing, guest interviews, and live broadcasts. Of course, this is not a strict classification, nor does it conform to the MECE principle (mutually independent and completely exhaustive), but it is just for the convenience of everyone's understanding.

The first one is PPT sharing.

This is the most common form of To B enterprise live broadcast, mainly in which lecturers share solutions, success stories, industry trends and other content in the form of PPT. Generally speaking, the PPT will be full screen, and the lecturer's portrait will appear on the side or corner of the PPT. With the promotion of green-cutting technology in live broadcasts (similar to the form of Alibaba Cloud in the lower left corner), the seamless integration of lecturers and PPT will also give viewers a better live viewing experience.

The second type is guest interviews.

Companies invite customer representatives, industry opinion leaders and others to discuss a topic or answer questions from the audience. When this form appears alone, it mainly focuses on a separate discussion on a hot topic. Otherwise, it is more likely to appear in combination with the first and third forms.

The third type is live broadcast.

To B companies often hold various offline salons, seminars, summits and other activities, with the number of on-site participants ranging from dozens to thousands. In order to increase the influence and coverage of the event, organizers usually broadcast the event live so that (potential) customers who are not convenient to come to the event can watch the live broadcast.

In actual operation, the above three forms are often combined with each other. For example, during the epidemic, all offline activities were suspended, and many companies held [online summits/customer conferences], inviting their own executives to share product dynamics and customers to share success stories, accompanied by various roundtables, interviews and interactions. This often combines all three types of live broadcasts we mentioned above.

3. How to organize a successful To B live broadcast event?

So, how can we conduct a good To B live broadcast so that more potential customers can see us?

Let’s take a live broadcast as an example, with two guests sharing (corporate executives and customer representatives). We hope that more people can see our live broadcast and generate retention or inquiries about our new products. The evaluation indicator is the number of leads that meet market quality requirements (MQL, Marketing Qualified Lead).

If you want to host a live event, what do you need to do well? What is your idea to increase the number of live broadcast registrations and final retention leads? I broke it down into 4 factors.

A successful live broadcast = content x guest x channel x conversion.

3.1 Content

Content refers to the subject of the live broadcast and the content shared.

First of all, what content does your live broadcast provide to what target group, what problems does it solve for users, are users really interested in this content, and does it hit their pain points? If you hit the itch point, there may be few people watching; if you hit the actual pain point, for example, how can I help companies acquire customers more efficiently and how to improve sales conversion rates, then this live broadcast will definitely attract more people to pay attention.

Secondly, whether it is related to current hot topics. If you bind the same content to a hotspot, there will be a lot of people signing up. If you can plan a live broadcast event specifically for current hot topics, it will be easier to attract potential customers.

3.2 Guests

【Guest】 refers to the guest, lecturer or someone else of the live event? The same PPT, the same content, the same theme, when given to different guests, actually has completely different effects.

For example, you invite customer representatives to participate in the company live broadcast to share success stories. Are you inviting the other party's front-line employees, the director of the department or the company CEO? Generally speaking, we will give priority to inviting guests with higher fame or influence, such as the CEO or technical director of the client company, after all, there is corporate endorsement behind them.

Of course, there are exceptions. If the client's employee is a KOL or a well-known open source contributor in a certain field, and his or her popularity or representativeness in the niche far exceeds that of the department director or company CEO, then it is also a good choice.

3.3 Channels

[Channel] refers to the number of channels (internal and external) through which the live broadcast event is promoted, and whether there is a fission/recommendation mechanism.

First of all, how many promotion channels are there for live streaming events. Many To B corporate live broadcasts are generally promoted through their own channels, such as the company’s public account, official website, in-site messages, emails, etc. If this continues for a long time, all the customers who come to your live broadcast events will be old customers, and the proportion of old customers will become higher and higher, making it difficult to attract new customers. Therefore, when designing communication channels, external channels must be considered. For example, joint promotion with partners, or even paying to find channels to promote your own activities.

Secondly, whether your live broadcast event has achieved fission. If you are very confident about the content of your live broadcast event, you can design a certain fission propagation mechanism, such as: you can only be eligible to register if you share it to your circle of friends, you can only be eligible to register if you recommend it to 3 friends, etc. Such an operating mechanism can help you acquire more accurate and high-willing new users.

3.4 Conversion

[Conversion] refers to how we obtain the contact information of users who come to participate in the event and accurately convey the value of our product. Specifically, it is reflected in: converting subscribers into leads, converting leads into customers, converting customers into business opportunities, and converting business opportunities into successful customers.

Let’s take the first layer as an example. How can we convert users who follow/watch live broadcasts into retention or registration leads? At this time, we need to see: Have you designed the offer?

What does this offer mean? I translate it as "hook". Why should I leave my contact information? Have you provided enough attractive content for me, such as live broadcast PPT, solutions, some exciting materials mentioned in the live broadcast, etc. Only in this way will I be willing to fill out the form, exchange offers with you and chat with you further. In the To B scenario, industry success stories are very important hooks and are very helpful in attracting potential users to further convert.

If you do these four things well, content + guests + channels + conversion, there will be no problem in having a qualified To B live broadcast. If you don't do it well, for example, the number of registrations is very low or the conversion rate is very low, you can break down and analyze where the problem lies from these four points.

4. How to continue to carry out To B live broadcast activities well?

Above I have summarized the four factors for a successful live broadcast: content + guests + channels + conversion. In reality, many To B companies certainly do more than just one live broadcast a year, they often do many, such as 10, 20 or even more.

There must be experience and rules to follow, and even SOPs for operations. Let me share with you: To continue to do a good job in To B live streaming, we need to consolidate three major foundations and form a virtuous circle.

On the basis of doing a good job in live broadcast operation, To B enterprises should consciously consolidate these three foundations:

1. Organizational basis: you need to have a live broadcast team, part-time only;

2. Process basis, you need to have a precipitated standard operating procedure, i.e. SOP;

3. Physical foundation: you need a fixed live broadcast room, live broadcast software and live broadcast hardware.

4.1 Organizational Basis: Live Broadcast Team

Those who have a little knowledge of the C-end live streaming sales scene will know that there may be only two hosts in front of the screen, but there is a team of dozens or even hundreds of people supporting the scene behind the scenes.

Although To B live broadcast does not require you to prepare a live broadcast team of dozens of people, in order to ensure work results and user experience, I suggest setting up a temporary project team for each live broadcast event.

The live broadcast project team is divided into 5 groups, namely:

• Lecturer team: The lecturer team is responsible for connecting with event guests/lecturers/hosts to ensure that the content is produced on time;

• Publicity team: responsible for extracting the value of live content and promoting it;

• Channel team: The channel team is responsible for researching, selecting appropriate channels, and conducting external promotion of live events (paid + free);

• Live broadcast team, which is responsible for the selection, setting and maintenance of live broadcast tools (software + hardware + personnel), creating live broadcast pages and ensuring a smooth live broadcast process;

• Conversion group: The conversion group is responsible for taking over the traffic brought by the publicity group and the channel group, taking over the registration traffic through official accounts, social groups, questionnaires, etc., and simultaneously following up on the leads by telemarketing or sales colleagues.

In many To B companies, these tasks are completed by one person in the marketing department or the operations department. Without other resource support, it is difficult to amplify the live broadcast effect. We suggest slightly splitting up the functions and division of labor. It doesn’t have to be so detailed, but we should focus on and give full play to the strengths of different functions of the marketing operations department.

The project owner is the sole person in charge of this live event and is responsible for the final effect. He or she will usually be close to the lecturer team, or may be the same person. From topic selection, finding guests, project establishment, to first launch promotion, live broadcast, and finally following up on leads and analyzing data. The chain is long, but the owner does not have to complete all the work alone. Instead, he has to coordinate the entire virtual project team to complete the live broadcast.

Let me give you an example of what the Conversion Group does:

(1) Setting up a platform to receive registration traffic, including but not limited to official accounts (subscription accounts/service accounts), WeChat communities, and questionnaire forms;

(2) Design offers (benefits/information/collections, etc.) and corresponding questionnaire forms to attract users to retain their information;

(3) Screen the qualified leads and send them to the telemarketing/sales department for follow-up to promote the establishment of customers/business opportunities;

(4) Count the conversion effects of this open class (leads-high-quality-customers-business opportunities, etc.), draw insights and provide feedback to the marketing or operations department;

(5) Cooperate with the telemarketing/sales department to conduct secondary contact, cultivation and conversion for users who have registered for the event but have not been created or transferred out (in the community, public account fans, CRM, etc.), so as to achieve the goal of transferring more customers and business opportunities.

Regarding lead conversion, based on my past work experience, I generally recommend the following: (1) The conversion team should be led by user operations and coordinated with telemarketing and sales; (2) When it comes to offer design, you can communicate and cooperate with the lecturer team and publicity team to produce information packages, etc.; (3) For lead and opportunity cultivation, a long-term mechanism should be proposed, rather than a one-time, piecemeal cultivation and transfer.

One point I need to emphasize is that in most To B companies, this team is not full-time (except for professional live broadcast companies), most of them are temporary or virtual project teams. Normally everyone has their own job, such as new media operation, channel operation, event operation, user operation, etc.; after the project is determined, everyone will divide the work and cooperate. This is a great test of the entire team's organizational structure design, goal management methods and collaboration methods, and it also requires a certain amount of time to run in.

4.2 Process basis: SOP

Why do we need SOP? Because you need to scale up and operate sustainably.

So you will find that the process of each live broadcast is basically the same, and the main changes are the theme and guests. In this way, you can accumulate previous experience, templates, and scripts, focus on the topic and guests, and improve efficiency.

I divide an open class live broadcast into 4 major stages and 12 minor stages. The 4 major stages are: preparation-promotion-live broadcast-ending. The time schedule for each stage, the work content of different team members, the output materials, and the data indicators that are of concern will all be recorded. By summarizing this SOP well, even if the person in charge of a live broadcast of a certain session is replaced, you can get started quickly and avoid forgetting things and making mistakes.

There will be a time in this SOP form, T+0 represents the day of the live broadcast, and T-7 represents 7 days before the live broadcast. Generally speaking, our entire event plan must be finalized 21 days before the live broadcast, and personnel and resources must be in place, otherwise it will be too late later.

Because the table is so large, I can't see the details clearly. Let me take T-8 as an example. We hope to start the promotion one week after the live broadcast, so all materials must be prepared 8 days before the live broadcast. The work contents recorded in this SOP form include:

• 【Publicity Group】

(1) Refine the theme and highlights of the event;

(2) Produce event promotional posters, banners, etc.;

(3) Produce new media promotional graphics and texts;

(4) Create and decorate a live broadcast room;

(5) Confirm within the department whether the promotional materials are OK;

(6) Experience the entire registration process internally to ensure accuracy.

• 【Lecturer Group】

(1) Confirm with the instructor whether the promotional materials are correct and compliant;

• 【Live Broadcast Group】

(1) Prepare a live broadcast plan based on the live broadcast scenario;

(2) Arrange the live broadcast room calendar (rehearsal + live broadcast);

(3) Prepare the necessary live broadcast equipment;

(4) Make an appointment with IT staff to ensure network availability during rehearsals and live broadcasts.

• [Conversion Group]

(1) Design an offer (folder, etc.) to attract users;

(2) Design a retention questionnaire form;

(3) Provide different registration QR codes/monitoring links for different publicity channels;

(4) Inform the activity through telemarketing at the same time and allow time to complete the activity leads within 48 hours after coordinating the activity.

With this SOP, which can be continuously refined and optimized during implementation, the efficiency of subsequent live broadcast operations will be greatly improved. Whether you are the project owner or a project team member, you can quickly divide the work, execute and deliver based on a set of consensus-based collaborative processes. Moreover, the final output of collaboration based on professional division of labor will definitely be better than if one person performs all the work.

4.3 Physical basis: site plan

A minimalist live broadcast solution requires consideration of: live broadcast platform + streaming solution + live broadcast room + hardware equipment.

(1) Live streaming platform

When I first compared the differences between To B live streaming and To C live streaming, I emphasized that To B live streaming has three main purposes: 1) brand communication, 2) obtaining leads, and 3) cultivating leads and assisting transactions. This also determines that To B live broadcasts rarely use C-end live broadcast platforms, such as Douyin Live, Kuaishou Live, Yingke Live, etc., because companies need leads and need to retain information.

Currently, To B companies (including many industries with high customer unit prices) mainly choose to purchase SaaS live broadcast tools, or Pass layer tools for secondary development or embedding in corporate official websites. Domestic manufacturers that can be chosen include but are not limited to: Muzhi Live, Huichang Communication, Xiaoetong, Weibo Live, Haoshitong, Polyway, etc. (in no particular order). Of course, if your business does not have high requirements for the live streaming platform and wants it to be free, then there are more choices. For example, WeChat live broadcast, DingTalk group live broadcast, Tencent meeting, Bilibili live broadcast, etc.

In the past five years, I have used many enterprise live broadcast tools including Cisco's Webex, Tencent Classroom, Tencent Meeting, Xiaoetong, Witness Live, and Huichang Communication. I have always believed that there is no best live broadcast tool, only the most suitable To B live broadcast tool. Different companies have different business needs, development stages, and budgets, so we cannot generalize. The most suitable one is the best. (No one paid me for advertising, so I won’t recommend any company.)

(2) Streaming solution + live broadcast room + hardware equipment

This is entering the realm of real live broadcast technology, which can be deep or shallow, large or small, and the deciding factor is the budget. Taking into account the actual conditions of different companies, I will briefly introduce three solutions.

The first one is basically zero budget.

In other words, the company will not invest in live broadcast hardware, and the project owner can at most get a live broadcast computer or conference camera from the company's IT. In simple scenarios, you can directly use the live broadcast backend that comes with the live broadcast platform. If the situation is a bit more complicated and involves switching between multiple scenes, it is recommended to use OBS to push the stream, collect different audio and video, integrate them and then push the stream out.

The second type has a little budget.

If the company has a certain budget, it is recommended to purchase fill lights, sound-absorbing panels, consoles, cameras and other equipment. The company can also designate a conference room as a dedicated live broadcast room for various departments to use for live broadcasts or professional meetings.

The third type is live broadcast of major events, which has a special budget.

For example, if a company wants to do a live broadcast of an offline customer conference with more than 500 people, it is recommended to find a live broadcast supplier instead of doing it yourself. Or maybe the company has a very important live broadcast to be held in the company, but the scene is complex and involves the combination and switching of different audio and video equipment, which cannot be realized by the internal virtual live broadcast team. In this case, the page recommends finding a live broadcast supplier instead of doing it yourself.

5. Experience of To B live broadcast

In the past few years, I have been fortunate to operate more than 40 To B live broadcasts in the enterprise. There have been successes and failures, pitfalls but also gains. Below are some of my experiences and I hope they will be helpful to you in front of the screen.

5.1 Content is king

Whether it is To B live broadcast or To C live broadcast, it is essentially directly facing users, To Human/People. No one wants to spend an hour sitting in front of a computer listening to corporate advertising or boasting, unless your company has an influence like the iPhone new product launch. In reality, many To B companies turn live broadcasts into product promotions or solution presentations, and the result is obvious: the longer the live broadcast goes on, the fewer people participate.

When corporate users participate in live events, they definitely hope to gain some valuable content from your live events that will be helpful to themselves. Generally speaking, this thing may be: ① the latest industry trends and policy interpretations, ② the latest solutions and practices for a certain scenario, ③ typical customer success stories, etc. Content is king and never goes out of style.

Of course, companies also have their own marketing purposes when doing live broadcasts. I suggest that the overall content of the live broadcast should be mainly practical and inspiring, and then corporate advertising should be introduced in the final stage. It would be even better if your product solution can be seamlessly integrated into the overall live broadcast sharing and does not make the readers feel abrupt. This really tests your storytelling skills.

5.2 Clarify the live broadcast positioning

Many To B companies do live broadcasts and want to see the business opportunities and sales results after the live broadcast. The results are obvious. Reality often disappoints them. A live broadcast may have hundreds of people watching online; but within a month after the live broadcast, there are no direct orders. Excuse me, is To B live streaming still meaningful? Is it still worth spending a lot of effort on To B live streaming?

This involves a discussion on the positioning of live streaming.

A complete To B business process is very long. Customers will go through multiple stages from the first contact with you to the final transaction, such as [cognition → consideration → selection and comparison → business decision → order]. This cycle can be as short as one or two months or as long as more than a year, but on average it is more than three months. This is generally related to the average order value. The higher the average order value of the product, the longer the decision-making cycle, the higher the proportion of offline communication with customers, and there will often be a bidding process. Therefore, it is normal that there are no direct orders within one month after the live broadcast ends, which is determined by the To B business model.

We recommend that you focus on the number of online viewers of the live broadcast, the number of leads retained, and the number of high-quality leads in the short term. In the long term, you can focus on the conversion results of the live broadcast event, including direct promotion of orders and the number and amount of covered orders. If possible, it would be best to review the output results of historical live events every week (weekly meeting/weekly report). You will find that the live broadcast event from a year ago is still generating business opportunities or sales for you.

5.3 Leverage

Generally, the marketing or department of a B2B company will have such positions, including product marketing, brand media, events, content, operations, community, delivery, business, lead cultivation, SDR, MRR, etc. In reality, many positions lack linkage and are relatively fragmented, resulting in low overall output efficiency. For example, the students in charge of the event are responsible for the live broadcast operation, but lack content and guests; the product market is communicating customer cases, but there is no suitable channel for expression.

If we want to leverage the power of live streaming, what can we do?

Students in charge of product marketing or content take the lead in deciding themes, content, and lecturers, while students in charge of events carry out joint promotions through external channels. Finally, the articles, videos, and PPTs are disseminated on new media and placed on the official website for SEO to obtain more traffic, forming a closed loop.

Online live broadcast operations are insignificant in this process, but live broadcast is a high-leverage entry point that can string together brands/content, activities, and digital marketing to maximize brand and effects.

Author: Guan Shiqiang

Source: Content Operations