Since 2020, two concepts have been very popular and favored in the marketing industry. The first one is of course this year's hottest new concept - live streaming marketing . The second one is actually not a new concept. It is private domain traffic that has been known since 2019.

The fundamental reason why these two marketing concepts are popular is that under this year's special business environment, the marketing budgets of many companies have been greatly reduced. Companies all hope to do some marketing with more visible input-output, or some marketing that requires little investment but can bring certain results.

Simply put, companies are paying more attention to the cost-effectiveness of marketing.

Live streaming can quickly convert investment into sales returns. The concept of private domain traffic has always been not to spend a high budget to buy traffic, but to create traffic that you can control.

These two marketing methods meet the current needs of enterprises for cost-effective marketing, so these two marketing methods may occupy the C position in marketing for a long time in the future.

Here I would like to raise a question. As two relatively effective marketing methods, if private domain traffic and live streaming are combined, will it create a more efficient marketing method?

Let’s start with the current situation of private domain traffic.

01. The quality of private domain traffic is more important than private domain traffic

Nothing is static, but changes dynamically, especially in today's rapidly changing marketing world.

The concept of private domain traffic began in China roughly in 2018-2019. At that time, the Internet dividend was about to come to an end, and the cost-effectiveness of purchasing public domain traffic was getting lower and lower. Therefore, many people proposed to build their own private domain traffic and let their own destiny be in the hands of themselves rather than the platform.

The initial typical representatives of private domain traffic were official accounts, personal WeChat accounts and WeChat groups, which are still the mainstream channels for private domain traffic today. The strategy of many companies to build private domain traffic is to add WeChat friends as much as possible, to recruit people to form groups, and to increase the fans of public accounts through various fission methods.

These methods were very efficient at the time, but now it seems that the effect of this kind of private domain traffic is becoming increasingly limited.

Data from Xinbang in 2019 showed that the average opening rate of WeChat public accounts was 1.9%, which means that more than 90% of the traffic of most public accounts is almost invalid. Especially for many fans who get them through fission, the efficiency is even higher.

One WeChat account can certainly add up to 5,000 people, but if you use it for advertising purposes and harass your friends, you will end up being deleted or blocked.

The same goes for WeChat groups. It seems that a WeChat group can add 500 people, but the activity level of WeChat groups is even lower. At least in the several WeChat groups I am in, the activity level does not exceed 10%. I once joined a WeChat group of MissFresh Wangjing, which was obviously a private traffic group set up by the company in this community. I never opened this group and left it after a few days.

What is the problem above? Although some companies have made their private domain traffic very large, the quality of private domain traffic is very poor.

Suppose A has 100 private domain traffic users, all of whom are highly active, then the effectiveness of the private domain traffic is 100%; suppose B has 1,000 private domain traffic users, only 5% of whom are active and the rest are "zombies", then B's effective private domain traffic is only 50 users. It seems that B has more private domain traffic than A, but the quality of B's ​​private domain traffic is much lower than A's.

Therefore, the quality of private domain traffic is more important than the private domain traffic itself.

If you want to improve the quality of private domain traffic, you cannot just increase the traffic and then advertise and harass users every day. You must be clear about what core products and services you can provide to private domain users so that users can’t do without you. You must continuously and effectively operate private domain traffic and increase activity. Otherwise, no matter how large the private domain traffic is, it is just a zombie city.

Therefore, in the "post-WeChat era", it is more valuable to improve operations and services and enhance the quality of private domain traffic than simply increasing private domain traffic.

02. Why is the quality of private domain traffic of excellent live broadcasts so high?

Next, let’s talk about live streaming.

Live streaming has not been around for long, but one phenomenon cannot be ignored: for an excellent anchor, the proportion of fans (which can be understood as private domain traffic) in his or her live streaming room is often higher than that of users coming in through public domain traffic. At the same time, the proportion of orders placed by fans is also higher.

At the Bytedance Summer Summit held on July 30, Douyin shared two relevant data: in Douyin live broadcasts, in some of the better live broadcast rooms, the proportion of audience fans can reach nearly 40%; and the e-commerce conversion rate in the live broadcast rooms is more than 15 times higher for fans than for non-fans.

I also interviewed a top anchor on an e-commerce platform. It was said that more than 80% of the sales in his live broadcast room came from fans with private domain traffic.

Why is this so? This is determined by the characteristics of live streaming as a marketing method.

Bringing real benefits

An important feature of live streaming sales is low prices and discounts.

Since excellent anchors have strong bargaining power, they can get the so-called "lowest price on the entire network" for their fans. When fans come to the anchors' live broadcast rooms, they get real discounts.

Once the impression of getting discounts from the anchor is formed, fans will become dependent on the anchor, hanging out in the live broadcast room at a fixed frequency, and placing orders when they see the discounted products they need.

To give an example, consumers who go to Walmart at a fixed frequency can be called Walmart's private traffic. The reason why they go to Walmart at a regular frequency is because of Walmart's promise: Our prices are guaranteed to be the lowest in the city, otherwise we will compensate you double the difference.

Therefore, once you have purchased something in the live broadcast room of excellent anchors, it is easy to become a fan and further become a private domain fan with regular consumption frequency. The relationship between fans and anchors is mutually reinforcing: anchors continue to provide benefits, and fans continue to form dependence.

This is true for Viya, Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, and Simba.

Trust of the anchor brand

For consumers, purchasing a certain brand, in a certain sense, represents the consumers' trust in the brand, including trust in the brand's product quality, consumer experience, after-sales service, etc.

For excellent anchors, live streaming sales are never a one-time deal. Instead, they use their own reputation as a guarantee of product quality. Fans buy products in the anchor's live broadcast room largely because of their trust in the anchor. If the anchor deserves this trust, then the fan stickiness will be extremely strong.

For example, as a senior marketing master, Luo Yonghao knows what brand trust means, so he never cuts corners on after-sales service. When consumers found problems with the flowers they purchased in the live broadcast room, he did not refund, give in or evade, and immediately compensated them with double cash back.

The best public relations is action. I think Luo Yonghao’s compensation is very sincere and will not drive away his original fans.

In fact, excellent anchors have formed their own personal brands. Once the brand is formed, they must be responsible for each of their products and for every consumer. Fans of anchors who do this will not leave easily.

Excellent anchors are all experts in private domain traffic operation

Another characteristic of excellent anchors is long-term user management.

Wei Ya’s way of operating users is to frequently collect user needs in the live broadcast room, post previews on social media before the live broadcast, and then promote conversions during the live broadcast. Wei Ya also holds the "Viya Fan Festival" every year to interact with fans online and offline.

Anchors like Luo Yonghao who have a large number of fans provide content on Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin on a daily basis and interact with fans. Before the live broadcast, various pictures, texts and video contents are used as preheating to inform users of the products that will be broadcast, and considerate services are also provided after the live broadcast.

In terms of team operations, we build the IP of individuals + assistant anchors (such as Zhu Xiaomu), establish emotional connections with users, and form a systematic marketing matrix.

Top excellent anchors such as Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi, Luo Yonghao, etc. are all experts in private domain traffic operations.

03. How to improve the quality of live private domain traffic

For excellent anchors, the live broadcast marketing model is naturally closely integrated with private domain traffic, and live broadcast as a marketing method is also more conducive to the formation and long-term operation of private domain traffic.

If excellent anchors have formed an efficient marketing method through private domain traffic + live broadcast, then this kind of marketing is also something that companies should consider.

Accurate import of public domain traffic

Almost all private domain traffic initially comes from public domain traffic, so it is unrealistic to completely abandon public domain traffic. The core issue is how to efficiently intercept your own private domain traffic from public domain traffic.

Take fishing as an analogy. If you like to eat big fish and your goal is to catch 100 big fish, but you catch 80 small fish and 20 big fish, then your goal achievement rate is only 20%. On the contrary, your goal is achieved by 80%.

As mentioned above, the quality of private domain traffic is more important than the private domain traffic itself.

① Focus on short video content marketing

The role of content marketing will never become outdated. It is worthwhile to attract users from public domain traffic through excellent content, let truly interested users become fans, and form your own private domain traffic in the long run.

After entering Douyin, some brands will produce and publish content on a daily basis. Interested users will watch and become fans of the brand. Then when the brand broadcasts live, these fans will naturally come in to watch.

At the same time, some brands will gain additional traffic during live broadcasts. If these users are interested in live broadcasts, they will also become fans of the brand and gradually become part of the brand’s private domain.

Before the 618 promotion this year, Three Squirrels used interesting short videos to warm up and attract fans, and used its own social media to preview and divert traffic. On the day of the live broadcast, fans watched the show for four times the usual time, and new customers watched the show for three times the usual time. The project as a whole achieved a five-fold return on investment.

The entire marketing of Three Squirrels, from long-term content preheating to live streaming, has not only achieved the goal of diverting public domain traffic, but also achieved the goal of monetizing private domain traffic.

② Obtain traffic from the public domain of celebrities and influencers

In the era of traditional advertising, celebrity endorsements were a common marketing method. Celebrities obviously have traffic, but in fact it is difficult for brands to turn celebrity traffic into their own traffic.

This is increasingly possible in the age of social media.

For example, Vipshop invited two celebrities, Xue Zhiqian and Deng Ziqi, to do live broadcasts during the 618 promotion. Live streaming achieved sales growth by leveraging the power of celebrity fans: Xue Zhiqian’s fans contributed 50% of shopping cart clicks. Deng Ziqi's live broadcast has helped Vipshop accumulate more than 120,000 fans.

The fast and visible features of live streaming make it easy for brands to convert fans of celebrities and influencers into their own fans. However, this does not mean that fans of celebrities converted into your fans become private domain traffic. You must continue to operate until these fans truly become fans of your brand.

③ Accurate recommendation

Brands can pay celebrities to live broadcast and convert their traffic into their own traffic. Of course, they can also pay to obtain traffic from the platform's large market.

Today, targeted advertising is still an important source for brands to obtain accurate private domain traffic. Through data calculation and delivery, brands can find relatively accurate user groups based on region, attributes, etc., and attract them to become fans.

Some people may say, isn’t this just buying traffic?

For live streaming, I think the difference is that it can detect the effectiveness of your purchased traffic relatively quickly.

If the traffic you purchased is operated and optimized and can achieve the expected results in the next live broadcast, such as a visible increase in sales while maintaining or decreasing ROI, then this marketing is sustainable.

It is worth noting that although it is about buying traffic, the operation process is still more important. The most important thing is how to continuously optimize the fans obtained through the public domain to make the fans stickier and thus improve the quality of conversion from public domain traffic to private domain traffic.

Long-term operation of private domain fans

After intercepting private domain traffic from public domain traffic, it is more important to operate it in the long term. Only in this way can the quality of private domain traffic be guaranteed. This has been emphasized many times in the previous step. Here are a few more tips.

① Content, content, content

The first point is still content. It is mentioned above that excellent content is an important means to attract fans from public domain traffic. What I want to say here is that excellent content is also an important reason for retaining fans after passers-by become fans.

No matter what kind of influencer or brand you follow, if it doesn’t produce good content one day, it may be time to unfollow it.

② Provide benefits or useful information

Excellent anchors will continue to provide benefits to fans, which is one of the reasons why fans stay. For brands, in addition to providing fans with preferential benefits and providing industry or product-related information so that fans can truly learn something, the value this brings to fans is no less than preferential treatment.

Make Up For Ever is a professional makeup brand under LVMH and the only brand in the world with a makeup academy.

After entering Douyin, this brand did not rush to sell products, but first helped users learn how to use makeup through live broadcasts of an online makeup academy.

Make Up For Ever started operating the Douyin account in March. In the first month and a half, it broadcast makeup tutorials and product reviews for 3-4 hours every day, and released short videos, accumulating a large number of fans.

Afterwards, she launched the #花式不脱妆# super challenge, during which the title of the live broadcast room echoed the topic of the challenge, which quickly brought a 3-fold increase in fans.

On May 8, the brand conducted an 11-hour long live broadcast by makeup artists and influencers, and the total order amount exceeded 4.3 million, which was 3 times higher than expected. It is worth noting that more than half of the GMV on that day came from fans gained through early operations.

③ Do a good job in user operations

For private domain traffic, the most important thing is not acquisition, but operation. Only by activating private domain traffic through operation and improving the quality of private domain traffic can the value of private domain traffic be fully reflected.

In addition to providing valuable content and information, how to activate fans, enable them to form a long-term interactive relationship with the brand, and even participate in the process of co-building the brand is an important topic.

For example, Nike has developed several sports-related apps in recent years. When operating these apps, it is not just a shoe seller. The key is to establish a sports community, operate community users over the long term, and bring more value to users.

During the epidemic, people were trapped at home. NIKE signed 7 fitness coaches and linked with Douyin live broadcast as soon as possible to bring professional "cloud fitness" solutions to users. Nike has conducted more than a dozen live broadcasts on fitness on Douyin, guiding users in front of the camera to participate.

This live broadcast actually has little to do with selling goods. Nike truly provides users with indoor sports solutions and brings real value to users. Although the promotion for a single sale is limited, it increases user stickiness and favorability. With these, there will be no worries about bringing in goods in the future.

IQOO's approach is to launch the #IQOO3硬核心宅# campaign through hard advertising, calling on experts and fans to participate in the national mission. The event will deposit the mission content in its own brand account, which not only activates existing fans, but also converts some of the experts and their fans who participate in the event into its own fans.

When operating Douyin, companies should be good at tapping the value of fans. National tasks like Douyin can not only attract a large number of new users, but also increase the interaction between fans and brands. It is a good way to operate fans.

04. Conclusion

According to data from iMedia Consulting, the GMV of live streaming sales is expected to reach 961 billion yuan in 2020, and live streaming marketing is still in its bonus period for most companies.

Although live streaming is a marketing method with a more visible input-output ratio, it cannot be regarded as a panacea. Without continuous content creation and continuous traffic operation capabilities, live streaming will not be successful.

If the long-term operational capabilities of private domain traffic can be combined with live streaming marketing, live streaming can be more efficient. In this regard, the top anchors of the live streaming platforms have already given the answer.

In 2020, live streaming + private domain traffic operation is an efficient marketing method that you must pay attention to.

Author: Xunkong's Marketing Revelation

Source: Xunkong’s Marketing Revelation (xunkong2005)