The secret of selling goods in live e-commerce

In the era of live streaming e-commerce, people are the media, people are the channels, and people are once again becoming the next generation of transaction entry points. The key to this transaction is knowledge distribution, trust agency, and personality connection.

In 1904, Albert Lasker, CEO of Lord & Thomas, the third largest advertising agency in the United States, received a small note from the doorman while attending a salon:

"I'm downstairs in this party salon. I can tell you what advertising is. I know you don't know..."

John Kennedy, a member of the Canadian Mounted Police, wrote three words to Lasker:

Sales in Print

Advertising is a salesman in a two-dimensional world. John Kennedy established the rules of copywriting based on the standards of an excellent salesman to decide how advertisements should speak to consumers.

Paper salesmanship, these three English words fundamentally changed advertising theory and set clear standards for the advertising industry. Lasker later said: "When the history of advertising is written, the first name that must be mentioned is John Kennedy. The principles he laid down are the guidelines for every copywriter to this day."

Since advertising is a sales technique on paper, what is live streaming e-commerce? It’s actually a video marketing technique.

"In all cases of advertising, the technique of personal selling is hidden behind them, and all advertising is based on it. There is much in common between talking to a housewife in a doorway and talking to her under a night-light. The same salesman is applicable everywhere, and advertising is only selling on paper... The principles of advertising are the same as the principles of personal selling."

So said Claude Hopkins, incoming president of Lord & Thomas.

(Lasker and Hopkins)

Whether you are writing advertising copy or doing live streaming to sell products , you should learn the classic sales rules like a good product salesman.

In today's world where everyone is flocking to live streaming, Li Jiaqi and Viya are able to firmly hold the top spot. A very important point is that Li Jiaqi used to be a teller at Maybelline in Nanchang, and Viya has opened a physical clothing store herself. They both have experience in face-to-face sales to customers, so they also know how to communicate with customers in front of the screen, how to impress them and arouse their desire to buy.

On the other hand, when celebrities live stream, even though they often face the camera and have outstanding acting talents, their performance in selling products is often mediocre, and there are even cases of failure.

This just illustrates the difference between sales and performance. It doesn’t mean that if you are good-looking, eloquent and good at acting, you will be able to do a good job of selling good products through live streaming.

"They forget their identity as salesmen and try to become actors, not to sell hard but to seek applause...Successful salesmen are rarely eloquent, they have almost no charm in speaking, but only an understanding of consumers and products, as well as a simple character and a sincere heart."

As one of the most outstanding copywriters in the history of advertising, Hopkins established his own method of writing advertising copy in accordance with the practices of salesmen. Even though nearly 100 years have passed, looking back at Hopkins' remarks and opinions, I feel that they still have great guiding significance for today, especially for live broadcasts that have returned to the era of sales, because human nature remains unchanged.

When business was first emerging, salesmen were the intermediaries between products and users. They brought samples and product catalogs and knocked on doors of thousands of households, making sales possible and keeping businesses going.

However, this one-to-one door-to-door sales approach also has great limitations, namely, low efficiency and high cost. Therefore, mass media that can quickly cover the whole country and professional distribution channels emerged. The media delivers product information, and channels provide transaction venues; the two operate independently and are clearly distinguished from each other. In order to achieve sales, all companies have to do is to advertise in the media and open stores to sell goods.

Media + channels have replaced the important value of salesmen in finding customers and have become the intermediary connecting products and users. Salesmen are only responsible for the final touch after customers arrive at the store. This is the era of traditional marketing.

With the advent of the Internet, new e-commerce channels were born and new media forms appeared. Empowered by new channels and new media, human value was pushed up again. The way media and channels connect users is “one-to-many”, while traditionally people’s communication and marketing methods are “one-to-one”. The advantage of "one-to-one" is that it is more accurate, easier to win the trust of customers and establish lasting relationships; the disadvantage is inefficiency. But now with the Internet, people can easily achieve "one to many", and although it is "one to many" communication, it can enable consumers to have a "one to one" experience and emotional connection. This is something that mass media and channels cannot do. No one will feel that the media is only talking to themselves.

People are the media, people are the channels. The popularity of marketing concepts including WeChat business, private domain traffic, KOL, KOC, etc. actually point to the same conclusion - people are once again becoming the transaction entrance for the next generation. If we regard people as the next generation of transaction entry, then the key to closing a deal is these three points:

1. Knowledge distribution
2. Trust Agent
3. Personality Connection

01

The more you talk, the better you sell. This is an indisputable truth for live streaming sales.

After Luo Yonghao started live streaming on Douyin, some people said that he had created a new business model. Companies asked him to live stream not to sell goods, but to broadcast advertisements and expose their brands. Luo could transform himself into a brand spokesperson and help brands tell stories in the form of crosstalk. But the problem is, if you are not buying something or buying cheap goods, who would want to listen to you read the product manual every day?

Hopkins said:

“Only those who are interested in our products will read our ads. No matter how long or short the ad is, no one will read it as a pastime. So we should regard the ad reader as a potential customer who is asking you for information, and give him enough product information to motivate him to buy it.”

If a live-streaming influencer only says “good, good, good” when introducing a product, lacks an in-depth understanding of the product, and cannot provide professional product knowledge to help consumers make purchasing decisions, then the sales effect will undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Luo Yonghao’s live-streaming, especially the first two, has proved this point.

There are many beauty bloggers, but the reason why Li Jiaqi became so popular and successfully broke out of the circle is that he focused on the lipstick segment in his early days. It is precisely because he has extremely rich professional knowledge about lipsticks that he was able to gain millions of followers on Douyin with just a short video of him trying on colors. In the early days, lipstick videos accounted for more than 70% of his Tik Tok account. First there was the “Lipstick King”, then there is today’s live streaming sales king.

Drucker said:

"Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today." For marketing, knowledge is productivity and knowledge is the power to move people.

You know, curiosity is the strongest human motivation. Fresh knowledge can arouse people's curiosity and make them want to buy it and try it out.

If Hopkins were advertising Quaker Oats's hearty cereal product, he wouldn't write that the cereal had an attractive color, a wonderful aroma, and tasted so good. These commonplace messages cannot arouse people's curiosity to try Quaker. "Full Cereal" has been advertised in this way for many years, with increasingly disappointing results.

Hopkins went to the factory to observe the production process of grains, and then he wrote an advertising slogan: "Food shot from a gun" - the grains expanded to 8 times their usual size, each grain underwent 125 million steam explosions, and the food was ejected from the poles...

Everyone who read the advertisement for the Full Cereal wanted to see and taste the cereal in person, and eventually they became loyal customers of Quaker.

These advertisements that introduced knowledge about cereal production became the most successful advertisements in the American food industry, and also made Full Cereal the most profitable product in the breakfast food industry.

So if you were to promote a breakfast cereal, what would you say?

What you want to talk about is the production process of cereal, the way to eat cereal and its benefits, as well as the healthy, light and fashionable breakfast culture. Instead of the self-boasting "My cereal is good" and the selfish "Don't buy other people's cereal, buy mine."

These two are the biggest drawbacks of today's advertising industry.

The value of knowledge lies in presenting the information that customers want, sharing the benefits that products can bring to users, and providing services and convenience to customers. You know, the purpose of marketing is to arouse consumer demand. And where does the demand come from? A small part comes from our instincts and physiological desires, and the vast majority of the rest comes from knowledge.

For example, if you read a book about the history of photography, you will develop a need for a SLR camera. Once you understand the history and craftsmanship of LV, you will want to own an LV bag. You studied Apple's brand story and Steve Jobs' life experience and became an Apple fan.

So if I were to do live streaming to sell goods, what would I choose?

I think the things I am most familiar with and best at are craft beer and suits. Because I got into craft beer after reading a book about it and learning about its history and culture. I have drunk hundreds of different flavors of craft beer; checked in at most craft beer bars in Beijing; read many books on the market about beer tasting and craftsmanship; bought various beer glass sets and studied how different beers should be paired with glasses; and wrote a highly praised answer about craft beer on Zhihu.

(From real-life shooting)

I am fully confident that when I share the knowledge about craft beer with you, you will be curious about and want to buy it. Because that’s what I do with the people around me.

Knowledge creation needs. At the very least, only rich knowledge can support you to speak for hours in the live broadcast room, making the audience interested in you and willing to listen to you instead of becoming drowsy and losing interest. With a rich foundation of knowledge, live streaming will not become boring noise. Ultimately, knowledge is about showcasing a product in a dramatic and appealing way, rather than just saying how good the product is.

02

When it comes to live streaming sales, many people will say that this is just a replica of TV shopping. Holding this kind of blindly following other people’s opinions will not help you deepen your understanding of live streaming sales, and if you follow the same principles as TV shopping to do live streaming, there is a high probability that you will fail. The reason why TV shopping has ruined itself is that it has three major drawbacks:

• One is the exaggerated efficacy ingredients and product principles, especially in products for weight loss, beauty, breast enhancement, height increase, and medical treatment. The magical product principles and functions are simply astonishing;
• The second is false expert and consumer testimonials to prove how good the product is. In layman's terms, this is called a scam.
• The third is the chaotic pricing system. The original price was 999, but now the purchase price is only 99. The difference between the two is unbelievable. In addition, online shopping has invented a large number of price terms, such as shocking price, special price, membership price, VIP price, current program price, limited purchase price, etc.

This ultimately led to Diangou losing the trust of the audience and becoming synonymous with scammers and counterfeits. In fact, these problems are not unique to TV shopping, but occur frequently on all major shopping platforms today. If live streaming e-commerce also uses fake prices and exaggerated functions, it will be doomed in today's world where information transmission is more developed.

Let’s talk about the price first. The commercial essence of live streaming e-commerce is still low-price promotions. For consumers, cheapness is a fundamental driving force for watching live broadcasts. The reason why Li Jiaqi and Viya are so powerful is that as top traffic, they can get sufficiently competitive prices and maintain a strong control over the supply chain. Bargaining power + product selection ability + internet celebrity IP constitute the core competitiveness of top anchors, which other anchors do not possess.

So for companies, if they just look for top anchors to cooperate with and use low prices to enter the market, then the companies will soon lose users' ability to perceive normal prices; and if companies simply regard live streaming as a tool to clear inventory, then it will easily lose users' trust.

Price is always a double-edged sword, which is why for nearly a hundred years, marketing experts and brand experts have opposed companies' repeated low-price promotions. If a company does not rely on low prices to attract customers, it must rely on the quality, uniqueness and differentiation of the product itself. But to win the trust of consumers, don’t brag or exaggerate. Listen to Hopkins:

"Don't brag. Don't brag about your company or your products, or about features that interest you but your customers won't care about. Bragging is annoying."

“Don’t brag about yourself. You are selling products, not yourself. Be clear about your purpose, get straight to the point, and use the language as concisely as possible. Make every sentence you say make your customers feel your sincerity.”

"Don't try to entertain the public. That's not the purpose of your ad (live broadcast). If people are looking for entertainment, they will go straight to the entertainment news. The only entertainment you can provide is to promote the products they want."

In today's Taobao live streaming, agricultural products are being sold in full swing, and farmer internet celebrities have created huge energy and business. Why are those native new farmers more likely to win the audience's trust and orders? This is a question worth thinking about.

03

Today's marketing is entering an era where what you see is what you get. The functions of media and channels have been integrated. For example, today's Taobao is both an e-commerce channel and a content media. The same is true for Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and official accounts + mini programs. There are no longer time and space restrictions between "marketing" and "sales". Consumers can buy after watching and buy while watching. It is not like in the past, when I saw an advertisement today, I had to wait a few days to go to the supermarket to buy it. This leads to the fact that the core of traditional marketing is to make consumers remember and understand, so that they can think of the brand when they go shopping and sales can be achieved. In an age where what you see is what you get, the core of marketing has become to get consumers to take immediate action, buy immediately, and consume on impulse.

Therefore, when it comes to live streaming sales, the most important thing is to create an immersive sense of presence for consumers. Let consumers naturally enter into a shopping scene when watching live broadcasts, just like they are shopping in an offline mall. Live streaming should make consumers feel comfortable, at ease, and without any doubts. Only in this way can they make decisions in a very short period of time, without searching for more information or comparing prices and similar products, and directly place an order to purchase.

This requires the anchor to use his or her personal charm to help consumers create a good shopping experience. Just as Wei Ya said in an interview, live streaming is a form of companionship. Yes, live streaming is a form of companionship. It is not just about encouraging consumers to shop.

Where does personal charm come from?

Personality charm = appearance + personality ability + expression style

Appearance and image are the basis of charm. Sei Shonagon said in The Pillow Book:

"The teacher who preaches the sutras must be handsome. People will naturally look at his face and listen attentively, and then they will remember the value of the sutras. If they look elsewhere, they will forget what they have heard. Therefore, ugly monks are considered to be the sin of causing the audience to listen to the sutras without piety."

Even monks are required to have good looks when preaching, let alone live streaming to sell goods. Of course, this does not mean that people with ordinary looks cannot do live streaming, but that one should design a corresponding personal style based on one's own appearance and image. A unique style creates charm. After all, if he is a big and strong man, it would be difficult for him to establish the image of a beautiful young man with traditional Chinese style.

Just like Lao Luo, he always had the image of an angry young man when he was doing training and running websites. Since he made a mobile phone, he changed his hairstyle and glasses, tidied his clothes, and managed his facial expressions. His original angry temperament immediately transformed into the image of a gentle and elegant craftsman. Isn’t this a very good character setting?

I think Mr. Luo’s image is suitable for promoting some technological products and products with craftsmanship and design sense.

Finding your own unique style also includes the use of language and catchphrases, such as "Oh My God", "All the girls", and "Buy it", so that everyone knows who these words refer to. Including giving yourself certain characteristics, such as Brother Niu Rou always wears a hat.

But in the final analysis, the establishment of style must start from one's own personality and universal human nature. Don't exaggerate for the sake of exaggeration. Don't do things that make most people feel uncomfortable and embarrassed just to attract attention. Such a style may attract traffic and attention, but it is difficult to bring purchases - for ordinary consumers, shopping is a serious matter. Consumers are not fools. They are shrewd, cost-conscious, cautious and not credulous. They may watch Qiao Guevara’s videos, but they will never buy the electric bike he uses to carry goods.

“Wearing a clown hat may get you attention, but your sales prospects will be ruined.”

Remember Hopkins' advice.

Author: Empty-handed

Source: Empty Hands (ID: firesteal13)