7 formulas for live streaming sales

Live streaming is now one of the most controversial tracks.

On the one hand, live streaming has become an important tool for many companies to survive the crisis during the epidemic. In addition, Luo Yonghao's involvement in live streaming sales has made this track very popular. On the other hand, some market practitioners are also dissing that "only incompetent marketing departments will be keen on live streaming sales", "live streaming does not bring brand benefits, and fans may just be attracted by the anchor or the anchor's personality", etc.

But in fact, live streaming is not just about selling goods, it is also about marketing. Taking Luo Yonghao’s first live broadcast on April 1 as an example, under the focus of the entire network, the Baidu index of niche and internet celebrity brands such as Xinliangji, Nayuki Tea, and Zhong Xuegao has increased exponentially. Products such as Xiaomi and Gillette have been on the hot search list on Weibo many times.

Gillette Weibo Index on April 1

The users of a product can be divided into accidental users and inevitable users. The greater value of live streaming lies in helping brands acquire more accidental users through real-time face-to-face communication, more intuitive interaction and display, and highly contagious comments. This is what we often call the “grass-planting effect” and “brand effect” of live streaming.

This week, Jianshi will focus on the live streaming sales segment, and will meet with entrepreneurs in various key links to discuss in depth the opportunities and methodologies involved. To start with, we interviewed Xu Yang, CEO of Weibo. Since 2016, Xu Yang has been fully committed to promoting live streaming and short video marketing. So far, he has planned and executed more than 8,000 commercial live streaming events. This time, our topic focused on how to create a hit live streaming event and the common misunderstandings of many companies. Even Weibo has shared 7 formulas for becoming popular or silent that it has compiled. Let’s:

1. Three elements of live streaming hits

There are accidental factors but also inevitable rules for the success of a product. To create a hit product, we must first return to the three most essential elements of selling: people, goods, and place.

1. People: Finding “accidental buyers” requires the effectiveness of self-media

Before a brand wants to engage in short video e-commerce, it must first think clearly about three issues:

Who are you?

Who do you want to influence?

What value do you want to bring?

The two ends of selling goods are "key people" and "buyers", and the overall structure lies in how to use "key people" to influence the buyers you want. These "key people" who can influence user conversion can be top IPs, mid-level influencers, or your employees and salesgirls. However, the effects of their sales vary greatly under different scenarios and with different goods variables.

The promotion of goods is the result of a combination of factors. From the buyer’s perspective, most people who buy goods are inevitable buyers. In the cases where some sales clerks or bosses sell goods, users already like the brand and have already added the goods to their shopping carts. Such buyers have a strong desire to purchase, and the company only needs to make appropriate concessions to encourage them to pay. But the essence of this kind of promotion is actually overdrawing the brand influence of the product and exchanging profits for sales, which has nothing to do with live streaming.

Self-media is the way to stimulate unknown growth and is the key person in determining "accidental buyers".

The greatest value of top influencers (or celebrities) lies in their wider coverage of circles, their strong exposure capabilities, creating social effects, and promoting the brand to more users.

The mid-level influencers rely on their influence in vertical fields, using the more down-to-earth perception of “real users” to create a stronger sense of trust. Creating diverse content in multiple scenarios can stimulate users' resonance and have a more obvious grass-planting effect.

How to choose key people who influence “accidental buyers”?

First of all, your eyes can help you make part of the judgment: for example, look at the daily advertising ratio of the account. The higher the ratio, the worse the relative quality will be, and fans will develop an "immune system" against the account. Secondly, look at the interactive content, whether it is a spam post or real feedback, and whether there is close interaction. Furthermore, his window products are further examined for sales.

However, after several rounds of visual observation, brands still fall into traps and fail to find the right “person”:

Are his users your target audience? How are his recent reading stats? Is the user interaction good? How is the service? Are there frequent complaints from customers?

Weiboyi provides holographic self-media evaluation options based on the advantages of the trading platform

2. Market: Find out which "market" you are in, and don't waste your time selling goods

From wholesale markets to Taobao and Pinduoduo, and now to social media and short videos represented by Kuaishou, new stores are being built in every era.

In the fierce competition, short videos have different styles and strengths, so these stores are also decentralized, regionalized, and personalized. The future will highlight the long-term dynamic imbalance and instability. If you don’t correctly understand the people and changes in these fields, all methodologies will be in vain.

Weibo: Weibo showcase + live streaming, an open information platform, hot-selling categories are: clothing and daily necessities;

Douyin: Top anchors are relatively concentrated, daily necessities + clothing account for a high proportion, and product prices are concentrated within 100 yuan;

Taobao Live: Merchants and influencers’ content drive traffic retention, and big anchors harvest large sales; women are more likely to spend, and clothing is the most popular category, followed by jewelry and parent-child products;

Kuaishou live streaming: It is mainly based on decentralized social distribution, and the live streaming hosts are relatively diverse and scattered. Places of origin, industrial belts, factory direct supplies, and expert brands are in high demand;

Tencent Kandian Live: It integrates official accounts, mini-programs, and live broadcasts, and uses private domains to mobilize resources within the WeChat ecosystem. It is suitable for promotions that emphasize strong relationships and trust. Currently, it has achieved excellent sales results for maternal and infant products.

Pinduoduo: Low-priced white-label promotions and discounts are the main focus. There are many products on the platform. Low-priced products/big-brand promotions + merchant explanations + discounts have a good guiding effect on impulse purchases of goods.

Xiaohongshu: accurate traffic, high user activity, many female fans, best-selling products are branded goods, imported goods, fashionable trends, and stylish.

A high degree of unity among people, goods and places is a necessary condition for hot sales. Different goods and different people require different venues. We can use the table below to find the marketing path for our products.

3. Goods丨The organic combination of people, goods and venues has the potential to explode

Among all the popular short video products, the ones that ultimately sell well are only big brands at special prices and small brands at super special prices. Products that meet the four characteristics of "more, faster, better, and cheaper" are most likely to be accepted by users.

More: Large inventory and rich product categories;

Fast: Fast-moving consumer goods require fast ordering, fast logistics, and a short purchasing process;

Good: It has product features, good appearance, good effects, good ingredients, and good selling atmosphere;

Savings: The price is below 200 yuan, and the products can be shipped quickly through users’ trust in self-media;

In addition, there may be some luck in selling goods online, but in the end, the result of "explosion" is inevitable and not accidental. To ensure the success of a live broadcast with goods, each "goods" has its own unique path to become popular. Weibo has sorted out some formulas, a total of 7 combinations that can or cannot become popular:

Special products + big IP + no discount = can be popular

General goods + IP big names + mid-level talents = a chance to be popular

Big brand goods + salesgirls + low discounts = hot sale

Specialty goods + a large number of mid-waist products + no discount = can be popular

Well-known goods + salesgirl + mid-waist = hot

New product + salesgirl + amateur + no discount = useless effort

General goods + amateur + no discount = waiting to die

For example, the promotion of Hua Xizi's embossed makeup palette adopted an all-field self-media resource strategy. Top-tier influencers with high traffic, such as Li Jiaqi, had extensive influence on the product. Mid- and low-level influencers in the beauty and cosmetics category used methods such as color trials, reviews, and tutorials to conduct in-depth, multi-level product promotion. Tail-level influencers and amateurs cooperated in posting orders.

In the promotion, Hua Xizi adopted the "73 rule". In the early stage, it promoted the product on a large number of short video platforms, so that the product formed a certain awareness and purchasing desire in the minds of users. In the middle and late stages, it focused on harvesting conversions in batches through live broadcasts. The final product sales continued to rise and word of mouth spread.

2. What are the misunderstandings about brands investing in live streaming?

1. Myth 1: Is live streaming a panacea?

Wake up.

The reason why live streaming has become so popular is that it has opened up a sales loop of seeding and buying out. The advantage of selling goods through live streaming lies in the purchasing stimulation created by the environment and atmosphere, and most importantly, the discount price advantage in the live streaming channel. In a single sale, a brand may get enough sales, but the tail effect is short.

There is a famous "Aronson Effect" in psychology: when external stimuli decrease, people's attitudes are often more negative than when there was no external stimulation. In other words, without live streaming, the brand appeal at full price will face collapse. Excessive reliance on low prices leads to fewer and fewer consumers purchasing after prices return to normal. Moreover, as the popularity of live streaming sales increases, marketing costs are also about to increase. The one-time effect cannot help brands achieve sustainable growth and it is difficult to form brand assets.

Therefore, the best model for selling products should be to first stimulate product awareness through short videos, then use live broadcasts for promotions and discounts to reap the rewards, and finally retain content to continue to endorse it, thus forming a virtuous marketing cycle.

Through product content and self-media with a high degree of matching, the brand’s overall exposure and promotion in the form of evaluation, display, and experience can be carried out to boost the brand’s overall awareness, reduce the time users spend comparing similar products, and then, during live broadcasts, use discounts and other means to release users’ shopping impulses. Retain the discount content (live broadcast content) to generate user attention and expectations, and gradually replace discount dependence with product dependence.

Using perpetual motion-style short videos to promote products and combining them with stimulant-style live streaming to sell products will be more conducive to brands achieving their marketing effectiveness.

2. Myth 2: Beauty products are the most popular category?

Li Jiaqi’s popularity has made live streaming e-commerce a big hit. Precisely because of their expertise in the beauty field, more brands firmly believe that beauty products are the "most suitable products for live streaming." Weibo.com conducted an internal survey, voting on "What category do you think is the most popular product through short video live streaming?" The final result showed that 78% chose beauty and daily necessities.

According to the Douban live broadcast product sales list and FeiGua Kuaishou live broadcast sales list, among the live broadcast categories, direct sales from the place of origin (agricultural products, mountain products, etc.) accounted for as high as 35%, daily necessities and food and beverages accounted for 25% each, and beauty products accounted for about 10%.

When life returns to the "primitive" stage, users' rational needs are once again amplified. Since the unit price of food is relatively low and it has become a rigid demand for users, users will have more energy to focus their feelings and needs here. It will be a stage where overall industry competition and opportunities blend together, and product reshuffle will be more obvious.

Taking food and beverages as an example, adult women are the main consumer group, and the consumption share of the three major groups of Generation Z, young people in small towns, and the elderly is also growing. This type of group of people is exactly the most suitable area to be developed using short videos and live broadcasts.

3. Misconception three: Is Kuaishou more suitable for selling "agricultural and sideline products" than Douyin?

Kuaishou’s support policies and old iron genes seem to be more suitable for the live broadcast environment of agricultural and sideline products and their places of origin. But since platforms such as Douyin and Toutiao launched the "Fight the Epidemic and Help Farmers" campaign, the situation has changed somewhat.

Data shows that since the "Fighting the Epidemic and Helping Farmers" campaign was launched on Toutiao, Xigua Video, and Douyin, it has helped match supply and demand information, facilitated companies' offline purchases of more than 4.51 million kilograms of agricultural products, and achieved a transaction volume of more than 10 million yuan; and helped sell 2.78 million pieces of agricultural products through the platform's online stores, worth about 113 million yuan.

Among the TOP10 live broadcast sales on the Douyin platform, about 80% of Douyin are direct sales products from the place of origin, while only 10% of Kuaishou are direct sales products from the place of origin, with daily necessities and food and beverages accounting for a relatively high proportion.

Due to the impact of the epidemic, the sales of many agricultural products and mountain products have been hindered. Therefore, Douyin has shifted a lot of traffic to the content marketing of such non-standard products, indirectly promoting the sales upgrade of non-standard products directly sold from the place of origin on Douyin.

4. Misconception 4: If you want to sell goods, you must find a top anchor?

The difference between the head and the middle waist lies in the flow rate. It is undeniable that the influence of the top self-media is definitely higher than that of the mid- and lower-level ones.

However, for products of different sizes and profits, and users with different attributes and fields, the top product is definitely not the most cost-effective. The biggest driving force behind live streaming sales is a large number of promotional discounts, and the top anchors will ask for bigger discounts. I believe that anyone who has watched live streaming with goods will buy something because of this sentence:

The market price of XX is 89 yuan, and today our selling price is 59 yuan, buy one get one free, buy one and get the same XX for free, get the coupon first and then get 10 yuan off, come on, let's count down to 54321!

This is the command that Wei Ya often uses during live broadcasts. She may shout it out sixty or seventy times during one night of live broadcasts. The reason why the products are sold out is that the logic behind it is the discount of the product itself. Traffic is gathered through a live broadcast, and a large amount of sales preparation is carried out.

The mid-level self-media are obviously better at "speaking".

The mid-level self-media cover more vertical fields, have a higher proportion of target users, and generally maintain better interactions with fans. There is a very critical factor here. The content produced by mid-level and lower-level people with the ability to bring goods is more focused. It is recommendation or grass-planting content for the category itself, and the purpose of fans' attention is very clear.

Especially for special categories such as maternal and child self-media, some of them are mothers, and they also use the recommended products themselves, so they generally have a higher sense of trust and a stronger sense of experience.

Conclusion

E-commerce live streaming is booming, and all methods are worth settling down and calming down.

1. Live streaming itself can be used for both selling goods and marketing. Although most brands only see the integration of live streaming and e-commerce, in future development, there will be more and more behaviors that convert sales power into brand influence, and it will become a battleground for brands.

2. The concepts of people, goods and place themselves are not important. What is important is the effective integration of people, goods and place in the live broadcast scenario. Before doing live streaming, brands need to think carefully about the senders and receivers on both ends of the live streaming. They should use sales clerks and bosses to influence inevitable users, and use self-media to influence occasional users. Appropriate self-media will help brands further expand their growth.

Brand/product maturity + profit incentives + "any seller" = can become popular; no brand/product maturity + live streaming by all employees + little profit incentives = useless effort. Any product can find a path to become popular, but practicing brand/product internal skills is the cornerstone.

A hit product depends on luck, but more importantly, it depends on strength. Only by truly understanding the changes in people, places, and goods can one occupy a position in the fierce competition among international domestic trends.

3. Product value = brand value + product value. In the video marketing ecosystem, live streaming and short videos are both indispensable. Short videos are like “perpetual motion machines” to promote products, while live streaming is like “stimulants” to sell goods. Through KOL promotion, we help brands quickly build trust and brand value.

In addition to live streaming, brands should have more diversified forms of information communication. Short videos can accumulate content and are an important way to circulate and promote brand influence. Brand value can be built long-term through short videos, and profits can be harvested through short-term live broadcast promotions. The two can be perfectly integrated.

Author: See the truth

Source: Jianshi

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