Taobao Live: 90% of brands’ large-scale self-entertainment live pictures!

Weibo in 2015, WeChat in 2016, Xiaohongshu in 2017, Douyin in 2018, and then to the "first year of Taobao Live " in 2019, this bonus channel that has been accumulated for several years has finally taken the C position in e-commerce sales under the leadership of Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, creating a new incremental market of hundreds of billions of yuan.

In this year's Double 11 battle, Taobao Live has become a standard for merchants to sell goods and has been raised to an unprecedented level. According to data officially released by Taobao, on the first day of the Double 11 pre-sale this year, transactions guided by Taobao Live increased 15 times year-on-year.

The flowers are so numerous that they are dazzling. Under this national enthusiasm, various celebrities and stars have joined the live broadcast market to seize the dividends of the live broadcast trend. For a time, it seems that wherever there is Internet, there will be a live broadcast room.

So, with traffic conversion becoming increasingly difficult today, is live streaming really a life-saving straw to solve brand anxiety? With such soul-searching questions, I would like to share my views with you through today’s article.

What is the essence of the popularity of Taobao Live?

If you look at it from the perspective of brand communication, you will find that the essence of communication is surrounded by three mutually reinforcing ponds:

On one side is the traffic pool (consumers)
One side is the brand (product pool)
One side is the channel (consumption scenario)

Those are the people, goods and places we often talk about.

In the marketing environment of the past, any product that required a serious decision required a long period of education and promotion for users, with various TV and outdoor advertisements, massive review articles, and a round-the-clock bombardment of various websites and apps.

In this process, the brand side has invested a huge amount of time and cost, there are too many uncontrollable factors in the middle, and there are many blind spots in data monitoring. This uncertainty makes the brand feel unsure about the money they have invested. "I know that half of my advertising expenses are wasted, but I don't know which half is wasted."

With this opportunity, the expansion of new territories of live streaming e-commerce has made anchors gradually become a lever to leverage new business.

When the "Queen of Taobao Live" Viya sold goods worth 220 million yuan in one live broadcast, and when Li Jiaqi's "Oh my God" sold out many lipsticks and emptied the wallets of countless people, they are channels. If calculated based on sales per unit time, Viya and Li Jiaqi have stronger channel capabilities than any offline supermarket in China.

What they do is to build an attractive consumption scenario by providing real-time interactive video content, so that people in the traffic pool can pay as much attention as possible to, trust, and ultimately buy products in another pool.

With the flood of global traffic, this undoubtedly sends a tempting signal to the platform, especially the merchants. Taobao Live is the shortest path to visual monetization.

In other words, the short, flat and fast nature of Taobao Live has made some companies realize: where exactly is the money they invested in advertising going? How many sales conversions did it bring? It shortens the path for merchants to monetize their spending: it helps brands complete the short marketing chain from volume to sales, and from planting grass to pulling grass in a live broadcast room.

From the consumer's perspective, Taobao Live is essentially a large-scale Juhuasuan event with a very high cost-effectiveness. After all, no one wants to buy goods of the same quality at a higher price, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

Low-price traffic generation is a golden rule that never goes out of date, and the anchors who are well versed in this have taken it to the extreme.

If you observe Li Jiaqi's live broadcast, you will find that in addition to demonstrating the effectiveness of the products on site, he spends most of his time repeatedly brainwashing users that his live broadcast special prices are lower than those of 618, Double 11, lower than the Thai version, lower than Taobao, and lower than duty-free shops. Not only are the prices low, but there are even a lot of gifts.

In a word, the products in his live broadcast room are directly monopolized by Li Jiaqi at the lowest price in all channels. You will not find lower prices in other channels than in his live broadcast room.

Just imagine that a super discount combination of low discount, limited quantity, limited time + gift pack is thrown on your head at the same time, and it will be gone once you leave the live broadcast room. Who can bear this? Under such a consensus, no matter you are Li Jiaqi's "all girls" or "Viya's woman", as long as you click in, it seems difficult to get out with the RMB in your wallet.

Some people may be confused after reading this. In this case, why don’t merchants just sell their products at a discount?

Is it really that simple? No.

The new generation of consumers born after 1995 and 2000 have become indifferent in an environment of information explosion because they have been exposed to online information since childhood. Generally, “low-density pleasure points” cannot stimulate them at all.

The new generation of young people have an increasing tolerance and demand for stimulation in their brains. In other words, the users' minds are rapidly iterating, and consumers are even too lazy to click on 50% off coupons that merchants directly put in front of their faces.

Taobao Live is different. It pushes sellers to the forefront during the product sales process. When consumers browse Taobao, the conversation changes from "a dialogue between products and people" to "a dialogue between people." When a product is spoken by the anchor, it can easily give users a strong sense of immersion and a sense of tension and scarcity.

As a veteran online shopper, I have carefully studied Li Jiaqi's quotations. I have to say that Li Jiaqi's words in the live broadcast room really touched the sweet spots in the hearts of countless women, and they were continuous and intensive, one link after another.

For example, cosmetics are about creating dreams, and Li Jiaqi is good at covering the dreams in the bottle with a layer of beauty for you to see:

"It feels like first love. The texture is very moist, delicate and smooth, with a light peach scent. A must-buy for ladies!"
"And it's a limited edition color, VELVET VIOLET, with a plum jam purple tone. It looks super elegant. You'll be a lady when you put it on!"
"This is the rotten tomato color that every girl must have. It is not picky at all and makes the skin look brighter."

The theme is clear and strong, coupled with the soul-stirring phrase "OMG", almost all women are wiped out.

On the other hand, the non-stop welfare offensive in the live broadcast room makes people powerless to resist. Almost all anchors will maintain good interaction with fans during live broadcasts by answering fans' questions, holding lucky draws by swiping the screen, etc. Like a magic trick, the anchors have made the act of "placing an order" easier, allowing the benefits of live streaming to be "magnified".

Does this scenario of selling goods by lowering prices through traffic sound familiar to you? Isn’t it the Pinduoduo model of “buying goods in groups at a lower price”? It is the same cycle of "more people, lower prices; lower prices, more people", and the same hope for lower prices. The two are very similar in the nature of selling goods.

Celebrities’ entry into e-commerce live streaming suffered a disastrous defeat

As the Taobao live streaming industry becomes more and more lively, opportunities seem to be emerging everywhere. Driven by traffic and profits, many celebrities have crossed over to join the live streaming e-commerce lineup.

But where attention is focused, or where traffic is concentrated, money does not necessarily follow. Many celebrities have failed and been mocked for not being able to sell goods. For example, Li Xiang, Wang Zulan and others have frequently encountered the Waterloo of zero sales.

When it comes to selling products, doesn’t the celebrity effect work? I tried to disassemble it:

Whether a celebrity promotes a product or not actually has no direct relationship with his or her absolute fame.

Artists themselves are a kind of commodity, with a positioning and a business model. But when a professional actor suddenly starts selling goods through live broadcasts, or when a host dressed in all big brands suddenly starts selling rice, flour, grain and oil, what is presented in front of the camera is more of a sense of acclimatization and disharmony.

Out of curiosity, I watched a few episodes of Li Xiang's live broadcasts. When introducing the products, she mostly relied on the "prompter". When she looked directly at the camera, she mostly said empty words such as "this is really easy to use". The whole live broadcast really felt like she was just doing nothing.

If she was just selling luxury goods, it might be okay, and she could say that she was using affordable products privately. But in this case, the contradiction arises. Wearing sparkling diamond rings and brand-name watches... gives people the feeling that she is just playing around.

As a consumer, can you imagine the wealthy lady Li Xiang earnestly recommending products to you and saying things like “Take away all for 1,350 yuan, and become a wealthy lady for less than two yuan”?

Secondly, countless facts have proved that even celebrities with high traffic and popularity may not be able to go far when promoting their own brands.

The star effect can help his brand go from 0 to 1, but whether it can go from 1 to 10 depends on the strength of the team behind it. Supply chain, brand building and operations are all indispensable. You can’t go long-term just by relying on temporary traffic harvesting.

Otherwise, look at the endings of celebrities opening restaurants, selling hot sauce, selling clothes, and opening milk tea shops. How many of them are only popular for a while and then disappear. The dead silent stores and low sales make you wonder where those crazy fans who were crying out to be harvested went?

Of course, there are also cases where sales are guaranteed when celebrities bring goods, but in all of them, the celebrities are responsible for the appearance, the anchors are busy shouting to sell the goods, the brand is deployed across the board to accumulate popularity, the operation is refined to connect the traffic, and finally, the lowest price on the entire network must be added. The whole process is indispensable.

Therefore, brands should not be superstitious about celebrity live streaming to sell products, otherwise they will encounter many pitfalls along the way.

The ceiling of Taobao Live

When we discuss Taobao Live, we are only discussing the tip of the iceberg.

It is true that the current status of Taobao Live seems to be fertile ground and a blue ocean in the eyes of practitioners and capital parties entering the market. So, is there no ceiling for Taobao Live?

First of all, the audience of e-commerce live streaming is narrow. For example, even ten thousand Li Jiaqis cannot handle one straight man.

The Li Jiaqi live broadcast failure incident some time ago is a good example.

Let's restore the scene. At that time, Li Jiaqi was selling a set of high-end men's skin care products in the live broadcast room. He spent ten minutes frantically recommending it to all girls, hoping that they would buy it for their boyfriends or even brothers. However, the answer he got was: he doesn't deserve it.

This also indicates that even Li Jiaqi, who is regarded as the god of selling goods by thousands of online shopping girls, will be rubbed on the ground if he wants to do business as a man.

Secondly, the most criticized thing about live shopping is that it takes really long... long... long... You know, with the fast pace of life today, unless users are extremely bored, it will be a test of their patience and time cost to let them spend four or five hours in front of the screen to watch a long Amway promotion.

Data is the best evidence. If you look at the viewing data of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast in the past month, you will find that there was only a viewing peak on the Double 11 pre-sale day. After that, it was as if we had returned to the time before liberation overnight.

Furthermore, some hosts’ content is so monotonous throughout the entire show that you are unable to complain, and the entire scene is like a large-scale rap promotion. After watching a few shows, once the novelty wore off, I just xxed in the upper right corner.

Finally, the path to success of top anchors such as Viya and Li Jiaqi is difficult to replicate.

For example, Li Jiaqi’s success is largely because his characteristics are very well matched to the field of beauty live streaming. His fluent and natural expression and incitement, as well as his dedication and hard work that have been praised by everyone in the circle of friends recently, make Li Jiaqi an "unique case" in the field of live streaming.

Whether it is Viya or Li Jiaqi, behind this phenomenon is a cliff-like gap in their ability to bring goods on the list.

It seems that no one will deny that the top anchors and merchants take up 80% of the industry's profits, while many merchants often cannot afford the top anchors.

The dilemma of some niche brands can also be seen everywhere, where the input and output are not proportional. Even if you invite internet celebrities to do live broadcast promotion, the retention rate is very low. People only recognize the person, not the brand, and the goose passes by without leaving a trace.

Brand power is the long-term moat

There is no doubt that live streaming with goods is popular, but it is only the anchors who have become popular, while the merchants are constantly coming in and have become a sacrifice of love.

Here I would like to pour a bucket of cold water on all the merchants who are flocking to Taobao Live. Taobao Live can bring you temporary traffic harvest, but it can also easily lead to your death from the self-satisfaction of short-term fishing for big fish.

After all, in the live broadcast room, neither the brand nor the popularity of the anchor is the key, the price is the most sensitive issue. It is like a feather, teasing consumers with low prices, stimulating their adrenaline, and causing them to place orders on "impulsive impulse".

Most consumers buy products promoted by influencers for the sake of novelty and cheapness. This is a typical behavior of a group of "traffic users" taking advantage of the situation. When you are no longer cheap, she will lose motivation to consume after the novelty wears off. Therefore, most girls who watched Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast said they wanted to buy something, but have you seen the repurchase rate brought about by their short-term purchases?

Let’s take a look at the brands that ranked top in the Double 11 pre-sale rankings. What I want to say is that you should not only look at the glamorous surface of these brands, but also dig deep into the essence of the hard work behind their brands that has been accumulated over the years.

Take what I shared last time, "In-depth | Pre-sales exceeded 500 million in 25 minutes, I broke down the #Estee Lauder Double 11 Marketing Strategy# for you! 》For example, even a company as strong as Estee Lauder has laid out a tight network for its advertising: endorsements by top-tier celebrities + recommendations by top internet celebrities + intensive recommendations by mid-level influencers + unprecedented preferential benefits, which allowed it to have the last laugh in the fierce battle on Double 11.

Not to mention that Estee Lauder has been deeply involved in other channels for many years, such as TVC and outdoor billboards. Through repeated exposure to simple information, it allows consumers to remember the brand and empower product consumption. It has done a good job both in the depth and breadth of brand marketing and has truly strong brand assets.

As someone who has been through this, this is what I have always emphasized: brands should not be superstitious about ROI and require that a certain amount of money must be produced for every penny invested. This is actually ridiculous. If you think in terms of ROI, you won't do something just because it doesn't bring you direct money. Well, I’m sorry, in the short term, the explosion of content + KOL is strictly speaking about sales, not branding.

So, don’t be obsessed with Taobao Live. What Taobao Live can provide is “an extra piece of firewood”. It cannot provide timely assistance, but it is more of icing on the cake. Its ability to bring goods is not a myth. As a step in the closed loop of the marketing ecosystem, it is just a part of traffic conversion in the brand solution.

The conversion effect does not come without a source, the source is "brand building".

Therefore, selling goods still needs to return to the essence of consumption. Your products must be good, your brand must be able to occupy the minds of users for a long time, and constantly building a brand moat is the kingly way.

Summarize

Finally, I would like to say this to the merchants who are immersed in the high ROI effect drugs and cannot extricate themselves: the brand strategy is based on a three-dimensional, long-term educational process behind the product. Only by persisting in sowing, watering, and fertilizing can you finally bloom, bear fruit, and have a good harvest.

Author: Sister Mulan

Source: Mulanjie (mulanjie-)