Tips and precautions for live streaming sales by internet celebrities!

I believe that "Li Jiaqi" and "Viya" are two names that everyone knows in today's marketing field.

The appearance of these two names is usually accompanied by various huge numbers, such as: XXX orders were sold in a few minutes, and a total of XXX billion was sold in a live broadcast.

In fact, it’s not just them. With the promotion of major e-commerce platforms and the rise of MCN agencies, a large number of so-called online influencers have emerged.

As business becomes increasingly difficult, the effect of top anchors like Li Jiaqi and Viya in bringing goods has a huge impact on the concepts of marketers: after spending millions of dollars on creative materials and media placement, the sales volume is not as good as that brought by others' 15-minute live broadcast.

Then what is the point of marketing?

This is why more and more brands are willing to line up to negotiate with the investment teams of these big anchors, because as long as they are selected to enter their live broadcast rooms, it means that the sales performance for the next quarter or even half a year will be stable.

In this way, many brand marketers, after tasting the sweetness once, began to become addicted to this anchor-led sales model: after completing it once, they would move on to the next time; since they could not afford top anchors like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, they would look for mid-level ones.

Can live streaming by internet celebrities really become the “savior” for brand sales?

Not really. I think this model is a bit like the martial arts practiced by the Golden Lion King Xie Xun in Jin Yong's "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber", called the "Seven Wound Fist". With the help of this boxing technique, Xie Xun's martial arts skills improved greatly, and he defeated Cheng Kun in the underground cave of Shaolin Temple and avenged his family. However, Xie Xun also suffered great physical damage from practicing the Seven Injury Fist.

Later, "Seven Injury Fist" was also used to describe those things that "hurt others and oneself".

The reason why the online live streaming sales model like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya is called the "Seven Injury Fist" is because it can bring huge benefits, but in the long run it will also cause "internal injuries" to the brand.

The good thing, as mentioned above, is that it can bring extraordinary sales performance in a very short period of time.

The underlying logic behind this is that the form of live streaming sales itself is an extreme manifestation of putting users in the "individual evaluation" shopping mode. The so-called "individual evaluation" can be simply understood as there are no other interference options, and users are only affected by your content at the moment.

Corresponding to this is when shopping on Taobao, when you search for an item you want to buy, many different options for “joint evaluation” will appear. The "content marketing" that is now passed on by word of mouth is essentially the product of "individual evaluation". From the early text and picture forms, to short videos, and then to the current live streaming, the real-time audio-visual interpretation plus real online interaction allow users to immerse themselves in the host's product recommendation.

Having talked about the good side of "live streaming with goods", let's talk more about the self-harming side of this "Seven Injury Fist", which can be divided into the following three parts:

1. Why would live streaming sales hurt yourself?
2. When is the best time to unleash its power?
3. How to minimize the damage it causes to yourself?

1. Why would live streaming sales hurt yourself?

1. The biggest driving force behind live streaming sales is a large number of promotional discounts. The more popular the anchor is, the bigger the discount he asks for.

I believe that anyone who has watched the live broadcast of selling goods will have their adrenaline rushing when hearing the following words:

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 people watching the live broadcast are excited is that the price is so cheap, it is not available at other times or even on Double 11!

Why is there such a big promotional discount?

This is all thanks to the strong investment and product selection team behind Weiya. They know very well that only with big enough discounts can they gain a growing number of live broadcast fans. When millions of fans follow you wholeheartedly, sales are guaranteed. There is a virtuous circle between them.

If brands want their products to appear in their live broadcast rooms, they must offer a large number of promotional discounts, and the top anchors will ask for bigger discounts.

I believe many people know about Li Jiaqi’s two incidents of scolding people during live broadcasts:

All the fans who bought the product just now returned it immediately and gave bad reviews. If you are my fans, you should listen to me!

The product that Li Jiaqi was talking about was the "Baichun Gift Box" that had just been linked a few minutes ago. The reason was that he saw a fan in the comment area found that the same SKU was sold cheaper by another anchor, and there was also a 5 yuan coupon - this anchor was Viya.

Another time was similar.

When Li Jiaqi was selling a Lancome set, he found that the price he got was 20 yuan higher than that of Wei Ya. Then he announced in the live broadcast room that he would "ban Lancome forever" and even "will no longer cooperate with any resources that give me Taobao pop-ups."

The reason for both incidents was that the brands did not give big enough discounts .

When these anchors become powerful to a certain extent, their ultimate goal is to have the "lowest price on the entire network", which has become a symbol of who is the number one anchor on Taobao.

For anchors who are not as powerful as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, merchants need to give a large number of promotional discounts in each live broadcast: no-threshold coupons, discounts for a certain amount, buy-one-get-one-free, and the worst case is the store’s existing promotional efforts - these have become one of the core means to stimulate live streaming sales.

And with the "store self-broadcasting" now officially promoted by Taobao: each store is equipped with a fixed anchor who does 5-6 hours of live broadcast every day. In the long run, the store can have a higher weight in the Taobao system.

This normalization of live streaming will undoubtedly help sales in the short term. But if you keep relying on promotional discounts to stimulate consumers to place orders, you will definitely be hurt in the long run.

2. Over-reliance on live streaming promotions, fewer and fewer consumers buy after prices return to normal

There is a famous "Aronson effect" in psychology:

When external stimuli decrease, people's attitudes often become more negative than when there was no external stimulus.

It’s actually very easy to understand. Brands can provide these anchors with a lot of promotional discounts, and they can also help you see amazing sales performance in the short term.

But invisibly you have cultivated a large number of consumers who are stimulated by external conditions, namely promotional discounts. They buy with the mentality of "getting a bargain". When external stimuli decrease, that is, when merchants return to normal prices, fewer and fewer consumers will buy.

Of course, you may argue that there are still some consumers who are not coming for promotional discounts, but are more attracted by the powerful appeal and professional product knowledge of anchors like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya.

That’s right. This is one of the methods I will talk about later on “how to minimize the damage caused by the Seven Injury Fist to yourself” - to strengthen the internal stimulation of consumers during the live broadcast, that is, to make them feel that the product can really meet their needs and bring a good user experience, and finally stimulate orders through the finishing touch of promotional discounts.

2. When is the best time to unleash its power?

Live streaming is like the "Seven Injury Fist" because it relies too much on promotional discounts to stimulate consumers.

But it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily bad for businesses to do promotions. It depends on the timing and purpose. If used properly, live streaming, a powerful form of content e-commerce, can play a huge role. Otherwise, it will "kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of your own."

Next, let’s talk about when is the best time to unleash the power of this “Seven Injury Fist”.

1. The promotion does have a selling point, but the user has a high threshold to try the product

If your company has a product that does have a selling point but is difficult for consumers to try, then you can consider finding these top anchors to help promote it for you by offering relatively large discounts.

The reason is that, compared with other competing products or substitutes, the quality of your product has improved, but the cost consumers have to pay to purchase it has also increased accordingly . This type of product is the most difficult to promote because it is difficult for consumers to perceive whether it is worth paying a higher cost for improved quality.

The other two situations are much simpler: one is that the quality is improved but the cost remains the same; the other is that the quality remains the same but the cost is reduced.

Therefore, for the above-mentioned products with high entry barriers, the best way is to make consumers feel that the cost has not increased at the beginning, while at the same time providing them with a better user experience.

Live broadcasts like those by Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya can achieve this effect. Not only do they have infectious explanations of the product selling points, allowing you to perceive the product selling points, but they also offer discounts that are hard for you to refuse, making the first attempt less complicated.

This situation actually applies not only to some new products, but also to the channel sinking that marketing is talking about now.

Products that sell well in first- and second-tier cities may not necessarily sell well in third- and fourth-tier cities because there is a consumption power threshold, even if they have potential consumption motivation. At this time, you can also consider using live streaming promotions to lower their threshold for trying the product. But the prerequisite is that your product has selling points for consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities and can stimulate their purchasing motivation.

2. When sacrificing a few products can attract traffic to the entire store

If you can use large promotional discounts on one or a few items to bring traffic to the entire store, then this situation is also very suitable for live streaming.

With UV in stores so expensive now, live streaming undoubtedly brings greater added value to stores. In this case, don't worry too much because once the price returns to normal, fewer and fewer people will buy it. Because our goal is more to use the "sacrifice" of these few products to attract more traffic into the store, thereby bringing more conversion value.

Of course, the most important premise in this case is to ensure the acceptance of store goods . This includes joint sales of live broadcast promotional products and other products, thresholds for promotional discounts, purchasing rights for other mid-range products, etc.

Otherwise it will be like the following real case:

A certain beauty brand invited Li Jiaqi to do a live broadcast, and the benefit they offered was that a lipstick originally priced at 100 yuan was sold for only 60 yuan in his live broadcast room. In the end, this lipstick sold a total of 10,000 pieces, but the sales revenue was only 600,000, which might not even cover the cost of hiring him to do the live broadcast.

——This is a typical situation where a store fails to plan well for merchandise sales, resulting in “sacrificing the small self” but failing to “achieve the big self”.

3. When the final sales volume has a decisive impact on you

There is another situation that is more suitable for unleashing the power of live streaming's "Seven Wounds Fist", that is when sales are important enough to have a decisive effect on you and will affect your overall situation in the next step.

For example, Double 11 is approaching. People who are familiar with the rhythm of e-commerce know that the pre-sale period for Double 11 is between October 20 and October 30. The most important rule for merchants during the pre-sale period is the horse racing mechanism. Products that sell well during this period will be given better resource slots at the venue by the platform in the subsequent warm-up and explosion stages. Therefore, sales volume becomes particularly important at this time.

Another example is the brand-led e-commerce marketing activities such as Tmall Super Brand Day and Gathering Day, which have been more common in recent years. They also have strict considerations on sales volume, which are usually ranked in the top 3 of the year.

Because brands and platforms have invested a lot of resources in such activities, if the results are far from the intended goals, it will not be what both parties want. At this time, based on your sales target breakdown, you can carry out some large-scale live streaming sales in a targeted manner.

Another situation where sales volume will play a decisive role is when one wants to capture market share in a short period of time .

For example, in an industry with particularly fierce competition, you need to occupy the first place in the market and make consumers think that you are the leader; or some companies that have just raised funds need to let investors see market sales feedback in a short period of time - at these times, live streaming can give full play to the power of its "Seven Injury Fist".

3. How to minimize the damage to yourself?

Now that we understand that live streaming is the "Seven Injury Fist" and know when is the best time to unleash its power, let's talk about how to minimize the damage it causes to ourselves.

The main harm of the current live streaming sales model to brands is that long-term and large promotional discounts will create an external stimulus for consumers, that is, they will regard "getting a bargain" as the reason for their purchase.

This external stimulus will create dependence, and once prices return to normal, consumers will lose purchases and even their love for the brand.

So, there are two fundamental ways to reduce this damage:

One is to reduce external stimulation and instead use internal stimulation as much as possible, that is, the selling points of the product itself arouse your needs and then guide you to place an order;

The other is to "rationalize" external stimuli, that is, these promotional discounts are not given to you for no reason, they must be given for a reason.

Of these two approaches, the second one will be easier to achieve in the short term.

1. Reduce external stimulation as much as possible and enhance the strong advantage of live broadcast itself in promoting content

The so-called reduction of external stimuli does not mean completely canceling promotional discounts during live broadcasts, but rather returning more to the powerful advantages of live broadcast itself as the most infectious form of content planting, as well as the extremely short path from planting to harvesting.

As mentioned in the first part: there are still some users who watch live broadcasts who are attracted by the selling points of the products explained by the anchor, and then buy them when they see that there is a discount today.

What we need to do is to try to guide the model of watching live broadcasts with goods in this direction: first stimulate purchasing motivation with product selling points, and then reap the benefits with promotional discounts.

Instead of putting the cart before the horse, like most anchors, after introducing the product in a few words, they start by saying, "Hey babies, this is really cheap today, only xxx, come and place your order."

Of course, it is not easy to achieve this, because there are thousands of e-commerce anchors and their levels vary greatly. We cannot expect them to become like Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya overnight and have super strong grass-planting and harvesting abilities in live broadcasts.

The following two points can be slowly learned by anchors:

1) Thoroughly explain the core selling points

In order to impress users who watch the live broadcast, Li Jiaqi, in addition to real-life demonstrations to demonstrate his professionalism, also prepares a variety of interesting performances to showcase features related to the core selling points of the products.

For example, once in order to illustrate how sturdy and durable a suitcase is, he actually stepped on the suitcase and jumped up in the live broadcast room. The scene became very interesting. Not only did it make the selling point clear, but it also kept users watching. The longer the stay time, the more likely it is that they will make a purchase.

2) A sufficiently excited live broadcast state

Anyone who has watched Li Jiaqi, Viya, or other top e-commerce anchors can feel that they are always in a state of excitement during their live broadcasts. When users see them making passionate recommendations, they are more likely to be aroused. With the help of the final discount information, emotions are pushed to a climax and purchase is not far away.

2. “Rationalize” external stimuli and give unique names or reasons to promotional discounts in live broadcasts

Another relatively simple way to reduce damage, which brands can control themselves, is to "rationalize" external stimuli and give unique names or reasons to promotional discounts in live broadcasts.

This approach will make consumers think: Oh, so this is the reason why they have promotional discounts, it’s not always available.

There are several ways to "rationalize" promotional discounts during live broadcasts:

1) Specific time point

For example: brand anniversary, super brand day/gathering day, Double 11, World Cup championship...

When the anchor tells users that the brand has prepared discounts for everyone because of these specific time points, it will reduce consumers' long-term dependence on promotional discounts.

2) Special behavioral requirements

For example: this benefit in the live broadcast is only available to brand members. Users can receive large coupons after following the store; users who add items to the shopping cart now can enjoy direct discounts in 5 minutes; when the number of users watching the live broadcast reaches 1 million, the brand will issue a red envelope of 10,000 yuan, and everyone needs to invite more users to enter the live broadcast room...

The above-mentioned special behavioral requirements can not only externally stimulate the "rationalization" of promotional discounts, but sometimes also reap added value, such as the number of store fans, the number of added purchases, and the number of UVs entering the store.

3) Specific products

Tell consumers during the live broadcast that promotional discounts are only for a small number of specific products, such as off-season models, trial packs, limited-size models, etc., which will reduce consumers' long-term dependence on external stimuli.

Summarize

This article mainly talks about three things: How internet celebrities live-stream sales of goods should remember the "Seven Injury Fist", when is the best time to exert its power, and how to minimize the damage to themselves.

When you see that everyone is looking for top internet celebrities such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya to do e-commerce live broadcasts, and you can't help but be eager to try it, I hope you can clearly understand your purpose and choose the right time, and use the methods mentioned in the article to minimize the damage to yourself.

Author: JS Planner

Source: JS Planner