How to sell goods through live streaming using virtual IP!

According to statistics, after the outbreak of the epidemic, an average of 30,000 people opened online stores every day, and the number of merchants entering live broadcasts increased explosively by 700%. This is data from just one month ago. Live streaming to sell goods has become an industry that has become completely popular due to the epidemic, and the CEO of Ctrip has even worn women's clothing to go live .

This live streaming sales event is truly a nationwide event , with a large number of grassroots individuals, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, all walks of life and even local governments joining in. The reason why there are few large companies and big brands entering the market is simply because the companies are large and it takes time from decision-making to execution.

The cause is definitely not just the epidemic - as early as 2019, which seemed like a different world due to the epidemic, the sales volume created by top live broadcasts such as Wei Ya, Li Jiaqi, and Simba was already extremely shocking, as if every day was Double Eleven.

By 2020, with the successive participation of teachers such as Luo Yonghao, celebrities such as Fan Bingbing and Li Xiaolu, and celebrity hosts of CCTV, as well as the personal sales of goods by leaders of various places and the personal support of national leaders, live streaming sales have been pushed to a peak.

However, the sudden popularity of an industry may not necessarily be a good thing for you, as it will definitely be followed by a red ocean, as you know .

The Red Ocean means: you are full of enthusiasm to be a trend-setter, but it is more likely to be bubbles and leeks.

This is because, according to the current rules of the game, large platforms control the distribution rights of most traffic, and top internet celebrities control most of the popularity and attention, which will only reduce the profits of companies to lower and even negative numbers, thus turning live streaming into a short-term marketing behavior for companies, and the initiative is no longer in the hands of the companies.

A good industry ecology should be——

• An ecosystem where the long tail is long enough and most small and medium-sized players can grow stably and happily.
• Most live streaming sales should be vertical and in-depth, and can be controlled by the majority of companies themselves.
• Live streaming to sell goods should not just be about losing money to gain publicity, it should also enable companies to make stable profits, promote brand growth, and develop user relationships.

However, it is difficult to achieve the above-mentioned good ecology, because live streaming with goods is not suitable for everyone and most people cannot do it.

Most people don’t have the qualities to actively attract traffic through livestreaming sales. There are only a handful of people who can become popular through livestreaming, and it may not be you.

Most companies may not be able to find someone who is suitable and popular enough to do live streaming. Even if they do find one, they are worried that this person will go solo because they cannot be trained well enough.

Therefore, the vast majority of live broadcast profits will naturally be earned by the power alliance of large platforms and top internet celebrities, and most of the rest are just giving away money, losing money, not making money. It is difficult to sustain something for long if it does not make money.

The biggest difficulty here is the people doing the live broadcast . Because it is very difficult to find a live streamer who is so excellent that he stands out from the crowd, but the live streaming e-commerce industry is a field where being merely excellent is not enough, one must stand out from the crowd.

So companies will be troubled, should they do it or not? If you don't do it, you will lose new and future sales channels. If you want to do it, you can't find the right person. Even if you find someone, you may not be able to keep him, unless the boss himself is good at it. But business owners who are good at managing and running a business and good at live streaming and sensationalism are really rare. You can't let such a boss sell goods every day and not do his job, right?

MCN companies are also very distressed . It is said that there are more MCN companies on the market than popular anchors. More than 70% of MCN companies have no successful cases. Successful MCN companies often only rely on one or two popular live broadcasters to survive.

How to solve the problem of live broadcasters? It's difficult.

Because people are inherently uncontrollable and unshaped (a person's personality is basically shaped when he or she is over 18 years old), a live streamer who is outstanding and stands out from the crowd must be an extremely scarce resource, and in this era, he or she must be able to start his or her own business or have the entire company revolve around him or her .

Lao Xiaoge now proposes a solution. It is indeed possible to open up your own small blue ocean and independent island in the red ocean of live streaming. This is -

Virtual IP live streaming

It is to use virtual cartoon characters, rather than just real people, to conduct live streaming and sell goods, and solve many unsolvable difficulties that only rely on live streaming by excellent real people.

The virtual IP live streaming is already happening and may become a trend and outlet, because -

1. Some of the effects are pretty good;
2. Costs are falling rapidly;
3. Big platforms are paying attention and starting to tilt their policies.

Let me tell you one by one. (I have been following this trend for several months and would like to share the situation with you. Whether it is a company, an individual or a platform, it is possible to benefit from it)

01 Virtual IP live broadcast is more controllable than real-person live broadcast

A virtual IP must belong to the company that developed it, but of course individuals can also develop their own virtual IP.

A virtual IP will not change jobs at will, will not be difficult to train (it can definitely be trained by itself), will not have bad scandals or negative events, will not get sick, lose temper, or get tired, and can even broadcast live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Virtual IPs are naturally popular among young people and females, who are the core purchasing force, and are prone to impulse purchases. Moreover, virtual IP can do more things, such as becoming the spokesperson for a company and even developing derivative products.

In terms of controllability, long-term sustainability and lack of risk, virtual IP live broadcasts are definitely better than real people.

Of course, the charm of real anchors is still not necessarily something that virtual IPs can achieve. Sometimes unexpected events can also help real anchors become more popular.

Moreover, it is easier for real people to pick up real products and sell them than virtual IPs. These are the shortcomings of virtual IPs.

Therefore, the most popular and effective method now is actually——

Real person + virtual IP host together

This way, you can have the best of both worlds by combining the advantages of real people and virtual IPs.

Let everyone truly understand:

This is the live broadcast of real people + virtual IP. It is worthwhile to use Douyin, and the effect is quite good. Not only does it increase a lot of fans, but also it can bring in at least 300,000 or 400,000 yuan in revenue for each show.

This is a live broadcast of a big international brand, KFC uncle interacting with real people.

This is what I think is the best virtual IP + live interaction at the moment, with the fine animation of the tabby cat and the seamless integration and smoothness of interaction with real people.

This is pure virtual IP live broadcast with the lowest cost.

This is a little Zen monk who crossed over to Taobao Live and appeared with real people. Hundreds of books were sold out in seconds.

This is a live broadcast of Mengya Bear with real people on TikTok, which has gained very good reputation.

This was an interactive live broadcast between Luo Tianyi and Li Jiaqi, which attracted a lot of attention, and of course there were some technical errors.

In short, if a real person + virtual IP are hosting the show together, they can actually solve many troubling problems by complementing each other and working together.

If three cobblers are worth one Zhuge Liang, then real people + virtual IP are at least worth one big internet celebrity, and there is no limit to future development .

At least, the real-life anchor does not have to be outstanding , as long as it is pretty good . This greatly reduces the difficulty of being a real-life anchor, and it will not be controlled by the real person, and it will be easy to replace people because there is a virtual IP to support it in the long run .

02 The cost of virtual IP live broadcast is greatly reduced

Cost is very critical. Everyone must think that virtual IP live broadcast must be very expensive, but in fact, things are changing.

More than a year ago, when I was thinking about virtual IP live broadcast, I checked the market price and found that it would cost at least several million to do it.

But within this year, as live streaming became more and more popular, the cost of live streaming with virtual IPs also plummeted. Before the Spring Festival, the cost of live streaming with virtual IPs had dropped to hundreds of thousands of yuan, or even more than 100,000 yuan.

Nowadays, the cost is even cheaper. The cost of a virtual IP live broadcast, done in the simplest way, has dropped to more than 10,000 yuan, which is easily affordable.

The annual software rental fee and equipment purchase for a virtual IP live broadcast only cost more than RMB 10,000

This is what I discovered after actually visiting a number of technology solution companies and seeing the results, and the results are actually quite good, at least for most ordinary small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals, it is definitely sufficient .

I would like to make it clear that I am not a technology company, and this price of more than 10,000 is not the price of one company, but can be done by several companies, and it is very likely that in a month or two, this cost will drop to -

In the near future, it will only cost a few thousand yuan!

This is true. With the surge in live streaming, the price of live streaming with virtual IP images is plummeting and will soon become a popular, standard product. These are all done proactively by technology companies, and of course, there may be capital support behind them.

Now these companies are seeking a new round of financing and have attracted the attention of many capitals. Once capital is invested in, it will not be a problem to promote the expansion of new trends and a sharp drop in price costs. It is even possible to enter open source and zero-cost technical services. At the same time, the relevant hardware costs will also be reduced to the lowest by the omnipotent Huaqiangbei.

I would like to add here that the basic costs of virtual IP live streaming are divided into three parts: software leasing, hardware investment, and animation assets.

Now the cost of software leasing and hardware investment has been greatly reduced.

The animation assets of each virtual IP will not be expensive. If it is just a cute two-dimensional animated character, the preparation of animation assets will only cost a few thousand to more than ten thousand yuan, and the animation assets of a three-dimensional character will only cost tens of thousands of yuan.

As long as the above points are met, a virtual IP live broadcast can be activated at any time. There is no need to slowly make animations, and the output of the animation live broadcast will be uninterrupted.

When the time, cycle and cost of the most troublesome animation production are greatly reduced, live broadcast of virtual IP will definitely be a piece of cake .

In the future, every company and even individual can easily develop their own virtual IP and achieve uninterrupted live broadcast.

Of course, what will be truly high-priced and priceless in the future is the design and planning capabilities of virtual IPs and the content power of live broadcasts. This is the high value of wisdom .

03 Virtual IP live broadcast is attracting great attention from the platform

The latest situation is that Taobao Live has announced that it will focus on supporting virtual IP live broadcast. At the internal meeting "Taobao Live MCN Organization Conference" held recently, Taobao announced that among the four major MCN tracks, virtual anchors, as the main carrier of the two-dimensional track, Taobao will provide key support.

At the same time, Douyin and Kuaishou are significantly increasing the live broadcast volume of virtual IPs.

As the number one powerhouse of the two-dimensional world, although Bilibili has not yet opened up virtual live streaming to sell goods, the live performances of its virtual idols have long been in full swing. For details, please refer to the article forwarded by IP Danchaofan half a month ago: "The virtual live streaming storm set off by Bilibili."

This is a live broadcast selling event of a two-dimensional virtual idol held on Taobao Live. It is the first time in history and its advantages and disadvantages are very obvious.

This is a live broadcast of a two-dimensional virtual idol hosted on TikTok

This is the virtual IP live broadcast attempted by CCTV's Sa Beining's "Let's Talk" program on Bilibili. In addition, Maoyan is also trying to use virtual IP for live streaming and selling goods. The last time I went to Maoyan to attend a live class, I talked about this topic with them.

Others such as Pinduoduo are entering the live streaming market, and Momo, Kugou, Huya, etc. have also already made huge efforts in live streaming. Therefore, it is entirely foreseeable that virtual IP live streaming will soon enter the platforms where these young people are most active, and some large-scale show live streaming will also use virtual anchors. I think in the future, WeChat, Meituan, Baidu and others will also join the market.

In short, various platforms are paying great attention to virtual IP live streaming and providing policy support.

04 The success and shortcomings of virtual IP live broadcast

Although there are some good cases, the shortcomings of virtual IP live broadcast are still obvious. In short, they are as follows:

1. For virtual IPs that become famous through their content, live streaming to sell goods is only suitable for occasional use, rather than frequent use. This is the conclusion I came to after directly interviewing several popular virtual IPs.
2. The effect of live streaming sales by 2D idols does not seem to be very good at the moment, which has a lot to do with the fact that 2D idols have not yet become popular. Perhaps two-dimensional virtual idols are still more suitable for doing virtual idol work, and live streaming to sell goods is only done occasionally.
3. Some companies use their mascot IPs that were originally made into emoticons to conduct virtual live streaming to sell goods, but the results are not good enough so far. I think this is because the application scenario of live streaming to sell goods was not fully considered when these IPs were initially designed, so they are not very well matched.

In this regard, I had a heated discussion with several technology providers and the latest virtual MCN-focused companies in the IP Fried Rice group. Everyone generally believed that -

A new type of virtual IP that will soon be born specifically for virtual live streaming will be created specifically for new scenarios. It has powerful virtual live streaming sales capabilities and distinct vertical industry attributes.

Therefore, if you want to make the live streaming of virtual IPs successful, you still need to design and create new ones, or find virtual IPs that have strong sales attributes.

Currently, the most successful virtual IP + live broadcast selling products by real people is Bu Bai Chi . This is because Bu Bai Chi itself is a virtual IP and its content focuses on snack knowledge. Therefore, it is very suitable for live broadcast selling products and it is easy to be accepted by the audience.

Live streaming sales not only do not take advantage of IP, but also bring about multiple growth in fans, traffic, and revenue.

According to Lao Xu, who owns Good Things in Your Palm, this is the most unified virtual IP for people, goods and places. The virtual IPs that will be very successful in the future must be highly integrated with people, goods, and places.

Lao Xiaoge believes that the “people, goods, and place” of virtual IP live streaming sales, “people” refers to the settings and emotional charm of the virtual IP, not real people; goods refer to items, which must have clear category attributes; and place refers to the scene, which is about what kind of shopping + IP atmosphere is created?

These can all be recreated and innovated again. This world is not only about models like Viya, Li Jiaqi, and Luo Yonghao . Not only that, in the future every real person will be able to cooperate with virtual IP to achieve a full integration of three-dimensional and two-dimensional.

05 Scenario Application of Virtual IP Live Broadcast

The future of virtual IP live streaming is actually very broad, and it goes far beyond just live streaming with goods.

These are several scenarios summarized by Lao Xiaoge:

1. Virtual live streaming sales: This is currently the most popular scenario and also the one that can best help companies with sales.
2. Virtual live lectures: This is an educational scenario, which can be applied to industries such as education, training, and museums. In fact, virtual IP has already been used.
3. Virtual live tour guide: This is a cultural and tourism scenario, suitable for use in various scenic spots, museums, exhibitions, etc. Virtual IP has been used before, but it is still very basic and there is a lot of room for improvement.
4. Virtual live broadcast of news and emergencies: This is the scenario of media and information, and it also has huge application prospects.
5. Virtual live broadcast of e-sports, etc.: This is the scene of games and e-sports, which is very suitable for virtual IP. For example, a game can completely use its popular characters for live broadcast.
6. Virtual live performances: This is actually the earliest large-scale application scenario of virtual live broadcasts, including large-scale virtual idol performances from Hatsune Miku, Kizuna AI, Hoshi Street Comet, and China's Luo Tianyi. These performances have already been widely launched and have generated high amounts of rewards or ticket revenues around the world, and have developed into various derivative products. On the contrary, domestically, development is still far from enough.

In short, the application scenarios of virtual IP live streaming will become wider and wider, far more than just selling goods.

Therefore, if companies prepare for virtual IP live broadcast now, it is really the best time, and this will really be a new window.

This is far more interesting than a company creating an IP image and then only being able to make emoticons, short cartoons, and short videos. It also has much greater integration with business and is much more deeply integrated with corporate operations.

With the popularization of virtual IP live broadcast, the sharp decline in related costs, the enrichment of application scenarios, and the integration of products, IP, content, and brands, the new enterprise era has begun.

Author: Chen Gray

Source: IP Fried Rice (ID: IPCOOK)