Analysis of user operation strategies of Taobao Live

Since its launch in 2016, Taobao Live has firmly occupied half of the live streaming marketing and has helped the marketing and promotion of products. The article starts from the user target of Taobao Live and analyzes its operation strategy.

Since 2015, China has started the first live broadcast of games. Combining mobile payment, Taobao seized the opportunity and began the exploratory stage of live streaming marketing in the same year. As of the end of 2015, although no results have been seen yet, market sniffers represented by Jack Ma believe that live streaming will become a popular commercial method in the future, directly linked to Taobao's sales.

Sure enough, since its launch in 2016, Taobao Live has firmly occupied half of the live streaming marketing; and for Alibaba itself, from the Double Eleven data disclosed in 2019, it can be seen that Tmall’s total transaction volume was 268.4 billion yuan, and Taobao Live brought in nearly 20 billion yuan in transactions, as high as 7.45%.

1. [Taobao Live] What is the core appeal of user operations ?

Taobao Live is positioned as a "consumer live broadcast" and as one of Taobao's marketing methods, it mainly targets four types of e-commerce customers:

The first category is customers who do not have time to research product types and details and buy based on recommendations from others. While the anchor is broadcasting live, he or she will also introduce the background of the product, the target audience, its pros and cons, etc. It is faster and easier to directly choose the products sold through live broadcast than for customers to spend time "doing their homework" themselves.

The second category is customers who have questions about the product and are hesitant to buy it. On-site use is an important part of live streaming, during which customers can learn about the actual status of the product and whether it meets their requirements. Some responsible hosts will even analyze the production and ingredients of the product and answer questions from viewers.

The third category is customers who hope to get discounts and discounts. The anchors in [Taobao Live] will give out many discounts and coupons that cannot be found in stores, and the variety and discounts of goods distributed during the shopping festival are more abundant.

The fourth category is potential customers who are bored, just looking around, and may make a purchase. This type of customer had no intention of buying any goods. They just wanted to find something to kill time when they were bored. Compared to the static Taobao, humans prefer dynamic live broadcasts with sound. This type of customer who opens Taobao Live may just happen to see a product they like, or make an impulse purchase and become a buyer.

2. After confirming the core demands, what was the first step?

[Taobao Live] clearly introduced KOLs (key opinion leaders) in the early days of its establishment. By cooperating with celebrities and inviting experts to join, a large number of initial users have been accumulated. The central idea has always been that sales are conducted by experts in the field. Not only do they bring their own traffic, but the products they recommend are also given authority. The number of users has grown from 0 to millions, and the transaction volume has grown from 0 to hundreds of millions.

In April 2016, Papi Jiang, “China’s No. 1 Internet Celebrity”, reached a cooperation with Taobao and used Taobao Live to broadcast the auction simultaneously, attracting 500,000 onlookers. Although Taobao Live was not the protagonist of this event and did not engage in any buying and selling activities, it took the opportunity to promote it heavily, increasing the number of daily active users to as many as 500,000.

In May 2016, Wei Ya, a former artist and current Taobao girl in the clothing industry, started her first live broadcast on Taobao. At that time, the hosts of Taobao Live were still at the stage of chatting, performing and guiding shopping. Wei Ya gained 2,000 fans in just 2 hours of live broadcast, laying the foundation for her future "expert sales". By October of the same year, Wei Ya's sales reached 70 million.

In June 2016, the government invited celebrities such as Liu Zhoucheng, Li Fei'er, and Chen Xiaodong to conduct live broadcasts, and the famous store owner Zhang Dayi endorsed her own store. The celebrity effect quickly attracted new users and sold goods in the early days of Taobao Live, and also helped build a trusting relationship between the product and users.

3. How to continuously operate the core appeal points?

Introducing celebrities in the short term can achieve the goal of attracting new users, but in order to retain users and convert viewing numbers into sales, Taobao still needs a group of anchors of its own. This group of anchors not only have a popular image and a certain understanding of the industry, but their conversation is also able to seamlessly guide consumers to purchase.

1. Training of anchors

Different from talent anchors, consumer anchors focus more on guiding consumers to buy goods, which is a brand new approach. [Taobao Live] Set up a growth system for anchors that can quantify levels. Anchors of different levels can obtain corresponding rewards; encourage anchor growth through ranking competitions, traffic emergence rewards, etc. Specialized e-commerce economic companies have also emerged.

2. Drainage

[Taobao Live] focuses on consumption. If it is only promoted on its own platform, the traffic generated will be limited. Therefore, according to official requirements or spontaneously, the anchor will broadcast live on popular platforms at the same time, and then direct the traffic back to [Taobao Live], such as Li Jiaqi releasing live broadcast clips on [Tik Tok].

3. New gameplay

Compared to buying goods directly in the store, Taobao Live has a magic weapon to attract buyers - preferential discounts. First, with subsidies from Alibaba or after discussions with merchants, the anchor will offer discounts on products or issue limited coupons. Then, the live broadcast created a "snap-up" atmosphere, with limited quantities of goods and limited discounts, and you would lose out if you didn't place an order immediately. This caused many viewers to rush to buy it. The more people "rush to buy", the more urgent the atmosphere becomes, and more users place orders without thinking twice. Form a virtuous circle of sales.

4. What good ideas do you have for their operations?

Compared with products such as [Tik Tok] and [Kuaishou] that mainly rely on content marketing and then develop shopping malls, [Taobao Live] still occupies a dominant position in "consumer live streaming"; for the time being, the soft insertion of product links through videos by competitors is a business that it cannot take into account. [Taobao Live] should focus on its own positioning and development of advantages.

On April 1, 2020, Viya’s rocket-selling event, as a pilot, clearly demonstrated the infinite possibilities of selling goods through live streaming. Of course, the rocket was just one of the small commodities that day. Viya threw out an introduction during the live broadcast, and interested consumers can communicate with the real seller through the link.

Obviously, Taobao Live can actually be combined with more traditional industries .

Nowadays, the format of live broadcast is basically fast-paced, with a brief introduction to each product, and the products are mainly short-term consumables. From the perspective of real-world buying and selling, there are some products that consumers would like to know more about and think twice before placing an order, such as buying a house or insurance. In the short term, the transaction volume of such products may not be higher than the current situation, and even the first live broadcast may not result in a single order; but as it gradually matures, it will definitely help Alibaba open up the market better.

Furthermore, "consumer live streaming" is still in a rapid development stage; now it basically relies on the guidance of institutions and the self-improvement of anchors to cultivate suitable anchors. Similarly, there is an industry that is also in a stage of stable growth - online education. So, can Taobao Live launch relevant courses ? You can also connect to another online education product.

After 5 years, Alibaba Group has grown from scratch to become a big player in the industry and has many big Vs. It has learned a lot of experience and also held related salons. If digital courses are launched officially or in the name of a big V, there will definitely be people working in the industry or interested in purchasing them. Of course, the content must be of high quality, and not just for the purpose of making money.

The last two points are just some small opinions from me as a consumer.

Because users are not clear about the host's sales list today, they often choose the live broadcast they want to watch based on the Taobao Live category, the host's name, the cover of the live broadcast, and direct search. To be honest, it’s not precise enough and it takes time to filter out the content you want. If the host adds some tags to the live broadcast, or identifies the main products , will there be some improvements in Taobao's classification and search? Of course, measuring income and expenditure is a lower priority.

Another point is about discounted items. Some products recommended by anchors still have corresponding discounts even if the order is placed through video playback. However, these products basically do not appear in other discount purchasing channels, such as Juhuasuan. By taking advantage of users' desire to get a bargain, finding an entry point and putting such products in, you can also achieve the effect of secondary publicity. The way to view this type of goods is similar to viewing Taobao directly, and is a derivative product of live streaming. Detailed plans still need to be worked out.

Related reading:

1. Taobao Live Competitive Product Analysis and Optimization Strategy

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

3. Taobao Live is not a panacea!

4.Is Taobao Live the next trend?

5. Take Taobao Live as an example to talk about the live streaming methods that can be used as reference

Author:Warmer

Source: Warmer