How do Douyin store explorers monetize? 7 ways to monetize!

Local life services are a huge trillion-dollar market, and Douyin took away 100 billion in 2021. The current online penetration rate of offline retail is less than 5%, and there is huge room for growth in group buying experts and store exploration businesses.

Therefore, the trend of experts visiting stores has also emerged. How can experts increase the number of views and redemption rate? How can businesses identify outstanding talents?

Let’s watch it together.

1 Current status of local life on Douyin

Starting from the first quarter of this year, with the pressure of Douyin's listing coming, the more certain annual goal is the overall growth of local life GMV, including the independent operation APP for merchants (similar to Meituan merchant version) expected to be launched after the new year.

Referring to the development path of e-commerce, as market education matures, Douyin will focus more on promoting the activity of merchants in the form of physical store corporate accounts to achieve corporate self-broadcasting and self-operation (safe and stable cash flow). I predict that next year will be the first year of Douyin merchants, and we will see more and more blue v corporate accounts conducting live broadcasts and short videos for group buying.

Douyin's direct sales have been opened in 50 cities this year, indicating a rapid increase in the penetration rate of group buying supply from merchants. I believe it will be beneficial to the matchmaking business of local life service providers and MCN influencers. The official's determination in this area can be seen from the group buying influencer rankings and the massive amount of localized data statistics that have been launched online.

2. Douyin’s new group buying rules: how can group buying influencers improve conversion rates and sales?

To sum up, the ordering process of group buying expert videos can be divided into four steps: seeing, clicking, converting, and going to the store.

Of course, the importance of group buying product selection is greater than 50%. The logic of product selection is more dependent on regional attributes. Today, we will discuss the group buying video content, which is a universal logic across the country, in four parts:

1. Increase the chances of your video being seen and gain maximum playback volume

As we all know, the two most important indicators of video playback volume under machine review in the early stage of video volume are [completion rate] and [interaction data]. In order to maximize the improvement of these two indicators, we adopt the following points.

So far, the effect is quite significant.

First, hang high-profile POI positioning to increase natural traffic

The local high-hot POIs on the list can directly bring natural traffic gains to our videos, because as long as the store POI we mount is on the list, the system will determine that it has a hot spot effect, so under the same level of completion and interaction indicators, it will get a natural traffic tilt.

However, the POI popularity list is changing in real time, so after actual testing, choosing stores with high popularity within 7 days is more conducive to increasing the natural playback volume of the video. Of course, the specific situation also varies from store to store. Paying more attention to the release frequency of recommended videos in the same city and accumulating the experience of store selection over a long period of time is more important for predicting popular stores.

Second, improve the 5-second broadcast time through copywriting

The dubbing uses the shortest time to make the entire content of this article clear, including the three important elements of "who", "where", and "what to eat". This increases the 5-second completion rate. At the same time, the screen is combined with iconic regional elements to increase the interaction rate of nearby people under this positioning.

This strategy can effectively stimulate precise target users to watch the video through sound + content, and at the same time like and comment on it, thereby improving interaction data.

From the perspective of copywriting, these two concepts seem simple but must be made clear!

1. Consumer logic

2. Decision maker logic

Here we need to subvert some of your perceptions:

1. In the past 20 years, 50% of the orders for Huaxizi cosmetics were placed by men.

2. 51% of the mothers and babies who placed orders for milk powder on the Miaya platform in 2019-2020 were male.

It can be seen that the target customers we traditionally believe in are likely to be wrong, so we must clarify whether the product video is pushed to consumers to place orders or to decision makers for dissemination.

Here is a Western food example we have used in practice:

For Western food, we believe that the consumer profile should be women and the middle class who check in, and the occasions of visiting the restaurant are more like dates, but everyone knows that it is men who pay the bill in the end.

So we believe that men are the decision makers and women are the consumers, and we work backwards from the perspective of pushing orders to decision makers. First of all, the sku is 248 for the price of 1048 for a romantic western meal for two, with 10 dishes, which is extremely cost-effective.

So the consumption scenario is: a must-visit place for couples on dates, and the order decision maker is a male. The final 5s copywriting is:

How long have you not had a candlelight dinner with your girlfriend after working so hard for your career? In XX, you can actually have such a romantic candlelight dinner in a top-notch dating restaurant for only 249...

The content was delivered to males aged 18-30 in the six-kilometer area, and ultimately a single video generated over 1,000 orders with a turnover of over 200,000. The conversion rate of men who watched this video was extremely high, and the comments section was filled with @myboyfriend.

Here’s another piece of data for you: the age of active Douyin fans is 18-45 years old, and this data will be included in our sharing!

Here is another example of a Chinese food group purchase we have practiced:

For example, we are promoting a Chinese food group purchase: Beijing Xihe Yayuan Roast Duck set meal for 3-4 people, 199 off 398. When we see this product, we would most likely think that the consumers who should be pushed to it are those who are over 50 years old and have traditional dining habits.

However, Douyin's active users are mainly concentrated in the age group of 18-40. Videos pushed to people over 50 years old have low activity levels and are far from forming the habit of placing orders. Therefore, from the perspective of decision makers placing orders, pushing videos to middle-aged people aged 25-40 who bring their parents to eat also fits the consumption scenario of the package.

According to the data, the content creation tends to be young people bringing their parents to enjoy a family dinner. 5s copywriting:

Many people think that the prices in Tianjin MixC are expensive, but that’s because you are using it in the wrong way. A roast duck meal for four people with your parents on the weekend costs less than 200 yuan. . . .

The content was delivered in conjunction with Douyin, and we selected people aged 23-40 within six kilometers of the POI. In the end, our single video for this package had over 500,000 views in 48 hours and over 50,000 transactions.

2. Increase click probability: Use sales pitch to guide click positioning

When visiting a store with a group-buying video, everyone must remember to guide users to click on the POI address. The so-called POI is a merchant service based on geographic location, which contains information in many dimensions (address, phone number, group-buying packages, package reviews, package videos, etc.).

We often find users asking questions in the comment section about how to place an order. Currently, many C-end users download the fast version of Douyin and cannot see group purchases.

So, for example: clicking on the small green icon in the lower left corner, clicking below the video, clicking on positioning, etc. can increase the chances of users turning on positioning.

3. Improve conversion rate: Package content reduces user decision-making costs

At present, this is the only thing that experts cannot control. Merchants need to design cost-effective packages based on reasonable user target group attributes when listing packages. The photos, food and service combinations in the package directly determine the conversion rate of users paying after clicking into the POI.

On the other hand, if the store has multiple packages within the positioning, the influencer can add a sentence to the main package copy in the store exploration group buying video to increase the conversion coverage:

"There is also a four-person meal for 398 yuan, which is more suitable for a family of four" and other sales pitches to prompt users to place orders with multiple options. Don't be embarrassed to say it, because if you don't say it, the customer really won't know that there are options!

4. Increase store visit rate: increase write-off certainty

First of all, everyone should be clear about the difference between Douyin and Meituan. Whether it is physical e-commerce or local life services, Douyin is engaged in interest-based e-commerce.

After we made it clear that Douyin is an interest e-commerce that meets the potential needs of users, this naturally led to the fact that the redemption rate of our group buying experts could not be compared with that of Meituan Dianping. After all, only redemption money can be put into pockets.

So everyone should try not to give up every possible way to increase the write-off rate. We have tested two better methods and share them with you:

First, explain the activity time

At this stage, the average group-buying activity duration of merchants is about one month, or even half a month, so it is very important to make the activity time clear. Is this a Christmas exclusive activity; or a Winter Solstice exclusive activity; or a New Year's Day exclusive activity to increase the sense of urgency for verification.

You can say: Today a store is holding a special Christmas event XX… Douyin has no restrictions on the use of words such as Christmas, holidays, events, etc., so you can use it with confidence, but you must not say that the package can be used on a certain day, as this is considered heavy marketing.

At the same time, the comment can be pinned to say the date, the time for the bargain, or the time of the event, but you cannot say: "How much and how to buy". You can subconsciously mention in the event that the event is time-limited, for example: Winter Solstice event, Christmas event, New Year's Eve package, and Chinese New Year package are all acceptable.

Second, provide additional value after arriving at the store

Ask the boss to give an extra benefit to fans who come to the store with a set meal. For example, if you eat a hot pot set meal worth 69 yuan off 99 yuan, you can get an extra bowl of ice jelly or sour plum soup when you come to the store. When designing this group purchase, there is a little trick to negotiate with the merchant. You can make the merchant's benefit cost very low, but the user's cognitive value is very high, and the success rate will be higher~

For example, we can say in the video: "All my fans who purchase this package will receive extra benefits and little surprises when they go to the store."

Be careful not to say anything specific. You can only mention this activity briefly. Don't use strong marketing tactics like "give me my phone number" or "mention my name."

3. The growth path of Douyin store exploration and group buying experts and 7 ways to monetize

We often receive various students asking themselves how to become store explorers! Here are two concepts for you to learn. Douyin divides store explorers into content-based store explorers and group-buying store explorers.

This boundary is because Douyin has two lists, one is the expert store exploration group, and the other is the group purchase expert list. One is evaluated based on indicators such as playback volume and content quality, and the other is based on group purchase sales.

We believe that ordinary people don’t need to worry about which track to start with. It is impossible for ordinary people to receive business orders and store exploration fees if they start with a white account.

Therefore, we believe that it is relatively easy to start by becoming a group buying expert. One can only be considered getting started by continuously generating sales commissions and improving one's ranking on the local group buying list until one can start receiving business orders.

Of course, joining an incubation organization like ours can greatly shorten the start-up cycle. I predict that starting from the new year, there will be a wave of explosive growth among live-streaming store exploration experts. If you want to establish yourself as a store exploration blogger in the future, you must not only improve your video content capabilities but also have the ability to live-stream.

A few words to summarize the trends of store explorers:

1. The track is specialized, and there is a sufficient supply of talents in major cities across the country, so it is easier to break through by taking a small, segmented track.

2. Differentiation of personalities. Regardless of whether you become a group-buying or content-based store explorer in the future, personalities are very important. The prerequisite for becoming a top influencer is that you must have a very memorable personality.

3. As live streaming becomes the norm, those who only make short videos will be squeezed out of the market by live streaming experts. In the future, the top store exploration experts will definitely walk on two legs.

Below we have summarized 7 current monetization methods for store exploration and group buying experts. If you have reached a bottleneck locally or want to break through, you can refer to the following monetization methods and make adjustments based on your own content format.

1. One-price store visit

This is the most common way of charging by the number of fans. However, since the group purchase expert function was launched, the traditional fixed price will definitely reduce its share. In the future, only the top high-level store explorers in various places will be able to get a fixed price.

It is precisely because of the group buying commission that more merchants no longer just want to give a flat price to help with traffic and exposure, but also hope to bring in goods. For example, the leading account "Beijing Riding Harley to Eat Beijing" charges an average of more than five figures for a video.

2. Short video live broadcast group purchase (in-store group purchase coupons, small windmill formation)

The left picture shows a store exploration expert leading a group purchase in the form of a short video. The right picture shows a store exploration expert leading a live broadcast room with multiple group purchase coupons. The difference from e-commerce is that the purchases in the live broadcast room are made using small windmill components, and then one needs to go to the store to redeem the coupons. In the future, the market will increasingly favor experts who do both live broadcasts and short videos.

3. Live sound waves

At present, the official will limit the number of live broadcast experts, so there are relatively few who can get them. If you can both create content and do live broadcasts, and if you have a strong personality, you can also receive audio wave rewards while leading group purchases. In the future, no matter whether you are live broadcasting to sell goods or live broadcasting to lead group purchases, as long as you start live broadcasts, you may receive audio wave income.

A blogger in Beijing who broadcasts live broadcasts to explore stores and offers group-buying coupons earned a total of 12,000 yuan in audio wave income in a single broadcast.

4. Franchise recruitment

While helping merchants explore stores, experts can also attract inquiries from customers seeking investment and franchising. Experts can agree with merchants that within a certain period, the experts and merchants will share the investment and franchising profits.

Wulala drank a bowl of spicy soup in Kaifeng, and within three days the boss collected more than 200 franchise fees from customers. It seems to be a store visit, but in fact it is a visit to the boss's business project. Within a certain period, an agreement is signed to make a profit using the price of a single customer message.

As expected, the highest revenue from a game trial video was over 3 million. Although it was a hard advertisement, the format of store visits (industry visits) made it more acceptable to the audience.

5. Live streaming of short videos (retail goods, delivery)

Big LOGO and Ulala accumulated traffic and personal image by visiting stores, and gained fans nationwide from the very beginning through live streaming. Many influencers have already determined the monetization path from the beginning, and have gained fans nationwide for the purpose of live streaming. Among all monetization methods, live streaming is still the most profitable. Although it makes money, it is very difficult to find a differentiated national personal image.

6. Recruitment of store exploration students

Take Bai Bing as an example. The ceiling for store exploration bloggers to take on Star Map advertising is 300,000+ for a single advertisement. If you want to become a national expert, you can consider this direction. Although it makes money, the difficulty is also extremely high.

5. Physical Douyin store opening service

At present, there are very few physical merchants in China that really use Douyin to achieve group buying, selling goods, attracting investors and other commercial purposes. Later, I will share with you some examples of merchants where our team provides local services. Then, experts can use their own resource advantages to sell Yuntan Technology's "Physical Douyin Store Opening Service" to merchants.

Including: blue v organization and decoration, group purchase design and listing, and course consulting services. This can be said to be a very large blue ocean in 3rd-5th tier cities. The expert partners we recruit, in addition to the income from store visits, can also earn more than 10,000 yuan per month by selling the "Physical Douyin Store Opening Service" to merchants. If you are interested in this, you can chat privately.

How can physical merchants enter Douyin and find local lifestyle MCNs for cooperation?

We have summarized three ways for physical merchants in the life service industry to do Douyin:

1. Expert short videos + live streaming with group purchases

This month, Douyin has opened 40 new direct-operated cities in addition to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, etc. If you have a direct-operated branch in your local area, you can directly find the official expert operation organization or an MCN agency like us to help with group buying, and the docking efficiency will be higher.

2. Merchants’ Blue V self-operated accounts, short videos + live broadcasts with group purchases

This is a group purchase live broadcast of a self-service merchant. On average, more than 300,000 transactions are completed within 8 hours of broadcasting. Starting next year, people will see local merchants broadcasting their own group purchases more and more frequently. This is what I think is the best way for Douyin to achieve regular marketing results.

It's not just high-frequency service restaurants. Let me show you two low-frequency service cases: Tengfa Used Cars, currently the leader in the used car industry on Douyin, has 6 corporate accounts that post short videos and live broadcasts every day.

The number of customers exceeds 1,000+ every day. Those who are familiar with this industry and the price of Baidu's search engine can calculate whether Douyin is attractive for acquiring customers.

3. In-store users can forward videos and promote products with one click

Traditionally, many businesses have encouraged users to forward messages through single-page activities such as roll-up banners at the entrance of the business, allowing users to post to their Moments to receive gifts. Now, the track has shifted to Douyin.

Let's take Margaux Manor Hotpot as an example. As the largest hotpot restaurant in Sichuan, it covers an area of ​​more than 200 acres and has invested more than 120 million yuan. The store's unique theme environment is superimposed with performances, satisfying the needs of eating + shopping + performances. The scenery taken by users while dining can easily obtain content premium traffic on Douyin.

The merchants allowed users to take Douyin videos to deliver food, which achieved stable exposure of tens of millions during the event. Margaux has become a national benchmark check-in destination for internet celebrities.

Judging from the current data from the entire network, the effect of one-click forwarding is relatively ideal for businesses with unique scenes and unique dishes, such as scenic spots, rooftop bars, etc.

Finally, let’s take a look at a phenomenal case of Douyin in December: Nayuki’s Tea

This is the sales volume of one of the stores. Naixue is the best example of the combination of the above three methods that I have seen so far.

First, we found 3,000 influencers nationwide through local MCNs and official websites to shoot videos in advance and publish them at a centralized time. We used the matrix method to copy the popularity of Douyin store positioning by using influencers to post videos, and combined high-quality live broadcast influencers and store numbers to broadcast live at the same time.

By making its single product a hit in just three days, Nayuki quickly took the top spot on local food charts, prompting group buying experts below the waist level in various places to follow suit and sell Nayuki 100-generation gold cards.

Eventually, more than 10,000 people across the country participated in short videos and live broadcasts to sell Naixue’s 100-generation gold cards. In the end, the Douyin channel exceeded 50 million GMV in 3 days, and the total network transaction volume exceeded 190 million. Among them, a blogger’s Douyin live broadcast sales in 3 days exceeded 1.9 million.

5. Summary: Our thoughts on why brick-and-mortar merchants enter Douyin

Why do I say that all physical businesses will use Douyin next year? Here are a few reasons why I am optimistic:

1. In the future, a local version of Star Map will appear, which will be put together with agents, investment promotion team leaders, and service providers to form a closed loop of life services.

2. With the more aggressive official entry, the official group buying supply will increase rapidly, and the matchmaking business between merchants and influencers from all over the country will become more professional and normalized.

3. In January and February, an independent APP similar to the Meituan merchant version will appear, which will facilitate merchants to manage their own group buying backend and lower the threshold for merchants to switch platforms and settle in Douyin.