In the internet age, wherever users spend their time, business opportunities explode. On one hand, with the spread of mobile internet, user time is more fragmented, and the rise of 'micro' and 'short' new forces is irreversible. On the other hand, history keeps repeating itself:
- Live streaming e-commerce continues TV shopping.
- Show live streaming revives 1930s nightclubs.
- 'Laotie' economy interprets new master-apprentice fan guilds. Selling products has become the best monetization model for short video + live streaming. Is the grassroots + platform rhythm another opportunity to disrupt tradition, or just a flash in the pan? Guide: 1. Taobao Live's Double 11 Carnival 2. Douyin E-commerce Goes Left 3. Kuaishou E-commerce Goes Right 4. Grassroots vs. Celebrities 5. How Distributors Can Leverage Short Video and Live Streaming Taobao Live Carnival Prelude Double 11 in 2019 was full of highlights. Xiaoyaozi officially took over the helm of Alibaba from Teacher Ma. This massive commercial entity's annual carnival had new changes! That is, 'even the landlord has no surplus grain.' Alibaba's staff continuously trained merchants that Double 11 would assess 'private domain traffic' and increase the weight of off-site traffic diversion; otherwise, Alibaba's traffic would not be easily matched to you. As we all know, without traffic, how can merchants play Double 11? There are many off-site traffic pools, besides advertising, but the core here is WeChat communities and short video and live streaming. How to divert traffic from the WeChat ecosystem has been a game between Alibaba and Tencent for years. So all the new highlights this year are concentrated on live streaming e-commerce. Alibaba's strategy has always been strong. Merchant live streaming was arranged early, and not only early, but also adhering to the consistent Taobao system star-making model with two axes: on-site and off-site traffic support + crazy star-making campaigns. They nurtured two internet celebrities who are now at their peak: one is a beauty who started with offline clothing store business, and the other is a handsome guy who was a cosmetics sales guide, now super product-driving traffic stars: Viya & Li Jiaqi. They created a powerful star-making case, and even Teacher Ma came out to endorse on January 10. Taobao Live has developed rapidly since its establishment three years ago: In 2018, Taobao Live platform drove over 100 billion yuan in sales, with a year-on-year growth rate of nearly 400%, creating a brand-new hundred-billion-level incremental market. Among them, merchant live streaming is the main body; now 70% is merchant live streaming. Female anchors account for over 60%, mainly from second-tier cities. The audience watching live streams is mainly from second-tier and quasi-first-tier cities, with mothers aged 25-35 being the majority. In 2019, the Taobao Live APP was quietly launched. In this year's Double 11 guidance manual, the entire Taobao system page has more than a dozen live streaming entry points, strongly diverting traffic and two-way promoting merchant live streaming to ensure this big killer for Double 11. Despite such strength, the pain points of Taobao Live are also clear:
- Head accounts occupy the main market; among the top ten, celebrities and anchors each account for half, making it difficult for anchors below the waist to stand out.
- The proportion of female anchors is too high, leading to concentrated live sales categories, which is not conducive to comprehensive development.
- Merchant live streaming has low frequency and weak ability to capture new off-site traffic. Currently, the head anchors incubated by the Alibaba system have begun full-network operations. Li Jiaqi's Douyin followers have already exceeded 10 million. At the same time, they continuously promote Douyin/Kuaishou shopping carts directly connecting to Taobao and Tmall stores, firmly controlling the transaction link. The trust endorsement of Tmall stores gives the barbaric development of live streaming e-commerce a bottom-level sense of trust. From this point, the foundation is solid. Douyin Goes Left Douyin's e-commerce sector mainly uses the 'drive car' model, with a series of auxiliary tools like the Good Products List, helping influencers attract fans through short videos and click shopping carts to drive sales. Short video anchors mainly create vertical accounts, attracting fans through high-quality short videos. Its powerful big data user interest recommendation mechanism ensures that grassroots users can also get on the hot list and quickly match tagged fans. However, the booming short video product-driving cannot meet Douyin's monetization expectations. In terms of commercialization, Douyin hopes to become a super marketing tool serving B-end merchants, matching a large number of influencers, and building an increasingly powerful and complete ecosystem. Rather than a purely content-driven product-driving platform. A brand's product wants to quickly gain influence, achieve consumer awareness and 'plant grass' (recommend), and simultaneously place orders to generate sales. Douyin has prepared such a script for merchants: Phase 1: Use influencers for brand marketing: quickly find matching influencers through the 'Star Map' tool. Phase 2: National interaction, fission transmission: use 'Douyin Challenge' to let users participate and expand communication. Phase 3: Simultaneously drive traffic to convert into product-driving sales. Phase 4: Develop and provide a series of new tools to help creators create content efficiently. At the same time, provide a series of big data analysis tools including the Good Products List. Douyin's 2B strategy is ambitious: it helps brand marketing and planting grass, and also directly converts into sales. It seems to be grabbing the traditional advertising marketing market, but in reality, from brand products directly linking consumers, from marketing to sales in one go, the previous brand marketing department, market department, sales department, and related service advertising agencies and agency systems are all skipped, shortening the entire chain. Now, Douyin has become a must-have marketing battlefield for brand owners, especially new brands. From actual effects, products with communication traits have a very high probability of success through Douyin marketing. It combines communication effects and precise marketing product-driving. And e-commerce is clearly downplayed. This strategic positioning makes Douyin and Kuaishou walk more firmly on their respective paths. Kuaishou Goes Right The 'laotie' economy is basically a world. If you are in this circle, you will love it; if you are not, you cannot feel it at all. Although there is little official data for comparison, it is generally recognized that in terms of product-driving ability, Kuaishou is greater than Douyin. Kuaishou product-driving basically has three forms: The first is short video planting grass, same as Douyin and other short video platforms; accounts must be vertical. And short video product-driving accounts do not necessarily need many followers; many high-quality product-driving accounts do not have huge follower numbers, but the advantage is verticality. The limitation is also category verticality, all precise fans. The second is to start live streaming product-driving based on a certain number of followers. Once you start live streaming, you must persist, preferably every day, and get through the initial stage. Unlike Taobao Live, which is full of young women, Kuaishou product-driving has almost no requirements for appearance; authenticity is the most important. Another difference is that male anchors on Kuaishou have stronger product-driving ability. The third is big V internet celebrities. They have huge follower numbers and strong appeal, completely breaking category limits. Short videos are mostly plot, inspirational, and funny. Live streaming tips are their main income source. 'Second-list product-driving' has become the most popular win-win form among anchors. Helping fans bargain has become the main work during product-driving. Kuaishou's shopping cart connects to its own Kuaishou Store, Youzan Store, and platforms like Taobao and Tmall. From live streaming data analysis, we see that selling out is basically the norm, and product-driving ability is amazing. During Double 11 in 2018, Kuaishou held its own e-commerce product-driving festival, and Sanda Ge drove 160 million yuan in one day. In July 2019, Kuaishou's Photosynthesis Conference launched Super Fast Order and the Double 1 Billion Creator Incentive Plan, representing an upgrade from head to full-platform e-commerce ecosystem. While employees of Fortune 500 brands shuttle through high-rise buildings swiping Douyin and never clicking the Kuaishou icon, 400 million 'laotie' fans are passionately shopping while watching short videos and live streams. Grassroots vs. Celebrities The traffic distribution mechanism of short video platforms naturally creates fertile soil for the rise of grassroots UGC content. And the star dream in every ordinary person's heart is being ignited by their own video works being liked one by one; every ordinary person can become a star! This is the huge power of human nature. Whether Kuaishou or Douyin, a large number of grassroots have exploded into stars, MCN institutions have sprung up like mushrooms, and UGC/PGC content is endless. And celebrities have also begun to lower their posture, becoming what they would never have been before. It is hard to imagine that in the era of TV media dominance, celebrities would go to TV shopping programs and enthusiastically introduce a product they do not endorse. It is even harder to imagine appearing at a WeChat business party organized by a former anchor who was pressing squid slices three years ago and now has 10 million followers, performing vigorously. (Lv Sao's Changlu Night data replay: peak live room audience 3 million, account gained 2 million followers, WeChat business product sales 40 million) Celebrities are beginning to re-understand the world, lowering their posture, seriously live streaming to sell goods, and selling quite well. Wherever users' time is, business opportunities are there. Every new traffic shift gives traditional business a chance to do it again. Speaking of grassroots big V short video and live streaming product-driving, two places must be mentioned: Yiwu, Zhejiang, and Linyi, Shandong. Yiwu is China's small commodity distribution center with extremely developed express delivery, while Linyi is called 'Little Yiwu' with strong road logistics. Linyi has become an important production base for Kuaishou big Vs, while Yiwu leads in video product-driving. Here we see not only initial barbaric growth, but also the formation of a full industry chain, and the gradual maturity and continuous development of systematic models. In Yiwu, grassroots novices with entrepreneurial dreams, after short-term systematic learning, those who persist achieve rapid wealth from zero in a short time. 'Here is Yiwu, China, the ocean of small commodities...' has become the standard video opening. How Distributors Can Leverage Short Video and Live Streaming Brand owners do marketing on Douyin and find big Vs for live streaming product-driving. Grassroots anchors shoot videos to find products and continuously accumulate their fans. The essence is still building a private domain traffic pool centered on fans on public domain traffic platforms. At this year's FMCG conference, distributors also began to pay attention to this exceptionally hot sector. Should they blindly follow the trend or continue to wait and see? A group of early-moving agents have started innovation and experimentation. Several paths for reference: 1. Cultivate your own anchors and build a fan traffic pool. This is far less complex than imagined; mature routines and systems are already very complete. Be & Cheery's current luxury anchor team of 10, 8 of whom are part-time employees, with the most popular being the front desk administrative sister. 2. Contact product-driving big Vs or waist influencers suitable for your products. For example, the internet-famous Meiji biscuits heavily invest in Douyin influencer product-driving. 3. Cooperate with mature MCN institutions. Two-way cooperation: on one hand, drive sales for your products; on the other hand, supply goods for internet celebrities. Short video and live streaming product-driving are still in a high-speed development period, with significant dividend effects. Regarding how long this window period will last, industry insiders have different opinions: some believe there is only one to two years of boom, after which platforms will harvest, ROI will decrease, and it will become chicken ribs. Others are optimistic, believing this model is the general trend in the mobile internet era, and the share is far from peaking. The consensus is that the current one-to-two-year window exists. To grasp the window dividend, you need to grasp the underlying laws to have precise direction and travel light. Welcome to join the New Distribution Live Streaming Product-Driving Exchange Group to discuss and research with the author and industry experts. (Add friend, with keyword 'live streaming product-driving' to join the group) Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan if adopted. China FMCG + Internet Professional New Media Committed to FMCG manufacturer and distributor transformation and upgrading and channel digital solutions