Live streaming sales, godfathers everywhere

The live streaming industry is undergoing profound changes. After experiencing traffic backlash and public opinion storms, the former big anchors have begun to transform and expand their personal IP and business extensions. Selling courses has become a new way for them to realize IP monetization and find new growth points.

The end of live streaming sales is selling courses.

Recently, another anchor announced with great fanfare that he would start selling courses. The company behind Crazy Little Yang, Three Sheep Network, launched a training program called "Three People's Live Classroom" and plans to offer offline courses. According to the course settings, the advanced course is priced at 9,980 yuan per person for students with a certain foundation, while the white course for novices is priced at 3,980 yuan per person.

According to insiders, the advanced course is expected to enroll about 50 students, the course will last for two days and two nights, and will start on August 2; the novice course plans to enroll about 30 people, last for three days and two nights, and start on August 24.

According to a rough estimate based on the above information, if both courses are fully booked, Three Sheep Company can earn more than 600,000 yuan per session just from training tuition fees.

When the top people in an industry start to change from "making money quietly" to "helping you make money", it probably means that the growth of this industry is coming to an end.

Nowadays, the live streaming industry is becoming more and more popular, and the backlash of traffic from top anchors has become more and more serious. In the past year, top anchors such as Xiao Yangge, Li Jiaqi, and Dong Yuhui have frequently encountered public opinion storms, some because of inappropriate words and deeds, and some because of product problems.

Influenced by this, the godfathers in the field of live streaming have gradually faded out of the live streaming room while busy expanding the extension of their personal IP. E-commerce training courses that do not require the appearance of big anchors are undoubtedly the latest manifestation of the extension of their personal IP. By selling courses, big anchors not only make their IP monetization more diversified, but also help companies discover new anchors and attract new brands.

Brother Yang is late to the game. As early as 2020, Yaowang Technology, an MCN agency with many celebrity anchors such as Jia Nailiang, launched a live broadcast training course, with a 7-day course priced at 6,999 yuan. Qianxun, the company behind Wei Ya, and Luo Yonghao's "Make Friends", also arranged live broadcast training early.

Those who entered the game first made a lot of money, but they also suffered backlash. Recently, "Make Friends" was involved in a public opinion storm of "suspected of cutting leeks" because of selling courses. Some students exposed their real experience through media platforms: I was cut by "Make Friends". I paid 54,800 yuan in tuition for 21 days and only earned 4,000 yuan.

Among the more than 400 complaints about the Jiaogepengyou live broadcast room on the Black Cat complaint platform, "false advertising" has become a frequently mentioned keyword. Some users believe that these courses are exaggerated, misleading consumers to buy courses, and using Luo Yonghao's celebrity effect for publicity.

It is undeniable that under the IP effect of super-head anchors, merchants and anchors eager to replicate the successful experience of the godfathers have flocked in. On the other hand, the big anchors gain profits and resources. Once disputes arise, if they are not careful, it may backfire on the IP image of the godfathers and even affect their existing main business of selling goods.

01

In addition to making money, Brother Yang also sells courses for people.

Although Brother Yang has not publicly responded to the plans related to the training business, on the evening of July 17, Three Sheep CEO Du Gang mentioned in a live broadcast that the "Three-Person Live Classroom" business is mainly to lay a foundation for talent resources for Three Sheep's "Ten Thousand Sheep Plan", and the training business will continue for a long time.

It is understood that the "Ten Thousand Sheep Plan" of Three Sheep Network refers to the company's plan to incubate 10,000 anchors in the future, consisting of 1,000 live broadcast rooms belonging to different categories. It also plans to launch 100 brands and establish 10 live broadcast organizations like "Three Sheep".

Although he entered the market late, Xiao Yangge, as the "top streamer" in the field of live streaming, has a great appeal and influence that cannot be underestimated. Although Xiao Yangge is not in the "threesome", but three lecturers including Du Gang, CEO of Three Sheep Group, teach the course, but with the blessing of the big anchor effect, the two-day and two-night course is priced at nearly 10,000 yuan.

High prices mean high expectations. Once the institution fails to deliver on its promises or the students' expectations are not met, it is easy to cause consumer disputes. Searching for the keyword "live training" on the Black Cat complaint platform yields more than 10,000 complaints, with many students saying they were scammed by false advertising.

According to AI Blue Media, a shop owner of a men's shoe brand store on Douyin signed up for a total of 80,000 yuan worth of courses at Luo Yonghao's Make Friends e-commerce academy, of which the "21-day running accompaniment" service cost more than 50,000 yuan.

What made this store owner spend nearly 100,000 yuan to sign up for the course was the real promise of increasing GMV. The course promotion claimed that after the Jiao Ge Pengyou team took over the store, the original store's GMV could be increased by 3-5 times.

But the reality is that the store owner spent nearly 150,000 yuan on courses, live broadcast room decoration and traffic investment, and the two accounts he hired as a friend ended up earning less than 4,000 yuan.

Therefore, the shop owner, who felt that he had been ripped off, asked Jiao Ge Peng You to refund part of the fees, but was refused, which prompted the shop owner to seek redress everywhere. On Heimao Complaints, there were also many consumers who questioned Jiao Ge Peng You E-commerce Academy's alleged exaggerated and false advertising.

Today, Jiaogepengyou has been “de-Luo Yonghaoized”. In April this year, Jiaogepengyou, which successfully “de-Luo Yonghaoized”, switched to video accounts for live broadcasting, and the audience only reached 11,000 people half an hour after the first broadcast. You should know that Jiaogepengyou, which was also the first battle of the new platform in May last year, also hosted by Luo Yonghao, had a viewership of 2.34 million 5 minutes after the first broadcast on JD.com.

Without Luo Yonghao, the "miracle" of making friends has faded. Obviously, even the e-commerce academy itself has not yet been able to cultivate the next "Luo Yonghao". If you want to train students to become new big anchors through course training, the difficulty is undoubtedly "higher".

02

Nowadays, big anchors have stepped into the field of "selling courses". Although the timings they choose are different, their purposes are roughly similar.

After the March 15 incident this year, Xiao Yangge's live streaming sales frequency has dropped significantly, and he has also repeatedly expressed in the live streaming room his desire to gradually shift to a behind-the-scenes role.

For the MCN companies behind the big anchors, only by expanding diversified businesses can they counter the risk of big anchors "all lose if one loses". Therefore, Three Sheep has made many attempts such as shooting short dramas, going overseas, and building its own IP brand.

At this point, the three sheep can be said to be crossing the river by feeling their way. As early as March 2021, Qianxun Academy, a business of Qianxun, the MCN agency behind Wei Ya, went online and launched Qianxun Academy, an internet celebrity training camp. According to public information, the offline course of Qianxun Academy lasts for 15 days, with a price of about 25,000 yuan per person and a class size of about 30 people. This means that a complete training course of Qianxun Academy can bring in 750,000 yuan in revenue.

But the benefits are only one aspect. More importantly, the commercial value of the IP of the big anchor has been continued. In December 2021, Wei Ya was banned from the entire network and withdrew from the live broadcast room. But in April 2023, Wei Ya appeared in public as the chief mentor to share the relevant experience of live e-commerce empowering time-honored brands.

This also means that Qianxun Academy's business has hardly been affected by Wei Ya's ban. According to Qianxun Holdings' official WeChat public account, as of the end of October 2021, Qianxun Academy's live broadcast training camp has been opened to the fourth session. If it is roughly calculated based on four training camps a year and the tuition and student size are the same, Qianxun Academy can make a huge profit of 3 million yuan a year.

In addition, just like Sanzhiyang uses training to recruit anchors and merchants, Qianxun is also looking for the "next Wei Ya" through training business. It is understood that the teaching content of Qianxun Academy involves Taobao Live and Douyin. After the course, Qianxun and the students will make a two-way choice. Some students will sign with Qianxun, and some will become independent talents or go to other institutions.

In contrast, Luo Yonghao's purpose of selling courses is more direct, and everything is about "money". In April 2021, Luo Yonghao announced the launch of live broadcast training and agency operation business at the Douyin E-commerce Ecological Conference, and planned to increase the revenue of the entire business to 10 billion to 15 billion yuan. "Last year, we completed about 3 billion yuan." The goal of 10 billion yuan was achieved by "live broadcast e-commerce, agency operation, integrated product and sales marketing promotion, training business and supply chain business together."

In order to achieve the above goals, in February 2022, Luo Yonghao appeared in the live broadcast room of Jiaogepengyou E-commerce Academy for the first time to personally promote the anchor course. Data shows that the live broadcast attracted a total of 396,800 people and sales reached 1.1541 million yuan.

But soon, Luo Yonghao, who said in the live broadcast room "I will teach you step by step to become a celebrity anchor with an annual income of one million or even tens of millions", faded out of the training program as early as the beginning of the launch of the E-Commerce Academy course.

But under the halo of Luo Yonghao, Jiaogepengyou E-commerce Academy still made a lot of money. Cui Dongsheng, vice president of Jiaogepengyou E-commerce Academy, once revealed that Jiaogepengyou E-commerce Academy had started a trial class in January 2022 and began to implement an online enrollment model in April 2022. By June, the E-commerce Academy had almost achieved the expected revenue target of 30 to 40 million yuan in the first year.

03

Despite holding the title of “number one”, the godfathers’ live streaming sales performance has been declining, which is also a microcosm of the overall decline of the live streaming sales industry.

According to iResearch, the scale of China's live e-commerce market will reach 4.9 trillion yuan in 2023, with a year-on-year growth rate of 35.2%. This is a significant decline compared with the year-on-year growth rates of the previous four years, which were 227.7%, 189.57%, 83.77% and 48.21% respectively.

Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e-commerce industry and founder of Bailian Consulting, said that starting from 2023, Douyin e-commerce will begin to increase its investment in shelf e-commerce. Such a change shows that the growth of the single live broadcast e-commerce model has developed to a certain scale and it is difficult to maintain a high growth trend. In addition, due to the improvement of various supervision and policies, the live broadcast e-commerce industry is becoming more standardized. The advantage of super anchors obtaining the "lowest price on the entire network" through platform subsidies is no longer there, resulting in a decline in the price competitiveness of super anchors.

At the same time, the competition in live streaming e-commerce has become increasingly fierce: on the one hand, major e-commerce platforms continue to increase their support for store live streaming, and Video Account, Xiaohongshu, and JD.com have increased their investment in live streaming e-commerce; on the other hand, the forms of live streaming with goods have become increasingly diversified. In addition to super anchors and merchants’ self-broadcasts, there are also many other methods such as celebrity live streaming, CEO live streaming, Xiaohongshu buyer live streaming, and Baidu digital human live streaming, making the competition in live streaming e-commerce even more intense.

There are signs that the early wild growth of live streaming sales is passing its bonus period, and one of the major manifestations is that the top anchors are retiring one after another. Luo Yonghao has already semi-retired from the circle, Simba also intends to support his apprentice Dandan, and Li Jiaqi has become more low-key after the eyebrow pencil incident. Since being "named" on March 15 this year, Xiao Yangge has obviously reduced the number of times he appears in the live broadcast room.

The old king has faded away, and the new king has not yet been established. More mid-level talents and small anchors are beginning to rise. For the top anchors who are retiring, training courses that do not even require them to appear in person can undoubtedly maximize the value of their IP. For small and medium anchors who hope to replicate their success, these courses have built a convenient channel for advancement.

In fact, every time a media channel changes, a new group of people at the top of the pyramid will be born: they will understand the industry rules early on, create successful cases, and then package their own experiences into beautiful PPTs, thereby spreading the code to wealth to hundreds of millions of ordinary people who are eager to replicate their success.

Between 2013 and 2020, the dream of earning 100,000 yuan a month was only one WeChat account away from living in a 10-square-meter basement. At that time, WeChat accounts were filled with popular courses such as "Quick Guide to Running a WeChat Account for Beginners" and "Secrets to Winning a 2 Million+ Popular Article", with prices ranging from tens, hundreds to thousands of yuan.

In the era of short videos, a similar pattern has been repeated. Various Douyin operation experts and senior Internet marketing experts have started to sell courses to teach people how to create accounts, operate, and sell goods through live streaming. In the market, there are many crash courses offered by e-commerce training institutions, and the prices range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of yuan.

Compared with the training courses of some unknown institutions, the fate of the top anchors makes the training courses behind them more popular because of the trust endorsement. However, once the course fails, the anchors will inevitably suffer backlash. Brother Can fell first, and Luo Yonghao was also involved in the public opinion storm of "suspected of cutting leeks" because of selling courses. Will Brother Yang follow in the footsteps of these predecessors?