Seeking cooperation when buying a car, but with long payment terms and difficulty in collecting payments, is automotive self-media still a good business?

With the rise of new energy vehicles, the number of auto bloggers is also growing quietly, but is it easier for an auto blogger to make money than other bloggers? I think this article will give you the answer.

Is automotive self-media really that profitable?

Some car self-media on WeChat Moments and Weibo will post screenshots of "ordering" whenever there is a car launch. One can't help but wonder, are they so rich? Do they buy and review every car? In the past two years, many digital bloggers have transformed or crossed over, adding the label of "car blogger" to their profiles. Digital bloggers have become frequent guests at various car launches, and it seems as natural for bloggers to post photos of cars as they did with digital products in the past.

Searching for "auto blogger" on Xiaohongshu, you will see posts teaching you how to "cash in". It seems that if you don't engage in auto self-media, you will miss a great opportunity to "get rich". On the other side of the excitement, some auto self-media complain that the return of payment depends on luck, and even a few hundred yuan of travel expenses can be delayed for a year; they thought that buying a car would get cooperation, but in the end they didn't make any money, but were left with a pile of cars; small bloggers were also "exploited" by agents, who asked for a 70% rebate for a 1,000 yuan budget... The intersection of hot and cold makes people feel confused. What exactly is auto self-media like? Can it still be done?

1. Many people are turning into automotive self-media, and buying a car is the unspoken rule to enter the circle? A blogger spent 1 million yuan to buy a car and was "sucked"

Why have so many digital bloggers transformed themselves into automotive self-media? One obvious perception is that digital media has also become very popular. The industry is far less hot than before, and income is also declining.

In the past two years, the development momentum of domestic new energy vehicles has been rapid. In addition, new energy vehicles have a strong Internet gene, so the logic of using digital evaluation is also in line with it. After all, traditional automotive media pay more attention to performance, and their understanding of intelligence is probably not as good as that of digital bloggers.

A public relations officer from a car company said that many car companies are now looking for cross-border media and bloggers, such as technology and financial media, lifestyle bloggers, etc. The marketing strategy of car companies has changed.

Many Internet and digital bloggers in our friend circles or follow lists frequently post car-related content, straddling the digital and automotive circles.

Reflected in the paper data, the income of car bloggers has increased significantly. This year, the "Weibo Blogger Business Cooperation Income Report" officially released by Weibo showed that car bloggers were the first field with the highest income growth, and digital bloggers were the third.

At the same time, in the areas with the largest revenue volume, the rankings of digital and automotive have swapped, with one still first and the other third.

We can see that digital and automobiles are a powerful combination, as they are both the hottest fields with monetization capabilities.

Let’s take a look at the quotations from the leading automotive self-media, which are indeed not low.

For example, in the recent dispute between Chen Zhen and Han Lu, Han Lu's original video price is 918,000 yuan per piece, while Chen Zhen's direct post is more than 160,000 yuan per piece. However, considering Chen Zhen's influence, it is estimated that the price of his original video will not be lower than Han Lu's.

You can take a look at the quotes from more car bloggers, and you will find that the differences are quite large.

It seems that automotive self-media makes a lot of money, so everyone is flocking to it. In addition, many automotive bloggers often post "large" orders on WeChat Moments or Weibo, which makes people believe it even more. But is this really the case?

In March this year, the digital celebrity with millions of followers, Tu Siji, posted a message saying that he had taken a detour and bought too many cars at the end of 2023. He couldn't sell them or not, and his funds were occupied by more than one million yuan. He revealed in the comment section that he bought 10 cars.

As for why so many cars were purchased, Tusiji said there was a phenomenon in the industry, that is, people thought that car companies would give them business orders after they bought cars. The result was that even if there was cooperation, they would still lose money after taking into account the depreciation of the cars.

Weibo blogger Almighty Daxiong also said that buying a car to create content is mostly a small loss, but it can be considered as an entry fee. However, whether you can still make money after entering the circle is also a risk.

According to the Jingzhe Research Institute, an automobile blogger said that in the past two years, there seems to be an unspoken rule in the automobile self-media circle: seeking business cooperation by buying cars.

Car bloggers are becoming more and more popular, and buying a car seems to have become a kind of "confidence" for persuasive content, as if "I have bought it and I have more say."

When did buying a car become a ticket to entry? When did buying a car become an unspoken rule for receiving business orders?

Unlike the digital industry, content creation in the automotive industry has its own set of logic. The most obvious difference is the high investment, and the rhythm and process are also very different.

Unlike digital products, where manufacturers can provide self-media with content after experiencing the products, it is still difficult for automotive self-media to get first-hand information about cars and touch real cars.

This is where top car bloggers show their advantages. They can get the latest news and even experience new cars earlier than others.

A public relations officer of a car company revealed that top bloggers have the opportunity to be the first to come into contact with or even buy new cars, and often get discounted prices. Even if they sell them secondhand later, they generally do not lose money and may even make a small profit.

Therefore, top bloggers have both money and channels. They can buy cars, create content, and earn advertising revenue, which is a win-win situation.

When other bloggers saw that he bought a lot of cars, they inevitably followed suit, thinking that buying cars meant cooperation.

In the opinion of this car company's public relations officer, car companies don't actually have a clear weight in considering whether to buy a car. They are more likely to consider it more if they are familiar with the company and often cooperate with the company and want to buy cars from it.

Some bloggers also said that the top auto bloggers have always been in short supply, and most of the top bloggers buy cars. The cooperation between car companies and bloggers is like a recruitment market, where both parties get what they need. Only good content can lead to opportunities for cooperation, and there is no such thing as cooperation without buying a car.

A tech self-media that crosses over to produce automotive content said that the income from automobiles is very small, but the income from the pictures and texts released by automotive industry chain companies is better, which may be related to their industrial media positioning. Many test drives of automotive media are not cooperation, but free content. Therefore, the automotive content is still very competitive.

Other bloggers who followed the trend invested a lot of money in the car. It would be good if they received business orders, otherwise they could only wait for losses. It was not right to sell it, and it was not right not to sell it.

I bought the car, but didn’t receive any business orders and didn’t make any money.

Even if we receive business orders, they are often delayed, sometimes even for more than a year, and we still cannot get the full payment. It all depends on luck to get the payment.

This is closely related to the advertising agency model of car companies.

2. High investment, difficult output, and repayment depends on luck. Is the automotive industry agency model to blame?

Compared with the digital industry, automotive self-media is definitely a heavy asset.

Some people say that in order to reduce costs, several self-media will pool their money to buy one, evaluate it one by one, and then sell it.

Not only does it cost a lot to buy a car, but the shooting cost, labor cost, and production cost are also several times higher than digital. According to the Jingzhe Research Institute, a blogger said that the production cost of automotive content is at least three times that of digital content.

But if you can't get a business order, just for love, buy an entry ticket. We can see a large number of car reviews or test drive videos, but many of them may be for love.

Car companies often organize various test drive activities, and bloggers will be paid travel expenses when they go. But the travel expenses are higher than those in the digital circle.

A car company PR said that if a blogger shoots a test drive video, they will generally give him 2000-3000 yuan in travel expenses, but the video requirements are not high, which is still acceptable for small bloggers. But now this number is also decreasing, and some are now starting to give 500-1000 yuan.

In fact, after calculating various costs, there is basically no profit in doing this kind of work, and it can only increase exposure and traffic.

For automotive self-media, another dilemma is the long payment period, slow payment collection, or even the possibility of not receiving payment.

The most extreme example is that travel expenses for attending a press conference may be delayed or even not paid at all.

The reason for this situation is closely related to the advertising agency model of automobile companies and the characteristics of the industry.

The above-mentioned car company’s public relations said that most car companies will contract out the placement of car bloggers to agents, which is what we often call public relations companies, and public relations companies will subcontract it layer by layer, which may form a very long chain.

Moreover, because car companies have strict cost control and various payment processes are relatively long, many car companies will clearly specify in the bidding that agents must have a certain amount of advance payment capabilities.

The bidding documents of a certain automobile company clearly stated that it was necessary to have the ability to provide advance payment of more than 5 million yuan per bidding section.

An agent revealed that all automotive customers are from large public relations companies. The payment terms are long and they will not be settled. Basically, a portion of the money will be deducted and the profit is not much. It is good enough to be able to cooperate now.

The entire chain is very long, and problems in any link will make it difficult to collect payments.

According to Bloomberg, the payment cycle of domestic new energy vehicle companies is much longer than that of Tesla, and is getting longer and longer.

For example.

Zhang Tian works for a financial self-media company. He signed a cooperation agreement with a distributor of a new energy vehicle company in March last year. The distributor offered a very low price and demanded a lot of resources. It took more than half a year for the resources to be used up, and then they started asking for payment.

Zhang Tian urged the other party every week, and the reason given by the other party was that Party A had not yet returned the payment.

In this way, Zhang Tian kept urging the other party for 7 months, and the entire period from cooperation to payment was a little more than a year. This agency is a well-known domestic public relations company.

Zhang Tian said that this is very different from technology and Internet customers. Many technology and Internet customers communicate directly with self-media, and they are not as stingy as car company agents. Most of them have a payment period of 3-4 months, and they do not require as many resources as car companies.

However, Zhang Tian said that technology and Internet clients are also showing signs of defaulting. One of the companies he worked with had not been paid for their advertising through an agent. The agent said that Party A had not paid and their (agent) boss had to sell his house to pay off the debt. Because Party A did not pay, they owed the media too much and were urging them to pay.

Later, Zhang Tian asked the party A directly, and the party A said that it had already settled the payment with the agent. The agent then admitted that the party A had settled the payment, but the agent settled the payment with other media first, and asked Zhang Tian to wait a little longer because their boss was applying for a loan.

Zhang Tian revealed that they can no longer pay salaries. 60% of the reason is that there are very few customers this year, and 40% of the reason is that customers’ payment cycles have been lengthened, making it difficult to collect accounts receivable. Coupled with the "bankruptcy" of some agents, part of the accounts receivable is likely to be lost.

This kind of misappropriation of funds by agents also occurs in the automotive industry.

For example, some agencies often represent multiple car companies and may use the repayments from project A to settle the investment project of project B. When the media party of project A comes to ask for money, they will have no money left.

The article from Jingzhe Research Institute mentioned that sometimes car bloggers really can’t get the money, and car manufacturers will propose a physical replacement plan. The car bloggers have no choice but to think that something is better than nothing.

Compared with the top auto bloggers, the vast majority of auto self-media neither have the ability to get business orders easily, nor are they faced with the dilemma of uncertain payment returns. Only the people behind the seemingly hot situation know the reality.

Have you not seen "Zoo Talks Cars" for a long time? Some of their bloggers are no longer focused on cars, but have started to shoot home decoration, horses, food, and travel.

Finally, I remember a little story.

Once, while having dinner with a car company's PR, he received a call from a top car reviewer who was dissatisfied with another top car reviewer for "rushing to post a video". The PR "coaxed" the car reviewer for an hour.

Do you still think it’s easy to be a car blogger?

Author: Yu Guoer

Source: WeChat public account: "Sanyan Pro (ID: sycaijing)"