I sold milk tea coupons in the live broadcast room, and gained millions of followers in two days, and GMV exceeded 25 million

As competition in the tea beverage industry becomes increasingly fierce, live streaming sales has become a new battlefield for brands to compete. This article uses live streaming cases of tea beverage brands to explore how tea beverage brands can use live streaming platforms to achieve brand promotion and sales growth, as well as the many benefits that live streaming brings to tea beverage brands.

Competition in the tea beverage market is becoming increasingly fierce, and live streaming has become a new battleground for tea beverage brands.

Recently, Gu Ming started live streaming on Douyin. In two days, the official account gained millions of followers and achieved sales of over 25 million.

Tea brands embrace live streaming, not only as a channel for daily coupon sales, but also as a platform for brand promotion. In addition to impressing consumers with the "low price strategy", tea brands also have a variety of live streaming rooms...

Taking Gu Ming’s live broadcast, which gained millions of followers and generated sales of over 25 million, as a starting point, let’s take a look at how tea brands can make good use of live streaming as a powerful tool to achieve new growth.

1. Live broadcast selling coupons increased followers by millions

From July 12 to 13, Gu Ming started a live broadcast on Douyin in the 10,000-acre tea fields of Shengzhou, Shaoxing. Not only did they invite eight anchors to trace the origin of tea, but they also had tea-making masters stir-fry tea on site, and locals performed traditional tea dances. Thanks to this event, Gu Ming's official account skyrocketed by 1.06 million followers in just two days, and currently has 4.72 million followers. In addition, during this live broadcast, Gu Ming sold many milk tea group purchase coupons, including 70,000 0.01 yuan milk tea flash sale coupons and super low-priced original leaf fresh milk tea coupons starting at 7.9 yuan.

Among them, the product "Double Cup Fruit Milk" sold 100,000 to 250,000 copies, with sales of 7.5 million to 10 million yuan, becoming the product with the highest sales. This is the first time that Gu Ming has started live streaming in 2024. According to reports, as early as September 2021, the Gu Ming team took the initiative to find the relevant person in charge of Douyin and became the first beverage brand to settle in Douyin's local life. Gu Ming's live broadcast frequency is not high. According to statistics from the new broadcast site, Gu Ming broadcast 5 shows in 2021, 5 shows in 2022, 2 shows in 2023, and only this press conference has been broadcast since 2024. Each live broadcast is either to promote new products or a live broadcast event planned at an important marketing node.

Gu Ming's live broadcast event is called "Gu Ming Health Upgrade Conference". It conveys the concept of "original leaf fresh milk tea" through tea traceability and on-site tea frying in the live broadcast room, and then attracts users to buy and complete conversions by giving out flash sale coupons.

2. Why bet on live streaming?

Tea beverage brands have bet on live streaming, and there have been many successful cases.

It has been observed that the official live broadcast rooms of tea brands such as Shanghai Auntie and Cha Baidao do not broadcast live frequently. They do not use live broadcast as a channel for daily coupon sales, but mainly use the live broadcast rooms as a platform for brand promotion.

This year, Shanghai Auntie changed its brand logo and began to transform itself, with its image and product promotion becoming more fashionable like that of a modern girl.

On June 19, Shanghai Auntie launched a live streaming sales event called "Tea from the East, Modern Shanghai" in the Douyin live broadcast room. In addition to super low-priced milk tea discounts, a series of physical prizes such as gold bars, SKII skincare products, YSL lipsticks and Disney dolls were prepared in the live broadcast room to attract users to stay in the live broadcast room and purchase group-purchased products.

The planning of this event directly increased the transaction rate of the Shanghai Auntie’s live broadcast room. The live broadcast sales on the first day of the event reached 25 million to 50 million. The live broadcast sales in the next two days also reached 5 million to 7.5 million. The official account directly gained 870,000 followers.

Moreover, this event changed consumers' previous brand impression of Shanghai Auntie and enabled consumers to have a deeper understanding of the brand positioning.

Cha Baidao is promoting co-branded products and conducting live broadcast activities for Members' Day.

"Welcome Cha Cha and our Kapi Bala Tuntuzai to the live broadcast room to bring benefits to the fans in the live broadcast room."

In May this year, the IP Capibala suddenly became popular, and Cha Baidao collaborated with the IP. The overall setting of this live broadcast room presented a feeling of a magical forest, which was more in line with the image of Capibala and was full of sincerity.

In addition, the set meal price of the co-branded milk tea series launched by Cha Baidao sold in the live broadcast room is 31.5 yuan, and co-branded stickers and peripherals are also given away, which is more favorable than buying directly in offline stores.

In addition, Chabaidao has also launched a series of live broadcast activities for "Super Member Day". For example, in June this year, Chabaidao launched a new activity "Enjoy the Summer with Chabaidao", and this time the live broadcast room appeared at the seaside. This group purchase live broadcast at the seaside allowed consumers to feel the joy of being at the seaside in summer, and also experience the joy of enjoying refreshing fruit tea in the evening sea breeze.

The activities planned by tea brands in the live broadcast room have also been converted into sales and traffic.

The sales of Shanghai Auntie and Chabaidao in their recent group buying live broadcasts exceeded 10 million yuan. Moreover, Chabaidao's followers increased to 1.46 million in the past 30 days.

3. The tea drinking battle comes online

In the past few years, the survival space of tea beverage brands has been strongly occupied by the coffee market, and the competition is extremely fierce. The previously high-priced milk tea has been forced to start lowering its prices and join the "low-price strategy" competition battlefield.

The competition among new tea beverage brands is becoming increasingly fierce.

Shan Weijun, CEO of Shanghai Auntie, once said: "New tea drinks have several characteristics. The first is capitalization, the second is chain operation, and the third is online operation."

Tea beverage brands are flocking to live streaming and looking for new incremental markets, which is a true reflection of "onlineization".

Live streaming has allowed many tea brands to see room for growth. For tea brands, live streaming is not only a channel for selling coupons, but also an important window for promoting new products, shaping brand tone, and getting closer to consumers.

According to a tea brand, “Sometimes, if the sales of group-buying live broadcasts are good, they can equal the sales performance of two or three stores.”

It helps milk tea brands promote product sales and attract more consumers to participate in group buying activities, thereby increasing the brand's marketing effectiveness and profitability, while also increasing brand awareness and exposure, and attracting more consumers' attention and understanding. This advantage has become the most obvious feature of group buying live broadcasts empowering tea brands.

But live streaming helps tea brands in more ways than just that. It also brings brands closer to consumers, establishes a more intimate and direct interactive relationship, and enhances consumers’ trust and loyalty to the brand.

"Why did you take Tieguanyin milk jelly off the shelves? Give me my Tieguanyin milk jelly back now", "Please, collaborate with Mo Yuyunjian or Fox Spirit Matchmaker"...

The comment section of "Cha Baidao Official Fan Account" is a good example. If you click on the video content in the account at random, you will see that fans in the comment section are "wailing" for the brand to remove Tieguanyin Milk Jelly and Golden Coconut Oolong from the shelves. This is undoubtedly a channel for the brand to understand consumer preferences and have high-frequency dialogues with consumers.

In addition, although the live broadcast frequency of the official account is not high, it can be seen that the brand will form regular live broadcasts by cooperating with many group buying experts.

When you search for the name of a tea brand on Douyin, in addition to seeing the local life stores of each brand, you will also see live broadcasts and videos of various experts.

For example, when searching for "Cha Baidao" on the new broadcast site, the first person that appears is the group buying expert "Daodao is the 'coupon' king" with 328,000 fans. This live broadcast ranked first in the "Group Buying Sales·Chengdu Beverage List".

Nowadays, as most tea brands have established their business foundation online, the online competition may become more and more intense. Who can break through? It remains to be seen.