From entry to breakthrough: How can businesses tap into new growth in video accounts?

Video accounts have now become an indispensable channel, but many businesses do not know how to tap into traffic when they enter the market. In this article, the author explains how to tap into traffic from the emerging channel of video accounts from the perspectives of entry and breakthrough, and with the cases of Langzi and Adopt a Cow.

In the previous research report, we analyzed video accounts from the perspective of consumers and the market, which to some extent was a look into the "end game": under factors such as changes in user behavior and population structure, in addition to shaping the differentiated commercial value of video accounts, it also provides brands with a scenario to establish deep relationships with users, and thus there is considerable room for new growth.

In this report, we switch our perspective back to brands and merchants to see how they perform in the emerging channel of Video Account:

How to enter the market - What are the current actions and feedback of merchants in the face of new opportunities?

• Have you thought clearly about why you want to create a video account? Is it just hype?
• What is the unique value that video accounts bring in the eyes of merchants?
• Is the video account really perfect? ​​Why do some people choose not to make a video account?
• How do senior experts view the opportunities in the three aspects of “people, goods and places”?

How to break through - how can leading enterprises develop a profitable business model through reasonable business positioning?

• Model: What are the four steps and two major infrastructures to tap into new growth?
• Case: How does Lancome connect online and offline through video accounts and achieve a monthly GMV of nearly 10 million?
• Case: How does Adopt a Cow use video accounts to empower private domains and increase user life cycle value?

Getting Started

Now that we want to understand the current situation of merchants entering the video account, it is time to listen to the voices and ideas of the merchants. Growth Black Box first conducted a survey on hundreds of merchants (including leading brands, emerging brands, and small and medium-sized merchants).

1. The market entry will accelerate in 2023, and the unique value of the ecosystem will be significant

We found that among the merchants who have already started selling products on Video Accounts, nearly half of them started entering the market in 2023.

In terms of business type:

• Combination punch: 30% of merchants use a single business method. More than 40% of merchants choose to use two types of business methods. Whether in the public or private domain, the effect of refined link combination is greater than "one trick".
• Focus on results: Merchants tend to choose live broadcasts and short videos to directly promote products, while product promotion is secondary. In the current market environment, merchants are eager to get more practical results.
• Strong live streaming: Live streaming has a higher priority than short video streaming. According to our qualitative research, the GMV of short video streaming for most merchants does not exceed 10%, but the growth rate is very fast and worth exploring.
• Self-operation: Businesses place the lowest priority on cooperating with influencers. Although the influencer ecosystem of video accounts is gradually improving, businesses still tend to choose more mature methods.

At the same time, we began to think about a question: Since 2023, the publicity and exposure of video accounts have increased significantly, the platform has been active, and merchants have accelerated their entry at this time. Have they been influenced by the traffic dividend thinking and started to "follow the trend"? If the boss does not think clearly before starting, it will inevitably have a negative impact on the business.

But it turns out that we were overthinking. The vast majority of businesses have a clear logic for joining the video account, and only 20% have unclear goals:

• Nearly 60% of businesses are optimistic about the unique value of Tencent's ecosystem and are willing to take the initiative to seize opportunities.
• More than 30% of merchants believe that the mainstream online channels are becoming more involuted, and setting up new channels is a passive choice.
• More than 20% of merchants believe that video accounts are more suitable for their target users.

So, what exactly is the so-called "unique value" of Tencent's ecosystem? Merchants have also given two main answers:

• Nearly 60% of merchants believe that the difference from other live streaming e-commerce platforms lies in the fact that the public and private domains can be better linked.
• More than 50% of merchants believe that the difference between Video Account and other live streaming e-commerce platforms is that Video Account has a decentralized attribute and does not rely on top influencers.

This also corresponds to the business philosophy of merchants: although they are all doing live streaming, most merchants do not directly copy the business strategies of other platforms, but rebuild a set of models based on the ecological characteristics of video accounts, adapting to local conditions. Secondly, there are also merchants who choose a more stable path, that is, copy first, and then continuously optimize and adjust - the purpose of moving over is to have a basis for modification.

For merchants who have already entered the market, the attitude is generally optimistic: more than 80% expect to increase investment in video accounts in the next year. However, feedback from merchants also shows that the video account platform still needs to strengthen its infrastructure and service system to meet the business needs of merchants. For example, complete delivery tools, data analysis background, etc., allow merchants to more efficiently understand consumer needs and match corresponding products and marketing resources. For example, common platform second-hand docking and business training can provide guidance and suggestions for merchants and assist in business decision-making.

2. Operational problems still exist, requiring trial, error and iteration

Of course, video accounts in their early stages are not perfect. Although the actual results in terms of reach, interaction, and retention have exceeded expectations, profit growth is still lower than expected, and GMV growth is second.

However, qualitative research by Growth Black Box found that many leading brands not only have faster GMV growth on video accounts, but also have top-level net profits among all online channels, far higher than other live streaming sales channels.

Why is this the case? We found that top brands often:

1. The team is fully equipped with corresponding organizational structure and assessment standards
2. The strategic planning is clear, and there is a good match between "people, goods and places"
3. The operation methodology is relatively mature and can guide the continuous optimization of business

The difficulties for ordinary businesses in operating video accounts are precisely these three aspects.

At the same time, this is also a dynamic process: as the business scale increases (GMV), the priority of merchants' difficulties will shift from operational tactics and talents to strategic planning and platform cooperation. In other words, for small and medium-sized merchants in the start-up phase, the most important thing is to run through the business closed loop first, figure out various tactical details and platform rules, and keep the lower limit first. After reaching a stable volume, merchants begin to consider the strategic integration of the entire domain (such as dealers, online and offline, pallet distribution, etc.), as well as how to cooperate deeply with the platform to expand the upper limit.

Merchants still need to conduct more exploration and experimentation based on the stage they are in before they can find a business model that meets their expectations - there is indeed no shortcut to success in the new market (the following article will also introduce the examples of leading brands for your reference).

So, what strategies should businesses explore more? Where should the importance and priority be placed? Through preliminary research, we summarized the distribution of current video account operation strategies: the Y-axis represents the application level score (whether it is used proficiently), the X-axis represents the importance score (how important it is to business growth), and the origin is the average of each item.

• The construction of the private domain system is of utmost importance. This not only represents the initial traffic introduction of the front link, but also represents the acceptance and retention of the back link. As mentioned in our previous report, although the public domain has opened up, the foundation of the private domain cannot be abandoned.
• The operation of the goods tray and the live broadcast room directly affects the conversion rate, so it is another focus for merchants. However, the live broadcast industry is already very mature, and merchants no longer need to create a system out of thin air, so the priority is not that high.
• Advertising has not received much attention and is not widely used. There may be areas where the value is underestimated, and many businesses are unwilling to try and have not found opportunities to seize the newly added public domain traffic.
• Content creation is at a very "mediocre" midpoint. On the one hand, merchants pay more attention to the transaction itself, and on the other hand, the cost of content creation is high. However, our previous report shows that consumers attach great importance to content, which is the key to attracting them to shop on video accounts. Creating characteristics and innovations in content may be another place where value is underestimated.

Finally, we also paid attention to a question: For those merchants who have not yet entered the video account market, what state are they in? Are they retreating in the face of difficulties, or are they simply not optimistic about this market?

• Even if they have not entered the market, nearly 70% of merchants are optimistic about the future growth space of Video Account, and nearly 60% of merchants expect to enter the market in the future.
• Merchants are not blocked from entering the market, but are waiting for the right time. In fact, only about 10% of merchants give up after trying because the results are not ideal, and nearly 20% have already started the project. Nearly half of the merchants focus on the current existing channels and have no energy to open up new channels.

In the current market environment, business certainty is more important than anything else, and it is normal to have a mentality of "not releasing the eagle until the rabbit is seen". However, businesses should also consider using reasonable investment to "raise the eagle first" and stay at the table waiting for the next opportunity. It is actually too late to raise the eagle after seeing the rabbit. The balance and trade-offs between new and old businesses are issues that companies need to spend more energy to think about.

3. Where can merchants find new growth?

In order to get more real information about the operating trends of video accounts, Growth Black Box interviewed Jian Feng, CEO of Zero One Digital. As a leading service provider of private domain operations, Zero One Digital took the top spot in total GMV of both enterprise WeChat and video account operations in 2022. After our discussion, we summarized the incremental opportunities from the three aspects of "people, goods and places":

1) In terms of crowd: Video accounts are unlikely to "steal" business from other online channels, but will instead expand new crowd space.

• Brand new growth: older people who previously had little online shopping habits. The simple and fast method of video accounts plus the long-term habits of WeChat can easily reach them. This is not aimed at the "elderly" aged 60-70 in the traditional definition, but the "middle-aged" aged 40-50. This group has strong spending power and is a family unit with elderly and children, so they have more consumption scenarios than young people.
• Converting stock into incremental: Tmall heavy users are the representatives, who already have strong online shopping habits. They are often young "highly educated people" with strong acceptance of new things, fast migration of consumption behavior, and strong consumption capacity. Differentiated experience can easily attract a part of the population to migrate to video accounts for shopping, allowing merchants to dig out user groups that match themselves from the stock.
• Going down is not the mainstream: Video account consumers are still mostly in 1-3 tier cities, especially 1-tier cities have the strongest spending power. The opportunity to "go up" may be greater.

2) In terms of products: Video accounts are unlikely to become a channel for clearing inventory or promoting sales, but will instead match people and goods through new styles and high quality.

• Cheapness is not the point: Most brands’ products on Video Accounts are the highest-end in their online channels, and there are very few discounts and promotions. Cheapness means sacrificing product quality, and Video Account consumers have high quality requirements. Merchants should arrange the best quality products on the shelf instead of considering price advantages first.
• White-label products also need to be "branded": From the past history, online platforms always start with white-label products and then introduce brand products to harvest, which is extensive first and then governance. As a mature platform, WeChat no longer follows the traditional path, but supports brands from the first day, sets a high tone and strict regulatory standards, and introduces white-label products to expand the market. Therefore, even white-label products must compete in tone and quality, rather than seeing who is bolder and faster.
• Breaking through the "greatest common divisor": Under the idea of ​​centralized algorithms, live streaming sales must be driven by big hits, and products that meet the needs of most people must be found and vigorously promoted. Video accounts can create relatively vertical "small hits" based on the characteristics of the crowd, and then use the advantages of private domains to expand the breadth of products. Similarly, directly moving hot products from other channels here may not necessarily sell well.

3) In terms of the field: Video accounts are not for consumption with a strong purpose, but for content-driven sales. The deep relationship between the brand and the user is very important.

• Decentralization is a feature: it is not the top influencers who promote brands, but the merchants have to rely on themselves. Recommendation algorithms have a higher weight on social interaction and interaction. Short video content will become more and more important in the future to expand the audience, and selling goods cannot be achieved by live streaming alone.
• Public domain traffic is rising: In the early days, it was necessary to rely on private domains to divert traffic to video accounts in order to make live broadcasts work. But now the signal is that you can directly increase the volume without private domains. It can be observed that for some merchants, before January this year, 75% of the traffic was diverted by private domains and 25% was purely public domains, but after June, the situation was reversed. It is expected that more traffic ports will come from the public domain this year.
• The linkage between public and private domains is still important: Merchant data statistics show that the UV value of non-private domain is 0.5-1 yuan, and that of private domain is 5-7 yuan
• The delivery rate is controllable: Currently, without spending money, 5-10% of paid traffic can drive natural traffic. In addition to certain official support policies, private domain reservations will also drive some public domain traffic. In addition, conventional live streaming sales routines are also applicable, attracting high-quality public domain users to enter the live broadcast room as seed traffic, and entering the recommendation pool to drive more traffic in.
• Private domain retention is very important: the UV of fans coming in is 3-5 times that of pure referrals, and users can have a 20-40% repurchase rate after being imported into the private domain. In the live broadcast scene, the sedimentation rate of scene views to fans is 10%, and the sedimentation rate of scene views to WeChat friends is 1%. Merchants without a private domain system can now do a good job in video accounts, but they can't do it for long because they lack the competitiveness of user asset accumulation.
• The window period will be until the end of 2024: Video accounts are not so competitive, and there are more ways to compete, not just looking at traffic. There is no absolute big player now, and it will not develop in this direction in the future. People with 100 points are competing on Douyin, and they have a burden on inventory, and don’t want to start from scratch on Video accounts. Now it is people with 60 or 70 points who are scrambling for opportunities.

Breakthrough

After entering the market, how should businesses build a business model for video accounts based on local conditions? How should they formulate a clear strategic plan and explore new growth while constantly trying and failing?

Through numerous case studies, Growth Black Box has preliminarily summarized a set of growth paths for merchants from entry to breakthrough, which includes 4 key stages:

1. Setting goals: Merchants should not only clarify why they want to create a video account, but also think clearly about whether their goals are important to the company's business even if they are successfully achieved? Is the potential value it brings great? Only high-priority goals will move to the next step. For example, if you see that your peers are doing a booming business on video accounts and you want to do it too, it will be difficult to become a "goal".
2. Resources: Wanting to do something and being able to do it are two different things. If the company lacks the corresponding resources at the current stage, give up temporarily or try again with another goal. For example, the company believes that it is very valuable to use video accounts to expand the output value of the private domain, but the private domain infrastructure has not been built yet and the number of users is small. It is better to wait until the private domain infrastructure is built before trying again.
3. Do a test: Before the match between people, goods and places is achieved, there is no need to invest too much resources and budget. Video accounts are suitable for doing business slowly and operating in the long term - based on the user life cycle, complete the target closed loop first, and then think about expanding the scale. If the test is not ideal, you can consider changing the target or solving the resistance. For example, if the user satisfaction on the video account is average and the store DSR is not high, then don’t consider the advertising ROI and GMV scale first, but optimize customer service, logistics, and pallet configuration.
4. Scaling: When the test runs smoothly and growth accelerates, it is time to consider the ceiling. After increasing investment, if efficiency is difficult to improve, on the one hand, it may be that the platform has limitations at the current stage and needs to wait for a while until commercial capabilities are released; on the other hand, it may be that the ceiling of the selected model is not high, and more paths need to be tested in parallel. Multiple models can be used simultaneously to achieve 1+1>2.

This also corresponds to two aspects of infrastructure support:

1) Organizational structure: It is difficult to achieve breakthroughs without a dedicated person in charge (or team). The company also needs to think clearly about how to collaborate with third-party service agencies.

2) Digital technology: In addition to the company's overall digital architecture (such as CDP, SCRM, BI), the video account itself has specific official empowerment tools and third-party empowerment tools.

• For example, Tencent provides tools such as Shangxinyi and Baopintong to help merchants gain insights into video account traffic and optimize advertising.
• The third-party organization Tuzhan Insight Cloud provides the Video Account Wizard tool, which can mine the store and transaction data of the Video Account market;
• Various AI tools provide product image, text, and video generation functions, which can help merchants optimize their stores and produce a large number of marketing materials.

Below we share a few cases to see how the leading merchants in the industry accurately position their business and achieve matching between people, goods and places.

Clothing industry: Lanzi

The Lancome Group was once known as the " first high-end women's clothing stock " and has many fashionable women's clothing brands. The "Lancome" sub-brand is the largest one among them, with annual revenue exceeding 1 billion. It is positioned to meet the workplace and commuting needs of highly educated women, and the average customer price of hot-selling products is more than 2,000 yuan. At the same time, Lancome not only has hundreds of offline stores as a foundation, but also has expanded e-commerce channels across the region.

At present, the monthly GMV of Langzi’s products on the video account has reached nearly 10 million yuan, and the GMV of a single live broadcast is > 100,000 yuan.

Langzi has a clear view on the business value of video accounts:

• There are great opportunities to be explored in the Tencent ecosystem: the overall strategy is to find new growth from live streaming, and the video account itself can create new performance.
• Better linkage between online and offline: on the one hand, empowering offline, and online taking over old offline customers; on the other hand, bringing new customer traffic from online to offline, and the video account becomes the "new public domain" of offline.

Therefore, Lancome first invested a lot of resources in 2021 to build a complete private domain system, and simultaneously began to test the video account operation to lay a solid foundation. It was not until the second half of 2022 that it began to use formal means to invest heavily in video account live streaming. Currently, the official live broadcast room is the main one, and offline stores are simultaneously developing independent live broadcast rooms, with a team of nearly 10 people dedicated to operation.

From the perspective of people, the incremental population of video accounts is a group of female users who are younger than offline users but older than traditional e-commerce users.

Lancome's original offline customer base is over 50 years old, but this group has an obvious characteristic: once they retire, the demand for workplace-style clothing drops significantly. So in order to expand the customer base, online will emphasize younger styles. The customer base of traditional e-commerce is 40-45 years old.

Since the video account still serves offline old customers, it cannot take big steps: more than half of the users are over 50 years old, but the other part is between 40 and 50 years old. This absorbs new users who were not previously covered by e-commerce and offline channels, and avoids conflicts with channels.

From the perspective of goods, Video Account does not simply copy the goods from other channels, but prepares goods based on the precise needs of customers.

Although Lancome's customer base is mature women, even if the age difference is only a few years, there are huge differences in dressing styles and preferences. Traditional e-commerce product selection tends to be biased towards the logic of hot-selling products, that is, closely following the market to see the hot-selling products of competitors and the popular trends in the market, to meet the needs of as many people as possible, and to continuously attract new customers. For the selection of products for video accounts, the logic is user-centric, not just selling what is popular. Capture accurate customer needs through offline channels, and then adjust them based on offline pallets to meet vertical needs. This has formed a high-quality streamlined SKU, with more youthful new models and a higher average order value.

On the other hand, in the future, Langzi will also invest more in attracting new users of the video account itself, that is, by gaining insights into the operating data of the video account and the market, it will create "explosive products" native to the video account channel.

From the perspective of the market, the video account is not separated from the traditional offline business, but integrates the private domain and gradually moves towards the public domain.

First, since a complete private domain system was established in the early stage and millions of user assets were accumulated, the initial traffic of the video account was imported from the private domain, which currently accounts for the majority. Most customers remain in the shopping guide private domain for a long time, and can be directly introduced to the video account, which becomes a new touchpoint for serving old customers, improving interaction and LTV; there are also some customers who have been inactive for a long time and face the risk of loss. The video account has become a new tool to recall customers and get incremental growth from the existing customers.

Secondly, the seed users in the private domain also allow the recommendation algorithm to drive a lot of natural traffic, introduce a new group of people, and become new online customers. In terms of advertising, video materials + Moments are used to introduce live broadcast rooms, and targeted reach is mainly through the portrait information of old customers. In the future, the advertising will increase the delivery of new groups. The current marketing rate is much lower than that of traditional e-commerce. Whether it is new customers of online traffic or lost customers, there is a chance to reallocate them to long-term shopping guide services, or even to store experience, bringing new customers to the store.

Third, the presentation method of video live broadcast is very different from other live broadcast channels. It pays more attention to communication with users, with a slow pace and detailed explanations. The average user stay time is more than 20 minutes. The degree of attention to the product itself is greater than the exaggerated expressiveness, and it is practical. The live broadcast room is not driven by promotional discounts, and the average selling price is >1,000 yuan. Due to the high-end positioning of Langzi itself, the customer base has strong purchasing power, and the more soothing atmosphere of the live broadcast room. After the match between people, goods and venues is achieved, the conversion rate is several times higher than that of other live broadcast channels, and the return rate is only half of that of traditional e-commerce. This also makes Langzi's video account's net profit rank high in online channels.

Finally, the video account can independently generate user retention. When new users enter the live broadcast room, they will be asked to follow the video account through various means, and add corporate WeChat and communities. With the help of various activities in the live broadcast room, these users can also engage in social fission, bringing in 10-20% of new viewers. The retained users are extremely loyal and will continue to watch live broadcasts and shop through the video account channel, with basically no loss to other channels.

Food and Beverage Industry: Adopt a Cow

As a new brand, Adopt a Cow has successfully broken through the red ocean of the dairy industry. According to data from Jiuqian's middle platform, Adopt a Cow ranked top 7 in the beverage category during the 618 shopping festival this year, and was the only new brand among the top 10 brands . Through strong brand marketing and supply chain construction, Adopt a Cow has created a high-end positioning. Its annual revenue has exceeded 3 billion, and it is currently preparing for listing.

At present, the monthly GMV of Adopt a Cow on Video Account has exceeded 3 million yuan, and the sales of a single live broadcast is >100,000 yuan.

The value of adopting a cow for video accounts lies in:

• After testing, we saw the actual output: We are naturally sensitive to new opportunities and have been testing many online channels for a long time. The video account has a good effect after testing, so we increased our investment.
• Become an enabling tool for the entire private domain system: Integrate into the entire life cycle of private domain users in the form of a "middle platform", solve the problems of attracting new users and repeat purchases, improve customer experience while also increasing LTV.

Since the beginning of 2022, Adopt a Cow has started to test the video account, but at this time, it copied the logic of other live broadcast platforms to operate through the linear path of paid purchase + direct conversion, and the effect was not ideal. By the end of 2022, the operation model was redesigned according to the characteristics of the video account, and it was closely integrated with the private domain to achieve a win-win situation. It has been growing steadily to this day. Currently, it is mainly based on the official live broadcast room, with the help of some influencers to bring goods, and there is a team of less than 10 people in full-time operation.

From the perspective of people, the increase in the number of people using Video Accounts comes from people who do not overlap with traditional e-commerce, but have high spending power.

Since Adopt a Cow focuses on high-end milk and its core audience is middle-class families, nearly half of the users of Video Account are 30-40 years old and are the "leaders" of the family - mothers. However, during the operation, it was found that most users showed characteristics of being unfamiliar with live streaming, such as being unfamiliar with the transaction links. This may mean that the profile of its Video Account users is not heavy users of other live streaming platforms, but a brand new group of people who need more patient guidance and education.

These new users have maintained strong spending power. Even with natural traffic, the average customer unit price in the video account system exceeds 200 yuan, which is much higher than other live streaming channels. However, objectively speaking, the video account cannot infinitely increase the coverage of new groups. As traffic expands, the number of people over 40 and 50 years old will increase, and the matching of goods and venues will change.

From the perspective of goods, Video Account is a combination of home scenarios based on the original goods pallet.

The number of SKUs for adopting a cow is very simple. For standard categories such as food and beverages, it is difficult to customize a separate SKU for a new channel. At the same time, milk is a daily necessity, not a luxury, and it is impossible to increase LTV by simply upgrading the unit price.

Therefore, adopting a cow is to match people and goods for the identity of "mom": as the general housekeeper of the family, mothers not only shop for themselves, but also take care of the needs of their children and the needs of the elderly. The consumption scenarios are very rich. Milk, a simple commodity, has multiple uses such as "filial piety service" and "children's nutrition supplement".

The first is to focus on bulk packages of more than 10 boxes, with an average selling price of around RMB 100. The products in the entire live broadcast room also cover the top products for three different groups of people: children, adults, and the elderly. During the explanation, they provide guidance so that the same customer can purchase a combination for the whole family when placing an order, which increases the overall customer unit price.

The second is milk cards, with an average selling price of around 1,000 yuan. After purchase, they can be delivered all year round and can include a variety of specifications, which also meets the milk drinking needs of the whole family. Users who purchase milk cards will also be considered high-net-worth users, and have exclusive nutritionists to provide 1V1 services on WeChat for enterprises, opening up a closed loop of repeat purchases.

From the perspective of the field, the video account does not follow the "harvesting thinking" but the "service thinking".

In the early exploration, Adopt a Cow found that copying the traffic harvesting model of other platforms did not work well on Video Accounts. Because in other live broadcast channels, the model of buying traffic + increasing the length of stay + increasing GMV generally focuses on immediate transaction conversion and ROI. However, the field characteristics of Video Accounts are not suitable for a short and fast harvesting rhythm. Instead, the link should be extended to serve the complete user life cycle and look at the long-term user asset accumulation and business benefits.

First, Adopt a Cow attracts new users to the live broadcast room through a large number of video account ads. As the video account algorithm matures, the accuracy of ADQ delivery is also higher, which improves the efficiency of paid investment. In this process, the content quality of the live broadcast room is constantly improving, and the data such as interaction, stay, and transaction have also become better, which has allowed the recommendation algorithm to introduce more natural traffic. Therefore, the proportion of paid traffic on the video account is much lower than that of other live broadcast platforms, and the marketing rate is only 10%.

Secondly, when new users come to the live broadcast room, the primary goal is not to convert them on the spot, but to guide them into the enterprise WeChat private domain through various means. Then, with the help of the user stratification mechanism, users with a relatively low willingness to pay are guided to the mini program mall for self-service conversion, and high-value users are guided to 1v1 manual services for precise sales. In this way, the UV value of a single user in the live broadcast room and the private domain differs by nearly 100 times. Currently, more than one-third of the GMV is generated after being guided to the private domain, rather than being traded on the spot in the live broadcast room, and the overall profit is also ranked top in online channels.

Third, through the accumulation of many public channels, Adopt a Cow has millions of private users, among which there are inevitably loss, inactivity, low willingness to consume, etc. By guiding these users to the video account, the high interactive scene of live broadcast is used for conversion, replacing the static shelf scene of the mini program mall. Therefore, the conversion rate and LTV of the existing private domain are greatly improved - the UV value of the live broadcast room can be twice as high as that of the mini program mall.

Fourth, the content format of the live broadcast room is also very different from other platforms. One core point is that the rhythm is very slow, focusing on the detailed introduction of the product itself and the applicable scenarios; another focus is to provide emotional value to users, establish a deep relationship with users and provide care and companionship, so the personal IP becomes very important.

Finally, "service" has a second meaning: empowering the internal organization. If the video account is only treated as an independent channel, then there will be a problem of misalignment with the KPI of the private domain team. However, when the video account plays the role of "middle platform", it is attributed to the large private domain department, sharing KPIs with the private domain team, and driving the performance of the entire department.

Conclusion

Through the above research, it is not difficult to conclude that the phrase "take it slow, it's faster" is more applicable to the current ecology of Video Account.

Video accounts may be a gold mine, but whether you can dig out the gold depends on whether your shovel is strong enough. Merchants should pay more attention to the elements of long-term operation and lay a solid foundation for themselves, rather than harvesting short-term traffic.

From another perspective, because video accounts are quite different from traditional live streaming sales models, if merchants are "kidnapped" by traffic for a long time and face great performance pressure, it is inevitable that they will have difficulty changing their thinking. Adapting measures to local conditions is a topic worthy of long-term research.

I have watched hundreds of live broadcasts on video accounts recently, so I have seen some interesting phenomena and personally experienced this difference:

• From "baby" to "sister": Douyin anchors start with baby, and change to sister on video accounts. Some businesses may really have expanded new groups and are targeting older customers. But if we change our thinking, the anchors are basically in their early 20s, and the users with high consumption power are over 30. It is reasonable to call them sister anywhere, and it does not seem to be a matter of age. This change in nicknames actually reflects the increase in intimacy and trust in the relationship, and has a higher emotional value for users. The anchor seems to no longer be a salesperson, but more like a little sister or brother next door chatting with you.
• From "Go and place your order" to "Don't rush to place your order": I was quite surprised when I first saw this phenomenon, but later I found that this slow-paced way of bringing goods not only does not reduce conversion, but makes the user experience better, and even leads to more orders. The "rebellious psychology" of the highly educated people is very strong, and they don't like to be induced or urged. When the anchor said "Don't rush to buy, first see if it is suitable", they fully felt respected.
• From "many products" to "few products": In some mainstream categories, live broadcast rooms usually do not have a "passing product" strategy. Although each live broadcast is long, the number of products displayed is relatively small. This means that the explanation of each product is more detailed and longer, and the anchor also fully interacts with the user. Merchants do not need to take care of everyone's needs within a limited time, but on the one hand, solve the problem of accurate customers first, and on the other hand, let more users enter the private domain and slowly select more categories.

In the next series of studies, we will conduct a more detailed analysis of video account strategies to help everyone better implement and practice.

Author: Yolo; Produced by: Growth Black Box Research Group

Source: Public Account: Growthbox (ID: growthbox2), cracking the black box of business growth.