300,000 people crowded into Zhang Lan’s live broadcast room, just to “eat melons” without paying any money?

300,000 people crowded into Zhang Lan's live broadcast room, pushing her to the top of Douyin's sales ranking. But the sudden traffic is just a coincidence. Does high traffic necessarily mean high sales? Can the popularity brought by gossip traffic be sustained? What challenges will Zhang Lan's sales style face? Let's take a look at the data in the article.

Did the sudden downpour of traffic "save" Zhang Lan's live broadcast room again?

Zhang Lan, who crossed over from the catering industry to live streaming sales, failed to "make waves" during the 618 promotion, but on the afternoon of June 19, she was pushed to the top of the Douyin sales list by more than 100,000 people who suddenly poured into the live streaming room.

As the hot search went viral, around 2 p.m., a large number of people rushed to Zhang Lan’s Douyin live broadcast room to “watch the fun.”

The former mother-in-law Zhang Lan also "lived up to expectations". She kept busy during the live broadcast, turned on the real melon-eating mode, and sold Hami melons online; songs such as "Good Days", "Ace of Spades", and "Doubly Cool" were played in the live broadcast room, and she personally went on stage to dance; she put on the shelves foods with obvious implications, such as bayberry juice, golden shepherd's purse dumplings, and braised eggs; and she changed into a festive red suit during the intervals between live broadcasts.

In just one afternoon, the number of viewers of Zhang Lan's live broadcast room exceeded 10 million, and the number of simultaneous online viewers exceeded 330,000. Just like Zhang Lan's initial popularity on Douyin, this popularity is still gossip and scandal, and still cannot be separated from the spectators.

Obviously, Zhang Lan, who has tasted the sweetness of traffic, has learned how to retain people who come to watch the fun and how to gain high exposure in a short period of time.

However, does high traffic necessarily lead to high sales? For Zhang Lan and Ma Liuji, who want to delve deeper into the field of live streaming sales, can they continue to rely on gossip traffic?

1. More than 100,000 people flocked to Zhang Lan's live broadcast room, and it was "high" again

"It's okay to watch the fun, come on... Today is a good day, Sister Lan has made it clear, we will not eat stinky melons but only sweet melons..." On the afternoon of June 19, accompanied by the background music of "Good Days", Zhang Lan's live broadcast room was filled with singing and dancing and was very lively.

While the former daughter-in-law's scandal has not been resolved, "Zhang Lan's live broadcast" has become a hot search. According to Chan Mama data, after 14:00 on June 19, the traffic of Zhang Lan's live broadcast room rose sharply, with a peak of 220,000 online users, a cumulative number of viewers exceeding 33.157 million, an average of 79,000 online, 292,000 barrage comments, and an average audience stay of 1 minute and 51 seconds, exceeding 73% of the anchors on that day.

Traffic distribution of Zhang Lan's live broadcast room on June 19 (Source: Chan Mama)

And maintaining this popularity is inseparable from Zhang Lan, who is good at "making things happen".

Let's first briefly explain the "love-hate relationship" between Zhang Lan's family and Big S. Big S is the ex-wife of Zhang Lan's son Wang Xiaofei. Two years ago, Wang Xiaofei and Big S divorced. After that, the two families not only went to court due to various internal and external problems, but also cursed each other online. As an elder, Zhang Lan not only did not "hide" the family scandal, but instead used it as a gimmick in the live broadcast room, outputting gossip and earning waves of traffic for bringing goods.

Back to the "619 Big S incident", Zhang Lan naturally did not miss this wave of sudden traffic.

Seeing the large number of viewers pouring into her live broadcast room, Zhang Lan, who looked puzzled, did not leave awkwardly or close the live broadcast, but took advantage of the situation. Not only did she actively interact and joke with the netizens who were flooding the comment area, but she also responded to the requests of her "fans" by playing "Good Days" and "Very Cool" on her mobile phone in the live broadcast room to celebrate with netizens.

At the same time, he added bayberry juice, which means "to be proud of", and dried radish that "tastes better than kimchi" to the products on the shelves. He also changed into a very appropriate red suit at the request of the audience and connected online with Wang Xiaofei in another live broadcast room.

Zhang Lan's live broadcast achieved "remarkable" data under her "fancy live broadcast" operation. Chan Mama showed that on June 19, Zhang Lan's live broadcast room topped the Douyin e-commerce food list and has been in the top 30 of the popularity list, with a total of more than 52.539 million likes and an increase of 224,000 fans. Compared with the previous total number of viewers of only 1.2 million, it was a great harvest.

This has also boosted product sales to a certain extent. According to Chanmama data, the sales volume of the live broadcast over 12 hours on June 19 was 250,000 to 500,000 orders, with sales of 10 million to 25 million yuan. The best-selling Ma Liuji hot and sour noodles sold 75,000 to more than 100,000 orders, with sales of 2.5 million to 5 million yuan.

Image source: Cicada Mom

Some netizens said that a 65-year-old anchor who was "grandma-like" was dancing and selling goods in the live broadcast room and was responsive to fans' requests. Even if they didn't buy anything, they still had to watch the fun. But some people said that they would not go to watch Zhang Lan's "performance" and were not interested in her behavior of taking advantage of the popularity.

2. Relying on gossip traffic to "cheat" all the way?

Zhang Lan's ability to "play with traffic" is obvious to all.

First of all, from the perspective of self-packaging, the "story" that Zhang Lan created for herself is very consistent with the characteristics of "traffic".

A single mother who once worked six jobs a day in a foreign country, was threatened by gangsters and hunted by enemies when she opened a restaurant, fell into a capital crisis after starting her own business, and lost the South Beauty company valued at more than 2 billion yuan... Each of these experiences is a "tragic" drama of changing one's fate.

In interviews, autobiographies and interviews, Zhang Lan's speech, behavior and work style are mostly centered around the character of a fierce, unyielding and unyielding heroine. After being fiercely criticized several times by celebrities such as Wang Sicong, her self-willed character further strengthened the role of "Zhan Lan".

Secondly, before entering the live streaming sales scene, Zhang Lan had already started using short videos to “play with traffic”.

After opening an account on Douyin, she posted videos of herself drinking afternoon tea at a high-end hotel, chatting with female entrepreneurs, pretending to call her son, acting out family ethics dramas, or occasionally posting some "only hard work can lead to success" chicken soup. Short videos have become a stage for Zhang Lan to show herself, and the "traffic" of her son and daughter-in-law has also become part of her video material.

The last one is the sales model that uses gossip to attract attention.

From Wang Xiaofei and Big S's divorce, to their online quarrel, to Big S's remarriage, the "war of words escalated", and related rumors spread wildly on the Internet. Zhang Lan showed that she "knew everything she knew" about these family affairs.

Zhang Lan's passionate personality and her openness to gossip have made her a walking traffic star. For example, after her son's divorce, Zhang Lan quickly started a live broadcast and broke the news that "Wang Xiaofei was beaten up by Taiwanese artist Blackie (Chen Jianzhou)", and dozens of related topics immediately became hot searches on major platforms.

When her ex-daughter-in-law remarried the Korean artist Gu Junye, Zhang Lan even started selling boiled eggs, green tea, and green hats in her live broadcast room, and danced and played DJs to imply relevant people. In the "mattress gate" incident, Zhang Lan also contacted the relevant manufacturers as soon as possible to sell mattresses, taking advantage of the situation to increase the traffic in her live broadcast room.

"Her son cried bitterly on Weibo, and she made a lot of money on Douyin." Lele, who watched Zhang Lan's live broadcast, said, "She really understands what people who like to watch the show want to see, and she will interact with netizens."

According to Chanmama data, after the scandal last year, Zhang Lan's Douyin live broadcast room sold 25 million yuan in sales in one day, topping the Douyin sales chart. With a low customer unit price of around 30 yuan, she sold 1 million items, surpassing Oriental Selection in sales. According to incomplete statistics from Feigua data, Zhang Lan live-streamed 96 shows in November last year, bringing in over 100 million yuan in sales, relying solely on "family topics."

"Zhang Lan herself is controversial. She made her private affairs public to satisfy the public's curiosity. Rather than being a gossip, it is more like a 'welfare' in the live broadcast room." Youzi, who works in e-commerce services, said that Zhang Lan is the biggest IP in her live broadcast business. The core of creating a persona and telling gossip is all about her. The audience comes in to see her. Zhang Lan, who is good at making things happen, has become an "amplifier" of traffic, driving the sales of Ma Liu Ji. 3. Traffic does not equal sales.

3. Without the “melon”, what else can Zhang Lan “sell”?

From the data feedback from the live broadcast room, we can see that gossip has brought a lot of traffic to Zhang Lan. But does traffic equal sales?

Last year, Zhang Lan's live broadcast sales performance can provide some answers. The traffic effect is directly reflected in sales. In the hands of Zhang Lan, who is good at making things happen, the active atmosphere in the live broadcast room makes many people "empathize" with the anchor and "impulsively" place orders.

But short-term traffic does not represent long-term sales, especially in a sales model that relies on the onlookers to pay.

Since the scandal of Big S ended last year, Zhang Lan's live broadcast data has been declining. According to the new Douyin data, Zhang Lan's Douyin live broadcast account lost more than 30,000 followers in 7 days, an average of more than 5,000 followers per day. In the sales ranking list, Zhang Lan's ranking has dropped from the top 10 to 40th, a drop of more than 30 places.

The data from Chan Mama also proves this trend. The data shows that since the beginning of this year, Zhang Lan's live broadcasts have an average of 300,000 to 700,000 viewers per show, an average of 10,000 to 20,000 sales per show, and an average of 500,000 to 750,000 yuan in sales per show, which has almost maintained a fluctuating downward trend. Compared with last year's single-game sales of over 10 million, there is a huge difference.

Changes in sales of Zhang Lan's live broadcast room (December 22, 2022 - June 20, 2023) (Source: Chan Mama)

"Entertainment gossip topics have increased the traffic of Ma Liu Ji, but in the long run, it is not very helpful." Youzi said that Zhang Lan's personal characteristics have played a role in diverting traffic to Ma Liu Ji, and potential consumers will place orders after seeing the products they need. However, excessive entertainment has caused the traffic of the live broadcast room to follow the gossip news, which can easily lead to the embarrassing situation of "no gossip, no users".

This sales model also makes the sales conversion rate unstable. According to Chanmama data, Zhang Lan's live broadcast sales conversion rate was 1.87% in the past 30 days. According to the standards given by Douyin, the conversion rate is between 3% and 5%, which is a relatively reasonable range, indicating that there is a certain amount of fixed fans and fixed income, but the conversion rate of Zhang Lan's live broadcast room is lower than this range.

In the live broadcast on June 19, there were over 33.15 million viewers, but the number of product clicks was only 7,647, which is not a high opening rate.

Image source: Cicada Mom

The sudden influx of traffic was just a coincidence, and Zhang Lan and Ma Liuji were also looking for new ways out.

On March 6 this year, Zhang Lan started live streaming on Taobao. According to DianTao data, she put many products on the shelves in her first live streaming on Taobao, with Ma Liuji products accounting for about 1/3, and also including other brands and various categories. The live streaming was viewed by 3.518 million people and received 2.025 million likes.

Ma Liuji has also begun to "de-Zhang Lan", setting up a separate live broadcast room, training new anchors, reducing direct interaction with Zhang Lan, etc. But at present, the average number of viewers per game in Ma Liuji's live broadcast room without Zhang Lan is less than 1,000.

In addition, Zhang Lan has undergone some changes in the way she promotes entertainment gossip, whether it is the change of the decoration of the live broadcast room from a family background to a professional live broadcast room style, or the gradual move towards "not speaking directly" in the way of personal expression when gossiping. But when the flow of gossip falls on her again, Zhang Lan will still "take advantage of it", but she will also say "don't say what you shouldn't say".

When live streaming sales enters the stage of competing for hard strengths such as products, supply chains, and market recognition, what challenges will Zhang Lan's sales style face? Without Zhang Lan, how much sales could Ma Liuji, which was brought up by Zhang Lan, have? All of this still needs answers.

Author: Ji Xiaoling Editor: Jin Yufan

Source: WeChat public account "Kaiboli Finance"

The article is authorized by @开菠萝财经 to be published on Operation Party. Any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CCO protocol.