Zibo became popular and TikTok exploded. How many secrets are hidden in the local life live broadcast list?

The trillion-level local life market is re-emerging, reshaping the industry's ecology and structure. Who are the beneficiaries of this local life melee? Who are those masters with millions of fans and tens of millions of sales in a single live broadcast? How did they do it? What potential opportunities are there next? Let's take a look at this article to find out.

In 2023, the trillion-level local life market will be in the spotlight again, with newcomers emerging one after another, challenging the status of the king while also reshaping the industry ecology and structure. Douyin has made great efforts to achieve miracles and is becoming an important force in this market.

Who are the beneficiaries of this local life melee? Merchants or influencers? Who are those influencers with millions of fans and tens of millions of sales in a single live broadcast? How did they do it? What potential opportunities are there next?

Previously, Douyin released the "Monthly Ranking of Institutions" for the first quarter of this year. 16 institutions were successfully listed, with 38 representative talents. Among them, Juliang Culture has maintained the top 1 for three consecutive months, and its representative talents include "Shanghai Treasure Brother", "Happy Boss Lady", "Orange Visits Shanghai", and "Modu Old Iron Tree"; Tuniu Travel, Miai Technology, Meitu Meishi, Jinmai Zhonghe, Beijing Beibei Media, and Tandian Mingxing have been on the list for three consecutive months, ranking high.

The list is compiled by the platform based on the sum of the level points of the influencers bound to the institution in the current month, and the top 10 institutions are selected (L4 to L7 account level points correspond to 1 point, 3 points, 10 points and 20 points). The final ranking is then made based on the influencer's ability to bring goods corresponding to the effective group purchase transaction amount accumulated during the statistical period.

Yibang Power noticed that from January to March 2023, 70% of the MCN agencies on the list were on the list continuously, which means that the Douyin life service provider ecosystem is gradually stabilizing. Among them, the representative talent "Xiaofang is not Xiaofang" under Miai Technology has reached 1.238 million fans, and the "Kexin Couple" under Beijing Beibei Media and the "Food Play Fujian" account under Duojing Interactive have more than 650,000 fans.

It is understood that Douyin internally calls "local life" "Douyin life services", which can be roughly divided into three categories: catering, wine and travel (hotels, scenic spots, homestays, and large transportation) and comprehensive (leisure and entertainment (KTV, bars, escape rooms, etc.), bathing and massage, beauty (beauty, hairdressing, etc.), movie performances, sports and fitness, parent-child education, and pets. There are more than 2 million cooperative stores and business covers 370 cities. Among the institutions on the list, their accounts mainly promote and recommend group purchase products in the catering category.

1. Who are the masters with millions of fans, tens of millions of GMV for a single live broadcast?

In the monthly institutional rankings from January to March this year, Miai Technology ranked 3rd, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Its fast food group buying expert "Xiao Fang is not Xiao Fang" has the highest number of fans among all the representative experts of the listed institutions.

In just 6 months, "Xiao Fang is not Xiao Fang" achieved a fan growth from 0 to more than 1 million. In June last year, the live broadcast GMV exceeded 20 million yuan, setting a new record for monthly GMV of a single account in the country.

According to Feigua data, the main source of fans and sales for "Xiao Fang is not Xiao Fang" is the live broadcast room. In the past 180 days, the anchor has broadcast 230 live broadcasts, which is equivalent to broadcasting every day, with an average of 135,000 viewers per broadcast and a customer unit price of about 43 yuan; in the past 30 days, the live broadcast with the highest sales and viewership was the Haidilao 320 birthday special, with 1.593 million viewers and a live broadcast GMV of about 10 million to 25 million yuan.

“When we first started working on Douyin’s local life service, even accounts with 1,000 followers could achieve a GMV of tens or millions.” Zhang Xiaofei, founder of Miai Technology, once publicly stated that in more than a year since entering the Douyin life service, Miai Technology has incubated three group buying expert accounts with a single-game GMV of millions, namely "Xiao Fang is Not Xiao Fang", "Yang Ge Can't Stay Idle", and "Xiao Lu Doesn't Wander Around".

In April 2022, An Kexin and his wife tried Douyin's life service live broadcast. The live broadcast room was nicknamed "Kexin Couple", mainly recommending Beijing local or national chain food. During the National Day, Kexin couple and KFC launched a special live broadcast, with a single-day GMV of 10.26 million yuan, becoming the best result of the account so far. After the "Kexin Couple" account was successfully run, Kexin couple established the MCN agency "Beijing Cup Media" to incubate accounts such as "Kexin's Third Uncle".

According to FeiGua data, in the past 30 days, the "Ke Xin couple" has broadcast 57 live broadcasts. The live broadcast room with the highest sales, sales volume and audience was the Haidilao Birthday Carnival on March 21, with an estimated sales of 5 million to 7.5 million yuan. In the past 180 days, the single product with the highest estimated sales volume of the Ke Xin couple is "Pizza Hut Pizza 2 pieces as you like", with an estimated transaction volume of more than 10 million yuan.

In addition to "Xiao Fang is not Xiao Fang" and "Ke Xin couple", there are many live broadcast rooms of experts in the field of life services on Douyin with a revenue of over 10 million yuan, such as the special live broadcast of Tea Hundred Ways by the tea drink live broadcast expert "I am Xiaopang", the special live broadcast of Chimelong Amusement Park by the cultural and tourism live broadcast expert "Xiao Qi Loves to Play", and the special live broadcast of Sanya Atlantis Hotel by the general life expert "A Yue is Here".

However, due to the statistical cycle of the list and the registration and inclusion rules of the list, they are not on the list yet.

2. Two strategies: high sales VS high write-off rate

Yibang Power found that some of these life service accounts were created by experts and some were created by merchants, and the strategies of the two are completely different.

One is to broadcast frequently, increase monthly GMV, and increase single-game sales through operational means. This is represented by expert accounts such as "Ke Xin Couple" and "Xiao Fang is not Xiao Fang", which are generally operated by MCN agencies.

The other is long-term short video promotion, with low frequency and limited time broadcast, using the "short video + live broadcast" approach to achieve high exposure + high redemption rate. It is represented by brand merchants such as CoCo and Tim Coffee, and is generally operated by service providers or merchants themselves.

For the "Ke Xin couple", product combination + live broadcast operation is the key to increasing the GMV of the live broadcast room.

Open the homepage of the "Ke Xin couple" account, and it says "Attention merchants: Please bypass if the goods are not advantageous (only offer the lowest price during the same period)". The usual strategy of the "Ke Xin couple" live broadcast room is to use cost-effective welfare products to attract users to stay and buy during the flat traffic period, attract more users to enter through high transaction order volume, and start introducing the main products and profit products when the traffic reaches a small peak, driving the overall sales of the live broadcast room to rise.

When selecting products, the Ke Xin couple tend to choose brand merchants that support more stores and cover a wider geographical area. This way, the purchasing audience of the live broadcast room will be wider and the possibility of creating higher live broadcast room transaction volume will be greater.

In March, the Ke Xin couple did a special live broadcast of Haidilao's birthday carnival, using the exclusive "Haidilao 320 Birthday Month Fan Weekday Meal for Two" as the lead-in, placing it at the top of the shopping cart to give it maximum exposure, and then putting up single item discounts of 20-40 yuan in the next few slots, such as layered snow wave pork belly, signature large-grain shrimp balls, etc., for users to place combination orders.

During the live broadcast, the couple also created an atmosphere in the live broadcast room by counting down, controlling inventory and changing prices, attracting users to continue to place orders. Feigua data shows that this live broadcast attracted more than 860,000 viewers, with an average stay time of 1 minute and 14 seconds, a customer unit price of 214.3 yuan, and sales output per minute of more than 10,000 yuan.

Zhang Xiaofei, the founder of Miai Technology, operates the account "Yang Ge Can't Stay Idle". His experience is that the key is to quickly finish the sales pitch for a hit product within 20 seconds and complete the conversion within 10 seconds, so as to make the most efficient use of Douyin's public domain traffic. The live broadcast screen can even weaken the host's personality, or keep the host on screen, and directly display the product, so that users can focus on the product and achieve rapid transaction conversion.

Unlike influencer accounts that focus more on the GMV of the live broadcast room, brand merchant accounts also focus on the post-sales write-off rate of products and brand exposure during the event.

Jinmai Zhonghe is one of the first service providers to enter Douyin's life service, serving many tea brand customers, such as CoCo, Tims, etc., and has also cooperated and incubated thousands of influencer accounts. In Jinmai Zhonghe's plan, brand live broadcasts are only large-scale, once a month, and daily short video content is very important. High-quality content has a great impact on efficient write-off conversion and high exposure conversion.

According to Jinmai Zhonghe’s experience, large customers usually live broadcast 1-3 times a month, and stores are very likely to not be able to cope with the changes brought about by high-frequency live broadcasts. For example, some brands also involve adjustments to the alliance system, including unified price lists, optimization of in-store fulfillment experience processes, and stabilization of service levels.

3. In addition to selling coupons, what other new models are there in local life?

Douyin’s life service business relies on group purchasing coupons, such as group meal coupons from catering businesses, haircut coupons from hair salons, consumer vouchers from supermarkets and department stores, etc. (the commodities are all services or products that can be provided by the stores).

In the past few months, they have explored a new cross-border cooperation business. Wang Dinghui, head of Douyin Life Service Business Promotion and Communication Center, once gave an example that Yuanqi Forest and the hot pot brand Chuanxibazi jointly launched Yuanqi Forest's special drinks in the Chuanxibazi store and hung the Yuanqi Forest sign in the store.

For example, Yili Soy Milk cooperated with 18 breakfast shops of different categories in Jiangxi, such as snail noodles, Nanchang rice noodles, soup dumplings, etc., implanted the products into customized breakfast group purchases, and invited local high-quality store explorers to shoot food videos. One breakfast shop owner immediately expressed the hope that this cooperation could be maintained for a long time, and took the initiative to introduce Yili Soy Milk and put it on the shelves in the store.

In addition to food and beverage merchants and catering stores, new collisions are also occurring between scenic spots and catering, hotel and travel stores.

Fei Fei Xia Restaurant is a well-known crayfish restaurant brand in Wuhan, which has opened 28 chain stores in the local market of Hubei. In order to strengthen the brand recognition of "the best shrimp in Hubei" and expand its national influence, in March this year, Fei Fei Xia Restaurant reached a cross-border cooperation with the 5A-level scenic spot Yellow Crane Tower, first of all, it protected and renovated a century-old building, and then launched the Fei Fei Xia Restaurant Yellow Crane Tower joint store on this basis.

Fei Fei Shrimp Restaurant maintains the original appearance of the old building, and the interior soft furnishings integrate elements of Yellow Crane Tower and modern fashionable camping style, connecting the Yangtze River, sunset, Yellow Crane Tower, trains, and crayfish. The combination of century-old buildings, modern fashion, Wuhan city IP and Wuhan shrimp culture has attracted many diners from all over the country to come and try the new food and check in.

After the store opened, Fei Fei Xia Zhuang invited more than 1,800 influencers in the fields of food, store exploration, travel, and evaluation on Douyin to create short videos. Hundreds of influencers promoted products through the method of "store live broadcast + oral explanation + product display"; Fei Fei Xia Zhuang's official account started broadcasting at the same time, and eventually achieved a single-day live broadcast that brought in more than 10 million in online revenue. Within 1 hour, it topped the Wuhan group buying sales list, breaking the single-game record for live broadcast sales in the crayfish industry.

As Wang Dinghui said, Douyin's life services have covered three major consumption scenarios: catering, hotels and travel, and comprehensive services. It is currently trying to deepen vertical category and refined operations, such as dividing the catering category into more subdivided categories such as Western fast food, Chinese fast food, bread and desserts, hot pot, etc. for targeted operations.

For long holidays like May Day, they have developed more new models of products, stores and cities. For example, the recently popular Zibo barbecue is a viral spread based on Douyin local life.

Author: Liao Zilin

Source: WeChat public account "Yibang Power"