My year of live streaming sales: Involution and anxiety are the norm, and fans are the anchor’s biggest “confidence”

In the past two years, live streaming has not only become a trend, but also one of the few industries that has grown against the trend during the epidemic. What will be the trend of the live streaming industry in the future? This article will lead you to understand the stories of the anchors who sell goods and gain insight into the future direction of the live streaming industry. Don't miss it.

Driven by the wealth effect of top celebrities such as Li Jiaqi and Luo Yonghao, more and more people are beginning to flock into this industry, including not only cross-border entrepreneurs and celebrities, but also a large number of ordinary people.

As a "bridge" connecting consumers and businesses, live streamers have undoubtedly attracted people's attention. Under the spotlight, what have these live streamers experienced in the past year? Claure talked to four live streamers with this question in mind.

Some of them are new anchors who started as part-time anchors and then officially entered the industry; some are entrepreneurs who transformed from travel bloggers to live-streaming anchors; some are shopping guide experts with many years of experience in live-streaming; and some are mothers of two children with 6 years of experience in product selection for MCN agencies.

Through their stories, we hope to lead readers to have a deeper understanding of the group of live streaming e-commerce hosts, and to see a more realistic live streaming e-commerce industry as much as possible.

1. "Enjoy the excitement of making money in the internal competition" Make a friend, new anchor Yuxin

1. Enter the industry right after graduation

After graduating from graduate school in 2021, Yuxin, who majored in broadcasting and hosting, did not enter traditional media such as radio and television like her classmates. Instead, she chose the live streaming industry and became a live streaming anchor.

She still remembers her experience when she first entered the industry. When she was working as a part-time anchor for the sports brand Under Armour, Yuxin received an invitation from "Make Friends". The person in charge asked her if she was willing to join "Make Friends". The whole communication process went smoothly and Yuxin decided to join "Make Friends".

The spacious venue, high-end background, advanced live broadcast equipment... the high-end live broadcast environment shocked Yuxin, because it was very similar to the studio for large-scale evening parties when she was a host at a TV station. The idea of ​​"wanting to stay" instantly became strong.

After the short 15-minute trial broadcast, about 5-8 friends in Yuxin’s WeChat circle of more than 2,000 friends sent private messages saying that they saw her, which made her truly feel the influence of the leading live-streaming e-commerce companies.

Yuxin said that the training for newcomers in "Make Friends" is mostly starting from the night show, and the poor traffic of the night show is a problem she has to face. Under normal circumstances, the number of online people in the live broadcast room after 12 o'clock is about 3,000, and after 1 o'clock in the morning, the number of people is basically below 2,000.

Low prices and benefits are essential means to attract traffic to the live broadcast room. In the early days of live broadcasting, Yuxin once used a pair of socks worth one yuan to increase the number of viewers after 1 o'clock to 6,000 or 7,000, which left a deep impression on her.

"It only costs one dollar to ship to your home, and you can return it if you don't like it", "If everyone pays attention, I will place a few more orders", "If the number of viewers reaches 6,000, I will place 200 more orders for you". It is through such words that Yu Xin step by step guided the audience to break through the previous live broadcast data. Yu Xin frankly said, "Now I feel that this achievement is worthy of bragging to others."

Yuxin's personal efforts plus the support of the institution have also enabled her to earn a considerable salary. Compared with her classmates' monthly salary of around 10,000 yuan, Yuxin can currently earn 5 or 6 times theirs or even more.

2. Find pleasure in involution

After working for about 7 months, Yuxin became familiar with the process. She arrived at the scene about an hour in advance to put on makeup, and checked the products with the product selection teacher and the live broadcast rhythm with the operation. After a normal live broadcast of 3 or 4 hours, she would spend about half an hour to review. In this process, Yuxin also found out the three major categories that she is good at: beauty, clothing, and mother and baby.

Yuxin's connection with the maternal and infant category originated from an accident. At that time, the anchor who was supposed to broadcast the maternal and infant category was unable to come to the scene due to health reasons. The person in charge decided to let her have a try based on Yuxin's past performance. In the process of interacting with the barrage, Yuxin found that her friendly smile could easily bring a sense of trust to the audience. After one broadcast, she made up her mind to make maternal and infant her main category.

Generally speaking, the life of an anchor is not as easy and high-paid as outsiders see. They often need to bear great psychological pressure, which is the "price" of doing this job. Yu Xin has personally experienced this kind of "collapse".

For example, maternal and infant products are generally live-streamed between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., so Yuxin needs to get up at 4 a.m. to prepare for this. "I feel psychologically stressed when I think about getting up so early. Even if I feel very sleepy at night, I just can't fall asleep. It's really frustrating," said Yuxin.

In addition, cooperating with other anchors is also something that confuses Yuxin at the moment, because she is a person who is used to controlling the rhythm of the live broadcast by herself. In the process of partnering with some veteran anchors, she dares not express her ideas too much for fear that she will interrupt others.

Yuxin said: "This might make me become a supporting role, and I don't like this situation very much." Therefore, finding her own position when partnering with veteran anchors may be the direction of her future efforts.

Although she has not been in the industry for a long time, Yuxin's mentality has changed a lot. "Having a sense of awe" is her most direct feeling about this job at present.

Before entering the industry, Yuxin thought that the threshold for becoming an anchor was relatively low, and the work content was relatively simple. In addition, she had experience as a host, so she thought she could easily handle this job. But after actually working, she found that appearance and voice were only the basics of being an anchor, "This job requires a certain amount of time and energy to study in order to do better." In particular, seeing that some outstanding predecessors in the organization are still working hard, this inspired her to keep moving forward.

In addition to being a host, Yuxin is also a short video creator. The attributes of her account are more like a beauty blogger, and her ability to pay is relatively weak. Therefore, she hopes to add some grass-planting actions in the future to realize account monetization. The host also needs the ability to plant grass content. This is a complementary thing for her, and it is also her main focus in the future.

As more and more people enter the industry, Yuxin clearly feels that the position of anchor is becoming more and more competitive. Her response is to find categories that continue to excite her, while also taking care of her own health to ensure her long-term development. In short, she enjoys the "excitement of making money in the internal competition."

2. "Anxiety is the norm, and the team pushes me forward" Travel blogger transformed into a live streamer Xiao Xiaosha

1. The cost of moving from short videos to selling products

In 2016, Xiao Xiaosha resigned from her university and started her own travel self-media journey. Initially, she published travel notes on travel guide platforms such as Ctrip and Mafengwo, and later began to move to Weibo and WeChat. In 2017, short videos entered the public eye. As a travel blogger, Xiao Xiaosha joined a video platform at the end of 2017 with a try-it attitude.

The video "What to Wear to Dubai" was Xiao Xiaosha's first hit on the short video platform. She kept receiving push notifications as soon as she got off the plane. This content directly increased her number of fans from around 500 to tens of thousands. This surprised her and also made her see the potential of short videos, so she began to continuously update on the short video platform.

From the beginning of 2018 to 2019, the account experienced an explosive period and a stable period. During this period, the account produced a popular video with over 2 million likes, and also increased the account's followers by one million. By the end of 2019, the account's followers reached six million.

At the beginning of 2020, the epidemic disrupted Xiao Xiaosha's original work plan. She only went out three times in the whole month of February, and all of them were to purchase daily necessities. This is very different from her previous state of flying around the world for an entire month.

Because work could not proceed normally, Xiao Xiaosha also had some free time, which became her opportunity to transform into live streaming sales. Initially, she, her husband and her assistant prepared for live streaming sales, but she had no relevant experience and live streaming sales data to back her up, so she encountered challenges in contacting brands to get goods. In addition, the entire process from product selection to content production to live streaming operations required the three of them to complete. The shortage of manpower and unfamiliarity with the process made her initial start-up particularly difficult.

During the step-by-step exploration process, the contradictions during the transformation of the travel content team to the live streaming e-commerce team were also exposed. Not everyone can adapt to the working pace of live streaming e-commerce, which directly caused the loss of some employees. Recruiting people became a major problem that made her anxious.

Because the account was transformed into a live streaming business, the loss of some fans became a "price" that had to be paid. At the same time, Xiao Xiaosha also gained some new e-commerce fans. "This is a benign process, because live streaming does not require a large fan base, and an accurate user group is more important."

Due to her love for clothing and the product selection logic summarized from years of purchasing clothes, Xiao Xiaosha makes clothing categories the focus of her live broadcast room, which also makes her fan portrait gradually clearer.

She also turned a classic 801 coat worth a thousand yuan into a hit in the live broadcast room. By popularizing science to users and showing how it would look on models of different body shapes, Xiao Xiaosha sold nearly 20,000 orders in one day, and the sales in the live broadcast room directly exceeded 10 million.

Thanks to her achievements in the clothing category, Xiao Xiaosha has been named the "Fashion Trend Promoter" of a short video platform for two consecutive years, and coats have become a prominent label in her live broadcast room. But behind the brilliant achievements, she also admitted that traffic anxiety always accompanies her.

2. Live streaming while pregnant, the team pushed me forward

The most direct thing is that the number of viewers in the live broadcast room and the real-time ranking of the goods sold have become the "barometer" of her mood. If she sees a decline in the data of the live broadcast room, Xiao Xiaosha will immediately make corresponding adjustments and use a one-dollar traffic-generating product to boost the popularity of the live broadcast room.

Unlike most live broadcast rooms that use the "six bottles of Coke for one dollar" approach to attract traffic, Xiao Xiaosha uses several brooches from her own clothing brand, which she is quite proud of: "Not only do they attract traffic, these brooches can also serve as a source of traffic for subsequent products."

In the three years since she transformed into a live-streaming anchor, Xiao Xiaosha has spent almost every holiday in the live-streaming room. One of her birthday incidents in the room will be unforgettable for her.

That day, she launched two skin care products, SK-II Fairy Water and Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair, on the live broadcast room with 0 commission. Many users came for this benefit, but one of her words was judged as a violation by the system, so the yellow car in the live broadcast room was forced to be removed.

On one hand, the number of viewers continued to rise, while on the other hand, users were frantically spamming the screen with questions like "Are you doing hunger marketing?" and "Why hasn't it been put up for sale yet?" She quickly understood the situation and apologized to the audience in the live broadcast room, but because the link could not be put back up for a short time, she ended the live broadcast in tears.

Today, Xiao Xiaosha, who is seven months pregnant, still maintains the habit of working six days a week, but the discomfort caused by standing for a long time has forced her to shorten the live broadcast time. "At the peak, I could broadcast for nearly 16 hours a day, and my throat was almost unable to speak when I was off the air. But now I can only broadcast for 5 or 6 hours at most," Xiao Xiaosha said. Guiding new anchors behind the scenes has gradually become the focus of her current work.

Some people think that insisting on live streaming while pregnant is an inspirational story, but there are also people who think that this is just for money and disregarding one's own health.

But for Xiao Xiaosha, being a live streamer is far more than what the outside world sees. The team of about 160 people behind her makes this identity more meaningful. "If I withdraw unscathed, can GMV cover the company's daily operating costs?", "How can I pay employees' salaries and bonuses stably to ensure their job security?"...

In addition to considerations of the company's interests, live streaming to sell goods during pregnancy is also a way for Xiao Xiaosha to keep a positive attitude. She does not want to stop and let years of hard work go to waste just because of her pregnancy. Instead, she wants to continue to take root in her professional career and set an example for her unborn baby.

3. "Tiredness is the deepest feeling after entering the industry, and rapid growth under high intensity"

1. Seamless connection between selling products and catching up on sleep

After graduating from university, Guang Guang became a TV shopping host. Later, as consumers turned on the TV less and less frequently, Guang Guang, who had been working for 8 or 9 years, began to change his job. At that time, live streaming with goods gradually became popular, and live streaming with goods and TV shopping had certain similarities in form. Guang Guang followed the trend of the times and entered the live streaming with goods industry and became a goods anchor.

"Tired" is how Guangguang feels after becoming a live streamer, which is reflected in the long working hours. Usually, Guangguang gets up around 10 a.m., washes up briefly, and goes straight to the company.

After arriving at the company, his pre-broadcast work includes browsing handheld cards with product selling points, discussing products with brands, and putting on makeup. After completing this series of processes, Guang Guang will go on air around 4 pm and continue until 12 o'clock in the evening.

During the Double 11 promotion, it was Guangguang's normal routine to come in earlier and leave later. During the most intense period of work, he only had about four hours of rest time a day. The high intensity of work was also reflected in the speed of product changes. When he was a TV shopping host in the past, the speed of product changes was slower, and Guangguang only needed to focus on one product.

However, live streaming is quite different. Generally, Guangguang’s live streaming room will display more than 100 products a day, and during the Double Eleven promotion period, the number will increase to more than 300. Therefore, Guangguang needs to spend more time and energy on understanding the products. However, Guangguang admits that he feels a great sense of accomplishment when he sees fans place orders after listening to his explanations, which is also the motivation that supports him to keep working.

Guangguang believes that "putting your own thoughts into other people's heads and putting other people's money into your own pocket" are the two most difficult things, but the anchor is doing these two things at the same time.

2. The art of speaking is important when promoting products

From a formal perspective, live streaming sales can often only allow consumers to understand the products through vision and hearing. Therefore, the anchor needs to find ways to make up for consumers' other senses such as touch and smell of a product, and encourage consumers to place orders through a more comprehensive product presentation.

Guang Guang has also developed his own logic for this. In addition to using precise language to describe the characteristics of the products, Guang Guang will also guide consumers in front of the screen to do some actions to supplement their feelings about the products. The "art of speaking" has become the key here.

For example, he once received a massager product, but its appearance was a bit similar to a helmet, which had limited visual appeal to consumers. So when Guangguang introduced this product, he first described the tired state of people after getting home from get off work, bringing consumers into the situation, and then guided consumers to stretch out their hands to massage the acupoints, giving them a more intuitive feeling. Then he highlighted the selling points of the product and achieved good conversion.

Nowadays, Guangguang is adept at live streaming and selling goods. While controlling the rhythm of the live broadcast, he can also take care of the comment section.

During a live broadcast, he was explaining a soap liquid shower gel from a domestic brand. A user said in the comment section that "nowadays live broadcasts can be broadcast regardless of whether the product has a brand or not." Guang Guang was very angry when he saw it, so he explained that "this brand is an old domestic product and has been doing charity work. Sulfur soap is the brand's flagship product. Now the product has been upgraded to the form of soap liquid, and it is not a three-no product." This gave consumers a further understanding of the brand.

In the past year, the competition in the industry has become visibly fierce, which has put higher demands on anchors. Guangguang believes that the anchor's personal experience and life experience will be transformed into their own competitiveness, and at the same time, they must also put themselves in the perspective of a weak person and continue to learn.

4. "Fans are the anchor's biggest 'confidence'" Chenfan Beauty anchor Shuyao

1. Livestreaming is a “trust” business

Before becoming a live streaming anchor selling goods, Shi Shuyao (hereinafter referred to as Shuyao) had been a beauty blogger on Chenfan for some time. From graphic content to long videos to short videos, Shuyao's sharp and powerful talk show-style expression has won her a group of loyal fans, which also laid the foundation for her later live streaming sales.

Her six years of experience in selecting products for celebrity stores in an MCN agency also gave her certain advantages, allowing her to quickly judge the quality of a product, and because of her in-depth communication with the brand, this also provided a certain guarantee for Shuyao's inventory. Under the influence of these two factors, Shuyao's first live broadcast sales exceeded 3 million GMV when her fans were less than 1 million.

Such achievements are closely related to Shuyao's product selection logic. Her boss is both a product manager and a formulator, and domestic skincare brands have become her first choice. "Because such brands can perceive the market's skincare needs and the ingredients of popular products, they are closer to consumers," Shuyao said.

Due to the constraints of brand budget, some high-quality products often do not attract much attention in the market. For this reason, she has specially opened a column called "Unpopular Good Things". The achievement that makes her most proud is that she once helped a certain beauty product to be revived and reorganized its production line. "If a product line is abandoned due to market launch budget issues, it is a pity. I can not take money, but I must do something for domestic products."

In Shuyao's opinion, skin care products generally take a long time to take effect, so when she explains a product, she will not only highlight its advantages, but also point out its shortcomings and the people it is suitable for. More importantly, how to reasonably balance consumers' expectations of the product is very critical.

If you raise consumers' expectations of a product too much, although sales figures will be guaranteed, it will also lead to more after-sales work; and if you suppress consumers' expectations too much, you will face the problem of having difficulty selling the product.

This is one of the difficulties Shuyao faces during live broadcasts. "There is no good solution at present, but we will give fans some full-size products before the broadcast, not samples, so that they can truly and long-term experience the advantages of the products and try to meet their expectations of skin care products," Shuyao said.

In addition, the different demands of private fans and public traffic during live broadcasts gave her a strong sense of conflict.

Private domain fans know Shuyao better, so she doesn’t need to spend too much time introducing products during live broadcasts to facilitate transactions, and fans pay more attention to live broadcast efficiency; however, the situation with public domain traffic is completely the opposite. For Shuyao, they are more like "chance acquaintances" and there is no basis of trust between them. Therefore, only a more detailed introduction of the product can facilitate an order. The tug of war from both sides makes Shuyao a little overwhelmed.

Private domain operation is something that every live-streaming anchor will invest in. Shuyao attaches great importance to this, especially in the fiercely competitive beauty industry. The fan overlap rate between bloggers is relatively high, so highly sticky fans are particularly important.

Shuyao believes: "Data will change, the industry trend will change, but the relationship between people is not easy to change through continuous maintenance. This close relationship with fans makes me not too afraid of the rapid changes in the industry."

Through continuous private domain operations, Shuyao has a deeper understanding of her fans. In the process of communicating with fans, Shuyao discovered fans' new demands for home products.

Although Shuyao has no record in the home furnishing category to endorse it, resulting in relatively low cooperation from merchants. The team "knocked on the doors" and asked many merchants, and the merchants were also very realistic. Without conversion data, they do not deserve to have a good mechanism.

But with the emergence of popular products such as pillows and duvets in the live broadcast room, the situation has improved. In addition to being a live broadcast host, Shuyao is also a mother of two children. The process of getting along with her children has also given her certain topic selection inspiration. She has produced popular videos on topics such as fertility and women, which has also strengthened her competitive advantage.

However, Shuyao admitted that anxiety still exists, but looking back on the development of live streaming in the past year, the overall trend is a spiral upward. This also allows her to no longer worry about short-term data fluctuations. Looking at the long-term is one of her ways to relieve anxiety.

V. Conclusion

In the past year, major live-streaming anchors have stirred up the e-commerce industry and attracted enough attention, but beyond the glamour, the industry still has certain problems.

For example, in an interview, it was pointed out that although this industry seems to have huge sales, there are actually many live broadcast rooms and anchors that do not make money, and the profession of anchor who sells goods rarely has a fixed upward channel, which makes many people in the industry call it a "youth job."

Putting aside the billions of dollars in annual earnings of the top anchors, those with low education and a monthly income of only a few thousand yuan may be the "silent majority" in the industry.

From the perspective of professional attributes, the anchor, as the "soul figure" of live streaming e-commerce, not only plays the role of a "bridge" between consumers and brands, but also maintains the operation of a series of links behind the scenes, such as factories, supply chains, and operations. This also means that the anchors need to shoulder more responsibilities.

Communication and coordination skills, language expression skills, and the ability to withstand pressure are skills that anchors need to continuously improve. At the same time, they also need to strengthen their own advantages in a fiercely competitive environment. Coupled with the fact that they often work more than ten hours a day, it is not an "easy" job compared to other professions.

On the one hand, there are entrepreneurs and celebrities such as Zhang Lan and Huang Shengyi joining the industry, and on the other hand, there is a continuous influx of young people. Taking all factors into consideration, "making money" is obviously not the only reason for them to choose to join the live streaming e-commerce industry.

For new entrants, this is an emerging industry spawned by the dividends of the times, which contains endless imagination, which inspires them to move forward; and for a mature and large-scale live broadcast room, a live broadcast room is a store, which also means that there is a huge team behind it to maintain it. The sense of responsibility to the team and the importance of fans are the "driving force" that drives the anchor forward.

Besides money and responsibility, every fan's comments and recognition, every sincere praise from the backstage, and the "atmosphere" of meeting and chatting with fans in the live broadcast room on time every day, all of these have become "surprises" in the lives of anchors and bring them happiness. At the same time, these bits and pieces have eventually merged into the driving force that drives them to stick to their posts for a long time.

It is undeniable that live streaming has become a normalized sales model, and the increasingly standardized and inward-looking environment will make the industry return to rationality and stabilize profits. In the future, the live streaming industry may really be a competition between anchor ability and institutional resource groups. Only those with strong comprehensive strength can go further.

Author: Aries

WeChat public account: TopKlout (ID: TopKlout)