Video number live broadcast: the value is very long and the difficulty is in front of us.
The video number began to ride the wind of live e-commerce and entered the e-commerce field. Obviously, the video number has achieved good results in the field of live e-commerce. However, there are still many aspects to be considered in the development of video number. What will be its future development? Let’s look at the author’s analysis.

Since the beginning of this year, benchmark cases of video numbers have emerged one after another: Langzi, a high-end clothing brand whose GMV has increased by about 6 times year-on-year, Alice Clothing Alice, a women’s clothing brand whose GMV was as high as 55 million yuan in February, only laid out the video number this year, and the monthly GMV was stable at tens of millions in Yunnan Yiyao tea industry … ..
In addition, the data of WeChat open class shows that last year, the overall live broadcast sales of video numbers increased by more than 8 times year-on-year, which can be described as a rainbow under the wind.
Moreover, less than half a year ago, the video number was also designated as "the hope of the whole factory" by Ma Huateng, Chairman of Tencent’s Board of Directors. Subsequently, Liu Chiping, president of Tencent, also mentioned that the video number is gradually cutting into the field of live e-commerce through live broadcast, "there is a lot of space here".
However, Wu Cong (a pseudonym), a senior e-commerce practitioner, is not in a hurry to catch up. He has "two faces" to the video number. On the one hand, he thinks that mature brands deserve the All in video number, but on the other hand, his newly-started perfume brand has chosen to "stay put" and stick to the traditional e-commerce position.
Everything should start with the ecological characteristics of the video number. "The core attribute of the video number is the private domain, and the public domain traffic is small. It’s like, you opened your store in an office building instead of a busy road, a small brand that no one knows about, how many people can go to the office building to find you? After all, different brands are suitable for doing different things at different stages. "
At the same time, according to his observation, among the active businesses in the live broadcast circle around him, although about 60% of the businesses are doing video numbers. However, among them, only 10% of the merchants may have the ideal transaction volume, and more of them just "occupy the pit" and did not spend much energy on operation.
"In fact, the learning cost of video number is quite high, and the ecology is different from other platforms, so the gameplay naturally needs to be re-explored," Wu Cong said.
So, what is the difference between the video number ecology? What opportunities can merchants meet here? What challenges do you face? What do those who have made money do? With these questions, Caijing Story chatted with a number of e-commerce practitioners.
One of the main players of the video number is the mature brand in Wu Congkou.
For example, clothing brands Langzi, Li Ning, Gloria, beauty brands Nature Hall, Winona, Mystery of Sea Blue, jewelry brand Zhou Dasheng, etc., all started the normal live broadcast operation on the video number.
At the same time, brand merchants are also highly valued by the platform, and the platform will tilt the traffic for them.
From April to May this year, WeChat released and upgraded the "Incentive Plan for Brand Merchants with Video Number", giving multiple rights and interests incentives to qualified brand merchants, including rewarding traffic coupons, reducing a certain percentage of technical service fees, and promoting priority participation channels.
Some brand businesses have made initial growth in the video number.
For example, the high-end clothing brand Langzi, during June 18 this year, its video number GMV reached more than 12 million, exceeding the target by 20%.
"Since the normalized daily broadcast began in October last year, the GMV contributed by video numbers has grown rapidly, accounting for a small proportion of the overall online GMV". The person in charge of Langzi’s new retail told Caijing Story.
Another example is hippocampus, a photography brand. On June 18th this year, its video number GMV was originally set at 6 million, but the actual results far exceeded expectations. After the first live broadcast sales exceeded expectations by 200%, the closing night sales directly exceeded 10 million.
Brand merchants have advantages in making video numbers. The core factor is that mature brands have enough user awareness, and often have completed the original private domain accumulation, which can more easily incite the ecological value of video numbers and WeChat.
At present, WeChat has connected the video number with other public and private domain contacts such as WeChat official account, applet, enterprise WeChat, circle of friends, search and search, and can link to the video number on private domain contacts such as WeChat official account, applet and enterprise WeChat. At the same time, when the video number is broadcast live, it can also guide users to pay attention to corporate WeChat and precipitate it into the private domain.
This means that brand merchants can start live broadcast based on their own private domain.
Both Langzi and Haima have observed that most customers in their live broadcast rooms come from private domain broadcast reminders, and the proportion of private domain transactions is higher than that of other platforms such as Jikuai.
The accumulation of private domain was not built in a day.
Two or three years ago, Langzi began to encourage store shopping guides to introduce customers into corporate WeChat, and now it has become a normal operation. At the same time, its WeChat official account and short videos have been outputting content that highlights the tonality of the brand, and have accumulated many followers. These private domain assets help it trot in the video number.
However, private domain is an efficient path for Nuggets video number, but it is not the only path.
In addition to brand merchants, some small and medium-sized merchants without private domain foundation "have a unique way" and rely on the natural flow dividend of the new platform to lay a solid foundation. These traders include white-brand merchants, individuals or teams with sources of goods.
Lin Shen, the video number e-commerce trader, is one of them. In April of this year, Lin Shen made a sunscreen clothing category in the video number. Instead of making short videos, he only relied on the live broadcast to naturally stream the number. In one month, he achieved the classification of the video number sunscreen clothing, and the GMV of the highest day reached 100,000 yuan.
The core of this model is to choose the corresponding seasonal explosives+preemptive admission, without considering the long-term operating value of private domain, and paying more attention to attracting new traffic with "explosives".
"At the end of the day, what you eat is the free traffic bonus of the video number," Lin Shen said frankly. "It is very difficult for you to go to Tik Tok to play like this now, because free traffic is hard to get. The video number at this stage is like Tik Tok around 2021. The live broadcast has just started, and many people still don’t know how to do it. In another year or two, this opportunity may be less on the video number. "
Lin Shen relies on natural flow to be "small and broad", while others are even more "fierce" and rely on paid investment to incite the commercial traffic dividend of video numbers.
This is the case with Yunnan Yiyao Tea Industry, which just entered the video number this year and completed the cold start with the mode of "paid streaming+live broadcast". At present, the monthly GMV of its video number is stable at tens of millions.
According to Tencent’s advertising public information, the peak ROI of Yiyao tea industry can reach 1:5, and the comprehensive investment of single live advertising is about 200,000 yuan, which can produce GMV of about 1 million yuan.
Not only kiln tea industry, according to Gong Haihan, CEO of video number digital marketing and industrial service provider BaiZhun, in the first half of this year, many tea merchants made money by relying on similar models.
The core factor is that the target customers of tea have a certain fit with the people with video numbers. According to QuestMobile《2022 cmnet Annual Report, users of video numbers after 60 s and 70 s account for 28.2%, that is, people over 50 years old account for about one third. The users of Yiyao tea industry are concentrated around 45-50 years old, and even users over 65 years old.

QuestMobile
In addition, the incoming people are not so crowded, and the traffic dividend is still there, so the ROI of investment flow will have a chance to reach a higher level.
According to Gong Haihan’s observation, in April and May this year, when more tea merchants flocked to copy this model, the competition became fierce and the bidding cost became higher, resulting in the gross profit margin of some tea merchants reduced from 70%-80% in February and March to 40%-50%. "But even so, the gross profit margin is still high."
It can be seen that whether it is a brand business that relies on private domain cold start or a small and medium-sized business that relies on traffic bonus to make a situation, it all cuts the characteristics of video number. The former is an inherent ecological attribute with sustainability, while the latter is a dividend at a specific stage with a window period.
Compared with the characteristics of traffic bonus with window period, the video number is more worthy of exploring its inherent ecological attributes, which is its core competitiveness in competing with the ecology such as Shakuai Taotao.
The consensus of many e-commerce practitioners is that public-private domain linkage is the biggest differentiation advantage of video number, and the key benefit for businesses is that they can do long-term brand management based on this.
On the one hand, the strong private domain attribute of video number provides merchants with the grip of stock users.
A senior IP operator believes that platforms such as Tik Tok are doing public domain traffic business, and the initiative of traffic is in the hands of platforms. Merchants should constantly obtain new traffic from it, then quickly realize it, and then use the money earned to obtain new traffic, and so on.
In the video number, businesses can accumulate their own user assets, and link WeChat official account, corporate WeChat and other contacts to manage the entire life cycle of users, such as encouraging users to buy again and call back lost users.
The hippocampus has a good understanding of this, and its positioning of the video number is to make an old customer repurchase. Hippocampus divides users into four grades, from low to high: fresh people, enthusiasts, insiders and artists, which will continue to guide users to upgrade through the operation methods such as video number live broadcast room welfare.
This has also brought it a higher repurchase rate and customer unit price than other platforms. Some users have even repurchased the hippocampus video number for 6 ~ 7 times, and the customer unit price of the video number users is also higher than that of other platforms by about 50 yuan.
The same is true for Langzi, whose video number is mainly for customers to buy again, while the positioning of platforms such as Tik Tok is for innovation. Because the old customers in private domain know and trust the brand, the repurchase rate of video number users is higher than other platforms, but the return rate is lower than other platforms, and the customer unit price is also considerable. "The main seller can’t sell regular-priced goods at less than 10% off the tag price". The person in charge of Langzi’s new retail told Caijing Story.
The essence of the improvement of this series of indicators is to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
"The cost of maintaining old customers is always lower than that of acquiring new customers. In the past, reaching old customers was very passive, so we could only send a text message. Now the whole e-commerce tool of WeChat is mature, which can activate transformation, then pull new products and repurchase them, forming a virtuous circle, which reduces the cost of brand acquisition in disguise," Wu Cong said.
According to the White Paper on Insight into the Growth of Mobile Application Operation in 2022 released by iResearch, in 2021, the per capita customer acquisition cost of domestic head Internet companies has reached 572 yuan, 8.5 times that of seven years ago-the public domain customer acquisition cost continues to rise, which makes the video signal with strong private domain characteristics extremely irreplaceable.
According to Gong Haihan’s observation: At this stage, many businesses can get positive feedback of profits on video numbers, but in Tik Tok, except for super-head businesses, it is basically difficult to get a balance between GMV and profits. "After all, a large part of the profits made in Tik Tok will be converted into high traffic purchase fees."
On the other hand, video number also has public domain traffic, and it has great potential. After all, behind it is WeChat, which has more than 1.3 billion monthly activities, representing almost all Internet users in China.
At this stage, the video number provides two important graspers to help merchants to incite public domain traffic:
- First, leverage the public domain with the private domain. Video number has introduced a 1:1 public domain traffic subsidy, that is, every time a merchant guides a private domain user into the live broadcast room, the platform encourages at least one public domain user to the merchant;
- Secondly, relying on WeChat’s unique acquaintance social relationship recommendation, more public domain users can be reached.
The person in charge of Langzi’s new retail has a lot of experience in this regard: "Traditional marketing channels, such as online e-commerce and offline stores, all have certain communication barriers, but relying on WeChat’s social relationship link, brands can break this marketing boundary and realize the spread and destruction in different social circles."
Yiyao tea industry has had relevant practice. Under the guidance of anchor and after-sales, the live broadcast traffic brought by its users in the circle of friends can reach 30% of the total traffic.
As a result, a virtuous circle of "private domain incites public domain-public domain is transformed and precipitated into private domain-then incites public domain" is established.

Baizhun "2023 VideoNo. Business Ecological Development Report"
In addition, the video number is also suitable for an important position for brand promotion.
For example, hippocampus thinks that compared with other platforms, users with video numbers have more patience to calm down and read, watch and listen, and hippocampus will also rely on video numbers to tell brand stories and member stories, so as to draw closer emotional links with users.
The person in charge of Langzi’s new retail also said: The video number has a long board in the promotion of large-scale brands and the creation and dissemination of grass-growing content. On the basis of WeChat official account’s graphic and other forms, it complements the effectiveness of brand integrated marketing and can transmit the brand value for a long time, which is an unparalleled advantage of other short video platforms.
Based on the above characteristics, the brand can do long-term business in the video number, not just short-term business.
Coins always have two sides, and the differentiated characteristics of video numbers "complete" businesses, but also bring certain challenges.
For novices, it is not easy to find out the gameplay of video number public-private domain linkage. How to get through the multi-flow contacts of WeChat ecology? How to do user life cycle management? How to maintain a quality community? The test is the comprehensive operational capability.
"The difficulty of making a video number is superimposed. Shooting a video+doing a live broadcast+maintaining a group consumes only a lot more energy than other platforms. Take the community as an example. It is not easy for people to talk, praise and buy things in the live broadcast room every day. It is not just to send a notice or a coupon, "Wu Cong lamented.
In addition, the video number continues the "weak operation" style of WeChat, and almost no official operation activities are seen. There is no full reduction and full gift, and there is no subsidy of 10 billion yuan. This is hard to say right or wrong, but it is a challenge for businesses. Without the baton of the platform, I don’t know how to work hard.
The official attitude is not to disturb, the tools are given to you, and how to use the initiative is in your own hands. Wu Cong said.
This determines that making a video number is a slow process of "accumulating food and slowly claiming the king", which requires patience.
Gong Haihan quite agrees with this. "The learning difficulty of video number is higher than that of other platforms. It takes at least six months to one year from entry to maturity." According to his observation, many brands have spent 20% of their budget on video numbers this year, not to sell many goods in the short term, but to find a feel as soon as possible.
In addition, the video number is now in the climbing stage of content and commercialization, and the basic systems such as data tags are not as mature as other short video platforms, which will affect the accuracy of public domain traffic distribution and commercialization.
For example, according to national business daily, it is reported that after trying to stream video signals, the hippocampus found that the user conversion rate brought by streaming is less than 10%, so it is better to shake the pitch.
Due to the consideration of user experience, the opening of video number to public domain traffic is bound to exercise restraint, which leads to the fact that although video number has a certain public domain traffic dividend, the total scale is still small, and it is impossible for merchants to "buy money" to rush GMV.
This can also be felt from the gap between the overall GMV of video number and other platforms.
According to Tech Planet, GMV, a live e-commerce company with video number, was estimated to be between 40 billion and 50 billion last year. According to the estimate of "Dianshubao", a large database of e-commerce of NetEconomy, Social Security, during the same period, the GMV of Tik Tok e-commerce live broadcast was 1.5 trillion yuan, that of Aauto Quicker e-commerce live broadcast was 900 billion yuan, and that of Taobao live broadcast was 770 billion yuan.
The GMV of the video number live e-commerce does not match the size of its users. According to the data released by Quest Mobile, as of June 2022, the number of monthly users of video number has exceeded 800 million, which is comparable to that of Jikuai. In the same period, the number of monthly users in Tik Tok was 680 million. According to the financial report, in the first quarter of 2023, the average monthly active users in Aauto Quicker were 654 million; However, on the live GMV with goods, there is still a long way to go between the video number and the fast shake.
At the same time, some infrastructures that can help businesses to operate finely also need to be improved.
For example, the hippocampus said: I hope that the video number live broadcast room can add small details such as the recommendation of the hot list, and the platform can help to make live star recommendations and help brands expand their marketing; Langzi hopes that the live broadcast diagnosis function will be added in the background of the video number to improve the live broadcast operation effect; A head sportswear brand revealed that it hoped that the review speed of the video shop would be accelerated to improve the flexibility of the operation such as changing the price of the live broadcast room. "Sometimes it takes several days for a commodity to be put on the shelves for review, and the operational efficiency is not high enough."
Of course, it is foreseeable that the optimization of these details is only a matter of time. Lin Shen feels that the optimization speed of video number is very fast this year, and many rigid requirements are basically completed, such as the transportation insurance function of video number shop launched in June.
Caution in rhythm is also the active choice of video number. Liu Chiping once said: E-commerce with live video number should be "step by step".

Generally speaking, the advantages of the video number are very bright, and the challenges brought to the merchants are also very clear. The temptation and challenges are all there. Do you want to do it?
Gong Haijun’s suggestion is, "Because the WeChat behind the video number can’t be ignored, the video number can be sold, and it can also be used for brand promotion. Giving up the video number is equivalent to giving up the window to communicate with users." Wu Cong suggested: "It’s not bad to wait until the brand development stage and category attributes are evaluated first."
In this regard, perhaps everyone has their own answer.
























