Please read this section with these questions:
1. What is the most important criterion for selecting a TikTok anchor?
2. Why does the low-priced product traffic easily make the live broadcast room data worse?
3. Is theoretical knowledge more important or practical experience more important for TikTok live broadcasting?
After mastering the traffic logic of TikTok live broadcasting in the previous section, the focus of this section is to eliminate pitfalls. Because in the process of live broadcasting, we need to not only increase traffic and transactions, but also be careful of those pitfalls that are easy to step on. Stepping on one will cost a huge price. Therefore, we must hold the traffic logic and transaction secrets in our left hand, and the “death list” and pit avoidance guide in our right hand to get on the road safely.
1. Choosing an English major has poor results
[Pit 11] Must the anchor be someone who majors in English? No!
TikTok live broadcasts must be broadcast in English, but there are few anchors familiar with TikTok live broadcasts in the talent market, so many people’s first reaction is “I will find someone who is good at English to be an anchor”, or “I will find an international student to be an anchor”, but after broadcasting for a long time, they find that the effect is not good, and they don’t know what to do.
Most people have fallen into this pit of treating anchors who are good at English as good anchors. English is just a tool, the most basic skill of an anchor, but it is not the most critical factor. This is just like the recruitment of anchors on Douyin in China, and fluent Chinese cannot be used as the most important criterion. This is a truth.
The correct approach is to find an anchor who is fluent in English and has strong sales ability and sales thinking. Speaking English well and doing live broadcast well are two completely different things. Sales ability, especially online sales ability, sales ability in front of the camera is the most important criterion for a good anchor. At the same time, expression ability, appeal, adaptability, control ability, understanding of the entire TikTok traffic and transaction logic, familiarity with fan portraits and characteristics, and in-depth understanding of the target market are all indispensable abilities for excellent anchors.
Of course, English is also an indispensable ability. But it is absolutely wrong to only find an anchor who is good at English and ignore other abilities. What we need is someone who can not only speak but also think.
Second, treating live broadcast as a speech will not retain people
[Pit 12] It is wrong to prepare TikTok live broadcasts according to the standards of speeches.
I mentioned in the first section of this chapter on the preparation of live broadcasting scripts that you should prepare 2 to 5 minutes of scripts and then repeat them flexibly, instead of preparing an hour of scripts for a whole live broadcast of one hour. Many teams that have just started TikTok live broadcasts treat live broadcasts as a 2-3 hour large-scale speech, from how to start, warm up, preheat, to setting up several climaxes in the middle, to the peak experience at the end, which looks very good. But once it was put into practice, it was found that there were fewer and fewer people in the live broadcast room, and finally there was no one at all.
When we design a speech, we usually invite hundreds of people to sit down under the podium in advance. We need to let everyone slowly get into the state, and then become more and more immersed in the speech, so that they can have a good experience before leaving. This is because all the audiences come at the same time and end at the same time, and they have a certain understanding and cognition of the speaker and the topic before coming, and even paid for tickets, so they are very patient.
But TikTok is completely different. Users may have no knowledge of your live broadcast room and brand, and have no patience. The time of entering and exiting is not uniform. After entering, they will run away directly if they find that they cannot get their own pleasure in one second. They will not wait for the climax and peak you designed. Therefore, it is impossible to retain them by speaking.
The correct approach is: to cut the live broadcast content into many small time periods, each small time period is five minutes (you can adjust the length of each small time period according to your product and live broadcast format), and each 3 hours is a time group. Then match the corresponding method for each time group, and improve the information density and pleasure density. This is too abstract. Let’s look at the following table.
The role of giveaway is to retain people in the live broadcast room and increase the length of stay, so you can draw a prize every five minutes to attract traffic to the live broadcast room. The traffic model is based on what I said in the previous section. Repeatedly test the traffic of each product, and use the good data as the traffic model. The role of traffic money is to help us accurately label and portray users, so that TikTok can push more accurate traffic to us. New models also need to be interspersed in it, because we need to continuously launch new products and give old users new reasons to buy. The purpose of new models is to measure traffic and deepen user tags.
Based on this understanding, let’s look at the rhythm of the live broadcast room. If each time period is five minutes, then every five minutes needs to be treated as a separate unit, especially the “golden five minutes” that has just started.
In this way, no matter when the user enters the live broadcast room, they can immediately enter the state and keep up with the rhythm of the live broadcast room. Coupled with high information density, we can better capture users.
Third, using low-priced traffic-generating products will make the data of the live broadcast room worse
After learning the rapid flow of the “golden five minutes”, many people decided to sell some low-priced welfare products, even at a loss, to retain the first wave of traffic in the live broadcast room. But the money was spent and the capital was lost, only to find that when it came to selling profitable products, the people in the live broadcast room ran away, and the profitable products that they really wanted to sell had very poor sales. Because behind this action, you will step on these three pitfalls if you are not careful.
[Pit 13] The products sold are not related to the products used for traffic generation, and the fan portraits are inconsistent.
For example, your live broadcast room sells everlasting flowers, but uses data cables as welfare products for traffic generation. Even if fans buy them, there will be problems with the crowd portrait and account labels. TikTok will push traffic to the live broadcast room based on the labels of the data cables, and it is difficult for these traffic to generate interest in buying everlasting flowers.
The correct approach is: choose products of the same or related categories as traffic generation products. If your profitable product is everlasting flowers, you can choose flower-style brooches or other accessories as welfare traffic generation products, which will not disrupt the user portrait and allow fans to feel the benefits of the live broadcast room.
[Pit 14] The price difference between the traffic-generating products and the regular-priced products is too large, resulting in inconsistent consumption levels of user portraits.
If the normal price of your product is $200, and the welfare version is only $10, then the consumption power of the user population in your live broadcast room will be positioned incorrectly. People who are used to spending $10 to buy clothes are unlikely to spend $200 on clothes. And in areas where there are TikTok Shops (small stores) and small yellow cars, the background will continue to recommend traffic to your live broadcast room based on the portraits of the people who have already purchased transactions, which means that TikTok will recommend people with lower purchasing power to you. When these people with inconsistent consumption power enter the live broadcast room, it is difficult for them to make a decision to buy $200 clothes.
The correct approach is: the price difference between the welfare version and the regular profit version should not be too large, usually about 30% of the profit version is more reasonable. If the welfare item is $10, then the price range of the profit item is $30-40, so that the consumption level of fans in the live broadcast room is basically the same.
[Pit 15] Homogenization of welfare products and profit products.
Suppose you just sold a T-shirt at a welfare price of $10 in the live broadcast room, and then you sold a profit-type T-shirt at $29. Even if the fans have the purchasing power, they will not buy it because they just bought a T-shirt.
The correct approach is: At this time, you only need to make a slight adjustment, sell T-shirts for the welfare item, and sell jackets or windbreakers for the profit item, and match them into a set, and fans are likely to buy it.
So when we set up the diversion items and welfare items, we need to pay attention to: choose non-homogeneous products that are consistent with the profit product category and have a small price difference, otherwise we will fall into the pit.
Tips You can choose between welfare products and giveaway, because their purpose is the same, which is to increase the length of stay. I recommend giveaway more, because in the eyes of fans, giveaway is not a sales behavior, but a gift behavior, which can not only increase favorability, but also make it a probabilistic event, and to a certain extent avoid the fan group portrait becoming a group that is only willing to buy low-priced products, killing three birds with one stone.
Fourth, I learned a lot of theories but still can’t do TikTok live broadcast well
[Pit 16] Only learning but not practicing, wrong.
When I was incubating corporate overseas projects, I often encountered a phenomenon: I urged them to start the broadcast quickly, but they said “the anchor has not been trained well, the words have not been optimized, and the lights in the live broadcast room need to be adjusted” and other excuses. Even if all the theoretical foundations are in place, they still delay the broadcast.
I understand them very well. After all, it is not the Douyin that I am familiar with. After all, I have to sell goods to foreigners in English. After all, this is my first time doing it. I will be nervous and timid, so I always want to learn more before starting. But people can’t design everything before getting started. This approach will restrict our pace of progress. Only by really practicing these contents can we have a “physical feeling” and personally experience how to apply these knowledge to our own products, and then summarize and review our practical experience and turn it into our own ability.
The correct approach is: action is like fire, and words are like smoke. The truth of the matter must be grasped with both hands, and it cannot be truly understood by just looking with the eyes. Use theoretical knowledge as a basis to help yourself find the direction and avoid stepping on the pit; practice while learning, practice what you have learned as soon as possible, get real feedback in practice, and help yourself summarize your own experience and cognition. Because no matter how rich the theoretical knowledge is, it is thin without actual combat. Only through real live broadcasts and careful review can your theoretical knowledge become real strength and occupy your own territory in the TikTok business field.
These are the four most typical and common pitfalls in TikTok live broadcasts, which are easy to fall into if you are not careful. When I meet with the team every week, I will consciously ask everyone to summarize the pitfalls they have stepped on, whether they are big or small. Then I will classify and summarize these contents and precipitate them into the knowledge wealth of the team. At the same time, I will share these contents with friends and students to help them avoid pitfalls.