Selling cars live? The helpless move of automobile manufacturers in the face of epidemic situation

On the homepage of the official flagship store of BMW on Tmall, the cover of the live broadcast of BMW products suddenly appeared in front of us. It can be seen that from February 10 to the end of February, BMW arranged two live events every day. It seems that BMW, as a traditional automobile brand, took the lead in giving countermeasures in the face of the epidemic.

Click into the live broadcast room and find that the background of BMW live broadcast is in the 4S shop, where two staff members wearing masks sit in front of the camera and play the product interpretation of the corresponding models according to the models arranged every day. At the same time, it will also answer questions raised by the audience. During the whole live broadcast, netizens will not only raise questions about vehicles, but also pay more attention to the preferential policies of vehicles.

But the role of online live broadcast is not limited to increasing brand exposure. In order to let more users go offline for vehicle experience, BMW also printed the words "test drive plus lucky draw, 100% winning rate" to attract the audience to participate more in the actual experience of the model.

Of course, during the period affected by the epidemic, BMW was not the only car company that started the online car purchase model. At present, almost all domestic automobile brands have started various online marketing. But most of them are different from the live broadcast of BMW. Everyone is more like a VR online exhibition hall. Users can log on to related websites, see cars online from all angles, and customize a series of matching devices such as vehicle colors.

At the same time, many car companies are also equipped with online customer service to answer relevant questions for consumers in time. However, compared with the live broadcast form of BMW, the function of this online exhibition hall will obviously lose some sense of participation.

The same is the form of online car purchase, and there are various new car brands, such as Weilai Automobile. The company started live online on February 1, and the live content of Weilai is not limited to the interpretation of product information. It can be seen that the whole day's live broadcast arrangement is interspersed with more experienced live broadcast content such as the introduction of the vehicle itself.

In contrast, the live content of Weilai Automobile is obviously more interesting. This is also in line with Weilai brand's consistent strategy of trying to increase contact with users. For example, a series of "god" operations such as the clerk's live broadcast of the flat bracket challenge and the explanation of coffee knowledge. In the eyes of the chief travel officer, these "God" operations of Weilai seem to be "doing nothing", but in fact, the effect may be far better than the live broadcast content explained by the vehicle. Even if the number of people watching online is small, it is better than the innovation of content form and can catch the attention of netizens well. The interactivity of the barrage area is also significantly stronger than that of traditional car companies. It can be seen that new power brands with Internet background know better how to attract the attention of netizens. ?

The real "network celebrity anchor" among automobile brands is Tucki. Xpeng automobile entered the live broadcast industry earlier. Since the end of 20 17, the team began to try to publish the company's promotional videos and daily videos on Aauto Quicker. Then it got 4 billion exposures and more than 600 orders in a marketing campaign.

According to the arrangement, from February 10 to February 29th, the official live broadcast platform of Tucki will hold a two-hour "Cloud Car Watching Live" with different themes every Tuesday and Thursday. During this period, users can also contact the local Xpeng Motors Experience Center and become users of "Cloud Car Watch WeChat Group" to learn more about G3 products.

To use a more vivid metaphor, the live broadcast content of traditional brands is closer to exam-oriented education, and all kinds of knowledge points are being talked about throughout. The new power brand is more like fun education, which will add more knowledge points to the game content. Obviously, the latter is more friendly.

But no matter what kind of live broadcast form, its actual effect seems to be far less amazing. As the leader of online live broadcast of traditional automobile brands, BMW attaches more importance to this live broadcast than other automobile companies. In addition to the comprehensive live broadcast arrangement, BMW's official Weibo and other factory channels also pushed the live broadcast synchronously. At the same time, BMW 4S stores also launched live car sales activities, but the actual live broadcast effect has always been flat. The live broadcast records on the Tmall platform show that the average number of all viewers in each live broadcast has remained at around 3,000. Other brands are even worse, and they can only keep the audience at around three figures.

In fact, the ultimate appeal of manufacturers to choose online live broadcast is nothing more than increasing customer acquisition channels and enhancing brand exposure. From the actual situation, it seems that the live performance of traditional brands is still difficult to reach the passing level. In contrast, although the audience number of new power brands is not dominant in the live broadcast, Weilai's interesting activities can obviously increase the user's stickiness, and Tucki's "Yunkanche WeChat Group" directly obtains user clues.

It seems that under the new marketing model, the performance of new power brands is more in line with the new needs of the new era. If traditional brands want to continue to develop in this new era, they also need to incorporate more new ideas.

What can live broadcast solve?

For the brand of new power, the form of purchase itself needs to pay the deposit and the final payment online. So for them, the ultimate goal of live broadcast is to increase the number of potential users. From this point of view, even if the number of people watching the live broadcast is small, the advantage is that more effective clues can be collected, and a wide variety of live broadcast content is also conducive to increasing user stickiness.

However, for traditional car companies, there are many shortcomings in adopting live broadcast for the first time, including the unprofessional and imperfect preparation of live broadcast personnel. Take BMW as an example, the whole live broadcast process is very similar to the online class that students take at home today. The audience asks questions and the staff answers them, which can obviously be solved by telephone. What the live broadcast brings is nothing more than a simple sense of participation. It is still unknown to what extent this form can form sales leads for car companies.

For consumers, the form of live broadcast does provide a channel to watch cars without leaving home, reducing the number of trips during the epidemic. At the same time, various brands have adjusted their sales strategies. When users watch cars online in the exhibition hall, if they ask for a test drive, 4S shop employees will come to the door for a test drive and take the initiative to obtain sales leads. If consumers decide to buy a car, they can also provide an online loan qualification review process. After completing the loan procedures, the staff will deliver the new car to the user's door and hand over the signing and handover of various procedures.

Indeed, online forms can help users start the whole process from looking at cars to buying cars and then picking up cars, which brings the greatest convenience to consumers. However, cars still belong to bulk consumer goods. Up to now, no car companies have announced the sales of cars sold online. Of course, perhaps with the passage of time, this method may also bring results.

Therefore, at this time, the online car purchase form launched by various brands is only a helpless move to deal with the epidemic. After the epidemic, automobile sales channels are likely to continue to return to the traditional form of dealers or direct stores. However, from another dimension, we can see that in the new era of automobile consumption, automobile enterprises themselves not only have to face the transformation from technology to new energy, but also need to innovate marketing models with the development of the times.

It's just that the new form needs more time to complete. The chief travel officer believes that for most car companies, the disappearance of the epidemic will also mean the disappearance of the form of live car sales.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.