Nicolas and Whitney discuss why now is the right time to start live shopping as a brand/creator. Live events can amplify your visibility, dominate the search channel for your niche, create more social proof, and help you remain competitive. So what’s stopping you? Tune in if you need some convincing as we share our top takeaways from a year of recording with podcast guests.

In this episode, you’ll hear summaries of expert advice on topics like live streaming production, online sales techniques, content marketing, and email newsletters. Learn how to prioritize your community and win together via co-creation via a personal, human connection. Discover ways to engage your live audience and digital customers without being too transactional or salesy. Get tips on cutting through the noise to connect with consumers by adding value and being genuinely kind in your marketing. Find out how live streaming can increase your support and build more trust in your brand. Uncover ways to produce content consistently and confidently experiment with new styles to figure out what works. Gain an understanding of how to create engagement in your live shows and private communities.

 

Episodes referenced:

• Episode 53 – The Value of Livestreaming and Podcasting with Russ Johns
• Episode 49 – Serving Your Audience To Build A Valuable Brand with Cristina Cortes:
• Episode 48 – The Content First Approach with John Roman
• Episode 47 – Clear, Concise, and Correct Copy with Aimée Lopez: connect with your consumer
• Episode 46 – The Power of Conscious Co-Creation with Marci Zaroff
• Episode 40 – Skyrocket Conversions with Brand Scaling Frameworks from Chase Clymer
• Episode 43 – How to Be a Good Livestreamer with Dr. ELO
• Episode 32 – Adding a Human Touch to eCommerce Using AI with Valon Xhafa
• Episode 34 – Selling As A Life Skill with Patti Reilly
• Episode 39 – Creating The Best Customer Experience with Irina Poddubnaia
• Episode 28 – Using Email Newsletters To Drive Traffic Your Live Events with Meera Kothand
• Episode 26 – Engage Your Online Community with Carrie Melissa Jones
• Episode 20 – Embracing The Messy: Sales & Marketing Insights with Marcus Sheridan
• Episode 16 – Make Your Livestreams Binge-Worthy with Tracy Hazzard
• Episode 12 – The Future of Live Content & Virtual Events with Brian Fanzo

 

Interested in being a guest? Send in your pitch here: https://forms.gle/2dUcyCqRgmqdivuTA 

Join our private community: https://community.estreamly.com/c/welcome

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The US livestreaming market is expected to hit $25 billion by 2023. That’s why now is the time to build your skills, understand the medium, and ensure that your livestreams are successful.

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Is Now The Right Time To Make Live Shopping Videos?

Nicolas has a new microphone. Nicolas, when I heard you say your name, there is a big difference. It sounds more intimate. I don’t know if you listened to this because you didn’t grow up in the United States, but we have NPR when I was growing up. I used to hear that all the time in the backseat of my parents’ car. Have you listened to NPR now that you live in the States?

I am 24/7 tuning on NPR so yes, I am a big contributor and everything. I love NPR.

You might have a future working at NPR with your voice and your new microphone. It’s nice. He bought the same microphone as I have, which is a Shure mic. It’s up-leveling the show, which feels like good timing because we are at the end of November 2022, going into the last month of the year. This is the time of year where people are buying a lot of things.

We had Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday gifting season, but people are also thinking about their takeaways from the year, what they want to take with them into the next year, and what they might want to leave behind. That’s going to be the theme of this episode. We’re going to focus on the biggest takeaways that we had from doing this show.

It’s been over a year now. We’re on our 55th episode, which is one of my favorite numbers. It feels like a lucky number. Our aim is to help you think about whether you want to step further into live shopping. Hopefully, we’ve convinced you a good amount, but this might be the first time you’ve ever read an episode. If so, welcome.

If you have been reading most, if not every episode, we’re so grateful for you and we hope to summarize some things so that you’ll remember what some of the best highlights were. Also, give you some more motivation to either start live shopping campaigns for the first time, whether you’re a brand or an influencer in some other part of the industry. Maybe up-level it and take it to a higher point where you can get some more benefit from it.

When I look back at 2022, we had some fantastic guests from the eCommerce standpoint, the creative economy standpoint, and brands. The combination of all those learnings, it’s going to be difficult, but I hope we’re going to do good justice to bringing some of the awesome takeaways that we got. I’d love to start with that, Whitney.

You are a content creator yourself. That’s how we met together. You were in this content creator space and that’s been one of your big passions. From your background of content creation, when you look at the podcast and all those guests are able to bring in, what is your number one big takeaway that you’ve got so far?

It’s been a theme for at least 2022. I know for sure that this was something I was thinking about at the end of 2021, and that’s the word community. I was leaning into this word for a number of reasons. One was that as I was studying Web3, community was a big buzzword. I don’t know if it still is, because I’ve taken a break from Web3. That was something that excited me most about Web3 is about finding more value, offering more value, and connecting with other people. It’s something that I’ve also focused a lot on with my work outside of extremely. I’ve been running a private community for a few years and it’s been a big experiment. We then started experimenting with the community here over at eStreamly.

Nicolas has done such an amazing job building up this private community. It’s completely free for anyone who wants to join, connect with us, and other people. We have a lot of guests there. Interestingly enough, the community has been a big theme amongst many of our episodes. It’s been something that comes up even when we’re not talking about community.

Somehow it sneaks in and it’s about how we win together. How do we co-curate or co-create things? How do we make things better? It’s like the rising tide lifts all ships. There are four episodes that I want to reference when it comes to community. I’m going to go in order. This is in order of the number and the most recent is episode 49, Serving Your Audience To Build A Valuable Brand with this wonderful guest we had named Cristina.

She talked about how the community has to come first and how it’s important that we don’t rely solely on social media. Even though social media is a big element of community in this digital age, we can use other avenues like a podcast, newsletters, and different types of text-based content, but not depending on social media for the community. Certainly, we can benefit from an in-person community.

We did an episode about our experience at CEX, the Creator Economy Expo. Nicolas and I went in person, and one of our biggest takeaways from that event was meeting people in person. We met people that came on this show. We heard from great case studies and learning from each other is a big element of community. Cristina also said that consumers are getting smarter, and because they’re getting smarter and savvier, we have to think about marketing from different angles.

Consumers, in general, don’t want people to constantly be selling to them. They want to get that value, which is something else I’m going to talk about later. Cristina says, “When they care, they will read it.” She was referencing things like newsletters and text-based content. When you put care into your work, it encourages other people to care. When you understand what they care about, they’re more likely to pay attention to what you’re writing, what you’re speaking on, what you’re making videos on, your livestreams, and all of that.

Consumers, in general, don't want people constantly selling to them. They want to get that value. Click To Tweet

She also said to always remember that there’s a person behind the stream. When you’re doing something like a livestream, you’re speaking to an audience of real human beings that care about what you’re doing and that’s why they’re there. Speaking directly to them and not thinking of them as dollar signs is huge. I’ll pause there for a moment to see if you have a follow-up and then I’ll share a few more episodes that this came up.

It’s there. Community is such a buzzword, as you say, but the value of livestreaming and this ability to engage your own audience and people have been making us even think differently from the moment we started and the moment we were evolving. It’s certainly something that sounds like a buzzword, but it’s important. When you have a community and people that trust you and your brand while you are here, and you’re providing them value, then they will give back to you by purchasing your product, watching your content, consuming, and talking about you. It’s an awesome insight.

Another episode that this came up in was episode 48, The Content First Approach with John Roman. He was talking about how important community is as we go through a recession. There’s a lot of buzz around that. People are talking about inflation right now. They’re feeling concerned about money and either not having enough of it, not making enough of it, or losing their job. That’s a place where community thrives.

Going live is a huge opportunity because as a creator and a brand, there are opportunities to sell, but going live to connect with people is amazing, especially when they feel they’re struggling. Episode 46, The Power Of Conscious Co-Creation With Marci was a phenomenal episode. I’m not saying this because I’ve known Marci for a long time, but she spoke so much about sustainability and how we win together.

She said, “One plus one equals eleven,” which I love. The visual of two ones next to each other is showing how it’s not just doubling, but there can be so much power in the community. She also encouraged us to meet people where they’re at, not trying to force someone to get to a place that we want them to go, but understanding who they are and making that personal connection.

Lastly, in episode 26, Engage Your Online Community with Carrie Melissa Jones, the whole episode was about community, so it’s a phenomenal reference. If you’re reading us talk about this, you want to go better understand. She talks about how developing community structure can lead to psychological safety and help you avoid the transactional dynamic that can come with marketing. I remember when we did that episode. We had started the eStreamly private community, isn’t that right, Nicolas? We are brand new getting on the circle. This is back in May 2022. I’m curious how you feel since we did that episode. Where have we gone since then?

I remember that we had started the community. We had it in the steel mode. It was there. It was ready to launch, but we were waiting, looking at each other about, “Do we press the button to get it live and everything? Is the world going to fall apart?” When we got the episode, I’m like, “Nothing is going to happen that’s going to change our life or anything, so let’s put it live.” That was pretty much the impulsion the that we had and we learned a lot through that journey. Community is something that required time and effort, but it’s valuable. I love the fact that you brought up the topic from John because he’s talking so much about that. As the recession it is right now, this is why we still have success. It’s because of that community.

Community is something that requires time and effort, but it's valuable. Click To Tweet

I also want to pause for a moment to hear what are some things that you’ve been trying out in our private community, Nicolas, because I’ve noticed a big shift happening. Suddenly, people are getting more engaged there. It feels like the values are building. What do you think took it from people being quiet? This happens a lot in communities. This can happen on livestreams too, where you go live and maybe there are a few viewers, but nobody is commenting. We’ve talked about this in some episodes before. How did you get people to start engaging so much, Nicolas?

It comes down to one episode that we had. It was Dr. ELO that says that during the livestream, it is important to greet people. One day, they come into your life. it’s something that we knew and we are doing in our lives. As soon as someone gets in, you greet them, you engage with them, and then they respond back. I was like, “Why don’t we do that a little further in the community?”

I started to not only create content but then through the content, I was pointing to a person that I feel will resonate with that piece of content and say, “What do you think? Did you notice the same thing?” At the end of the day, in this world, everything is under notifications. In our community, for instance, we have removal notifications. We only have a notification on the announcement which is published once a week and on the new members that say hi and enter themself.

The rest is always like you have to opt-in for notification. That makes it harder. It’s intentional from our standpoint because I don’t want people to receive hundreds of notifications like, “I don’t want to be there.” The fact that we were starting to tag people to relevant content for prompting them to comment, they started to enjoy it.

What we started to see is after maybe two weeks of doing that, people started to also put their own contents in the place and started to engage. We had Michael that was on the show as well. That started to add some ideas about live shopping and some of the templates that he’s using. There’s an awesome TikTok playbook and some cool stuff there. I invite you to engage in and check it out.

You’re doing a great job. For anyone who hasn’t joined yet, we also have a great newsletter that Nicolas sends out. I had mentioned newsletter is the power of using text-based communication as Cristina was talking about. The newsletter is a great way to stay in the know and be reminded about what’s happening in places like the community. Speaking of Dr. ELO, his episode gave you so many takeaways so I’m going to pass it over to you to summarize some of your big takeaways from these guests.

For me, through the whole journey and also watching others doing livestream and supporting them, the number one big takeaway is consistency. It’s not about producing the best content. It’s not about producing the most genius content or the most expensive content. It’s about showing up, being there consistently, and telling your audience you’ll be there and be there. That’s something that is awesome.

It's not about producing the best or the most expensive content. It's about showing up, being there consistently, and telling your audience you'll be there. Click To Tweet

Dr. ELO on episode 43 talked quite a bit about how to be a good livestreamer. It’s the consistency. To be a good livestreamer, you need to do it 1,000 times and everyone starts ugly. Don’t be afraid, just be consistent, and things are going to get better. You’re going to get better at it, have better equipment over time, and improve the lighting, the microphone, the sound, the video, and all those little things that matter. What’s going to drive the needle beside your environment and everything is you being there and then showing up.

We see that. We also had an episode. Michael was talking about one of his livestreams. He livestreamed for almost three weeks and had barely any views, engagement, or anything. By the end of week three, something took off. Now that person is making $10,000 to $20,000 in sales every day. It’s about that consistency. That’s important. From your standpoint, Whitney, do you have any comment on the consistency? Are there any other guests that have highlighted that very well?

That does seem to be a big theme across the show. Patti Reilly said to wash, rinse, and repeat, and John Roman, in episode 48, said that when you have content that performs well, do it again. These ideas around experimenting and seeing what resonates with people and trying that over and over, but also, if something doesn’t seem to be working, that doesn’t mean that you should give up. Sometimes you have to try again or try something completely different.

We do this with this show, as a whole. We’re constantly thinking about all these little tweaks, looking at the analytics, seeing what other people are doing, and trying to piece it all together but we keep going. Every week we show up with another episode and we try to find out what can add value to you. What’s adding value to us as hosts? What’s adding value to eStreamly? What’s adding value to the community?

It’s all value-focused, and that makes a big difference when it comes to being consistent. Also, in episode 28 about Using Newsletters To Drive Traffic To Your Live Events with our guest Meera, she talked about testing and experimenting to find out what works. It’s not just about newsletters, of course, as I said that touches everything that we’re doing here. I agree with that.

I love the fact that you are combining consistency and experimenting altogether. At the end of the day, they go in pairs. Listening and hearing you are two big takeaways that are one altogether. You can be consistent and experiment along the way. That’s the beauty of that consistency. You don’t have to do the same. You can do the same thing, as you say, with what Patti was saying, wash, rinse, and repeat. You show up for six minutes. You do your thing. You do it again for six minutes, and then you repeat it again.

This idea of this notion of experimenting all the way through that journey is an awesome takeaway that I also had, and it’s an interesting one. The other thing that I will say on the experimentations point is what Brian Fanzo was saying about pressing that button. It is this notion of experimenting with being the first early mover. The opportunity in the life shopping space is here from our point of view. Don’t expect to have tons of sales on day 1 or day 2, but you should somehow have expectations by month 2 to start seeing moving the needle. That is part of the experimentation. The people that are experimenting that are early adopters are the ones that are going to win big tomorrow. That is part of that big takeaway of experimentation, being the first mover, and the consistency altogether.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s so well said. As we’ve mentioned many times throughout this show, livestreaming is so new. We’re figuring this out, especially in the United States or countries outside of China where they’ve been doing it for a while and improving the model. We still have a lot to learn. That ties into my second and final big takeaway from all of our episodes.

In fact, this came up in six episodes at least that I’m going to reference which is putting your customer first and understanding who they are. As you’re doing that, creating that personal connection and the value I mentioned, doing this with kindness and care, adding that trust, creating that trust, and being a genuine human being. That’s a term that came up in Episode 40, Skyrocket Conversions With Brand Scaling Frameworks with Chase, who is a phenomenal guest.

He has a great show of his own. He said, “If you lead with value and you’re genuine, most people will reply to you.” He was talking mostly about email outreach or sales and things like that but that applies to a ton. Maybe that’s the reply in the comments section of your livestream. Maybe that’s a reply in your private community or your email newsletters.

If you lead with value and are genuine, most people will reply to you. Click To Tweet

That seems to be such a major theme here in episode 32 about Adding A Human Touch To eCommerce Using AI. Valon talked about how livestreaming is adding a human touch to the shopping experience. That’s one of the big reasons that it works so well. You’re unedited, it doesn’t feel super polished, and that’s okay. We’ve had guests talk about embracing the messy and how it’s okay to be messy because that shows that you’re human.

In episode 53, The Value Of Livestreaming And Podcasting, which came out a few episodes ago, our guest Russ talked about how one of the primary challenges we have is that there’s so much noise. If you can tune into being somebody who cares and follows his motto that kindness is cool and smiles are free, you can move through the noise.

A lot of people feel like it’s hard to go the extra mile, be kind, caring, and adding that human touch. Even in that episode about AI with Valon, he’s still talking about adding a human touch and not relying on formulas, templates, and artificial intelligence. It’s showing that humanity. Aimée Lopez in episode 47 talked about connecting with your consumer through your copywriting, and that was something she kept mentioning over and over again. You need to be clear, concise, and correct, and the whole point of that is so that you can better connect with your consumer.

A few more episodes have brought this up in episode 39 about Creating The Best Customer Experience. Our guest Irina talked about how customer support is still marketing. Sometimes we forget. We get so much in the rhythm of selling, but supporting your customer before they even buy and after they buy, that’s still part of your marketing stream because staying human pays. That was one of her quotes.

Lastly, in episode 28, using those email newsletters, as I mentioned before, creating that marketing journey primes your customer. It’s thinking about the whole path that gets somebody to purchase your product or your service, and you’re building that know, like, and trust experience that so many marketers talk about. Clearly, putting your customers first is so important when it comes to livestreaming in all different avenues of marketing.

I love what you’re saying. I won’t summarize this, but I’d like to add a quote that Tracy Hazzard said during Make Your Livestreams Binge-Worthy on one of the early episodes, episode 16. She said, “It’s not about selling. It’s about giving. Don’t sell, give. Sometimes, we hear on our side when we talk to brands and creators that, “I don’t want to be salesy. I’m a human being.” At the end of the day, livestreaming is about that genuine connection. That’s why we love all those comments that were made through that journey. It’s about being you, telling a story, embracing the messy, and experimenting.

You will see that that connection is going to give if you are consistent and you’re providing value to people. Those people will respond by either buying from you and then repeat buying from you. Dr. ELO was talking that he was surprised that some people were buying his product from him discovering his product on his livestream, but then, when they were doing the repeat buy, they were not going to Amazon to do that product. They were going back to his own store where he could collect an income because the consumers wanted to reward him for giving that value. It speaks about what livestream can provide for the whole eCommerce experience and that human connection. I felt that was a fantastic takeaway there.

There are so many great takeaways from these episodes. I hope that we’re back a year from now with even more to offer. Speaking of which, as we come to the end of the year, as we’re looking at this show, we’re also leading with the value side of it constantly. We’re trying to think of new topics that we haven’t covered.

We want to extend the invite to you as a reader if you would like to be a guest. If you have a takeaway or a perspective, maybe you agree and there’s something more to add to one of these big takeaways or you have an opposite perspective. We would love to hear that too. If there’s something that we haven’t covered yet that you’re eager to speak about, or you know somebody else who’d be great on this show, we would love to hear from you.

Something that we’re going to put in the description of this episode, right underneath the show player, when you click on See More, there’s a small description and there are links there. In addition to the private community that we’ve mentioned, we’re also going to link to a way for you to submit yourself as a guest for the show, submit somebody else, or send that link to somebody else because we are hungry for more.

We want to learn as much as we can. We want to pass that value to you and people like you. Please don’t hesitate. It’s a simple form. We’ll get in touch if you feel like a good fit for the show. We’re so deeply thankful for you reading. We hope that this has been valuable to you and we’re committed to giving you more and more every week. Nicolas, is there anything else that you want to end with before we wrap up?

No, I can’t say how grateful we are for you to tune in to us every week. If you like this episode, you can give us back by liking it, putting in some stars, and some reviews that help us to be more discovered by others. Please do so. If you like this episode, share it on social. Sharing is free so feel free to do that as well. Thank you very much. I’m excited about the next future guests. We have some cool guests coming up soon.

We’ll be back again. We have new episodes every Tuesday, so as Nicolas mentioned, in addition to sharing, you can subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. The newsletter has a recap of every single one too. If that works better for you, Nicolas has a wonderful job summarizing the key takeaways there and adding lots of industry news so there’s so much for you. Everything’s available on eStreamly.com and we’ll see you in the next episode.

 

Important Links

• Shure
• Episode 49, Serving Your Audience To Build A Valuable Brand – Past Episode
• Creator Economy Expo – Past Episode
• Episode 48, The Content First Approach With John Roman – Past Episode
• Episode 46, The Power Of Conscious Co-Creation With Marci Zaroff – Past Episode
• Episode 26, Engage Your Online Community With Carrie Melissa Jones – Past Episode
• Dr. ELO – Past Episode
• Michael Yang – Past Episode
• Patti Reilly – Past Episode
• Episode 28 About Using Newsletters To Drive Traffic To Your Live Events – Past Episode
• Brian Fanzo – Past Episode
• Episode 40, Skyrocket Conversions With Brand Scaling Frameworks with Chase Clymer – Past Episode
• Episode 32 About Adding A Human Touch To eCommerce Using AI – Past Episode
• Episode 53, The Value Of Livestreaming And Podcasting – Past Episode
• Aimée Lopez – Past Episode
• Episode 39 About Creating The Best Customer Experience – Past Episode
• Make Your Livestreams Binge-Worthy – Past Episode
• https://Forms.gle/2dUcyCqRgmqdivuTA
• https://Community.eStreamly.com/c/welcome
• https://Try.eStreamly.com/newsletter