Bonus Episode: Creating a Campaign vs Creating a Community with Nicolas Bailliache

Made in France, based in Atlanta Y'all! Nicolas is the co-founder of eStreamly, a live and video commerce SAAS platform empowering brands, retailers and creators to engage shoppers and sell seamlessly using the power of shoppable videos.

Prior to eStreamly, Nicolas was a sales leader at Naturex, a company supporting CPGs & brands transitioning to Natural Foods.

Citizen of the world, he had the opportunity to work and live across several continents. Passionate about Innovation & Commerce, he loves exploring, learning and having a positive impact on people's lives.

In This Conversation We Discuss:

• [00:00] Intro
• [00:54] How eStreamly produces high conversion rates
• [02:22] Live shopping culture in China vs US
• [03:14] Live shopping as a marketing and sales channel
• [04:07] eStreamly also produces less returns
• [04:38] eStreamly is not a “plug and play” solution
• [06:41] Influencers can be expensive
• [07:31] Best marketing strat alongside live shopping
• [07:52] Have compelling reasons for audiences to tune in
• [08:53] SMS is a powerful tool for live shopping
• [09:20] No marketing strat can be “one and done”
• [10:31] Any skill can be learned so don’t be scared
• [11:15] Approach any strategy with a “channel mindset”
• [12:01] Event marketing principles to D2C
• [13:02] The scarcity and timing aspect of livestreams
• [14:13] Important things that happen after livestreams
• [15:57] Recycling content from a livestream
• [17:34] Pre-publishing content before the livestream
• [18:03] Take advantage of the live shopping hype
• [18:58] Optimal livestream duration
• [20:14] Social media is made for discovery
• [20:36] eStreamly integrations on D2C platforms
• [22:23] More info about eStreamly & where to find Nicolas
• [23:02] Why you should try live shopping now

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Connect with Nicolas linkedin.com/in/nicolas-bailliache-854a3022
• Shoppable livestream and video estreamly.com

If you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

 

Transcript

Nicolas Bailliache  

It's not because you're doing a live that it stopped at the live right so you can create a conversation after the live and first of all, it's content and it's evergreen content. 

Chase Clymer  

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game. 

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating real results. 

I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.

Let's get on with the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today I'm welcoming to show, Nicolas. 

Nicolas is the co-founder of eStreamly, a live stream and video shopping SaaS platform.

Welcome to the show. 

Nicolas Bailliache  

Hey, how are you? So excited to be here.

Chase Clymer  

I'm doing fantastic. So you guys got some crazy claims on your website. We're talking about conversion rates in the double digits. So you got me excited.

If I am a brand out there, talk to me about how I can get these 10% - 12% - 20% conversion rates?

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah. Well first of all, we have to realize and recognize that 80% of the commerce today [and] of the internet consumption is video. 

And really, there's no good way to convert from a video to an action of buying a product. It's very complicated. And so how do you make that happen? 

And so what it really does is, we have a buy button, and a cart, and a payment process right there on that video. So removing that friction is... 

That's what the promise [is] about. 

And so when you think about this, we already know that a message, it's much more likely to be retained by a consumer and a shopper when it's through a video. And so people want to act on a video. 

There's really this FOMO attitude about, "Hey, there's a deal or something going on. You'd want to check it out." And so what we see is that the conversion rate is really much higher. 

In the US, --at least from what we've seen on average-- we are around 18% conversion rate. We had some 16% to 18% conversion rate on the live stream. 

On a regular video --so something that is an evergreen video or something like that-- the conversion rate is much lower, you're probably closer to 8% - 9%. Now, what's very interesting is that this number sounds very big. 

But when you look at what's going on in China, we're talking about conversion rates in the 50% range. So it's a much... 

You can see that there's really a lot of room to grow [from] that perspective.

Chase Clymer  

Yeah. Live shopping in China is an insane part of their culture. And it's interesting to see how it is working in America. I've seen it work in some instances. 

And sometimes, it just isn't catching on just because of different kinds of cultural things like that. 

But I think that for the average merchant, if you can find a system and a process to make it work for your business, I think it's a pretty viable channel and sales solution.

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah. Think about this: When you have a physical store, you get this kind of conversion rate anyway. 

So if you have a physical store like a department store, they have a 50% conversion rate. 

That's not my data. The data is out there. 

If you're in the clothing industry, it's closer to 18%. Specialty goods are closer to 30%. So really, when you have a virtual store --which is like a live stream-- no more, no less, you have the same kind of ability. 

People come to tune into you, they come to learn about your product, they get excited about your brand, they get to ask the questions that are very relevant to them, and then they buy. 

If you make it simple for them and you don't have to [get] up and go on... 

"I'm on my cell phone. I need to go to my drawer to get my credit card." And you can actually have the credit card right there, they make the purchase. So that's really, I think, what's very exciting. 

The other thing that I want to mention to the audience --and I'm pretty sure some of that audience already knows-- is that not only do you get better conversion rate, you also get lower returns. 

We see that in general, you have 40% less returns because people have the chance to ask the questions that are relevant to them right. 

Now, we have to say that it's not a magic thing. It's not [like] you go live and then all of sudden, you're a millionaire. The conversion rate is good when it's on your website and not so much on social [media]. So it's really when it's on your website. 

And also because you have informed your audience that something is going on your website. 

So if you just go live [for the] sake of going live, no one is aware of it, yeah, you probably going to get 18% or 40% of conversion rate if you only have two people in one day. 

But you need to get the eyeballs to really get to some really good place.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely, Nicolas. So that was my next question that you kind of just got to a little bit before I did. You're setting up an integration [with] eStreamly... 

Basically within your business, you figure out a live stream solution that works for you, right? And then you get this set up and it isn't just going live willy nilly. It is... 

There's some work before that, which is that strategy and system. What I was alluding to is just having this tool isn't going to do much for you really. You need to then have the process in place to basically create events around it. 

Is that just the simplest way to speak?

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah, I love how you presented [that]. I think any brands, any retailers that are listening to us and are thinking [about] live streaming, I think you have to ask yourself the very important question of like, "What do you want to do with your live stream?"  Is it…

Do you want to go where the audience is? Or do you actually want to create a community, and then grow that community, and make that community engaging with you, and then having shoppers, and owning that first party data on your site. 

Because depending on that mindset, and if you're thinking [about] campaign versus growing a community, you have different solutions. 

If you're thinking [of] campaigns or anything, then my recommendation is to go to Amazon, go to Whatnot, go to those places where they already have a built-in audience. 

You go there, you show up, you sell, you move on. That's one way. I think where we... 

It truly is more like "I want to create a community. I want to engage with my shopper. I want to engage with new shoppers in a new way of selling. And I want to do that on my site,  leveraging social media as a way to access new audiences." 

And so when you think about it that way, there's a couple things you need to think about. You need... 

First of all, the shopper needs to be aware that something is happening on your site and on social [media]. 

So either you work with a celebrity or a big influencer, and then when they go live, you know, all their followers will receive a notification that they're going live. This works but it's a one off. 

First of all, it's very expensive to have some of those creators on staff or doing this event. So it can be really expensive. And so you can question the ROI at the end. So it's not always recommended. 

Because the reality is the first couple of live[streams] are not really performing very well. It's only after 5 - 6 - 7 live[streams] that you really start to see the sales. 

And so the second is like, "Okay, I'm going to do it on my website. I'm going to pick maybe a lower kit, a lower influencer, not so much a KOL.” 

But you need to compensate with marketing. And so you need to... 

The best strategy is email marketing. That's what we see the number one so far [with] what people are doing. 

2 or 3 emails before to advertise for the event, creating a short video like maybe a one minute or 30-second teaser about what's going on, why they should be tuning in... 

Having direct promotion going on, or like a [written] thing that [says] "Tune in" to your consumer. Because at the end of the day, this is an event. This is something that I need to be excited about. 

If I just know that, "Hey, Chase is going to be live." And [if] I am following Chase, [and] he is [also doing] live anyway, well, that's maybe not compelling enough. 

Now if I know that Chase is going to be like, "And by the way, the CEO of that wonderful brand that I'm also a customer of is going to go live together. They're going to have a chat." Maybe I want to tune in. 

Or maybe if I know that Chase is going to present this product. And by the way, they were going to be a drop of this awesome new product that's coming up, That makes me [excited]. So you want to create a compelling offer. 

It doesn't have to be a monetary offer. You don't have to [have] like a deep discount. But you have to [have] something that makes me want to come in. You'd want to drop an NFT or something. 

You can go crazy with whatever you want with that, but you want to make it compelling on the product side. And then you advertise for it. You can run ads, email campaigns... 

What's very... 

What we were seeing doing very interestingly is SMS. And very few people are using SMS. But if you can... 

When you think [about] SMS; You send a link, the people can click on that link, get on that video, see the video, shop from the video. You can't get any more seamless than that.

And so SMS is a really, really powerful tool that I encourage all my clients to do.

Unfortunately, we don't see broad adoption [yet]. But I think that that's yet to come. And I think SMS is going to be a big, big one too. 

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. So there's a lot of... You're just telling people how to make money right now there. You're holding nothing back and I really appreciate it. 

One thing that you said there is don't expect your first one to be a success. And you're just setting expectations of; You're gonna go through the first couple of live streams, you got to get your sea legs, and I agree completely. 

Go back and listen to the first couple episodes of this podcast. I didn't know what I was doing. I think I can do it a little better now. You're gonna have to... 

You're gonna start to figure it out, you have to get comfortable with it, and it's going to be something that you're going to need to do continuously within your business. 

And it's not necessarily just a one and done ordeal. I think with any marketing activity, you just do it once, and you can write it off as a failure. There's no learning iteration from that. 

I think you have to go into it with the mindset of "We will get better. This is where we're starting." So I love that you shared that.

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah. And I think it's the same thing. You're not saying, "Oh, we don't have TikTok. Let's go on TikTok. Let's do one TikTok video and move on like 'We are on TikTok now.' It doesn't work that way. 

You have to think [of] it as a channel. And if you think [about] it as a channel, it's like, you have to be consistent, you have to set yourself time for that. 

Now, one of the things that we've seen being successful is because... 

Most brands or retailers --but also founders-- that are on the shows say, "Hey, I'm afraid of going on camera. I don't have Chase's ability to be fun and enticing and..." 

Chase Clymer  

Thank you!

Nicolas Bailliache  

So not everyone has that. But at the end of the day, it can be learned, right? If you don't want to do it, maybe you can find someone within your team that has this ability. But it can be learned. 

And I think what we've seen [be] successful is finding a course. You take a professional that will walk you for the first 20 episodes with you. And then you get to learn the ropes and the good ideas and stuff. And then you feel comfortable enough to go by yourself. 

And so if you're really thinking [as] a channel... 

First of all, I will tell you, people that are thinking [approaching this as a] channel are going to be successful tomorrow. 

I have no doubt about this because people want to engage with the founder. We are getting in an era where everything is automated. But more and more people want personalization. 

They want a relation[ship] with you. They want to know who is behind the brand. And there's no better way of doing that for livestream. And so if you build those relationships on a livestream... 

First of all shoppers are [also] building a relationship with each other. And we see that online where people start to say... 

[They are] answering each other, greeting each other, and all that which is really cool in my point of view. 

And so you're building that community and that community is going to reward you. And it takes time but it's a big payoff.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. Going back to something you shared just a second ago; With building out... 

And obviously, it's like "You're not just going live. You are creating an event and you're marketing it to your community and your audience that you already have." Your old customers may... 

Perhaps your customers haven't bought, you're doing that. But you said something and I want to really highlight it. 

And this is an event marketing tactic that is now being used in the direct-to-consumer world: You need to make sure that the event that you're marketing is unique enough and has --you are talking about a compelling offer-- to where I don't want to miss that. And this is where a lot of things miss the mark. 

I come from... I used to do a lot of show promotions and concerts and I was in the music industry. And what we know about content is your... A band won't play the same city every week because it isn't an event. 

They have radius clauses and they have to hit it in a certain timeframe to make sure that that event is unique enough, to make sure that the drawl of their entire audience will come out. 

Now, if we're going to look at that into doing a live stream event, if you're going to do a live stream every Friday at noon, then you may not have the audience and support getting people out to actually come and support your livestream.

So you need to make it to have a little bit of scarcity behind it and be like Iif you don't get to this one, you're gonna have to wait a whole month." 

So you have to... 

There's a really good... 

The timing of it is you need to be a little more specific and make sure you have the time to market these particular events. And it's a direct parallel... 

Or think of most bar nights that you see or events at... 

They usually have a cadence of once a month or every other week just to make it a scarcity enough to where it's like it will get people out.

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah. But I have to say, though, that that scarcity is obviously very interesting. Now, I want to say that you also have to think that... 

It's not because you're doing a live[stream] that it stopped at the live[stream]. So you can create a conversation after the live[stream]. 

And first of all, it's content. And it's evergreen content, especially if you're talking about a regular product, and you make a good demo, and everything for this is content that you can reuse to your own website, and make it compelling next to your product page or things like that. 

But what's very interesting, and what we're seeing is that actually, most of the sales don't happen during the livestream. 

They happen on the recording of the livestream. And what we see is that anywhere around 60% of the sales are happening on the recording. 

And the reality is, first of all, people are thinking like, "Oh, we need to do short form content because everyone loves short form and everything." 

But when you think [of] short form [content] and you think maybe 10 minutes is already like something that you think is really long... 

But who shows up at an event where your boss is not in and [is] on time? No one. I don't know people where you invite them and you say "It's at 6:00" 

And then they show up at six on point. They will show up then... They won't show up before [the event] for sure but they'll probably show up at 6:10, 6:15, or 6:20. 

So you definitely want to think about that, that shopper. [What] we see is that you have to make your event long enough for people to tune in.

Now you know that people are going to tune in only for a short period of time, maybe 6 - 7 - 8 minutes, so you want to recycle your content through [that duration] for that period. 

And then once the live[stream] is over, that live[stream VOD] is there and people can keep tuning in. So I think my point [to] what's very important is when you think... 

When you're looking at technology... 

And there's plenty of options out there, I'm not saying eStreamly is the best or whatever. Think about technology where the recording is available at the exact same spot that the live[stream] was. 

So people that tuned in after the live[stream] can still shop and see that live[stream] if they missed it, and still shop. And that's very important. 

And that's what we provide extremely; That continuity. And actually, that's where you're going to capture that sale coming up. 

And it's only a week [before] we see sales. And after you don't see much sales, unless they are in a product page, then then it keeps on selling

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. Now talking about recycling the content through the streams, that's new to me. So what I'm hearing is: "We're doing a sale. I'm a brand. We were doing a product release. 

And so I'm going to run through my script about the product every 5 minutes and just fill in the fodder in between." Would [you] say [that that] is a best practice approach to running a livestream?

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah, do a livestream. 

First of all, you know, if you think about creating a video, a fixed video for your site, like this pretty video. 

And a 2-minute video will take you 3 hours to produce it because you want it to be perfect, right? If you go [do a] livestream, if you want to create a 2-minute livestream video, it's only going to take you 2 minutes. 

You press the button, you go live, you end this live[stream], period. 

So what we're saying is that, do your pitch, do whatever you have to do, and then once that's over, take snippets of that. 

Take the piece that you really love and then repost it for a week. Maybe there was like this huge question that you felt was really on point by the shopper that you responded right there. 

So it makes it very genuine from your conversation, like someone asking you, "Hey, why did you choose blue?" And then you have a whole story behind it. And it's very important to you that people know that. 

Take that moment and then share it on social media. Use that content as snippets so people get enticed and learn about your product in a different way. That's how we say.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. So as far as like... What would be a good length of time to plan to be live? Is 5 minutes too short? Is 1 hour too long?

Nicolas Bailliache  

That's an awesome question. Yeah. So the length of the preparation to go live. That's what you're asking, right? What we feel is a great place... 

We've seen companies trying to go live on Wednesday and advertising on Monday. This is not working. 

Having a 2 weeks pre-live[stream] is good. And you don't have to do it like... 

You don't have to do everything every day. But you want to do a social post, maybe a blog... 

Something that's really cool right now is live shopping is [getting] hype. And so if you're a brand and you're... 

Especially if you're from a minority or if you work with this creator that is very unique, I will encourage you to do a press release. And every time we had that, we had press.

People love to know about [you]. You have to have local press. But still it's a new... 

It's another way of publishing and it's pre-publishing. So do a press release, tell [them] that you're going to go live on Tuesday and that's when you're going to appear. 

And then there will probably be press that just want to show up and [take] a picture of you because that's the new thing that people talk about. So think about this. 

Think about email marketing. I encourage you to do at least 2 emails pre-event, do a teaser video... 

We have a whole schedule on our website that we offer for free for people to think about those steps of "How do you market your events?" 

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely.  And now we're going live. We picked the time, we're doing it, and we're going live. How long should we be live?

Nicolas Bailliache  

My personal recommendation is 30 minutes because you see that you see the peak [number] of audiences at 20 - 22 minutes and then that starts to slowly decline. 

But you know that by [the] 22 minute [mark], that's where people are starting to tune in so you want to keep them on until the end and then you can... 

30 minutes, in my point of view, is the best. We have seen people doing an hour. The thing is that when you go on social, we enable restreaming. So if you are on social and you have like a great host that is enticing people, the algorithm... 

The more you have people engaging on your live[stream], the more [likely that they are] going to shop. 

So if you do a long show and you have a really awesome creator that [engages with your audience], then the algo[rithm] is going to keep on showing [you] tomorrow. And so you're just going to keep on growing. 

So my recommendation is like, if you shoot for a half hour, it's great. But if you feel that "Hey, I'm keeping up. My audience is growing, then I will not stop. I will just push it because the algo[rithm] is..." 

It means that the algo[rithm] is [gonna] keep on pushing you on social [media]. So you want to keep that on social because the way you want to think about social... 

Social [media] is a way where people discover you. And then some of them are going to transfer to your site. 

Some of them are not, but they still have heard about your brand, and want to know more about it. And maybe they didn't shop on that live[stream], but they shop on the second live[stream], or on the third. 

Or they just start to understand what your product is about. So keep [up] with the algo[rithm]. 

The algo[rithm] will push you the more you produce.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. Now a lot of our listeners are... I'm a Shopify expert here. It's no secret that it's my favorite platform out there. 

I know that you guys integrate with all the big ones out there. But let's say like... 

What kind of integrations exist for my direct-to-consumer platform? And why is it useful?

Nicolas Bailliache  

Yeah, so the way we operate with eStreamly is we are working [through] a private app. It's not a public app. It's a private app.

So we'll send you a link, and then you just accept, and then we do that. And the integration that we work with... 

We're a little different from all the different platforms you have out there because we believe that the payments should be directly on the video as opposed to a push-to-cart. 

So most integrations that you will see out there, especially on the Shopify side, people will see the video and then you have a button that brings you to the cart. 

What we see is that it's great, but then those integrations [are] not always helpful, you cannot do cross selling, there's a lot of complications. And then when you embed that video onto a different website, then you're losing... 

You're moving customers from one place to another. So having the payment on the video, the customer is only focusing on the video and then can make the payments and all that. 

So what we will do on the integration side, we will push the order directly to your system, we'll connect with your payment processor, so you still [retain] the [preferred methods] and everything. 

It's just that the order is going to go [to] your system, your order confirmation will go [to] your [system], like the order was coming. It's just like having a storefront, basically.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. So I'm going to get all that customer data, they're gonna go into my email marketing software, and I can do all the stuff that I want to do. 

It's just allowing them to buy it in real time while watching the video. 

Nicolas Bailliache  

That's right. That's right. 

Chase Clymer  

That's fantastic. Now, you talk a little bit about this, almost like a playbook of how to run this. What is that? Where do I go to find that?

Nicolas Bailliache  

So we have a website. It's called try.estreamly.com. And then we have a Resources tab. And on the Resource tab, there are a bunch of podcasts and free ebooks and stuff that we have. 

And so you can download that or you can always send me an email. It's easy. nicolas@estreamly.com

E-S-T-R-E-A-M-L-Y.com. 

And I'm happy to share that info.

Chase Clymer  

Absolutely. Now, is there anything I didn't ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience today?

Nicolas Bailliache  

That's a good question. I think the "Why now?" is important in my point of view, because... It does require some figuring out. Let's be honest. It's like... It's not like... 

I don't know if some of the audience have tried [to do] a podcast. It's like... 

As you [said], Chase, it's not like you go in front of the mic and boom, you get an audience. And so it does require some figuring out. 

Now thinking that live shopping is not going to be a thing, in my point of view, is not thinking the right way. 

If you look at what's going on in China, there is no website where there is no live shopping on it. 

And so I think thinking about what live shopping could be for you tomorrow will prepare you to be a success tomorrow. 

And success is not going to come overnight. And so [trial] and error, testing things out, trying what works for you, what [doesn't] work for you, how do you make this happen... 

You don't have to spend a lot of money on [something] this. 

There's a lot of software that will make you spend a lot of money. But just take something that makes you try. 

I think it's important because you want to get that first information, building your community... 

So when everyone talks about live shopping, [it's] not more about "Hey, it's a thing." But it's a real thing where people see sales, massive sales. 

Then you're there. You're already there. You're established. 

And for you, as a sales channel, it's easy, and you're gonna get market share this way.

Chase Clymer  

I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. I'm sure I'll have you back and we'll chat about this stuff. 

For all those listening, we're gonna have all the links in the show notes below. Nicolas, thank you so much. 

Nicolas Bailliache  

Thanks. 

Chase Clymer  

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

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