Digital marketing, particularly, social media business, has recently become a must-have of the e-commerce. If a year ago, among consumers who recognize the brand through social platforms were mainly digital natives, now their ranks have been replenished with the oldest age groups. Combining this with the fact, that most online shoppers will continue to use online stores in future as well, promoting a product / service in social media are no longer just a complimentary marketing strategy, but a necessity and a key factor in successful business expansion. In this blog we will let you know the basics of selling on Tiktok.
TikTok is nearly the perfect place to promote a POD (Print on Demand) business. Short videos with “before / after” theme, the ability to demonstrate many options at once in just 15 seconds, add emojis to initial image and UGC (user generated content) is just a godsend for startups in this area. In addition, POD-specific analytic and automation tool PodZa makes it as easy as possible even for beginners.
How to start?
- Bio
After you have created your TikTok profile, fill in your bio. It should be a short but succinct story of your brand, containing the concept, the main competitive advantage and offers. Be sure to use keywords to improve your SEO. You can find them using Google Ads or similar tools.
- Emojis
Try to guess, why are emojis required if video is a visual content itself? Here is the answer. Emojis help to add an emotional connotation, creativity, and fun to your message. This is very important for reducing the time of decision-making based on what users see, especially for younger cohorts – Gen Z and Millennials.
- High quality content and CTA
Everyone knows it, but when it comes to TikTok business this means that you should create a very attractive, viral and at the same time promoting videos. As well as in case of bio, you should include your brand’s mission, which demonstrates client-oriented approach and care, and its position on social, environmental or other conceptual issues in your videos, what will build customer loyalty immediately and, thus, provide conversions if resonates with audience’s own opinions.
Adding CTA is necessary to guide your customer on what to do next in engagement with your product.
- Branded Hashtags and UGC
After you’ve compiled the top hashtags that will help users to find your profile, try sponsoring branded hashtags, especially ones that aim to stimulate UGC. This will increase your traffic flow, help make your content go viral, and ultimately help to increase conversions. You can use more than one branded hashtag for different videos, so you can promote more than one product/ category at once.
TikTok and Print on Demand combination is one of the best opportunities to attract users by calling to generate their own content related to your product and brand in whole.
How to grow?
- Campaigns
TikTok campaigns such as special offers, sales or other initiatives can provide an amazing opportunity to reach out broader audience, improve customer retention rates, gain new ideas and meet with new suppliers. For POD companies it’s crucial to understand which kind of solutions are fit best, what kind of new product you can build, who can help by providing more effective and profitable partnership in supply or delivery chain, etc.
- Influencers
Of course. Influencers play an important role in increasing sales of products and services in TikTok, as well as in other social platforms. At a first time, you may not have the opportunity to reach out to a celebrity and ask for your product to be used in his / her videos (however, why not if you have a great product that solves a unique problem!), but you can turn to no less famous TikTok personalities who will happily demonstrate your product, and maybe even in a new and unexpected way. This is often free, especially when partnering with influencers with a small-medium number of followers, because you also help them to promote their channel. Lastly, don’t forget about influencers-robots, which often have a bigger audience than the coolest celebrity!
- Advertising
Probably, it seems like a big deal and great costs, but there is no need to big amount of money to start successful ad program. You can skip this step at the beginning of your business strategy, but in future it will be one new must-have for growth. Well-targeted ads/ad sets, mostly have noticeable ROI, so it’s worth to consider in advance.
Also, you can benefit from e-Commerce giants: Amazon and Shopify provide different opportunities to run TikTok campaigns through their websites.
- Analysis, revision and improvement
It’s difficult to understand a progress/failure of your efforts without analytics. A huge variety of tools, both free and paid, are there for using in order to show you the stats about your brand’s activity and success on the platform. TikTok has its own analytics tool, but you can search for additional solutions for deeper insights:
- traffic volume;
- conversion rate;
- number of sold products in any period of time;
- followers acquisition and retention rate;
- ROI;
- particular campaign insights;
- success of a particular hashtag/product/design;
- general growth rate and much more.
In case of defining narrow places or gaps in your strategy, you can rebuild or completely change it timely.
Conclusion
Anyone can launch a business on TikTok. Knowing the tricks and subtleties of campaigns setting up, developing your own vision of the product under the prism of its benefits to society and the environment, as well as basic SEO settings will help to promote any brand at the initial stage.
For POD startups specifically, creativity is the most important factor. This applies to content, mission, partnerships, customization and the persistent development of new design solutions. The 2nd key to success is engaging with user-generated content related to your brand as often as possible. This is the only way to understand what your audience wants and needs indeed.
Don’t be afraid to present your brand and your product as an idea to make the world better and stay creative – this is the right way to success.
