Turning fast-paced and engaging entertainment into a shoppable experience is where TikTok marketing strategies has truly made its mark in the ecommerce landscape. But, how can TikTok as a marketing tool help your brand thrive, especially when the platform is changing constantly?
How To Use TikTok for Business
In short – the possibilities are endless when using TikTok for business. If awareness and community building is your goal, exploring the organic side of TikTok marketing to build word-of-mouth could be explored. However, if you want to push an already evolved TikTok audience down the funnel, creating TikTok shopping ads or even a TikTok shop will allow ecommerce brands to capitalise on this popular platform.
It’s also important to know your audience. If you’re targeting Gen Z specifically, TikTok marketing is a no-brainer. But, we do know that 28.3% of TikTok users are 25 to 34 years old with the 35+ age audience continuing to grow as the platform becomes more familiar. This means the non-Gen Z audience shouldn’t be ignored.
Reaching Your Audience with Organic TikTok Marketing Strategy
We see many ecommerce brands get excited about TikTok and jump straight into paid advertising on the platform. But building an audience through organic content, authentic influencers and other unpaid avenues is the best way to start. After all, a person needs a brand platform to land on when they see an ad, and if that platform already has content available there is a good chance that person will be more engaged and visit your eCommerce site.
TikTok Content
Content marketing is the key foundation of a successful TikTok marketing strategy. It’s a great way to engage new audiences and educate followers on your ecommerce products, especially if you want to create an engaged brand community.
But, what content should you produce? The possibilities are endless but there are three key content types for ecommerce brands. These include
- Trends content! This involves jumping on the song or video style trends and making them relevant to your brand. This type of content is difficult to plan for as trends change rapidly so make sure you are using the TikTok Creative Centre regularly to stay on top of the latest trends, insights and ads to inspire.
- Original content – the best type! This content can be brand specific. Maybe you take your audience behind the scenes into your warehouse or get your founder to jump on the platform and show their favourite products.
- And lastly, community content. This is essential for engaging your audience and pushing them further down the funnel. Stitching relevant videos or replying directly to a comment through an education piece are engaging examples of community content.
TikTok Content Examples. Source: TikTok
TikTok Marketing with Creators
A great way to get started (especially if your team is a little camera-shy) is to use TikTok creators. Much like Instagram creators, these creators have a highly engaged audience that can authentically market your product in an entertaining way. And the best part? You can repurpose their content on your organic TikTok!
TikTok also has a platform called the Creator Marketplace which allows brands to discover influencers, manage campaigns and report on results. If you want more information on how the Creator Marketplace can help your ecommerce brand speak to one of our digital strategists.
Using Search for TikTok Ecommerce
Another way to ensure your TikTok content will be seen is TikTok search. This new tactic is similar to Google SEO whereby certain words will have more search volume. Brands can use higher volume keywords to title their videos and in captions. The TikTok algorithm will also place videos on the ‘For You’ page if trending keywords are used as hashtags — a great way to gain more organic traction.
TikTok search is an important consideration as 40% of 18 to 24-year-olds will turn to TikTok when searching for a specific product or service, therefore making your owned media high converting for the Gen Z demographic.
40% of 18 to 24 years olds will turn to TikTok when searching for a product or service. Source: Rise At Seven
Where to go from here?
Using TikTok Ecommerce To Drive Growth for Your Ecommerce Store
Once you have your organic TikTok strategy in place the next step is paid advertising. This medium is crucial if you want to drive quality traffic and conversions to your Ecommerce site. A positive of TikTok advertising is there are many ways to do this!
Paid Advertising For Your TikTok Marketing Strategy
TikTok advertising can boost engagement, reach and overall visibility. It’s also a great way to diversify your marketing mix as TikTok Ads can be more cost-efficient in the long-term when compared to other channels.
That’s not to say only use TikTok for your paid strategy, but keep in mind that a large and deeply engaged audience on the video platform can connect with more brands day to day. In fact, with the average use time per day being 124 minutes (the top usage time of any other social media platform) it’s never been a better time to jump on the TikTok paid train.
The average amount of minutes a user engages on TikTok per day is 124 minutes. Source: Tiktok
There are many ways to advertise and show what your brand offers with a paid TikTok strategy, including:
- In-feed Ads appear when users are scrolling through TikTok and involve a vertical video and engaging sound (as TikTok is a ‘sound on’ platform). You can also add on extra features like a ‘Shop Now’ CTA button or leveraging the interactive pop-up’s to highlight a specific collection, product or offer.
- TopView is the first ad users see when they open the app. This is an impactful way to advertise and stay top-of-mind with users.
- Spark ads allow you to boost various videos to increase impact whether they are your brand’s creative, influencer-made or videos that mention your business.
TikTok Shopping for Your Business
Available in selected Ecommerce markets, TikTok Shopping is an ideal solution for brands who want their followers to shop in-platform. Product links can be added, allowing users to add these products straight to their cart. This conversion tactic is proving popular among product-based businesses who want to level up their TikTok offering.
TikTok Marketing with the Experts
TikTok for Ecommerce is an effective way to increase your brand awareness and conversion rate simultaneously without compromising on creativity. To capitalise on TikTok advertising and organic content creation, reach out to our Reload experts today!
