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Introduction
With over 1 billion monthly active users across the globe, TikTok has taken the world by storm. And as an e-commerce brand looking to reach new audiences and drive sales, marketing on TikTok can be a powerful tool to meet these objectives.
However, like all forms of marketing, you need to know how to make the most of the platform. As such, in this article, we've put together a few tips to ensure your TikTok marketing efforts yield outstanding results.
Focus On a Niche
An important strategy for any form of e-commerce marketing is carving out a niche and focusing on it. By doing this, you're letting people know what your brand is all about, what you stand for, and why they should follow you.
Focusing on your niche also gives your brand a clear direction on the kind of content to develop. It helps you to concentrate your efforts on a particular area of expertise.
Another reason why focusing on a niche is vital is that it enables you to connect with a focused audience, as well as sponsors, advertisers, and other businesses. For instance, if you produce personal finance content, people will follow you to get financial advice.
However, if you suddenly begin posting about beauty products, you may have a harder time growing and connecting to your audience as people won’t know why they should follow you. They don't know what to expect. You may also lose existing followers.
Additionally, focusing on your niche helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field. This, in turn, expedites the process of your target market getting to know, like, and trust you. And you need that if you want to turn your audience into customers.
That's why you'll notice that most successful TikTokers stick to a particular niche, focusing on specific topics rather than speaking on too many different issues.
Plan Out Content
Pushing out consistent content is a vital e-commerce marketing strategy across all social media platforms. You need consistent content to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, build trust, and strengthen your reputation.
However, creating content consistently can be quite challenging. One way you can tackle this issue is by planning out your content. With a content plan, you're better able to manage the content you push out, enabling you to correctly advertise your products or services.
There's also little likelihood of running out of content ideas as time goes by.
As a TikTok marketing strategy, planning out your content frees you up to concentrate on new TikTok trends and user-generated content. A great TikTok content plan will also help you increase brand awareness, build engaged consumers, and get feedback from your customers. Plus it makes it easy for you to drive traffic to other marketing platforms like Youtube and Instagram.
In preparing and planning out your content, here are a few pointers to help you make the most of TikTok as an e-commerce marketing strategy:
Specify Your TikTok Marketing Goals
As an e-commerce brand, you're not on TikTok just for fun. As such, you need to have goals aligning with your business objectives.
Those objectives could include reaching a new audience, creating or promoting brand awareness, improving brand image, or developing stronger customer relationships.
So, when planning out content for TikTok, specify the goals you intend to meet with your videos. Ensure that your goals are S.M.A.R.T.: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
With these goals in mind, you can create content that takes you a step toward meeting your business objectives.
Learn About Your Target Audience
No matter how great, your TikTok marketing efforts won't amount to much if you don't know anything about your target audience. As such, before planning out content for TikTok, learn everything you can about your target audience.
What kind of content, topics, music, etc., appeals to them? Analyze their psychographics and demographics to learn what your target audience likes to watch on TikTok. Consider their age, location, hobbies, interests, and other relevant factors.
Use the data you gather to choose your content topics, format, and even music.
Check Out Your Competitors
When trying to plan out content for TikTok, it's a good idea to find out what your direct competitors are doing. Find about three to five similar brands that are doing well on the app and gather insights.
How do they engage with their audience? How do they structure and format their videos? What tone do they use? How often do they promote their products or services directly? What worked for them and what didn't?
With a thorough competitive analysis, you can learn what kind of content your target audience likes to watch and engage with on TikTok.
Note, that we're not recommending that you copy their content ideas. However, their content can serve as a source of inspiration for your TikTok content plan.
Work With Influencers
These days, most TikTok users follow and trust personalities rather than “faceless” brands. As such, working with influencers can have a great impact on your business's success.
It can help you increase awareness, gain more visibility, build credibility, and reach more customers. Just make sure to choose the right influencers to promote your brand.
The right influencers are those within your niche who appeal to your target audience. Also, check out their values and image to ensure that it fits with that of your product or service.
Run Ad Campaigns
Running ads on TikTok is a great way to increase your reach and gain traction on the platform. However, you need to ensure that your ads look as authentic and organic as possible. As an e-commerce brand, there are various TikTok ad options.
You can run image ads, in-feed ads, video ads, spark ads, or carousel ads. Whatever type of ad you decide on, TikTok allows you to choose your objective for your campaign - reach, awareness, consideration, and conversions.
Conclusion
With these tips in mind, you're well on your way to dominating the TikTok marketing scene.
All that's left for you to do is begin. So start creating!