In the digital world we live in, it has become increasingly important to utilise social media platforms, for businesses of all sizes. Video content has proven to be one of the most effective and engaging ways to reach your target audience. TikTok has become a popular platform for businesses to showcase their products, work together with influencers, and reach more (potential) customers. In this article, we look at five different ways in which you can drive more sales on TikTok and how you can start sharing content with the use of a TikTok marketing strategy. Let’s dive in.
Selling on TikTok: 5 ways to increase more sales
TikTok has become a popular platform for many businesses to promote their products or services and increase sales. There are several effective ways that you can consider to help create engaging and effective content. By implementing these strategies, businesses can increase their reach and engagement on TikTok, and even create viral content. Let’s look at five different ways you can adopt to lay a foundation for your success on TikTok, ultimately leading to more sales and revenue.
1. Showcase your products
TikTok is a platform that allows you to get creative when showcasing your products and/or services. There are many ways to showcase your brand; from making inspirational, to educational, to funny content. Make sure that you always stick to your brand’s way of communicating and stay in line with the content you portray on other platforms. You can always include a call-to-action in your video or caption, to encourage your viewers to visit your website or purchase something.
2. Collaborate with influencers
TikTok’s platform is perfect if you want to collaborate with influencers or ambassadors. This has shown to have a significant impact on your sales. It’s best to work together with influencers that have a similar target audience, that align with your market, or create content for other similar brands. Influencers give credibility to your brand and encourage their followers (that have the same interests as your followers, if you choose your partners wisely) to purchase your goods or services.
3. Run contest and giveaways
One of the most effective ways to drive more sales to your website is to host a contest or giveaway. This often generates a buzz that makes people excited to engage and explore what you offer. Often, when people can win something, they will be encouraged to get involved in certain actions that will make them win this prize. All this engagement will help to create content that will reach a wider audience.
4. Dive into TikTok ads
Similar to other social media platforms, you can also utilise advertisements on TikTok. One of the advantages of placing ads on TikTok versus other platforms is that TikTok has one of the highest engagement rates amongst social media platforms. Another advantage is that TikTok is easily linked to most Shopify websites; this makes it easy for people to reach the place where they can purchase; your website.
We wrote an article about TikTok advertisements before, make sure to check it out!
5. Engage with your audience
Just as on other platforms, it is also advisable to engage with your audience on TikTok. You can do this by responding to comments, liking and sharing content, and running Q&A sessions. Through this engagement from your side, you create more trust and loyalty in your community. Trust and loyalty often increase repeated purchasing, which is exactly what you want as an (online) business. Ask your audience to engage with you by sharing their experiences with your products and tagging your brand in their post. This way; engagement becomes a two-way street developed to create more growth and sales for your business.
Social media marketing: a marketing strategy to help your business grow
Just as with any other social media platform, creating a social media strategy is advisable when starting with TikTok marketing. This strategy can help you stay aligned with your business goals and is there to set guidelines to help you achieve those goals more effectively. Without creating and using a strategy, your TikTok marketing might lack direction or consistency; which are oftentimes important aspects of online growth. Base your TikTok marketing on a strategy and optimise your content and messaging; this makes it more likely that your content will resonate with your target audience and ultimately drive traffic towards your online business. Let’s look at eight steps you can take to create your TikTok strategy.
Step 1: Set your goals
What is it that you would like to achieve with TikTok marketing? There are many different goals that you can choose from. Whether this is to create more brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or boost sales; it is important to understand why you are utilising this platform and what you want to get out of it. It is also possible to have multiple goals or to have a timeline in which your goals go from, for example, brand awareness goals to sales goals. Dive into this first before you tackle the rest.
Step 2: Who is your target audience?
What is the first step before building a house? Creating a fundament. This also goes for creating your marketing strategy. The foundation of everything is to know who you’re talking to, what their interests are, what they resonate with and what problems your target group faces. Understanding their personalities, wants, needs, and other details about them, will help you to step into their shoes when creating content. This way you’re more likely to create content that resonates with them.
Step 3: Research your competition
Now that you’ve got the fundament of your marketing strategy; you can start to research your competitors. You can learn a lot by studying what they do, how they create content, and how their target audience responds to this. This research can also identify gaps in the market, or show you opportunities that your competitors haven’t explored yet. Keep an eye out for what they do but always keep in mind that your brand has its own identity, even though your brand operates in the same market and has similar target audiences.
Step 4: Create a content strategy
One of the most important parts of a marketing strategy is a content strategy. Creating content is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to effectively reach your target audience. By brainstorming and finding inspiration, you can set guidelines for yourself and your content team when it comes to creating posts. You now know your target audience and based on this you can strategize whether you would like to approach them in a funny, inspirational, educational, or other way. Consider using hashtags, collaborating with influencers, and portraying your products creatively.
Step 5: Set-up your profile
When your viewers see your TikTok there is a chance that they will click through to your TikTok profile. This is the reason why you want to optimise your profile by including a clear and concise bio that tells the viewer exactly who you are. You also want to have a profile picture as well as a link to a landing page on your website. This will make it easier for your (potential) customer to learn more about your business and take desired actions such as subscribing to your newsletter or purchasing your products.
Step 6: Consistency is key
Consistency is very important, but what do we mean by this? This means that by posting consistently, you are able to stay on top of mind with your customers. It’s advisable to create content often and keep on doing this consistently. This way, your audience will be exposed to your message regularly. Always make sure to prioritise quality over quantity. Look into recurring themes or posts that you can tweak every time you post; this way you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and it enables you to post consistently.
Step 7: Engage with your viewers
Now that you are posting often and your viewers can find you and get inspired by your content; it’s important to engage with them. You can do this by responding to comments, running a Q&A session, or encouraging user-generated content. If you engage with them you will create trust amongst your target audience; which often results in positive connotations around your brand and loyalty towards your business. This means an increase in sales and revenue, something that you’re ultimately looking for.
Step 8: Analyse and tweak the results
One of the most important steps of your TikTok marketing strategy is analysis. Don’t be afraid to keep on iterating. If data shows that you’re on the right track; keep on going. If data shows your content is not working; keep on tweaking. This way, you’ll learn a lot over time and you can keep on optimising your content and improving the ultimate results.
Why choose TikTok over other social media channels?
TikTok has become increasingly popular in the past years. One of the key advantages of using TikTok in your marketing outreach is the ability to send out content that is authentic, less curated than most other social media platforms, and less reliant on polished aesthetics. TikTok’s algorithm prioritises content that is genuine and relatable, rather than aesthetically pleasing.
On top of that, TikTok’s algorithm is built for viral content; it pushes videos that are engaging and interesting. This gives businesses, even the smaller ones, the opportunity to go viral and reach a wider audience compared to other social media channels. This is especially true for businesses that create content that people like to share; such as funny or inspirational content.
Lastly; TikTok is a platform on which you share videos. And as we all know; videos are watched longer and perform much better compared to static visuals or textual content. Do you want to read more about video marketing strategy and trends; we wrote an article about this before.
Do you want to start growing your TikTok account?
Let’s look at the possibilities together! Get in contact with us if you want to brainstorm or receive help with implementing your TikTok strategy. We are happy to assist your business in further growth and a future of new digital possibilities.
