Selling on TikTok gives you the advantage of reaching a vast number of audiences, especially with its billions of subscribers increasingly turning to the social media platform for their shopping needs. By just scrolling on their feed, TikTok users can find the best products online and buy them straight from your optimized TikTok storefront. However, with billions of users comes also billions or even trillions of content pieces and you might wonder how you can get through all the noise and reach your target audience.
In this guide, we tell you the ins and outs of TikTok marketing for different audiences in the app. So whether you are a toy seller, beauty product seller, or a tech store wannabe, we are here to guide you in creating the most effective TikTok content for your target market. We’ll also hook you up with some of the magic tricks to make sure they land on your target audience’s feed with some of the built-in tools TikTok shop has to offer. So worry no more, buckle up, and let us discover the secrets of the trade.
Grow your audience
Growing your audience is not an easy task. There are a few things you have to keep in mind when planning your audience expansion strategy. In growing your audience, rule number one would have to be getting to know them. You can make use of the in-app analytics, view your follower list and even engage them in conversation by replying to their comments. Feedback and testimonials are a good byproduct of these engagements.
Secondly, do not be afraid to collaborate. If you think an influencer is already making their mark in your target audience’s niche, then why not hook them up with some promo kits and have them review your product? That way, the content creator has material for their content, and your product and store get the promotional value you aspire for.
Also, do not forget that you are creating a community with your product and store. Interacting and engaging with your followers through certain enjoyable activities such as hashtag challenges, stitch challenges, and demo videos will make them want to see more of your content and even recommend your profile to their friends and family.
In becoming part of this community, you can be a trendsetter and you can make your brand known to a greater audience. Just be careful that when you interact, you always present yourself in a professional manner and that you keep the content still cohesive and on-brand. After all, you are still a seller, but an approachable one at that.
Create a strategy
Your main goal as a seller is to sell. Now, many TikTok users go to the app for entertainment, and even, yeah, procrastination. But with the amount of time (an incredible amount of it) they spend on the platform, how do we turn their interest in entertainment into hard, cold earnings for our online marketplace? The answer is a solid strategy.
You might ask, how? Well, the principle behind it is simple. You create content that is entertaining and engaging, and you maximize TikTok Shop’s tool to convert your entertained viewers into loyal shop customers.
Well, TikTok has some pretty exciting features which you can maximize to make your content more interesting, for a better chance of becoming viral and reaching your target audience organically. There are some tips our friends at TikTok have provided us in building our content strategy, and we’re here to hook you up with a few.
- Define your brand and stick with it. We don’t want you dilly-dallying with how you present yourself. So, the best move is to decide on your message, make it reflect on writing, visuals, and audio, and stick with it. Make it solid and relatable.
- Build loyal partnerships with your influencers. In the world of marketing, digital or not, ambassadors are key to extending your customer base to the general public. So, choose the best influencers, deepen your relationships with them, and collaborate with them in making your brand known to the world.
- Maximize the short-form videos for impact. TikTok videos just range from a minute to five at the longest. Another magic comes with these short-form options when it comes to marketing; with it, you have to get to the meat of your message at once. Be concise, and use the many features on TikTok to deliver your message in the shortest possible time.
- Trust the analytics, and make use of them. As you market your products on TikTok, you may find many insights, or even feelings, about how your brand is faring. To get you grounded, utilize the analytics to draw more scientific conclusions and help you steer your way to a loyal customer base.
- Be abreast with trends here and there. Seizing the moment is the name of the game when it comes to short-form platforms such as TikTok. A simple activity or content today may be the next viral material, so you must keep your eyes peeled for potential viral activities and quickly hop in to maximize the frenzy for your product.
- Entertainment matters. People come to TikTok to be entertained, not to be bored. Using the marketing techniques of the old ways may not be applicable. But what’s good about TikTok is you can use video, text, sounds, and filters. Some effects on TikTok might also be useful to your branding. While you sell, make sure your videos have entertainment value to keep your viewers and make them hit that follow button.
- Make use of TikTok advertising. TikTok advertising allows you to sponsor posts and make them more visible, in exchange for a subscription fee. If you do have the budget, utilize this feature because the boost it can give you will surely give you value for your money.
How to find your target TikTok audience
When finding your target TikTok audience, a seller must keep in mind that people who share the same interests tend to interact more because of the algorithm. When you are interested in something and engage with the content of a certain type, chances are more of these will show up on your For You page. For a seller, then, to penetrate their target market, they must imagine the content they are supposed to create to be something close to the usual content that matters to their audience and what they tend to view.
To have a clearer picture of how the TikTok audience consumes content, TikTok has partnered with neuroanalytics agencies and some articles are written about how users respond to TikTok content. It wouldn’t hurt to get yourself familiarized with this as a guide on how to create your content.
Subcultures. Fully understanding the TikTok landscape and how to adapt your content means carefully studying the different niche groups and subcultures that are present on the platform. There are different groups present based on their passions, interests, and even preferences. We have different TikTok subgroups for LGBTQIA+, persons of color, different nationalities, and tech brand preferences. There are also TikTok cultures devoted to homemaking, lifestyle, beauty, mobility, and many others.
To get your head in the game of interacting with your target group on TikTok, you have to find the right keywords and hashtags to put in. This way, you would get to know who the influencers are, what trends are popular at the moment, and what activities and content garner the most engagement. Through doing this, you would understand where and how exactly you should enter into the subculture’s universe. Of course, interacting and engaging with content and comments is as important as the creation of your content. So don’t be afraid to reply and send direct messages to influencers and TikTok users.
How to connect to your target TikTok audience
When you find your audience, the next thing you want to do is connect and become a significant part of that community to introduce your products, and demonstrate how you can be of help to the members of the community. But, let’s be honest, you will get shy or confused at first because selling requires a lot of interaction and you might not know what to say or to put out as content.
We will not delve deeper into this article on what content to put out because there are so many it warrants its own piece. But let us try to see the importance of using TikTok Ads to connect to a wider audience, and at the same time, target those people to which your content is really for, and those who can find it beneficial. The TikTok Ads manager offers you four options on how to reach your target audience. After studying the behavior and interests of your target audience and creating appropriate content, these targeted ads can give you a boost and ensure that your content lands on the correct feeds and profiles so you can turn views into actual orders and sales.
Custom and lookalike audiences
With the custom audiences feature, you can utilize information from your past campaigns or data from your previous content. Using these, you can choose which audiences to include in your next campaign, allowing it to be more streamlined and opening up chances for better engagement and better sales conversion. For example, you can include those who have liked posts or those who have already visited your shop but did not proceed to checkout. On the other hand, you may exclude those who have already bought the specific product attached to your content.
Lookalike audiences are groups of audiences who share similar behaviors and characteristics. To do this, if you have a list of the TikTok handles of your loyal customer base, for example, those who bought products from your shop more than once, you can upload that to TikTok Ads and the platform will find and target those who share the same characteristics, thus allowing you to reach a larger number of prospective buyers.
Demographics
Demographic targeting is used when you want a broad reach, meaning all of the TikTok users who possess a specific characteristic. In this kind of targeting, you can select from options among categories such as gender, location, age, and language.
Interests and Behaviors
With how platforms such as TikTok are processing data and behavior online, you can now even target your ads based on the audience’s behavior on their TikTok account. What they like and follow, which content they comment on or share, or what type of videos they watch the most. When targeting based on interest, TikTok lets audiences see your content based on the rate of interaction. For example, if they like videos about makeup or skincare, then your ad about your cosmetics products store will be of interest to them. This can apply to other interests also such as sports, tech, toys, housekeeping, and others. Behaviors, on the other hand, target your audiences based on how they interact with creator categories, video content categories, and hashtags.
Device
This one is particularly helpful for electronics and gaming brands because some products are only sellable to a very specific, narrowed-down niche. This could also work if you’re developing apps, games, or customized phone cases or accessories. It lets you target audiences based on their device, operating system, connection type, and carrier.
Make it custom, make it targeted
In marketing, you really have to make your audience feel that the content they are seeing is specifically made for them. You have to connect. They have to know through the visuals and the audio that you are talking to them and selling your product to them. Creating content has no one-size-fits-all solution, but knowing who exactly you’re talking to, plus using the tools available to reach them, will help you go a long way. So before you shoot your content, always keep in mind who am I selling this product to, and how do I convince them it is worth buying?
