The 5 Keys to TikTok-ability

Michelle Barnum Smith.m4a [ 00:00:00 ]Hi everybody, I'm Michelle Barnum-Smith and I'm here at BDSS Market Master's Think Tank and I've got a juicy little nugget for you all about the five keys to TikTok ability, i.e. is your product right for a TikTok shop? So let's dive in and let's take a look. If you're like most people and most sellers right now, you're probably feeling the TikTok shop FOMO and rightly so. TikTok shop is a crazy powerful platform to go from discovery to checkout, literally in seconds. As you can see in this GIF that I have rolling over here, this is an example where I was scrolling TikTok myself and just kind of stumbled upon this product and I decided to actually record my own experience in discovering and getting all the way to checkout for this product and back to scrolling. [ 00:00:48 ] And that's the opportunity really with TikTok shop is that TikTok and its powerful algorithm is getting to know you as a consumer and so it is going to serve you. It's going to serve you from a discovery opportunity standpoint. It's going to serve you frictionless product pages that you can click on and seamless checkouts that have your Apple Pay or the ability to checkout in seconds easily to get you back to scrolling and all in one place. It's all in one place. You don't have to go off the platform. You don't have to go to a landing page or somewhere else to check out. You can literally go from discovery to checkout. You don't have to go to a store to check out in seconds and back to that entertainment. [ 00:01:31 ] And that's the power of TikTok shop truly. But maybe you're not sure if TikTok shop is right for your products. But there's a few things that you should know about TikTok shop that I want to dive into so that you can be sure that TikTok shop is right for your brand and your products. And that's what I call the five keys to TikTok ability. So the first key is demonstrability. And really, this comes down to: Is can your product be easily demonstrated? And I have an example for you here. [ 00:02:09 ] So, this one totally sucked me in - like, what is she doing with her face? Every woman is probably wondering that. She's obviously a beautiful woman, um, but I want to understand what she has on her face and it's very easy for us to see how the product works and uh, and to be able to understand if it's gonna, if it's something that I want as a consumer. So, demonstrability is the first thing can it be easily demonstrated in just few seconds? The next thing is, does it have your product? Does it have unique attributes? Is there something unique about your product that can make it stand out? Here's another example: what I learned today, one, there is literally a Reddit thread that talks about cotton candy liquid IV because it was around years ago and then they discontinued it, and everyone freaked out. [ 00:03:04 ] Two, did not know that they came out colored - okay, I always drink in my Stanley, and so I had no idea that this is legit blue, and the pink one is pink, so y'all keep buying them, I'm going to keep posting about them. Let me tell you: if these go out of stock again, we don't know when they're going to come back because it took two years for them to come back, and you can only get these on Tick-tock, drop! So I'm talking below. You might have a $20 off coupon. Oh my god, this stuff is so freaking good! She did that; it's such a great video example. Something that is so simple it's blue! It's blue hydration powder, electrolyte powder. Is that really that special? [ 00:03:43 ] Well, guess what: just this video has sold over a hundred thousand units of that product. So yeah, just something unique she's focusing on about the product is just enough to get people to be like, 'Oh, hold up! I didn't know... I want to be drinking a blue drink, obviously you can drink a blue drink anywhere - uh, Gatorade, whatever.' But just her demonstrating it. That way and showing off its unique uh attribute is enough to suck people in and get them to purchase, okay. Serves a niche, this is another I always say the riches are in the niches, right? And TikTok has so many niche audiences to it, um. And really, what it comes down to does your product serve a niche? Is there a defined passionate audience for your product? [ 00:04:33 ] So here's an example of what I mean. I'm going to run this planter for about an hour a day in my class for three or four days before that's open again. If you ran this for an hour a day, you'd go six months without repurchasing this thing. It's small; it's got a hook; it's a magnet. Got a magnet, you can see it anywhere. It's got a problem with it; it was up there, was no brain in the air until that one put that in the floor ground before it opened, okay. Can you tell by this video, the audience that he serves again, so we're talking about people who are who are camping, probably backpacking, people who are also survivalists or preppers, that's its own crazy niche right and so this product has sold thousands of units because it is it is marketing to a niche. [ 00:05:23 ] So that's an opportunity as well for your product if your product has a passionate audience that's an opportunity to capitalize on as well okay, does your product A problem. So we only have seconds on TikTok to capture people's attention. And the sooner we can identify with somebody's problems and help them identify a solution is the faster, the better. So we don't have a lot of time to explain our unique value propositions. So if your product can quickly identify that problem and solve that problem, then you win. And this is a great example in this video. Okay. Obviously in this example, she has a significant problem. She's bald. She's beautiful. You wouldn't ever think that when you're first, when you're first watching that video, and when she takes her hair off, it's shocking, right? [ 00:06:14 ] That video was less than 10 seconds long, and it very quickly identified the problem and the solution to the problem. And I mean, just killing it obviously with that, uh, with that video as well. Okay. All right. And the last element of TikTok ability is that it's optimized for impulse buying. People are on TikTok not to buy; they are there to be entertained. And so we don't want to, um, give them reason to pause their entertainment, to interrupt what they're doing, to go off platform and research all the various options that they have. Right? So we want these prices; we want our products priced to sell. There has to be something compelling about that price. There had the price. [ 00:06:58 ] The price needs to be both the retail price, the shipping offers, the discounts, or coupons need to layer in such a way that there's scarcity that are the, the price is attractive, usually less than $50, um, in the United States. And that's really what helps people to impulse buy, right? There's the, they're having an emotional reaction to your video. And we want to satisfy that emotional reaction and, and, and fill the urge to impulse buy. With, uh, with your product. So here's an example, uh, in this video, I know y'all see these viral TikTok pots and pans with the detachable handles, but they are only $52 right now with free shipping. It's a 12-piece non-stick set, and it stacks up nice and small for you to fit it nicely in your cabinets. [ 00:07:47 ] These things are the coolest hands I've ever seen. Hit the orange shopping cart on the bottom left to purchase yours before the price goes back up. Okay. So in that example, he has, uh, multiple things going on. He has the price at a discount. Um, he said, it's usually [you couldn't see it], but you could hear, he was saying it's usually this price and on the screen, then you could see [the discount price] and then free shipping. And then he added some scarcity at the end where he's like, 'we don't know how long this is going to be around', that kind of scarcity talk as well. Um, that particular video, uh, sold it's currently, it's currently going viral. And has sold over 10,000 units. So just that video, and that was not a high production video either. [ 00:08:33 ] So all of you afraid of creating content, there you go. It doesn't have to be a high, high performing content to really get traction. It really comes down to kind of pushing, uh, pushing that nerve and, and helping people to, to, to impulse purchase. So I tell people, you don't need to meet all five characteristics. You need to meet three. And as I was rewatching those videos with you, I could easily identify the most important thing that you need to meet. And I could easily identify, okay, that was demonstratable, there was some unique attributes that were being showcased, maybe it serves a niche, and the pricing, whether they were talking about the price or not. So as you think about your products, it's also important for you to kind of keep this criteria in mind and pick the products that have these attributes, at least three of these attributes going for them. [ 00:09:24 ] Okay, so if you are ready to go deeper, I have a course all ready to help you. I am giving away my first module free. It's all about that product validation, just like you would do product validation for any other platform. You want to do product validation for TikTok Shop as well. So we're giving this away for free. Just go to ttshopsellers.com, use the code BDSS at checkout to get the first module free. Thanks, guys.