How to do node marketing in 2023? TikTok has found the answer for overseas brands

TikTok Shop's content e-commerce model is accepted and loved by overseas consumers, and has also become an important platform for many overseas brands to win new business. In this regard, how should brands view TikTok? How to use node marketing to seize opportunities? Can brands that are trying to break through on TikTok learn from the success of brands on TikTok? This article analyzes this, let's take a look.

In the first month of its entry, Posee achieved nearly 10,000 GMV orders through a single short video; taking advantage of the big promotion, Colorkey won the first place in the Vietnamese market category, and the number of new customers increased by 583% month-on-month; in the top 5 list of small stores in the UK, Nowrain, which has only been in TikTok e-commerce for half a year, has accumulated 100,000 fans...

The end of the year is approaching. Some of the overseas brands that have been racing on the overseas track for a year have reaped great rewards, while others may still be looking for a balance between traffic and sales.

But there is no doubt that in the year 2022 that is about to pass, TikTok is definitely one of the most watched platforms in the overseas market. Whether it is the news that Dongfang Zhenxuan is recruiting TikTok anchors, or Luo Yonghao's "Make Friends" live broadcast team has begun to focus on TikTok, "TikTok sales" has been highly anticipated by brands and service providers.

Recently, TikTok Shop cross-border e-commerce announced that the first "Global Year-end Promotion Season" has come to an end. According to official data, during the event, TikTok Shop cross-border e-commerce GMV sales increased by 136%, and the order volume increased by more than 77%. About 60,000 merchants and more than 30,000 influencers around the world participated in this promotion season. The total interaction between users and merchants exceeded 1.3 billion times, and the live broadcast time accumulated to more than 2.72 million hours...

Whether it is the Double 11 and Double 12 shopping festivals that are popular both at home and abroad, or the Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday and Christmas that many foreign consumers have been looking forward to for a year, the Q4 quarter with intensive node marketing is a golden sales node that cannot be missed for merchants and brands. TikTok Shop has proved with data that the content e-commerce model has been accepted and loved by overseas consumers, and has also become an important platform for many overseas brands to win new business.

How should brands view TikTok? How to seize opportunities through node marketing? At the same time, are there any patterns or methods behind the brands that have been successful on TikTok that can help other brands that are trying to break through? At this time of the year, Morketing hopes to find out with questions, in order to give some thoughts and inspiration to the overseas brands in front of the screen.

1. Global monthly active users exceeded 1 billion in 4 years. TikTok's 3 underlying logics

If overseas brands want to make good use of TikTok, the first step is to have a deep understanding of the attributes of the platform, understand the platform’s users, user preferences, user behavior, etc., and analyze its underlying logic in order to "go with the flow."

In terms of user numbers, TikTok officially announced in September last year that its global monthly active users had exceeded 1 billion, and it took only 4 years to become one of the top 5 apps in the world. It took Facebook 8.7 years, Instagram 7.7 years, WhatsApp 8.5 years, and YouTube 8.1 years to reach 1 billion monthly active users.

According to the data report released by SensorTower in the first quarter of this year, TikTok has become one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world with over 175 million downloads. It has exceeded 3.5 billion historical downloads in the first quarter of 2021, becoming the fifth application to achieve this milestone (and the only application that does not belong to Meta).

So, what is the underlying logic behind TikTok, which has become one of the fastest growing application platforms in the world in just four years?

1. Diversified and trendy users

In fact, users on TikTok are relatively more willing to "explore" and "discover." According to official data from TikTok, users on TikTok are 2.1 times more likely to seek fashion inspiration than users on other platforms, and twice as likely to seek aesthetic inspiration as users on other platforms. Especially during the Christmas holidays, users are 1.6 times more likely to look for decoration inspiration on TikTok than on other platforms.

Based on the "exploration" of inspiration, TikTok users are more willing to learn about products and even be inspired by them, which makes them more likely to make purchases. Deloitte's global research data shows that TikTok users place an average of 38.4 online orders per year, and 33% of users make online purchases at least once a week.

2. “Entertainment tone”

TikTok was born around "discovery" and "inspiration", and has largely awakened the curiosity and imagination of users. Its content involves comedy, dance, lip-syncing, etc., and has spread among young audiences. Due to the user-friendliness of the product and its infectious entertaining content, TikTok has become an "addictive" platform.

According to a Nielsen survey of global mainstream media platforms, TikTok is the only app that users use because they feel happy. You know, "emotional value" can make people feel "relaxed" and "comfortable", and the secretion of dopamine can keep users in a high mood, which will make them more willing to "buy, buy, buy".

According to the survey, about 19% of TikTok users will spend more when they are in a happy mood.

Micheal, the head of the cross-border beauty brand Young Vision, once said that he would dance to "Gangnam Style" during the live broadcast, and "will be funny on purpose" to attract consumers to participate in the interaction, thereby boosting consumer emotions; British fitness brand Gymshark will share funny fitness expressions, deliberately wrong exercise methods and other related content through KOLs to attract potential users in an entertaining way, and such entertaining content is more in line with users' expectations for the content that will be pushed to them the next time they swipe the screen.

3. Content interaction

If "diversified and trendy users" and "entertaining tone" are the underlying logic for TikTok to maintain its monthly active users, then "content interaction" is its "killer weapon" for breaking 1 billion.

Morketing believes that the greatest success of TikTok lies in the fact that “users are the point of innovation”.

On TikTok, the relationship between users and brands is no longer a simple "giving and receiving information" relationship. The content spontaneously created by users becomes part of the brand information and even feeds back to the brand's information transmission, forming a "flywheel" that continuously amplifies and spreads information.

When the Chinese cosmetics brand Colorkey entered the TikTok Shop Vietnam market this year, it launched a "No-Cup-Stick" short video challenge based on the product characteristics of its lip mud products, which are "No-Cup-Stick and No-Color-Fading". Among them, Vietnamese beauty expert yeahhimilio released a short video of less than 1 minute. Soon after the video was released, it directly brought more than 23 million exposures and sold nearly 9,000 orders.

Brands can quickly expand the content ecosystem by giving users different levels of incentives to encourage them to produce content, and then use the platform's interest recommendation mechanism to attract different types of potential consumers with personalized content.

Such a closed-loop logic that takes users as the production center and finally returns to users fully responds to the entertainment and creation needs of TikTok's trendy and creative user groups. It is also the key to TikTok's rapid opening up of the global market, gaining user favor, and becoming a user gathering place.

2. Make good use of natural traffic and seize node marketing opportunities

Whether it is the many Ins brands that have become popular due to the rise of Facebook and Instagram abroad, or Perfect Diary and Pop Mart that started with the traffic boom of Tik Tok and Xiaohongshu in China, it has become a consensus among brands to keenly find new traffic gathering places and establish a set of "brand and effect integrated" traffic gameplay.

However, it is not easy to seize the platform's traffic and establish a "brand-effect integration" gameplay. Many times, overseas brands "spend" their marketing budgets, but in the end they find that they do not actually get a good return in terms of ROI or brand reputation.

The reason why these problems arise is that brands have not found the right traffic entrance for the platform. What are users watching? What are they talking about? Therefore, only by deeply understanding these contents can we reach users at different touchpoints through personalized platform recommendations, improve users' favorability towards the brand, and even promote transaction conversion.

This leads to the question, "How can brands complete purchase conversions on TikTok?"

The key is to understand that TikTok's e-commerce model, compared to traditional shelf e-commerce, is based on the attributes of the social field and realizes "goods find people" through a recommendation mechanism. Users can discover products through three channels in TikTok: short videos, live broadcasts, and product showcases, and then form a one-stop complete shopping chain from browsing, ordering, payment, to customer service.

Therefore, while users are watching entertainment content on TikTok, they are also "hanging out" on TikTok. They can see the content that interests them without having to search deliberately, and introduce products through the content. At this time, users can not only buy "what I need", but also be recommended "what I like".

After understanding TikTok's e-commerce logic to a certain extent, if brands want to leverage the platform's traffic to achieve better growth or product promotion and transaction conversion, they can to some extent take advantage of the "key nodes of increased natural traffic" to achieve "high results" at a lower cost.

So when will TikTok’s “organic traffic” increase?

Making good use of natural traffic is an inevitable choice for brands based on both marketing and cost. The most direct and effective opportunity to obtain natural traffic is at important nodes. It should be noted that important nodes are naturally a "guiding line" for traffic based on their own particularity. If brands seize this line, they can often achieve unexpected results without spending much cost. At present, according to different node attributes and consumer preferences, they can be divided into consumer nodes, value nodes, and directional nodes.

Generally speaking, consumer nodes are similar to Black Friday and Christmas, where consumers can choose gifts for family and friends, leading to a series of purchasing behaviors.

For example, during the Easter sale and #Fashion Discovery category event day, the maternal and infant toy brand PatPat decisively seized the opportunity and made adequate preparations in terms of people, goods and venues, achieving a 40% increase in order volume during the sale. According to a 2020 TikTok survey, 80% of users who shopped on Black Friday said their motivation or inspiration for purchase came from TikTok, and 40% of users said they purchased specific products they saw on TikTok.

Value nodes are more inclined to traditional festivals with local elements, such as Christmas and Spring Festival. During these nodes, "user leisure time" is longer, so there are more consumption scenarios for staying at home or parent-child interaction. Among TikTok's popular products, yoga and fitness products and parent-child interaction products are very likely to explode during this period.

The product selection at directional nodes is the most directional, such as Valentine's Day, Father's Day, etc., which generally have very clear designated objects. At this node, customized gift boxes, creative accessories, etc. become the first choice.

TikTok has always been considered the first choice for discovering and finding gift inspiration. During the Christmas just passed, the exposure of #ChristmasWishList on TikTok reached 1 billion. What is more special is that this year a pink trend swept across TikTok. The topics of "pink Christmas tree" #pinkChristmas and #pinkmas on TikTok have reached 172 million and 42 million views respectively, and are still increasing.

The short videos and live broadcasts created by TikTok, which are full of festive atmosphere, make it easier for users to feel the festive atmosphere. At the same time, because the video content and related products are in line with the festive promotion atmosphere, it is easier to arouse the emotional value of users, and it is easy to generate consumption behavior.

Accompanied by a warm holiday-themed BGM, a remote-controlled Christmas atmosphere light manufactured in Yiwu was made popular by TikTok blogger @laurenrubylynnema. The product display video quickly received 1.1 million views after its release, and the merchant's TikTok Shop directly received nearly 3,000 orders on the same day.

Of course, in addition to Christmas, TikTok will also divide important marketing nodes in advance according to global and regional differences to facilitate merchants or brands to promote sales. The promotion calendar officially released by TikTok Shop shows that in addition to consumer nodes such as Double Eleven, Double Twelve, and Black Friday, the seasonal warm winter plan and this year's World Cup are all important industry marketing nodes. Recently, the topic of the New Year is constantly gaining momentum. The video content of the topic tag #happynewyear on TikTok alone has exceeded 400 million views, and the popularity is still rising. Overseas brands can seize this opportunity.

3. Select products, create ideas, and create topics to achieve explosive sales

Taking the express train of "node marketing" is just the first step for overseas brands. Knowing "know how" and adopting corresponding strategies and super execution are the keys to success. Morketing believes that if brands want to play TikTok and achieve brand-effect integration, they should pay attention to the purchasing needs of the audience while accurately capturing product selection, continuously innovating content gameplay, and quickly creating creative topics to guide transactions.

This winter, against the backdrop of the European energy crisis, Europeans rushed to buy "winter magic tools". Cross-border women's clothing brand Go.GG seized the opportunity of the surge in British people's demand for heating and launched a number of new winter warm products based on the product characteristics of "warmth + high cost performance". At the same time, Go.GG successfully achieved explosive growth of brand products during the event through the operation strategy of "celebrity promotion + thousands of live broadcast experts planting grass", accurately combined with high-heat topics such as #winterfashion, #winter warm, and #winter saver in TikTok. During the "Global Year-end Promotion Season" event of TikTok Shop, Go.GG brand GMV increased by 167% over the same period, the number of new customers increased by 583% month-on-month, and the number of orders increased by 190% month-on-month. As a new brand that has been in TikTok Shop for less than half a year, Go.GG's growth path is worth learning.

Morketing believes that before marketing, the first thing that overseas brands should do is product selection. Products that accurately capture user needs are often more effective in later launches.

"Look at how well padded the collar is. It will make you look nice and warm." A blonde blogger is introducing Go.GG's popular down vest this year in a video. After accurately capturing user needs, Go.GG's seasonal down vest has achieved perfection in material, style and details. Aria, the marketing director of Go.GG, said that even though the unit price of this product is slightly higher, the sales performance is very good.

It can be seen that the core of product selection is to understand the real needs of the corresponding node consumer group, and then find suitable products for promotion after precise analysis. In addition, when choosing "hot products", you should try to choose those products that consumers already know or those that are intuitive and easy to display, which are often easier to promote conversion.

After selecting products, innovation in content and gameplay, and using good creative gameplay to facilitate the quick completion of transactions, is also a key. As we analyzed above, TikTok users are trendy and interesting, and have a strong ability to accept new things, and the continuous innovation of content and gameplay is the "secret" to attract users to stay.

Of course, the "innovation" here does not mean spending a lot of money to make an explosive enough "advertisement" like the traditional one. It requires the brand to understand the users and integrate innovation into daily life in a subtle way.

For example, Bloomchic, a plus-size women's clothing brand, has set up a live broadcast room for plus-size women's clothing in TikTok Shop. When the plus-size female anchor goes there, the live broadcast room spontaneously attracts a wave of users similar to her. These users stay in her live broadcast room, interact, and place orders. With the help of recommendation technology, she then attracts a group of similar people.

Whether it’s the OOTD dressing and clothing matching that never gets old for clothing products, or the makeup challenges and before-and-after comparisons of beauty products, or simply the use of local memes and local popular BGM, what brands need to learn is how to be clever and eye-catching.

In addition, innovation is inseparable from local anchors and experts who understand users better. By discovering experts with high matching degree with products and making full use of their original ability, Bloomchic has also achieved explosive sales of nearly 10,000 orders for a single short video through the integration of short video materials.

Of course, influencing users’ purchasing paths through topic creation is also a necessary factor for overseas brands to master TikTok.

Jacy, the head of Nowrain, an independent women's clothing brand under Vipshop, once said: "The most essential content of TikTok is condensed in the topic hashtag. By cleverly combining hot topics with e-commerce content, there is an opportunity to obtain more platform traffic. Nowrain will sort out and summarize hot topics every week and review the effects after release. Due to cultural differences, we don't understand many cross-border popular memes, but these memes are integrated into short videos, and the effect is very good."

In fact, it is not difficult to find that whether it is shopping orientation or interest tags, the role of topics in triggering traffic is more like a "fuse". Under the same topic, users can see similar videos, comments, and opinions more quickly and conveniently, which is easier to arouse communication and interaction.

For example, the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt in TikTok was created by users themselves to share good things. So far, this tag has been played more than 33.7 billion times and is still growing. When introducing the case of Nowrain, the official TikTok Shop shared that Nowrain will continue to explore trending news in this topic tag, sort out and divide information by age, style, category and other dimensions, identify explosive products with different potentials, and finally match them in live broadcasts of different scales.

Similarly, #BookTok is also a user-generated topic about books and reading. Book lovers post book check-ins, recommendations, reviews, and other content under this topic, and the number of views of related videos has exceeded 90 billion. In addition, there is "#AnimeTikTok" for fans of the second dimension, "#GymTok" for fitness enthusiasts, "WoodTok" for carpenters, and so on. Behind each interest topic is a very directional and representative user group. Under TikTok's precise personalized recommendation mechanism, everything can be "TikTok".

In fact, in addition to these native topics created by users or platforms, the performance of brand-owned topics is still good. In about half a year, Go.GG's self-created brand topic #gogg has exceeded 86 million views. In addition to the brand's own releases, Go.GG will also let cooperating bloggers bring up this topic. Topic tags allow brands to find a group of users that match their tone, and also allow brands to have more and more accurate crowd labels when marketing.

IV. Conclusion

For brands, overseas markets mean a larger audience and a higher ceiling. From the early export of goods to overseas channels to the current 3.0 era of brand export, there has never been a lack of pathfinders in this field. However, facing unfamiliar overseas audiences, even if the products are good enough and the quality is strong enough, in terms of brand marketing, merchants are more or less facing the dilemma of not being able to adapt to the local environment. In fact, it is not difficult to find that even today, many overseas brands still have a small brand voice and cannot efficiently reach users due to cultural differences, and even fewer can truly build a brand image.

As a social platform with a vast amount of content, TikTok has a unique advantage in content marketing. For brands, such traffic is hard to come by, and how to take advantage of the traffic and establish your own systematic gameplay is a topic that every brand cannot ignore.

In the future, as TikTok Shop moves towards globalization, brands will have a larger market space, but they will also face more diverse and rich consumer demands. How to meet the demands and take advantage of the situation? Morketing believes that more global brands will be born and will blaze a trail.

Author: Morketing

WeChat public account: Morketing (ID: Morketing)