September 19, 2024
LOVELAND, CO – Paul Baron (pictured below at Prosper Show 2024), founder and CEO of Influx Catalysts got a call last week from brand new clients. They wanted to know; Is it possible to launch a new brand and have it ready for black Friday and cyber Monday in roughly two and a half months?
The answer was yes, but with a few caveats. Launching on Amazon was out, at least for now. Inventory deadlines were just too tight. Instead, Baron is pointing his clients toward a launch on TikTok shop and Shopify. Amazon will come later.
It’s exactly the type of challenge that Baron relishes. The Prosper Show newsletter sat down with Baron to learn about the ingredients of a successful launch. For example, how can sellers increase their odds of going viral on TikTok Shop?
Prosper Show: Do the new clients have a realistic mindset?
Baron: They’ve got a tall order because they’re starting a completely new brand. We’re going to be partnering with them and it’s really exciting.
Prosper Show: What’s the product?
Baron: It’s a food product for $1,500 dollars for a nine-ounce serving, which is insane. They’re building a premium brand and they’re going to market super quickly. We told them, ‘You’re going to have to work your ass off, but you can do it.’
Prosper Show: What if someone came to you with an existing brand?
Baron: I would still give them the ‘yes if’ scenario. Yes, you can do it if you do a lot of things. Let’s say they were coming to us and wanting to launch on TikTok shop. The ‘yes if’ would be ‘yes if you’re based in America and you can open a shop.’ If you’re not based in America, it can be done but it’s hard. If you’re based in America, it’s still kind of a pain in the butt to get it open.
Prosper Show: What’s the first step once the ‘shop’ is open?
Baron: Once that’s open, we need to be extremely aggressive in contacting creators. With our strategies we have been able to create content and feed virality. We will be able to start creating content right away.
Prosper Show: What are the main keys to success on TikTok?
Baron: The name of the game on TikTok is saturation. You’ve got to get a ton of content and a ton of people talking about it in order for it to be saturated. Those would be main ‘yes ifs.’ They would also need enough inventory to give out at least 100 units of samples in a very quick turnaround. We would need to make sure that we start doing the outreach immediately and make sure that they actually have a shop that they can open.
Prosper Show: How do you increase the odds of something going viral?
Baron: Things that have a visual appeal of some kind, or things that are easier to demonstrate on a platform will help, particularly if there is a wow factor. For example, I have a friend who sells these really cool hover skates. There’s a wow factor. That sells well. But just because you have a cool product doesn’t mean it’s going to sell well.
Prosper Show: How do you view TikTok?
Baron: The secret is you need to understand that TikTok is a search engine. A lot of people don’t get that. A lot of people create good content, but they don’t optimize it. If it’s not optimized for search, TikTok doesn’t understand who to deliver your content to. This was the biggest aha moment that I had. Once I started getting good at optimizing my content for search, it started to go viral. Just because you optimize content well for search does not mean that it will go viral.
Prosper Show: Is TikTok still overwhelmingly entertainment-oriented?
Baron: TikTok is a dual platform. It’s a shopping platform and an entertainment platform. And I think, based on my experience, that it has almost two algorithms. There’s the algorithm that feeds shoppable content to people and then there’s the algorithm that feeds entertainment-type content to people. They’re very similar, but producing content for both is a different skillset. Everything that I’ll talk about now is specific to shoppable content. So first things first, you have to know how to optimize your video to shop up in search.
Prosper Show: How do you do that?
Baron: It’s all about what you say, how you say it, your descriptions that you write, hashtags that you use. There’s a whole bunch of garbage advice out there that says you need to use trending hashtags. That is a load of nonsense. If all you’re doing is using trending hashtags, you’re confusing the algorithm between what you’re writing and what you’re saying. The TikTok algorithm is incredibly good.
Prosper Show: What makes the algorithm so effective?
Baron: It’s built on AI and it indexes every word that you say. For example, you could get a violation if you talk about a trademarked thing. If I were to say Coca Cola or Pepsi or the Olympics, I could get my account suspended because I’m violating the trademark. You need to understand that it’s a search engine first, and then your content is delivered to people based on their tendencies to consume certain types of content.
Prosper Show: Can you illustrate that with an example?
Baron: Let’s say I am making content selling a product relating to coffee. I need to make sure that I optimize all of my stuff for coffee. Let’s say that I’m selling something that there isn’t really a search volume for, but has to do with coffee. Let’s say it’s an innovative product and it’s something that solves a problem but nobody is looking for it. I would still optimize it for coffee. That’s the SEO portion. That’s just half of the puzzle. You really must be good at creating content.
You need to have a solid hook. You need to follow that solid hook up with a soft call to action within the first 15 seconds because most people scroll away within 15 seconds. If you don’t have a solid hook, they’re going to scroll away in two or three seconds. If you have a good hook, they might watch a little while. You need to have a soft call to action.
Prosper Show: What do you mean by a soft call to action?
Baron: Say you have a good hook and you’re selling coffee products. The soft call to action may be something like, “I found this on a shop and I can’t believe it was so cheap.” That’s a soft call to action. It’s just feeding/seeding and directing where people can buy it and mentioning that it’s super affordable. Another soft call to action may be, “I found this on the shop the other day. I can’t believe that it was still in stock and it was so cheap.” What you’re doing there is you’re saying; 1) it’s on TikTok shop and 2) it’s super popular so your fear-of-missing-out element increases, and 3) it’s affordable.
Prosper Show: What’s the next step after the soft call to action?
Baron: You want to go into a problem solution framework with some sort of personal experience. This is where the art comes into play. When you’re promoting products, the best thing to do is integrate them into your normal day-to-day life.
Prosper Show: Where do sellers get it wrong?
Baron: A lot of Amazon sellers think they need to work with a ton of creators, which is true. The problem is, you need to make sure that the creators are good at creating content. There are ways to check this. Ideally you want to work with creators who can integrate your product into their day-to-day life, and take a week or two to produce content. That may seem counterintuitive, but you want them to use your product.
You could just give them a script, but it’s going to sound way more natural if they’ve integrated it into their daily life, they’re excited about it, and they love it. Do your hook, your initial soft call to action, your problem solution framework—and remember the best problem solution framework is coupled with good coaching from the seller, plus actual life experience.
Prosper Show: Why are calls to action so important?
Baron: If you’re not doing calls to action, you’re going to get a lot of views but you’re not going to get a lot of sales. Make sure that you’re telling people where to buy, instilling this sort of fear of missing out and really hard-selling.
Prosper Show: Any other strategies you care to reveal?
Baron: One of the strategies that we use is to produce a viral video to harvest comments, and then once it goes viral, we reply to all those comments with harder selling videos, more call-to-action oriented. TikTok loves to feed virality and they love to see that you’re actively replying to and a part of the community.
Other things that help you go viral is actually going live. And obviously if you make money selling live, that’s a bonus. But really, going live shows TikTok that you’re using their platform, their algorithm, and if you can go live for like 60 to 90 minutes ideally, we’ve seen a massive increase in views to our actual videos after we do that. One night I went to bed and most of my videos I had done that day were around 300 to 500 views. I woke up and there were about 10,000 to 13,000 the next day. So TikTok loves sending you traffic if you’re doing the things that they want you to do. They’re really pushing live and they’re really pushing shops.
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