10 Ways to Find New Customers on TikTok

If you haven’t thought about finding new customers on TikTok, you might want to start. With an estimated 800 million active global users, the platform is growing and many brands aren’t leveraging the platform yet.

And considering there have been 2 billion downloads of the new social platform, it’s clear TikTok is on a meteoric rise.

For you, this means building a robust growth marketing strategy on TikTok that targets your ideal customers in ways they find engaging.

Not sure where to start? Check out these 10 proven tactics to find new customers on TikTok.

Table of Contents

Why should you find new customers on TikTok?

One of the newest social networks on the block, TikTok is a killer platform to get more customers not available on other platforms.

For starters, those looking to reach a younger audience will find that nearly half of all TikTok users outside China are between the ages of 16 and 24.

If you’re looking to target the Asian market, TikTok is your answer. India has the most TikTok downloads at over 611 million, while China comes in second with over 196 million downloads.

For those looking to find customers through mobile devices, TikTok is obviously a mobile-first platform. It makes it easy for users to access your video content on the go, and you can influence their purchase decisions anywhere.

TikTok enables high shareability of your content – sharing and liking content is designed directly into the platform. With Generation Z’s shorter attention spans, you need snappy, quick, funny, engaging videos to build your following and turn them into customers.

In short, you need TikTok in your customer acquisition strategy. Let’s get started.

10 ways to find new customers on TikTok

#1 – Create SMART customer acquisition goals

Marketers who set goals are 376% more likely to achieve successful results than those that don’t.

This is because SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals make it easier to track your progress.

Create a project discovery phase where you lay out expectations and goals with your team. Set goals that relate to your KPIs (key performance indicators). These are the metrics that you feel are important to showing you progress.

Typically, TikTok marketers base their SMART goals on metrics such as:

• The number of TikTok video views
• The number of TikTok followers
• The number of new customers
• The number of conversions

However, to set solid SMART goals, you need to turn metrics into measurable targets.

For example, a string TikTok customer acquisition SMART goal might look like:

We will gain 1,000 new TikTok followers who visit our website in the next 30 days.

Or

We will see a 5% increase in conversion from TikTok ads in the next six months.

See how these goals are specific about the result, making them measurable. They’re also attainable and relevant to your direct customer acquisition strategy. Lastly, they’re time-bound.

#2 – Identify your target audience and potential customers

It’s far easier to target the right audience when you know who you’re looking for.

You need to understand your UVP (unique value proposition). This is the unique value that you provide your customers over your competition.

You can identify this by looking at your existing customer base.

Pattern their online habits, buying behaviors, preferences and motivators. Try using predictive lead scoring to pinpoint what triggers these customers to buy.

This will also be critical when moving your audience further down your funnel beyond TikTok and into email marketing and outbound sales to convert leads into customers.

For example, you may find that your product offers young adults a solution not available among your competitors. Excellent — this makes TikTok a prime platform for you to generate leads and turn them into customers.

By understanding what your ideal client looks like, you can segment your target audience into lookalike buyer personas.

Statistics show that segmented marketing campaigns lead to a 760% increase in conversion.

Ask yourself:

• What do customers buy most?
• How much do they typically spend?
• What content do they respond to?
• What demographic are your best customers?

For example, as a blogger who teaches people how to start a blog like a business, I’m continuously researching and surveying my audience (and including the results in my posts) so that I provide more value to them.

Based on survey results, that’s why I have certain resources such as my guide on building a website that I know my readers will find helpful as they begin starting or working on their own site.

In the future, I could take this long-form content and convert it into mini-clips on TikTok to attract a younger and slightly different demographic who may be interested in starting a blog and / or making money online.

#3 – Build an engaging TikTok profile customers will enjoy

Your TikTok profile is the face of your brand on the social media platform.

Your profile should clearly show your value to those you intend to target.

Make sure that your name and username clearly identify your business, and that your profile picture shows your logo.

Your bio needs to be concise and engaging, to entice your target buyer personas. Explore the option to put clickable links in your bio that lead to lead generation landing pages.

TikTok influencer, @GlitterandLazers, combines the #FounditonAmazon hashtag with a bio link to boost engagement.

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Using this link bio and hashtag combo, GlitterandLazers garnered over 356K likes on her ‘Dressing Like Different Types of TikTokers’ video. By adding the link to the bio, this generates affiliate income.

Verifying your TikTok profile will establish you as a credible brand. There are rumors that TikTok will prioritize verified accounts in user feeds.

#4 – Interact with your target customers

It’s vital to engage with your target customers on TikTok. Whether you’re a business responding to users via live chat, direct messages, or comments, you need to develop a TikTok engagement strategy.

The quickest and most relevant way to connect with your target audience on TikTok is by participating in challenges.

While likes, follows, and comments will gain you a little attention, joining in with challenges helps you to experiment with existing ideas.

Find TikTok challenges relevant to your brand identity and industry. See what your target audience is participating in and get involved.

Studies show that at least 35% of TikTok users have participated in a hashtag challenge.

By participating, you begin to understand what works so you can create your own brand-related hashtag challenges to find new customers.

This is how designer brand, Ralph Lauren, managed to get millions of likes on its TikTok videos.

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Ralph Lauren challenges TikTok users to show how they’re winning in real life with the hashtag: #winningRL.

See how participating influencers join in with the challenge, boosting likes into the thousands and millions.

#5 – Create a high-value, customer-focused content strategy

Your content needs to bring value to your audience while showboating your brand’s identity.

While TikTok is known for funny content, other types of TikTok content can also hit high engagement rates. Educational, food-related, health-based and friendship-driven content also does well on TikTok.

One of the best ways to identify which content is valuable to your target audience is to research high-performing TikTok hashtags.

Crossing industry-related hashtags over with popular hashtags to determine the kind of content you should make that’s valuable to your specific niche.

For example, imagine that you have a skin care brand.

Some of the top generic TikTok hashtags are #love, #happy and #foryou, while some of the most popular health-related hashtags are #healthiswealth, #healthtips.

Why not develop valuable educational TikTok content that provides skin care tips that use your product to solve common dermatological issues?

This is how the health food store, Nappily Naturals, managed to get 62.7K video views with a quick video tour of their store.

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The health store combines the generic hashtags #healthiswealth and #foryoupage with the business-specific hashtag #nappilynaturals.

On top of this, Nappily Natural promotes its brand’s identity and ethics with the politically-relevant hashtags #blackowned and #weblack.

#6 – Post consistent TikTok campaigns to find your target customer

The old adage is true: consistency is key.

Your initial content isn’t likely to go viral. You’ll need a few rounds to test different content campaigns and get into the swing of a format that suits you.

If you look at the progression of most big TikTokers, you’ll see that their viewership and engagement rates build over time.

However, you’ll also notice that TikTokers with high engagement rates tend to stick to one general format, niche, or video style. That way, viewers know what to expect from your profile.

Marketers understand the value of consistency, with nearly a quarter of marketers agreeing that inconsistency creates confusion in the market. Being funny one moment and sad the next can send mixed messages.

In the same study, 69% of marketers agree that campaign consistency is important to finding customers, you need to find a style, brand voice, and video format that suits your company’s messaging.

Look to competitors for examples of how they built their brands.

For example, imagine you sell gym wear. Look into other gym-related brands like Gymshark.

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Gymshark has increased its followership by 94% in under five months.

The gym wear brand achieved this result using a mixture of funny and inspirational videos that challenge and invite users to engage with the brand. The brand posts one video every day, encouraging user-generated content to lighten the load.

Try using social media scheduling tools to schedule your TikTok campaigns to execute automatically. This will help you ensure consistent campaigns stay on track.

#7 – Track and measure your customer acquisition progress

To measure the success of your campaigns, you need to measure the progress you’re making toward your SMART goals.

The analytics section of TikTok is pretty easy to learn, making it a breeze to track the response to your TikTok videos.

However, you’ll need TikTok Pro to access analytics, which costs $20 per month.

To access TikTok Analytics, head to ‘Account’ on your mobile and select ‘Analytics’, or head to your profile picture on your desktop and click ‘Analytics’.

This will bring up a comprehensive dashboard that reports the activity on your TikTok account.

Another great option is the free app created by Iconosquare: Omnilink!

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#8 – Launch TikTok PPC ad campaigns to find new customers

Like all social platforms, TikTok algorithms favor paid content. You can leverage TikTok PPC (pay-per-click) ads to engage users with content that shows off your brand value.

By segmenting your audience, you can find trends among your buying personas. This will help you create TikTok advertising content that captivates your target audience, convincing them to participate by joining your community.

Challenges work well as sponsored TikTok advertising campaigns.

Think about how makeup brand, Cover Girl, went viral with the #covergirl challenge.

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The makeup company saw a pattern between their buyer personas and the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race and hit-song ‘Cover Girl’ by RuPaul. Leveraging this trend, Cover Girl created a TikTok challenge where people do their best rendition of the ‘Cover Girl’ walk from the TV show.

By bolstering the hashtag challenge with paid-for ads, Cover Girl’s campaign resulted in 6.5 million impressions.

There are five types of TikTok ads to choose from:

• In-feed ads
• Branded hashtag challenges
• Brand takeover ads
• Brand effects
• Top View ads

A quick tip — use portrait ads over landscape ads as portrait ads experience seven times as much engagement.

#9 – Work with TikTok influencers to increase your customer reach

Influencer marketing is one of the most prominent lead generation tactics on TikTok.

By harnessing the reputation of top TikTok influencers, brands use these popular social media role models to show off their value.

Influencer marketing boasts a return on investment of 501%, making it one of the most cost-efficient ways to reach your target audiences.

Think about Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty House.

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TikTok ‘houses’ are a trend that’s been catching on with big brands. These physical houses are communities of influencers that live together to create content for a brand to post on TikTok  and other social media platforms.

By doing this, Fenty demonstrates itself as a forward-thinking, dynamic brand, with some of the most creative minds working together behind the scenes.

On a lower level, think about how you can partner with top influencers to create a strong brand message and widen your target market using their following.

For example, invite influencers to participate in your hashtags challenges in return for free products. Alternatively, have influencers feature in your paid-for ad campaigns in return for a cut of the profits.

There are plenty of influencer marketing platforms you can join to find top influencers in your niche. A good tip is to find micro-influencers who have highly engaged audiences, not TikTokers with millions of followers and little engagement.

Whichever influencer you choose, make sure your partnership is formalized and you sign an online contract so that you’re both on the same page. Then you can decide to continue your partnership or pause it based on clear, measurable results.

#10 – Shoot your videos for mobile

TikTok is a mobile-first platform so your content needs to be optimized for smart device viewing. In fact, it was the fourth-most downloaded app in 2018, beating Facebook, Messenger and Gmail.

In 2019, Android TikTok users watched 69 billion hours of content on the platform – a 219% increase on mobile year-on-year.

By gearing your content toward mobile users, you’re more likely to experience higher engagement.

This means that your content should be predominantly in portrait. While people will watch landscape videos, most people use their phone in portrait.

Conclusion

Now, you’ll have a much clearer idea of how to find new customers on TikTok by creating valuable content that your target audience wants to share.

Leverage influencers and invite customers to join hashtag challenges as this will help to build a brand community around your company.

If you have any questions about how best you can find customers on TikTok, contact the experts at Iconosquare.

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