Turning TikTok Scrollers into Toy Buyers: Using the Customer Journey to Craft Content that Converts

We've all experienced that irresistible allure of TikTok—the endless stream of captivating videos. But there's something that happens as you dive deeper into your feed - that familiar feeling when you keep stumbling upon the same product repeatedly—ads, organic posts, and even influencers seem to conspire to make sure you can't avoid it. It's as if the universe has decided that you simply can't live without it. But have you ever wondered how these products become so deeply ingrained in our psyche?

To unlock the true potential of TikTok marketing and ensure parents are buying your products, it's essential to understand the three key stages of the marketing funnel: Awareness, Consideration, and Action. In this blog post, we embark on an exploration of effective strategies and valuable tips for creating TikTok content using the customer journey to captivate audiences at each stage.

Stage 1: Awareness - Sparking Curiosity

Your mission is to catch the attention of parents and introduce them to your incredible toy brand or product, and your story. Here are some effective tactics to create captivating content:

1. Embrace authenticity and relatability: Connect with parents on TikTok by showcasing the genuine side of your brand. Share heartwarming videos that capture the moments of joy, creativity, and learning that your toys bring to children's lives, resonating with parents' aspirations for their little ones.
   
   
2. Don’t forget the details – Make sure your videos are visually interesting and capture the viewer's attention within the first three seconds using a strong hook. Embrace the full-screen, vertical experience. One last thing - interact with your audience! Be sure to reply as your brand to any comments that appear on your videos to create a dialogue or answer any questions that come up.
   
   
3. Follow the trends: keep up on current trends to make your creative look and feel like native TikTok content. There are lots of great ways to discover trends, including TikTok’s own business center that features a Creative Hub showcasing trending content. For more ideas, download our TikTok eBook.
   
   
4. Encourage user-generated content (UGC): Engage parents by inviting them to participate in creating content that showcases their children's imagination and interaction with your toys. Launch fun challenges or prompts that inspire them to share their special toy moments with the world. Then, leverage the UGC to find trends in content about your brand that you can tap into for potential ad creatives.
   

Example: Squishmallows have taken TikTok by storm, creating original content on their channel (authored by their Chief Squish Officer) that promotes their products, new releases and partnerships. With the Squishmallow product personified as the star, they mix visually appealing effects, captions, trending sounds and catchy music to showcase the engaging experiences and collectible value their toys offer. By promoting their own original hashtags, such as #SqushmallowsSquad, Squishmallow also invites their fans to create their own videos and join in the conversation. With more than 110M views of the #SquishmallowSquad hashtag they’ve been able to garner significant awareness to new audiences around the globe.

Stage 2: Consideration - Nurturing Interest

Focus on nurturing parents' interest and encouraging them to dive deeper into your brand. Here's how to create content that fuels their curiosity:

1. Highlight product features and benefits: Showcase the unique features, educational aspects, and developmental benefits that your toys offer. Use visually appealing videos to demonstrate how your toys engage and entertain children while nurturing their growth and learning. Don’t forget to think about the story – have a beginning, middle and end.
   
   
2. Leverage user-generated testimonials: Encourage parents to share their heartfelt experiences and testimonials about your toys through videos or reviews. Genuine feedback from satisfied parents acts as a powerful source of social proof and helps build trust among potential customers.

Example: Fisher-Price harnesses the power of TikTok to showcase their toys in action, highlighting their durability, educational value, and child-friendly features. By sharing videos of real kids enjoying their toys, or experts giving tips from their PlayLab, Fisher-Price nurtures consideration and establishes credibility among parents.

Stage 3: Action - Driving Conversion

Time to convert interested parents into paying customers. Here are strategies to create TikTok content that motivates action:

1. Leverage targeted TikTok ad campaigns: TikTok's advertising platform can help marketers reach a large number of parents directly with focused creative. 
   
   
2. Incorporate clear and compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) in your ads: Guide parents towards the desired action by including explicit CTAs in your videos and captions. Encourage them to visit your website, explore product details, make a purchase, or participate in exclusive promotions.
   
   
3. Validate creative before you go live: It’s important to make sure that your ad creative is going to resonate with your audience before you dump your entire advertising spend into a campaign. Publish a version of your creative to your organic TikTok account, or try running a smaller budget to test the efficacy of a particular creative first.

Example: Build-A-Bear creates organic content on their channel, engaging more than half a million followers, but they’re also actively running TikTok ad campaigns featuring their imagination-sparking bears. Their ads emphasize exclusive promotions, partnerships (like Animal Crossing), limited-time discounts, and include a CTA to visit their website or make a purchase, effectively driving conversions among parents.

At the end of the day, creative is king – you can have the best targeting and data strategy, but without the right creative your TikTok content won’t convert. By strategically navigating the TikTok marketing funnel, you can understand what creative you need based on the campaign goal to establish awareness, nurture consideration, and drive action among parents. 

So, as you embark on your TikTok marketing journey, remember the three key stages of the marketing funnel—Awareness, Consideration, and Action—and let them guide your content creation strategies. Engage your audience with authentic and relatable content, nurture their interest through captivating stories and demonstration of your product values, and ignite their desire for action with compelling calls-to-action.