Why these Gen Z marketers want KC startups to channel the power of TikTok Shop
April 2, 2024 | Taylor Wilmore
A Kansas City-built Gen Z ad agency is opening a TikTok Shop challenge this spring — scrolling through plans to elevate startups’ and small business’s social media brands and offer a chance to win $100,000 in services.
TRNDSTTRS Media — ranked No. 3 in client revenue on TikTok — expects the challenge to run May 1 to Sept. 1, said founder Jake Bjorseth. Businesses participate by signing-up for free, receiving access to weekly AMA live streams, their TikTok shop strategy, setup guide, and a community Slack channel for support.
Click here to apply for the TikTok Shop Launch challenge.
How TikTok Shop works: TikTok Shop primarily focuses on affiliate marketing, where only brand owners can participate. Brands collaborate with affiliates (TikTok publisher or content creator), sending them free products to promote on their own accounts. Affiliates then earn commissions from direct sales from their ad.
“For a brand, it’s somewhat of a dream, because the same platform that you’re using to reach people through influencers and running ads, now people can also buy your products on that same platform,” said Bjorseth.
Click here to follow Bjorseth on TikTok and here to follow TRNDSTTRS.
With such tools at their disposal, a brand can strike social media gold, said Emily Harpel, founder of Art of Sucre, one of TRNDSTTRS’ clients
“Within a week or two, we had a video go viral and found ourselves selling out every single day,” said Harpel. “That was the point we realized: There is definitely something here!”
The top-earning brand after six months in TRNDSTTRS’ TikTok Shop challenge will win $100,000 and free account servicing for a year, Bjorseth said. TRNDSTTRS sponsors also provide free project management tools and 3PL services, totaling an approximate value of $250,000 to $500,000 for the winner.
Jake Bjorseth, TRNDSTTRS; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News
Translating ads in the digital era
With traditional marketing seemingly losing traction because of its cost and declining effectiveness with younger audiences, businesses are shifting their focus to intentional social media ads — all in a bid to grab the attention of Gen Z and younger demographics.
“Whether it be an influencer they like promoting a product, or the brand promoting their own content, if they like it, they’ll buy it at that point,” said Bjorseth. “It doesn’t take seven to 12 to 15 touchpoints, Gen Z consumers move quickly.”
One way to see if your ads will be a hit with Gen Z is to go right to the source, he added. Bjorseth suggests testing to see if your product plays well on video by asking for feedback.
“Don’t tell them anything about the product, just let someone create their own 15-second video with it and see what they come up with,” he said. “If it’s easy for them to come up with something, you have a potentially viral product.”
Evening out the playing field
For Kansas City-based startup brands, Bjorseth believes TikTok offers a huge opportunity for their messaging to truly land with audiences — without competing with big-name competitors they typically see on Google and other social media platforms.
TikTok — a newer player among popular platforms — isn’t already dominated by major brands, Bjorseth said, noting the chance for smaller businesses to level out the playing field.
“Anytime that something is new, those bigger companies are like a huge ship out on the ocean, struggling to maneuver and turn,” he said. “But if you’re a little speedboat, you can turn and you can do whatever you have to do.”
Reflecting on the success stories of small businesses on the platform, Bjorseth said, he noticed a trend that it doesn’t matter the size of the company or their advertising team, but about how well they can sell a quality product.
“The brands that are doing best are individually-owned, with not a ton of investors,” he said. “Those are the brands that are winning, because they can do unique things that the big brands really aren’t.”
Featured Business
Taylor Wilmore
Taylor Wilmore, hailing from Lee’s Summit, is a dedicated reporter and a recent graduate of the University of Missouri, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Taylor channels her deep-seated passion for writing and storytelling to create compelling narratives that shed light on the diverse residents of Kansas City.
Prior to her role at Startland News, Taylor made valuable contributions as a reporter for the Columbia Missourian newspaper, where she covered a wide range of community news and higher education stories.
2024 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Popular TEDxKC won’t return in 2018; organizers to focus on women, youth events
TEDxKC — one of the largest and most-popular independently-organized TEDx events in the world — won’t be back for 2018. While TEDxYouth@KC and TEDxKCWomen are expected to return in 2018, hitting pause on TEDxKC’s “general ideas” event will allow organizers to reflect on accomplishments, missteps and milestones, said Mike Lundgren, co-founder of TEDxKC. “We asked two…
Fitbit integrating Sickweather illness forecasting into new wearables
Sickweather is stepping into the wearables market. A new partnership with industry leader Fitbit is expected to see the Kansas City-based startup’s illness forecasting technology integrated into Fitbit’s new products. “Smartwatches provide a powerful platform to deliver important health tools that help our users manage conditions more conveniently than ever before,” said James Park, co-founder…
Surveys, rewards dying: Tapyness scores customer feedback with one-tap, 3-second experience
No one takes 15-minute surveys anymore, said Matthew Korte, co-founder of Tapyness, a Lawrence-based customer experience platform that provides real-time feedback via kiosks in client businesses. A typical Tapyness interaction takes three seconds, he said. “We’re down to the millisecond, and we’re aggregating hundreds of tablets simultaneously within one brand to go: ‘Here’s the health…
Lean Lab rebrands to reflect its evolution within education innovation
The Lean Lab has announced a rebranding effort to better reflect and differentiate it from other groups in education innovation, said co-founder Katie Boody. Unveiling a new look in late April, the Kansas City-based organization is now LEANLAB Education, which Boody hopes will better communicate its mission, she said. “We know the nature of our…