Black Friday TikTok Shop Prep From The Guy Who Runs $10M+ Shops transcript

Yo, JT, you're working with Kim Kardashian's energy drink brand. Energy. Is it an energy drink? It's called It's called Update. >> It's an energy drink brand. It's called Update. Yes. >> Uh, and what are you helping? You're helping them grow their Tik Tok shop. >> Yeah. So, we launched them on Tik Tok about six weeks ago. Um, they're off to a really good start. Um, they have a really great team over there. So, yeah, we're excited.

Uh, we're excited to be working with them. Uh what is that like to work with a brand that is like they're they're they're pretty new, right? Like uh like like that is both newer from launch on Tik Tok, but also is associated with one of the biggest influencers in the world. >> Yeah, it's uh so it's funny. We actually like when I got into this, I didn't know that we'd like kind of like carve out like somewhat of a niche in like the celebrity like CVG brand space, but we work with Kim Kardashian's energy drink brand now.

Um, we work with NovakJokovic's popcorn brand. Um, and then we do uh Nara Smith's um algae cooking uh oil as well. >> Nara Smith, I don't know who that is. >> She's like a really big like cooking influencer on on Tik Tok and Instagram. >> Oh, interesting. Okay, that's why I don't know who she is because I'm not really on Tik Tok or Instagram and I don't cook seriously. So, uh yeah, >> but it's it's cool. No, it's cool working with them.

Um, you know, it's uh it's you obviously like they're you know, we're not on the calls with uh with Novac Joe Vune, right? Yeah. They're not they're not on the calls talking Tik Tok shop. Um but it is um it's just this it's just cool to um to kind of see where the you know the different projects that the agency um has uh has taken me. So >> is there anything uh it is that is really cool. Is there anything about the Kardashian project that is different that you guys are doing?

Like is there a way to leverage is there a way to leverage an influencer like that on Tik Tok in a unique way? I mean there's obviously ways to leverage an influencer like on Tik Tok, but like is there some special secrets to doing that or something different when you've got Jookovic or Nar Smith or or you know Kim K >> for sure. Yeah. So for for all of them it's so interesting like you don't need >> the influencer like be in the videos for those, right? like and I don't know I feel like traditionally you know when you have like a celebrity brand like that a lot of the value is in like the celebrity like posting videos of the brand which is true right which is very true um but where Tik Tok shop made this different is you don't need like the the the influencer you know the celebrity to actually make videos about the product just having their name attached with the product is enough because what the affiliates do is like they make the hook of a lot of their content that performs well on Tik Tok shop they make the hook be like Kim Kim Kardashian just dropped a a what?

NovakJokovic just dropped a what? Naro Smith oil just dropped a you know a special a special oil. Um so just like using their name in the in the content is interesting to leverage. Yeah >> that in fact I think that probably like I I was going to say something kind of crazy here for a second. Tell me if this is wrong. Uh does that content actually perform better than than having the influencer in it? Like it feels that feels more socially native in a lot of ways. >> Yeah.

Yeah. I mean I mean our Yeah. For all the those um brands I talked about, our top performing videos are actually not the videos that um that are from the the celebrities page. Like for example like for the the Nuros Smith oil like you know she posted a video um like to launch the oil and it's it it did well to launch the oil. Um, but now, you know, months later, the top performing videos for that uh product is is not that video.

It's like it's all affiliate videos that don't that doesn't have, you know, Nar Smith in it at all. It's just um it's uh it's just videos of the product that where the affiliates use her name, but not her, you know, not her image, if that makes sense. >> For Jookovic and and Kim Kardashian, do you have like content with them in it? I assume part of their deals with these brands is that they're they're doing content shoots, but like I don't know how much they're making like Tik Tok specific content and in that, you know. >> Yeah.

So, we don't really touch the um like their the >> Yeah. the celebrity uh part of it. Um >> to my knowledge, they they really don't do much like t they're not really doing any like Tik Tok shop specific content with the celebrity. It's more like it's more like Instagram and like Tik Tok organic content that they might throw a shop link in with, but nothing like super Tik Tok shop specific. Like for some of our clients, we we do content creation um for them um like for you know, the Novac joke brand.

We do content creation for them, but like you know, we don't really we're not scripting videos for for Novak really. It's more for like the um the founder. They have like they have a really interesting story. It's like a the founder um uh like you know made this product for her kids and then she partnered with Novak. So they're kind of like Novak's not the only face of the brand. Like she's also kind of the face of the brand too which is cool.

Um but then yeah for update like you know Kim Kardashian has done like videos about them on Instagram and is post them like organically on Instagram but no like Tik Tok shop specific videos. It's really those are being driven by um >> by uh the affiliates. >> It's really interesting. I mean, I I have a couple brands on Meta where I'm thinking of like one of them in particular where the influencer is big enough to where like she's got six million followers on Instagram, so she's like pretty big, but she's got more of a worldwide following.

I'm not sure how well known her name is exactly in the US, but I like your idea of just like doing some non like creating content that sort of name drops her um as opposed to having her necessarily do all the content. It's another way to leverage that status. In fact, what it really makes me think about is just the value of of getting really good quality influencers in content creation. And I like this is gonna sound idiotic to be honest with you, but I don't think I've ever thought about going the route that you're going right now like um like you know using imagery and B-roll of the influencer maybe in like at an ad level while name dropping them because you suddenly have the licensing rights to their use of likeness.

And so yeah, I I think there's a there's a lot of fertile soil there for for probably any channel and it probably looks different on every channel but but that makes sense. So, so, so your Kim Kardashian videos that are are working are are people still talking about, "Hey, did you I mean, yeah, Kardashian Kim Kardashian just launched his energy drinks." It's it's literally that. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, this might be too I don't know if the influencers would do this, but could you actually have somebody even be like almost hate content like this?

Like uh like I kind of wonder if like some of that would work really really well as long as the influencers like fine with me, just make me the money. >> Yeah. Yeah, it could. But I mean obviously the positive stuff usually does because the way the Tik Tok shop algorithm works is like >> is the more so Tik Tok gets paid on every order right they get paid every order so when a video has a Tik Tok shop link in it Tik Tok pushes it if it's driving sales and like add to carts etc.

If it's like a negative video it might get a lot of like engagement on normal Tik Tok because like a negative video typically won't drive as much sales on Tik Tok. Tik Tok's going to um what's it called? uh decompress uh depp prioritize that video in the algorithm. >> Um >> you know, and push other videos that are positively pushing the product that's driving more sales. Like the if Tik Tok thinks the video is going to drive more sales, it's going to push it and make it go more viral.

If it thinks it's not going to drive sales, it's going to push it down in the algorithm compared to like the normal Tik Tok algorithm, right? Where it's like, you know, if anyone's just watching the video, then they're going to push it. But for Tik Tok shop, if people aren't purchasing, then they're going to um then >> they're not going to push the video. >> If you are uh launching something like Kim Kardashian's energy drink or not like that, you're launching that.

Um you've had a lot of success on Tik Tok shop in a lot of different ways, including with your own brand. And I actually want to talk a little bit more about your own brand later because you graciously sent me some product and it's so good and I I think there's an interesting reflection about your work on that. Anyway, um before we get to me talking about how good the pretzels are that you make, rattle off again like JTS growth.

You ran a Tik Tok shop agency. Rattle off again some of the big clients you've worked with that you've seen a lot of success with. Fishwife, right? Like uh what who else? Yeah, Fishwife. Um uh the ones we you know the ones we just talked about uh Narsmith Aussie cooking oil. Uh Kim Kardashian's energy drink brand. Um Mike's Hot Honey. Um and then um some other big brands too that uh that you know make the when you set when you work with a really big brand a lot of times they make you sign NDAs. >> Yeah.

Yeah. NDA. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But if you go on um >> if you go on jtsgrowth.com we have a lot of the clients we work with. Um, actually also I don't know if there's a way to attach a deck or something to this >> um to this, but >> that's right. People go to your website and I mean actually I mean if you send it live and it's it's online somewhere I can put it in the show notes for sure. Um but yeah, so you've worked with all these brands and they're not necessarily all celebrity brands.

What is different about growing a Tik Tok shop for some somebody besides that bit of content that you can do? Is there anything different about the playbook for Fishwife, let's say, where you've been really successful with them, but they aren't like an influencer le brand in the same way, I don't think. Tell correct me if I'm wrong, versus a Kim Kardashian brand or whatever, you know, like what what is different about those and what is the same? >> Maybe start with different. >> Yeah, it's a it's a good question.

I mean I mean this the dra so really like people ask me like all the time like oh like you know like have you worked with like clothing brands? Have you worked with uh you know supplement brands? Have you worked with beauty brands? So, we work with clients of all like we work with all categories. Um, specifically we work with um beauty uh food and beverage. I forgot to mention we work with some really great uh Korean uh beauty brands as well.

Um but uh but yeah, really like the you know the main difference is from brand to brand. It's really not from like category to category. So each brand has like its own selling points, right? Its own affiliates that you're going to want to target. Um, so like there's not much of a difference from like you know basically the difference is like each brand no matter what like has is has so many differences between each brand like you have to basically come up with you know new messaging new targeting for each brand and but overall like the strategy that you're you know the overall strategy remains the same.

It's just like you know the bullet points basically within the strategy is what changes. So like for Kim Kardashian's energy drink for example, right? Like you know we're really pushing on the fact that it's Kim Kardashian's energy drink, right? Versus Fishwife, you know, we're more we're more focused on what their selling points are, right? Which is like, you know, they they source all this amazing fish from around the world.

And you know, they put a ton of time and effort and research into the recipes that they make. Um and uh and you know, we we focus on the story behind the product, right, which is you know, one of their biggest um selling points. Um so yeah, each brand has its own selling points. uh you know it doesn't matter if it's a celebrity brand, normal brand, whatever. Um each brand has its own selling points. You just have to figure out what those you know selling points are and figure out the best way to communicate those on TikTok. >> Yeah, pretty straightforward.

Is um um is there uh anything else you want to say specifically about about those new brands? We talked about the Kardashian brand a little bit, or should we or should I um rave about your uh your your pretzels for a second uh before before we get to before we get to some BFCM prep? Uh but but yeah, you were telling me you were doing something cool for Kardashian. I feel like >> Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um the the the the post races, but I don't know.

We can that that can kind of go into Black Friday, Cyber Monday prep because part of the prep is like, you know, if you have extra budget, you can do some post races and I can talk about how how we've seen those work really well recently. Somebody said to me the other day, oh, like, are you still working with those Filipino hiring agency people? Like, is that still a thing? I was like, is that still a thing? It's like my company is built on the partnership that I have with more staffing among others as the staffing agency that is that has helped me get connected to the Philippines and find incredible talent that can work with me at AF Growth and be a part of our business.

It has been a transformative experience for me and every time I do this ad read and every time I think about it I am once again filled and I mean this I'm filled with gratitude that this has been a part of my life because my experience working with people in the Philippines at age of growth has been so overwhelmingly positive. I've had great experiences mostly across the board. I've never had a truly terrible experience and not that every not that every employee has worked out but of course it's hiring.

It's still hard but uh but the overall value proposition for my business has been incredible. the idea that I get a access to incredible talent in the Philippines with e-commerce resumes, e-commerce experience, motivated, excited to work hard, excited to be part of it, native English speakers, like all of those things happen in my business. Those people come at a price that allows me to create operational leverage that allows me to find great talent still uh is just incredible while while paying much less per person than I would pay for [music] that same equivalent talent in the US. like that is just awesome.

It allows me to put more people against more opportunities. I don't think of it as an excuse to hire less. I think of it as a way to hire more people actually and to and to put more people in uh against the opportunities that are [music] are are coming up in the agency. And uh and you should be thinking the same way if you're running an e-commerce business. More staff was built on the back of US-based e-commerce businesses.

So, they're really good at placing incredible Filipino talent in your business. And at the same time, if you go and you make them the the the step of of really not just looking to go, how cheap can I hire in the Philippines? Uh you know that that's really missing the opportunity. If you look instead and say how can I get the best possible talent in the Philippines, hire at the top of that market, you'll get people who are dedicated, motivated, hardworking, intelligent, [music] and who are excited to work in a business where they're getting paid really, really well relative to local market wages.

And that creates a great opportunity for everybody. So go to morstaffing.co morsaffing.co. get going [music] there and see what is possible for you. Just just get some rums back, see what's possible, see what kind of resumes you get, take some interviews and see. They're going to make the whole process easy for you. Uh identifying the talent, training, [music] uh recruiting the talent, um and all the rest to make it so that the experience is great.

Morsapping.co. Uh okay, JT, then let's just talk a little bit. Well, we'll do BFCM prep in a minute and talk about post races. I don't I literally don't I can guess what that phrase means, but I literally don't know um otherwise. So, let's just talk a little bit about I want to I want to veer into something really fast in agency life, which is that after we last talked, you very graciously sent me a bunch of Pop Daddy stuff.

So, can you just talk to me for a second about what uh or just just tell people again, remind them what Pop Daddy is and why that's relevant to the story really fast? >> Yeah. So, uh Pop Daddy is uh my family and I's popcorn and pretzel brand. We started it about 12 years ago in our basement. um started as popcorn, expanded into pretzels. Um today, uh we sell in over 40,000 stores, Walmarts, Targets, um etc. Um and uh and and we're one of the top selling food and beverage items on Tik Tok shop of all time as well.

Um but about two and a half, three years ago, um we were in not as many stores and we also were not on Tik Tok shop or social media really at all for that matter. Um and anyways, I launched this on Tik Tok shop about 3 years ago. became the number one selling food and beverage item on the platform. Um, other brands started to reach out to me asking for help. I started to help them. They started to do well pretty quickly.

Um, they started introducing me to their friends and that's how the agency uh started and that's pretty much how it's grown today is just pretty much through, you know, word of mouth and referrals and um and yeah, so basically that's that is uh the birthplace of the of the agency came through um my experience with Pop Daddy uh on a Tik Tok shop. >> Awesome. Um, okay. So, so you guys had this big moment where it it uh, no pun intended, where where it popped, right?

What I think you said it, but what was what was the number that you quote in like a your month that went crazy? >> Yeah. So, December 2023, we had our first big Tik Tok shop month. We did about $700,000 um, that month alone. Uh, and yeah, became the number one selling food and beverage item on on Tik Tok. >> Okay. So, you did 700,000 that month alone. Okay. What what everybody will ask in response to that is like what were the mechanics for making that happen, right?

That's what they will all ask. They will say, "How did you do that?" And and there have to be some mechanics for that just to be clear. Like that's a fair question. There are tactics involved with something like that. But you sent me a bunch of pretzels after we talked before very graciously, like I said. And I had a surprising experience, which is that I loved them. I loved them so much. And the reason it's a surprising experience is not because I had any negative idea about Pop Daddy, but because um I don't really eat pretzels that much.

It's just not something I care about as a snack food. But I couldn't get over it. So the first thing that happened is I opened the box. It's a big box. He sent me a lot of pretzels. Um, and I was shocked at how many flavors there were. There were It was like 20 bags of pretzels and they were like all different flavors. Um, so I was very I didn't know that many flavors of pretzels existed. And a lot of them were like surprising flavors.

Like there's like a there's like a birthday cake flavored pretzel and like >> a a a Thai curry flavored pretzel and like >> dill pickle, which I actually passed those on to somebody else cuz I'm just not I'm just not on the dill pickle dill pickle craze of snack flavors. I know a lot of people like those. Um but but anyway, all these different flavors and I opened one of them and I was so first surprised that I opened one of them and I was I thought like I'll have a couple of these. this will be fine, but I don't really know I'll do.

And I like my wife and I like scarfed the better part of the bag on one night like uh like and we're not we're not even big snackers in general. Um, and so to me that was a really interesting experience because it made this light go off for me and it reminded me of this principle that I come across in agency life for brands all the time which is that as much as we want to sit here and point to the tactics like there is just no substitute for making interesting products first of all and then making products that are actually super delicious um in your case for food and bev or in other cases that are just super high quality, right?

Um, and so like I just kind of wanted to kick that around with you for a second. Like how much of the success of Pop Daddy and being the highest selling food web brand on all time is because of each of those two things versus like the tactics that you put into them. >> Yeah. It's so funny because like a lot of my friends uh who are also in e-commerce, right, they uh when I send them the pretzels like they have the same reaction like, "Oh my gosh, this is so good." and and uh and like what the realization that like that they'll bring to me after I send them the pretzels is like is like it makes sense like why you guys are doing so well like this is just a great product like everyone you know it it seems like such like simple right product but uh and and it is but it's just like you know what makes them special is there just really great pretzels and we make a lot of really great flavors like you know there's not like you know it's it's uh it's a lot of it comes down to the product so what I like to say is on Tik Tok shop right like what we do for a brand, it definitely helps and it definitely, you know, can can lead to a brand being successful on TikTok, but at the end of the day, it like it comes down, it's like 80% product, 20%, you know, marketing and tactics is my opinion.

Um, >> yeah, that's a wide range. I mean, I think what that suggests to me is that if you have those things in your product, you're probably going to do well. And and I think we should be clear about what product means here. Like in the first case, what I'd say is is like the flavor thing is really interesting. I I had actually just seen recently a couple pretzel brands that had more interesting pretzel flavors than I'd ever seen before, but pretty much for my entire life, pretzels have always just been salted, you know, before that.

Yeah. Like I like I think there's probably a couple other little flavors in some way, but like they're they're not super interesting. And so the idea that you could sort of introduce real innovation, so to speak, in the category, at least as far as like pushing something forward in a significant way, um makes so much sense for me for social media marketing. Like if I had to guess what kind of content did well, it was it was my guess would be that it was stuff holding up kind of some of your more interesting and surprising flavors and people eating them would being like, "Holy crap, you've got to try a birthday cake flavored pretzel or whatever." You know, like they're insanely good.

I like it and because that because because that's actually interesting on its own because like just the idea of like you've you've never heard of a birthday cake flavored pretzels and there's probably a large subset of people in the world who love to snack on pretzels and who are really happy to spend the you know 20 bucks or whatever it cost to get the variety pack or the flavor or something like that. I know you talked last time, we talked about like variety pack offers and I think getting the offer right is really important too, but um but that's my guess is that it was that kind of content that really popped off and then having an offer where people could taste a bunch of different flavors at once like really um really just worked.

Is that right? Yeah, for sure. It's it's funny because you know earlier we're talking about um you know how each brand has to like lean into its its selling points. I mean that's really what we did with Pod Daddy, right? Like I when I started on TikTok, I started selling like how we do on Amazon like three large bags of each flavor, right? Of like you know not doing any variety. Like our biggest selling point as a brand is like how many different unique flavors that we have.

So when we started leaning into that um we saw much more success on TikTok. Like that's when we started to do really well. >> Um so yeah, so just like same like you know for each brand like you have to figure out what you know what really makes your brand special and then lean into that with the marketing. Um but not just the marketing um also like in your offer um and in your listing pictures and in in your titles. Um so 100%. >> So it was so so the key thing was actually front front uh putting front and center the fact that the fact that you had a lot of flavors in the first place like and like maybe showing the more interesting ones.

Is that is that what you mean by that? >> Yeah. like one of one of our first videos that that took off was um number one we switched to our doing a variety pack instead of like um >> you know instead of selling how we were >> um with like the three packs. Um >> and so we did that and then I did like an order packing video which showed off all of our different flavors like explaining each flavor. That was like one of our first content styles that did really well. >> Um and uh and then also like for a lot of the brands we work with, we do like founder type content, right?

So I mentioned like you know Fishwife they um you know one of their big selling points is like their founder story and you know and the story behind the product. So like you know and their content we focus on that. So yeah you just have to find whatever your you know what your selling points are as a brand and you know what people really resonate with and just lean into that. >> Uh you know it's so interesting because one of our like big differentiators at AJF Growth about how we make ads is that um like what we say is the the message is the most important thing.

I need to find a actually a more clever way to say this. It's actually a sort of a perfect illustration of the point that I'm making right now. Actually, that phrase, the message is the most important thing is boring. It's a boring way to say the point that I'm making, but I also think it's fairly clear. And that is kind of the way I think about a lot of marketing, which is it's actually more important that you're clear than that you're than that uh than clear about an important thing than that you're interesting about an important thing.

Because as long as you're clear about it, it's compelling in its own way. So when I say the message is the most important thing, there's probably a cleverer way to make this point. But at the core, there is this idea which is that you have to put in front of people what is actually interesting about your brand and you have to convey that to them in a way that that yeah that makes that front and center. And so in the case of Pop Daddy, the really interesting thing about the brand is that there's a lot of flavors that people haven't tried before.

And then when and then of course uh when they get the product, they're going to discover that that is also well executed. So it's not just a good idea, but it's like it actually is delicious. Uh, if you tried to do a bunch of stuff with Pop Daddy, again, tell me if you've done this and I'm wrong about this, but my instinct would be if you try to do a bunch of stuff about Pop Daddy about why pretzels are >> uh like a healthier alternative to chips or something, you know, >> like that's in fact, one of the things I even noticed about Pop Daddy specifically is that there's actually very little claim on the bag around like it having around like it's no sugar and it's no what, you know what I like it sort of stays away from all of that.

Like the packaging is just all about like >> these are super good and here's the fun here's the flavor that you've never had before that's really really good. Uh and I think I actually it's really interesting cuz cuz that is what somebody wants and they want a pretzel. They just want a delicious snack and you guys have really interesting ones. And so when somebody comes to you to win on Tik Tok shop or me to win on meta ads, um I've had this debate so much with um with actually with a client recently where I was saying like uh the client was saying we think we're struggling because your ads are not hookie enough and they're not clever enough.

And I was saying I think our ads could be hookier. Don't get me wrong. Like I'm sure we can do better on those kinds of things, but I actually think the much more important thing here is that we have not figured out how to sell this product yet. and and we have not figured out what is actually unique and different and interesting to the customer about this product at the level of message and at the level of the core thing and if you go to JT or if you go to me with your brand and you have real clarity to that or if you don't have clarity to that you can be open to that and start thinking about what what could that be man you can win really big in your guys's case right it's the the the ad or the video shows the products like you said the unboxing video shows all the product differences and then the offer really aligns with that because now somebody can try a bunch of the different flavors at once.

Um, and I just think it's yeah, like I said, it's sort of so easy to think about all these other tactics and algorithmic things and all this stuff, but I but like the most important like the algorithms are so good at putting the right thing in front of the right person that your job is just to be able to clarify what the right thing is, you know? >> Yeah. And just and a big part of it too is just like making it clear, >> right?

Like just like you were saying like, you know, like we don't want to talk about like oh like why are pretzels? Like here here's what you're Okay. Right. a hook. Okay, here's here's what the product is. Here's why we think you'll like it. And here's the deal that we're running. Um is is how we structure a lot of the content that we make uh for our clients. Um just the more simple you can make it, the better. Especi especially on Tik Tok shop, right, where it's like you're scrolling a video of dogs, you're scrolling a video of cats, and then you see a Tik Tok shop video, right?

And then you know, and then if if you don't engage with the video at all, then like Tik Tok's not going to show you that brand again. Yep. Um, so anyways, yeah, it's uh it just needs to be so so simple and clear for the customer to um to convert. I agree. >> Surprisingly difficult to do though. You know, it sounds so easy to say this. >> Part of that is at the product level. It's surprisingly difficult to create a differentiated product.

But then also it's it's s I just think people have a very hard time being clear and a lot of people don't know what it is people actually like about their product. I run into this a bunch. Brands get stuck at a couple million bucks or even earlier than that or whatever because they just don't know. They just don't know what actually they're selling. Yeah. They don't really know um you know and and what is really going to resonate with people.

And I think that's a real challenge. It's it's it sounds really easy but it's it's not. Cody Ploffer talks a lot about the notion of a unique mechanism in a product like that is something that people need to talk about more often like what is it that is that is that in your product that that uniquely accomplishes the outcome someone's looking for. Um, you know, that's a very problem solution way of thinking about it in your in the case of Pop Daddy, it would be the flavors um are different than others, but but uh but yeah, >> the hardest thing to do is to make something simple. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. >> If you if you can make something simple, then like you know, you're an expert. The more simple you can like it's hard to make something simple. Um >> Yeah. It's hard to make something simple. >> Yep. Um okay. Okay. Anyway, everybody, whether or not you can hire JT to go run your ads, uh or to go run a particular shop, excuse me, >> you definitely should go buy some Pop Daddy because it's super um um Oh, speaking of that, with Pop Daddy, my guess is also you have very good retention in that business.

Is that true? >> Yeah, for sure. Um you know, when people the hardest part is like getting people to try it, right? Once they once people try it, they love it for the most part. Yeah. >> Um that's why a big way we've grown through through retail actually is like through uh doing food shows. >> Sampling. Yeah. >> Uh yeah. sampling at food shows because like once you know once a buyer at a you know Walmart or Target tries the product um it's just uh it's just a way different conversation than if they had not tried the product right so yeah uh we we >> retention is uh is is is high for us for sure >> yeah y yeah that makes sense food and bev that's that's the classic playbook is uh >> is sampling I um and and I think that actually le that makes sense with if you want to talk about tactics and mechanics on something like Tik Tok shop like not only does that variety pack uh offer allow you to get people a lot of different flavors at once, but it also allows people to sample things, find the thing they like, and should help retention.

And so like aligning again aligning the offer with the product and with the message um and then with the rest of the business outcomes that you want, I think all matters. Um JT, let's talk a little bit about Black Friday prep. Uh for people who are on Tik Tok shop, um let me ask you a pointed question first. Should brands who are not it's we're recording on September 17th. Should brands who are not currently on or like have have who who don't have a serious Tik Tok shop business right now, >> should those brands like be looking to spin something up before Black Friday now or are they too late? >> Um so if you're not on Tik Tok shop yet, um I would say that you should get on Tik Tok shop before Black Friday to try to take advantage of Black Friday.

Um, some of the stuff that I say in when I when we talk about what you need to do if you're on Tik Tok shop to prep for Black Friday, um, will be relevant, but some of it will be just like you probably won't have like, okay, one of the things I'm going to talk about is like, you know, you need to make a um, >> it's better if it's great if you can have like a holiday specific skew, right? >> Um, so if you're not a Tik Tok shop yet, like >> it's too it's too late, >> you know?

Yeah. if you're not a Tik Tok shop yet, like you know, it's you probably aren't going to have to be able to spin up a holiday skew. But if you do have one that that's ready to go, then like okay, then launch then launch with the holiday skew. So yeah, I think like the Black Friday prep that we tal about, I think it will still be relevant um for a brand that's not on Tik Tok shop yet. Like if you're not in Tik Tok shop yet, yeah, midepptember, you still have time to get ready for Black Friday, but like you got to start you got to start in oar October at the latest. >> Yeah.

Um that's very interesting. Um, okay. Here's what I want to do. I want uh I want to hand you the microphone. Talk us through the Tik Tok shop Black Friday strategy. I know some of my my listeners and viewers here are not going to even be on Tik Tok shop. So, I I'll I'll probably try to draw a couple connections outside of Tik Tok, too. But, but start talking us through what brands should be doing on at Holiday. Give give us the rundown here.

I mean, maybe the way to put it is what are you doing for your clients? How are you helping them succeed? >> Yeah. So um first thing is uh is if you have like a holiday offer um I would do it uh I would I would launch it on you know launch with that on Tik Tok shop. So what I mean by holiday offer I'll give you some examples um for Pop Daddy we do like a holiday tin that's like a Christmas like holiday gift tin um that we stuff a bunch of pretzels into and that makes you know makes a great gift.

Um, what's interesting actually during Tik Tok shop during a major sale periods, the the items that do best are actually higher AOV items. So like $40, $50 plus items do well um do much better over the uh the sale periods because it's like they're more like gifting items if that makes sense. Um >> yeah, it's so funny because everybody's advice on Tik Tok shop for so long has been like doesn't work with higher price products, but that's that's interesting to hear.

But it makes sense that if you're buying a gift for somebody, you don't want it to be too cheap and >> Exactly. Yeah. like Fishwife has like a gift tin that's like $70. Um that crushes it during the the holiday period. Um and then yeah, a lot of our other clients will launch like holiday special holiday packaging, special holiday SKUs and um they'll typically do very well over the holidays. So if you have any holiday offer like definitely launch that um for for sure uh on Tik Tok shop. >> Yeah. >> So that's that's one.

Uh, number two is I would make sure to uh preede or pre-brief your affiliates about your your your Black Friday sale. So, what is the sale percentage that you're running? What SKs are you running on? Right? If you have a holiday skew, tell them, you know, brief them on that. So, you want to brief them on that. Um, ideally three to four weeks before the sale. and then, you know, follow up with them two weeks before the sale, one week before the sale, and then again when the sale goes live.

So, we're doing that for all of our clients. Um, and why that's important is because a lot of the the sales that happen on Tik Tok shop uh during the Black Friday, Cyber Monday period, they happen all within the first couple days of the sale. So, like for example, like Pod Daddy, right, we did like 670K throughout the holidays last year. Um, 50K of it was on one of the first days of the sale. So the first couple days of the sale is when most of the the sales happen.

So it's important that you do pre brief your affiliates so that they're ready to post right when the sale starts. Like you don't want to like start briefing them when the sale happens. You want to post you want to brief them before so they have their content ready to go right when the sale um starts. >> That's a that's a really stark like revenue curve. Why do you think it's so it's so it's so uh so frontloaded? Is that >> I think just like a lot I think like a lot of people are you know wait for the sale to happen right um and then just like with Tik Tok right when when when Tik Tok sees one person buy then they push the video to to another person they push the video to another person.

So um a lot of like the yeah majority of the sale just happens right when the u sale starts for that reason but like you know throughout the rest of the sale period it is strong but um but yeah a lot of it happens right away. If you know anything about the way that AJF Growth is built, you know that we have built our creative team with a specific creative agency with help from a specific creative agency in the Philippines called Behind the Scenes Studio.

Behind the scenes studio staffs, designers, [music] video editors, and copywriter, creative strategists, uh, to help grow e-commerce brands. And really, I think they're especially well positioned to be extensions of your existing team if that is the way your team is set up. Let's say you've got media buying in-house, you feel good about that. You've got forecasting inhouse, you feel good about that. your business. You're on top of all those things.

What you really need is just a extension of your creative team to get a higher volume of diverse creative [music] into your ad account that comes across at a really good quality level. You want direct response style creative. Uh Behind the Scenes Studio is a great option to consider because they are reasonably priced based in the Philippines and do really good quality work. They also uh do that work uh based on a lot of things they're learning from me and from AJF Growth because uh we staff our whole team with help from behind the scenes studio in the Philippines and uh and so they're taking a lot of those things that they're learning and and really putting it all the way through their organization frankly and I'm totally fine with that.

I want them to have the opportunity to get the best of what we're learning, get them out to other people out there as well. So go to btsstudio.co code. Again, if you you need an extension of your creative team, >> [music] >> um or or if you if you really want to stand up that team and get more creative coming into your ad account for meta ads, you can do it at a reasonable price with Behind the Scenes Studio. btsstudio.co.

Tell them I sent you. Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense. I mean, yeah, those both feel just like pretty similar to anywhere else. Um where where you you want to make sure you want to be out in front of your offer, you want to get creators and affiliates going in advance of your offer, have content frontloaded. Um, all that's all that's great. I Yeah, I really think a price point is very interesting that having the right I think in general the notion during holiday that you want to be careful about share of wallet and be thinking about um what price point you can offer something at in a way that makes sense for gifting I think is really good advice all the way around.

Just thinking about what kind of customers are where and what they want to spend and what they're buying it for. It's just sort of that's just attentiveness to the detail of what makes a good gift. Uh keep going. What else should people be doing? Um, so third would be uh like brand and sales specific content. So if you look, you know, when we look across clients at what type of content does best over Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it's all very sale focused content.

So the hook has to do with, oh, Xbrand is on sale right now. You know, blah blah is on sale. It has to do with the sale. Oh, special discount, special Black Friday, Cyber Monday going on right now. Right. It all >> Don't be too cute. Don't be too clever. Like talk about the brand. Talk about me in the sale. >> Exactly. Don't be too clever. Like for one of my clients, their best performing video um was uh is actually uh one of the videos was from the you know from their brand page which you know I know we talked about in the last podcast but like yeah a lot of Tik Tok shot brands they underrate their own their own content.

Every brand should be focusing on their own content. That's why we we make videos for for our clients for their their brand page. Um and uh yeah, one of their top performing videos over over the sale was um literally just a video of like someone on their team holding the holding the holding their you know special their gift item and just saying, "Hey, it's on sale right now for a limited time." I literally I literally think they said, "Hi, I'm XYZ from X Company.

I'm in my backyard right now and I just want to tell you guys that we're running a special sale basically on this item was what what the video was." And it was like one of your best performing videos. >> Straightforward. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. this what we're talking about earlier like the more simple you can make it the better and um >> so anyways so uh yeah we're frontload we're preparing Black Friday Cyber Monday like brand content for all of our clients too um because typically over over the uh the sale around half of your sales if you know if you're putting the right emphasis on um on uh on brand content like you should be about half your sales should be coming from from content that you post on your brand page Interesting.

I I mean it is so interesting like there is this like thing that people say in marketing and social media marketing which is like you got to hold back on the product. People are not there to shop. They're not there for those things. They're there for content to scroll whatever it is. And that's wrong. Uh it's just wrong. I mean there's pro, you know, some of your content of course should be like that, but um but actually people that there's a really specific way in which it's wrong and it's it's the idea that people aren't there to shop.

They actually are. Like a lot of people actually really like shopping and they like buying things online and an ad with a product that they're interested in at a presented at a very good price from a brand they like >> is actually not perceived by them as an interruption, you know, not all the time at least, especially not for like the small percentage of people that you actually need to reach for this to be a success, right?

Which is like a percentage of a percentage of people to actually do that. And so go ahead. Do do you buy anything? Have you bought anything on Tik Tok shop? No, I I've been on TikTok JT like like four times in my life ever. >> So I I historically like you know even like being in the space I've never been like an online shopper. Like it's very hard to get me to convert >> for whatever reason. Like I've been I've been buying stuff on Tik Tok shop like if I see something like Tik Tok shop is definitely and it's I swear it's not just because I'm that's what I do.

I swear it's not because when I started this >> I still would not like buy anything from Tik Tok shop. Like I'm buying stuff from Tik Tok shop now. Like it's it's they make it very easy. Like it's you know you can see the you you can see the product that you know the videos that do best that get pushed in the algorithm. I'll make it very clear like what the product is. It shows it up close. Like >> I mean you know a lot of it a lot of it's like you know it's it's just it's very it's a very seamless experience and like you know I'm can see why people buy from Tik Tok shop.

Like my mom my mom has a new Tik Tok shop package show up at, >> you know, her door with me. >> So, um >> my my I've definitely known people like this too who are just like, "Oh, I" and and the interesting thing about it is they don't describe it like they feel guilty about it. Like they describe it like they love it. Like it's like it's really fun. And this is again like it's just like people there's like a subset of people who really like to shop, who really like to buy things.

They have enough money. And this is part of one of the things they do is they they they want to do that. And I actually sometimes think the entrepreneurs, this is going to be feel like a tangent, but this I think it's important to keep this straight. I think probably a lot of entrepreneurs are um especially the bootstrap types who are going to be listening to or watching this. We are instinctively savers. And by savers, I don't necessarily mean you're putting your money in a bank account.

I I mean like you want to invest and build money. And so if you get more money, your instinct is to go and like find a way to invest it and turn it into more money because that's the thing that excites you, right? Or or to hold on to it and to build a bigger whatever. Um, right. But I actually but somebody else pointed this out to me a while ago in a really interesting book actually called God and Money. And the the guy was saying people actually fall into there.

There are a lot of people who are savers like that. But then there's another group of people who are spenders and who when they get money, the thing they want to do with it is deploy it into into buying things that they like, you know, and if you're making a whole bunch of money, this might mean fancy dinners and vacations. Um, if you're making medium amounts of money, it might mean like buying things on Tik Tok shop.

And so like it's just easy to forget if you yourself are a spender. There are actually a lot of people in the world who are instinctively uh who are excuse me if you yourself are a saver. There are a lot of people in the world who are instinctively spenders and then the experience specifically on Tik Tok shop people talk about really loving doing that. They like buying things from PE from content they like and all those kinds of things.

So all that to say, there is a place in social media marketing for just having some subset of your content, especially at key buying moments when that's what people really want to do and they have a lot of extra motivation to buy to just like tell people, hey look, here's a product you're interested in that you really like. The algorithm is going to handle matching the product with the person. It's at a great price right now.

You should go buy it. That's actually a really compelling piece of content for somebody and it's not really an interruption. They're actually really excited about it >> for for sure. back back to your like um saver spender comment. We get so many comments about people who are like, "Oh my gosh, like I can't wait until my paycheck hits so I can buy this." Like we get so many comments like that. >> Yeah, I I I believe it.

Uh yeah, that's disconcerting. Those people might need to be more of savers. But uh but but yeah, what JT, are you instinctively a saver or a spender? >> Um I'm a saver. I'm I would say I'm a saver. I figure my my my my friends all call me cheap. I don't think I don't think that I am cheap. I think that's that I think they might be too much in the spender category, but um I'm I I'm definitely I'm definitely not like a I'm not a spender.

I wouldn't would say no. >> Yeah. Yeah. What What do you like to spend on when the time when um >> if if if you do if you do spend, what do you what do you like what what's what do you spend on besides Tik >> Tok? I don't I don't cook. I get like sweet green. I get sweet green like every day. Um so I would say I would say I spend on food. I'm like that with Chipotle. >> Yeah, >> that's the biggest spend is food out. And I I live in New York City, right?

So there's like so many good restaurants around here. Yeah. >> Um >> but yeah, I'd say food is the biggest thing that I spend on. >> Yeah, >> that means you have to What about you to to afford to afford New York City? Um >> yeah, definitely instinctively I'm a saver for sure. Uh and I'm I don't I not super interested in lots of stuff. I like to be able to have enough money to buy the things that I do want to buy, which are which are, you know, uh not tons of things, but just like I just like the freedom to buy those things without thinking too much about it. >> Um that's like the amount of money I need.

And those are not crazy. Like I'll just give you a stupid example. I play Slowpitch softball uh maybe once a week or something like that. U just just fun. And um a slippage softball bats like a few hundred bucks. It's enough to make me like pause and be like, I'm just not going to drop a few hundred bucks on anything all the time. But the amount of money I need to be is be a spender or whatever is like to turn around and just go like, you know what?

I'm just going to buy the bat because my old bat is old. Uh, and I'm not going to think twice about it. That, you know, that feels like the level of financial freedom I need. So, that's it. >> For sure. For me, for for me, I always view financial freedom as like not having to worry about the um the menu price. Like if you're going to eat somewhere like that, like that's right. Like be like, "Oh, like do I I really want two appetizers?" You know, like that that that's the >> um like that's that's just the that's the feeling that I, >> you know, want to avoid. >> Yeah.

I don't need a boat, you know. Uh right. Yeah. Exactly. >> I uh >> Yeah. >> I I just need just I just need my sweet green. I just need my sweet green twice a day. >> Um and uh >> twice a day. Uh sometimes >> I actually I'll do I have like I have like a sweet green and a cabba right next to my apartment. So I'll do like sweet green for lunch and cabba for dinner a lot of times. >> Yeah. And you don't have to think about it. >> Yeah.

Exactly. >> Yeah. I do I do Chipotle for lunch a lot for the same reason. I don't think about it. It's like got food that's got some >> Especially during Black Friday, Cyber Monday. I'm not going to be wanting to think about food at all. It's just going to be >> That's exactly right. >> It's just going to be full Tik Tok shop. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh okay. Um All right. Hey, that was a good that's a good uh I figure if I'm going to have you on every so often, then it's a good uh you know, we should get to know each other a little.

Um okay, so tell me more um about what else people should be doing at Black Friday. >> Um did we get a little or what else? >> Yeah, if if you know if if you have um if you are up and running on TikTok and you do have, you know, uh actually, let me rephrase. If you have some extra budget that you want to push on Tik Tok shop for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, um what we've seen work really well is uh content races uh and content challenges uh for affiliates.

So, I'll give you a couple examples. Okay. Um, so we did a uh one month um contest where whoever posted the most qualified keyword qualified pieces of content, we can disqualify the pieces of content. If they aren't quality pieces of content, like if the affiliates just posting the post, we can dis disqualify the piece of content. But the top three creators who post the most qualified content over the course of a month, um, first place wins $1,500. >> Yeah. >> Second place wins $700 and third place wins $300.

So total budget of $2,500. >> Um, and yeah, we just ran this for a brand. Uh, and I just have the stats pulled up here. Um, we got 29 creators who generated 396 videos in total. um and generated 300,000 views >> um throughout those videos. So 396 videos, 310,000 views over the course of a month through that contest. Um and then obviously that's you know has good results. That's what you want. And some of those videos end up um >> being some of the highest GMBB performers.

Um but on top of that, it surfaced um like who our engaged creators are, right? like whoever's going to participate in content contests like that like they're they like the brand a lot. >> Um >> yep that's really you know and and yeah they're like they're very like engaged affiliate so it lets us know okay like these are the creators that we're going to want to >> um retarget for like future sales >> uh in the future or future like if we have a new product drop like we're you know we're going to want to see it with these guys first because they're committed to the brand and they want to make uh content.

Also obviously it just accelerates the learning phase right? So, if you're, you know, if you're a brand that's just starting on Tik Tok shop and you run one of these contests and you, you know, encourage affiliates to to post more, um, it helps you understand like, all right, what is, you know, is our brief working? Do we need to adjust anything in our brief? All right, what are the top performing hooks? Okay, this affiliate did, you know, a hook that wasn't in our brief, but it's working really well.

Like, let's let's add that to the brief. Um, so it just it helps accelerate learning on the platform as well. Um, and obviously just helps you build up your library um too u on Tik Tok shop which you can use um and push over to meta which we can talk about how we do that if you want as well. Um >> but uh but yeah so that's like that's good the competition like that's good if you have existing affiliates. Um, if you don't have existing affiliates and you're just launching um on the platform, uh, what I would do instead of like a a a uh a competition is a post race.

So, the difference between a a competition and a post race is a competition, like the only the top three get paid. Um, a post race is when everyone gets paid. Um, so we did this for another brand that just launched. It worked really well. Uh, we did a we did a fiveday post race. Uh, we did $10 per video. um for per qu again per qualifying video, $10 per qualifying video. Uh and within 5 days, we got 267 posts uh which is what you know about $2,600 >> um budget for, you know, 267 posts, which is great. >> Uh for you know, especially for five days, it's amazing. >> Um so >> yeah.

Uh so yeah and then anyways that has the same benefits as what I mentioned above like you know accelerates learning um will help your your GM max performance if you're running ads. Uh so anyways if you have extra budget like those are two um competitions slash postra races that you can try for your brand. >> I think it's really clever and it's a reminder just of how much of the game is around sort of incentivizing creators in intelligent ways that align with the goals that you are that you are trying to create for your brand. uh reminds me a lot of what I've seen people do with Refunnel and Tribe and some of that kind of stuff where there's sort of like extra bonuses for doing extra things.

It's it's a little different than that, but um yeah, just the reminder those people are like they want the money and they're willing to post for it and they're willing to go do things when there's an incentive for them. Um you know, that whole element of the creator economy right now is so fascinating to me because it's it's just such a difference. The sort of whole affiliate model that drives is such a difference from where the influencer creator economy was. >> Yeah, it's changing so quickly. years ago, but but getting it right really matters.

Yeah. Go ahead. >> Yeah. It's changing so quickly and I think um a lot of it is uh because Tik Tok shop like you know Tik Tok shop kind of normalized >> for sure. For sure. >> It it normalized affiliates getting paid just commission or influencer getting paid just commission right before it was like only flat fees but it's yeah it's normalized commission now. Uh which is uh which is great. So, uh, but yeah, happy to talk more about like, um, how we how we move, uh, content over from, um, Tik Tok to Meta if that you may be helpful for the audience. >> Let's do that in a future one.

I think, uh, I think we should talk more about some of that and seeing what your brands are doing in interesting ways. We're about we're about out of time on this one. >> Oh, yeah. >> JT, you're on the list of people who are like uh who have the invite to come back repeatedly. So, uh, so um so we'll we'll have you back uh soon. you you right now are the uh the unofficial official uh Tik Tok shop correspondent of the AJF growth of the of the Affairs podcast.

So um so save some of the sauce for next time, you know. >> Yeah. >> Um but this was super helpful extremely tactical uh at the end here, especially with Black Friday things that you can do. Uh that said, many people are not going to be able to do this for themselves, nor will they want to. Um JT, what kind of brands ought to reach out to JT JTs Growth, terrible name. um uh uh uh I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Uh J JS Growth uh to um to work with you.

Um if you're a uh beauty, food, beverage, supplement, clothing brand, um we primarily work with food, beverage, and beauty. Uh but I was, you know, as we talked about, um you know, the strategy based on category doesn't really matter or the the strategy um doesn't really change based on category. Um, so yeah, food, beverage, beauty, supplement, clothing brand, uh, feel free to reach out if you're, you know, doing over $5 million, uh, in sales as a business.

Um, then, uh, yeah, reach out and, um, and happy to talk about getting you launched on Tik Tok's job the right way. >> Awesome. jtsgrowth.com. Are you making content on the internet anywhere that people ought to follow to stay up with what to do? I just looked at your X feed really fast and I saw a post from two days ago and then the previous one was from July. Should people go follow you on X? Where should they go follow you? >> Yeah.

Um X and LinkedIn are the two main spots. >> Okay, cool. I'll I'll put the links for those in the show notes as well. Uh JT, thanks for your time, man. I appreciate it. >> Yep, of course. Thanks, Andrew. [music] >> Huge thanks to JT for coming on this episode. I just continue to really enjoy talking with him. There's something interesting about somebody who has grown his own brand and is having agency partners, has seen it from both sides or having agency clients.

Um, [music] there's just a unique perspective there, I think, of sort of watching it from the perspective of ownership and really being fully in the weeds of everything that's happening at the business level. You really see the whole thing, feel the whole thing at the same time serving clients. So, you get a wider range of reps. My experience is that people who who have only been in one of those two spaces really are missing something about about what it's like to be in the other set of shoes.

So, I think JT brings a lot because of that. He's just been great uh to deal with um in all those ways and um and to have on the show and he'll come back in a few months hopefully and tell us what's new on Tik Tok shop maybe uh maybe in January or something like that after holiday. So, big thanks to JT. Go reach out to him. Uh as I said, uh if you want to reach out to us uh to AF Growth, you can go to uh afgrowth.com, fill out the intake form, tell me a little bit a little bit about your business.

I'd love to hear about it, what's going on for you, and then tell me um how we can help you and how we can help your business grow. If you give me that information, then I will reach back out to you if and when we have a spot open at the agency to possibly work together and see if we could be a good partner for you on the meta ads growth side and general growth thinking for your business. You can also email me podcastfgrowth.com.

Don't forget to follow up with my sponsors for this episode, More Staffing and Behind the Scenes Studio. Big fans of both of them. Thanks so much for watching or for listening and I will see you next