1. From Douyin to TikTok, the story of short video global expansion owned-channel marketing continues
Douyin is in the front and TikTok is in the back. From its low-key launch in September 2016 to ByteDance changing its name to Douyin Group, Douyin has swept the domestic Internet ecosystem and created countless business opportunities. From Douyin showcases, live streaming, Douyin combined with WeChat's owned-channel operations, from the original "double WeChat" operation to the current "double WeChat and one Douyin" operation, Douyin has become the basic standard for marketing and is an indispensable position for public domain customer acquisition for every enterprise.
The time machine theory tells us that with the rise of TikTok, the business opportunities for this cutting-edge short video social network have just begun. Looking at the mature owned-channel operations of Douyin + WeChat in China, the owned-channel operations of overseas TikTok + WhatsApp are opportunities for many businesses to enter cross-border from the perspective of social traffic.
Building a publicly owned-channel operations system that combines the TikTok public domain with the WhatsApp owned channel is a new and differentiated way for cross-border merchants to tap into TT.
2. From domestic Douyin to overseas TikTok, owned-channel operationshave a lot in common
Owned channel exists relatively in the public domain. It refers to a user group that is independently owned by enterprise merchants and can be directly and repeatedly reached at low cost (or even zero cost). Different publicly owned channels have different attributes and characteristics, and different merchants will have different operating and marketing methods for them.
The public domain includes scenarios such as online platforms and offline supermarkets. No matter what form it is, the public domain is the basis for merchants’ customer acquisition. Without the source of public domain, it is difficult for companies to obtain customers from owned channels.
From the perspective of owned channels, there are strong, medium and weak connections with different connection capabilities. Strong connections such as social micro-stores and social 1V1 communication, medium connections such as independent websites and communities, weak connections such as independent APPs, one-way messaging, etc. During the operation process, merchants need to choose appropriate owned channel contacts based on product and customer characteristics. This is a common feature of domestic and overseas owned channels.
The difference is that the domestic perception of owned channels is a process from e-commerce public platforms to WeChat to mini program micro stores, while overseas it is a transformation from independent stations to e-commerce platforms and then to WhatsApp-like social owned channels. The path is slightly different, but owned channels with social applications as the core carrier have always been the breeding ground for interactions and relationships between companies and customers.
3. WhatsApp, the preferred carrier for overseas owned channels
The owned audience pool has the essence of low-cost unlimited direct access, and is based on WeChat and WhatsApp-like social IM tools to establish the characteristics of real-time connection and real-time accessibility. In China, WeChat has become a well-known national application that connects people and connects people and business. Overseas, there is also such a super application - WhatsApp, which also lays the foundation for it to become the preferred carrier for overseas owned channels.
Entering WhatsApp, we find that this instant messaging tool seems to be born for marketing:
First: WhatsApp has a wide coverage and a large population base. It has 2 billion monthly active users, covering more than 180 countries and regions around the world, and is a commonly used IM tool in 58 countries;
Second: WhatsApp supports communication between strangers and friends. In short, after you have a phone, you can directly initiate a conversation with strangers, and the first message cannot be blocked, which is very advantageous for sending letters;
Third: WhatsApp account = mobile phone number, which means establishing contact with customers. Once you have a phone number, you can basically contact customers through WhatsApp, a social method. The uniqueness of the mobile phone number also determines the accuracy of customer acquisition;
Fourth: WhatsApp account is a link. When initiating a conversation with a user, there is no need to go through the cumbersome process of copying the account → pasting → searching → initiating friend application → applying through friend → conversation. You can directly click the link to initiate a conversation with the user, which is efficient and convenient.
Fifth: WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, ensuring the security of corporate domain names and communication content; WhatsApp accounts are links. When initiating a conversation with a user, there is no need to go through the tedious process of copying the account → pasting → search → initiating a friend application → applying through a friend → conversation. You can directly click on the link to initiate a conversation with the user, which is efficient and convenient.
Sixth: WhatsApp has rich ecological touch points. There are 1V1 strong connections, groups, broadcasts (similar to Moments), and WhatsApp Business API (similar to public accounts). The communication needs of different types of companies and customers can be met in the form of appropriate contact points.
Four.TikTok’s public domain + WhatsAppowned channel, a key that can be used to make gold again and again.
With the successful experience model of Douyin in China, in the new world of overseas short video marketing, TikTok public domain + WhatsAppowned channel is a marketing opportunity visible to the naked eye. In this area, we have discovered and summarized three forms:
First: The combination of TikTok public domain + WhatsAppowned channel improves the overall operating ROI.
TikTok’s growing popularity has made it a global first-class traffic portal. For many large bloggers who have accumulated a large number of fans, they must accumulate fans into their own owned audience pool to enhance conversion and repurchase before the traffic dividend peaks. Secondly, we can also combine the practice of owned channels to feed back to the public domain. After accumulating owned channels, when TikTok launches activities in the public domain, we can promote them in the owned channels to empower activities such as live broadcasts.
In addition, companies can also establish their own social selling system based on TikTok:
sales intelligence stage: Find a large number of potential customers and leads based on TK public domain. These clues not only exist in users’ private messages and user names and avatars, but also in a large number of live broadcast rooms and short video comment areas;
social media interaction stage: Based on the efficient communication principle of where the clues come from, companies can directly communicate and transform the clues obtained in TK on this platform, and build sales on the social media platform;
Lead cleaning stage: All inquiries require brief communication before determination of intention. Communication at this stage can be combined with marketing automation (MA) or AI/RPA for intelligent sales interaction to screen out interested customer leads while improving personnel efficiency and lead accuracy;
Customer owned channel precipitation: Put all customers into the WhatsApp owned channel. Only the ones in the owned channel belong to the company, and only the ones in the owned channel have lower communication costs. This is also an important position for the company to save customer digital assets.
Finally, based on the above four stages, each enterprise can establish a social selling system of TK public domain + WAowned channel on this basis to realize SCRM-based data management, sales empowerment, customer management, enterprise CDP-based consumer database, and MA marketing automation-based content push for thousands of people.
When acquiring customers from the public domain of TikTok, how to replicate marketing customer acquisition capabilities in a short time? An efficient way is to establish an account matrix. A large number of accounts publish a large amount of content, and use the content to carry out saturation attacks. In addition, if you want to make a good social media (TK, FB, Ins, YouTube) account matrix, a stable RPA system based on cloud mobile phones is very critical.
Second: Create an S2b2C KOC supply chain platform, copy TK’s operating capabilities to a large number of overseas KOC small businesses, and create an Ant-like operation and growth system.
In this era of decentralized and fragmented content, everyone is a sharer in the online community and a creator of content, and will also form their own social circle and influence.
KOC is a typical representative of such a group of people. Overseas, in TK, there will definitely be a large number of short video bloggers. It is their nature to love to share and communicate. It is also their characteristic to have a large number of fans but find it difficult to monetize them. Under such circumstances, through the overseas S2b2c model, companies can quickly empower small businesses to distribute and sell goods.
Within this business model, the S (supply chain) supply chain platform plays a core role in connecting upstream production and downstream small B distribution. By finding a large number of small businesses on social media platforms such as TK and FB, and then combining the SaaS system and supply chain to empower small businesses for distribution, we can create a win-win situation for all parties including the supply chain S, distributors, and customers.
As "the first business model in the intelligent era", S2b2c has also attracted much attention in the cross-border ecology. Moreover, every little b can create the TikTok public domain + WhatsAppowned-channel operations system mentioned in the first article.
Third: Social new retail owned-channel operations: Physical retail global expansion is operated by TikTok, which far exceeds online opportunities and is the ultimate global opportunity for Chinese brands.
Within the S2b2c business model, in addition to the many KOC chatbots scattered on various social media, in the global expansion scenario of physical retail, there is also a special chatbot group that deserves attention - store clerks. Yes, the third one is similar to owned-channel operations in domestic retail stores where clerks come in and add WeChat.
On TK, stores can do peripheral live broadcasts, especially LBS positioning peripheral live broadcasts for chain stores, which can bring a large number of customers on peripheral lines to the stores.
Combined with WhatsApp owned channels, these merchants can digitize the offline users of store customers and establish social connections with customers without losing them; they can also make each store employee an online distributor, one store per mall, transforming the store value from the original pure offline to a combination of online and offline, further leveraging the service scope and value of a single store, and also realizing the digitization of the store.
This is the social new retail owned-channel operations solution, which uses TK to guide online traffic and improve the company's store operation capabilities, service capabilities and digital capabilities through digital owned-channel marketing.
Summary: TikTok large public domain + WhatsAppowned channel, seize the traffic dividend opportunities of TK large public domain and the stock operating value of WAowned channel.
