Congratulations! You’ve recently started your own candle business and have come up with a product you’re proud and happy to sell. Now your new task is the first step in creating a profitable business; marketing your products.
This guide is centred around social media marketing for budding candle businesses looking to start selling through social media, before setting up and selling across platforms such as Shopify or Etsy.
Social media platforms are a great way to test your products' sellability before committing to an online store. And as your business grows you’ll continue to use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok to market your products, so it's a good process to nail down early.
So, at the start of your journey you would have identified your target market. If you haven’t done that, read part one of this series here.
Your target market will dictate a lot when it comes to the social media platforms you use and the types of content you create to promote your candles. Each platform has its own niche, and although they are pretty similar at ground level, the differences between them can help you get in front of a more focused audience.
Before you start any kind of advertising across social media platforms you need one thing, great product photos. A good product photo will grab the attention of scrolling users, whereas a bad photo will make your product look cheap.
So it’s worth putting in the effort to have a few different versions of product photos. Luckily these days most iPhone cameras can do a pretty decent job until you get professional photos taken down the track.
Facebook & Instagram
Firstly let’s look at Facebook, and subsequently Instagram due to their connection and ease of use.
This is the platform to focus on if your target audience sits around 35-65. Although there are older and younger audiences across every platform, is it this group that has the most ‘buying power’ on Facebook, meaning they spend the most money.
Facebook and Instagram marketing is great for a new business for many reasons. It’s highly targeted, so your audience can be targeted on age, geographic location, interests, favourite colours and any mixture of identifiers.
Here you can really focus on one audience and drive your promotions hard. On facebook and Instagram, there are two types of ads you’ll want to run;
Consistent Ads; These are ‘always on’ ads. Usually professional images which run on a consistent basis, targeting a group of your choice. These can be done through the Facebook Ads manager.
One off posts; These are your own posts on your business or personal page. These need to be relevant, engaging and informative.
No matter the type of ad you push out, it is crucial that you put ad spend behind it. These days Facebook and Instagram algorithms will prioritise posts that have been ‘boosted’. So for your products to have the best chance at being seen, you need to back them financially even if just by a few dollars per post.
Across Facebook and Instagram you have three choices of posting style. Photos (or Grid Posts on Insta), Videos and Stories. Each has their own strength and it's good to have a mixture of each. However algorithms recommend posting at least once per day, whatever style you decide on.
From there you can have fun with it. Remember to have engaging copy, hashtags, and connect with your audience from your own personal brand.
TikTok
TikTok is an interesting platform to be on at the moment. Its demographic skews from 15-35, with the bulk being 18-25, and the buying power across the platform is growing day by day.
TikTok is unlike any other platform at the moment, because of its focus on creators and sharing skills. The platform is a video sharing device, and the current algorithms means it is perfect for budding businesses looking to showcase both their personal business and end product.
To succeed across TikTok look to showcasing yourself as a creator. Videos that do well in the space include satisfying candle pours, videos boxing peoples orders and even snippets of the candle making process.
TikTok audiences love to take a look behind the scenes, and letting them see your brand from a ground level will help connect customers past, present and future to you as a person, and your products.
When it comes to TikTok it's important to look at trending sounds as a way to piggyback off the success of a trend. With many to choose from, look at making simple videos to share that sit around the 12-15 second mark with a few different scene transitions to keep audiences engaged.
From there add captions and hashtags to explain what you’re doing to give your audience more insight. TikToks can also be shared as Reels across Instagram to get even more reach from your efforts.
You may find you get more results from using all three, or maybe you find your niche across one platform.
From there, across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok the trick is consistency.
Marketing is a long game, and it can often take a few months of posting before you start to see results. However don’t be discouraged by the pace of it all, according to several studies on average a customer will need to see or interact with your brand 12-15 times before deciding to purchase - So keep at it and remember to enjoy the process!