What Actually Drives Sales, According to a TikTok Marketing Expert

If you’re starting off the year with a bunch of execs demanding explosive growth in 2026, you’ll like this creator’s refreshing take: “Your brand doesn’t need to be loved by everyone. Even if you’ve captured just 3% of the market, your brand can stay alive.” 

While I’m aware “staying alive” is more disco anthem than marketing goal, her point holds: Trying to appeal to everyone in 2026 isn’t going to work… and it also doesn’t need to.

Crafting strong marketing that resonates with a loyal group of enthusiasts is better than Hail Marying your brand on a billboard in Times Square. 

Jemma Wu

Integrated Marketing & Partnerships Strategist

• Fun fact: Joined the founding team of the instant beauty brand Never Have I Ever with a group of friends from the creative industry. In just two years, fully bootstrapped and built from scratch, they scaled the brand into retailers like Urban Outfitters, PacSun, and World Market, while reaching $1.5M in total DTC and wholesale sales.
• Claim to fame: Helped brands including The Ordinary, CeraVe, TikTok Shop, and Crocs achieve an average 51% sales increase within six months through authentic audience connection and fully integrated marketing campaigns.

Lesson 1: Great marketing lives at the intersection of seeing the forest and examining the trees.

Wu approaches TikTok videos and fashion through the same lens. 

“Coming from a designer background back in the day, I was a doer. Now, whenever I see something, [whether it’s] marketing content or a garment, my first reaction is: ‘How did they make this? What tools did they use? How did they cut it? What’s the angle they used?‘”

Those questions have served her well in marketing. She’s very detail-oriented, and cares as much about the practical execution of marketing as she does the high-level vision. 

It’s a lesson we can all lean into in 2026: Sure, the slide decks and Zoom meetings filled with buzzwords like omni-channel growth have a time and place, but both leaders and ICs need to take responsibility for understanding the nitty-gritty that goes into marketing. 

Once you’ve ironed out the big-picture vision, it’s worth taking some time to ask the second-, third-, and fourth-level questions that help create strong marketing content. Whether you’re leading the campaign or in-the-weeds, you should care just as much about the tone, copy, and visuals as you do about the high-level messaging.

Lesson 2: Authentic community trumps follower count.

Audience size doesn’t matter nearly as much as audience interest does.

During her time as marketing director at a TikTok Shop partner agency, Wu once generated $350k in revenue on an eight-hour livestream with creator Avery Mills (a 90 Day Fiancé alum). 

Mills has roughly 500k TikTok followers. Nothing to sneeze at, but only half the audience size of another influencer Wu worked with who had 1m+ followers — and only generated $5K in six hours. 

Mills may have looked like a less optimal investment on paper, but she delivered 70X more revenue compared to the higher-profile creator.

Mills was tasked with selling a perfume bundle… to a TikTok following who’d never had a chance to smell the perfume in real life. Talk about a tough sell. 

And yet she was able to rack up $350k in sales by appealing to her audience’s interests and making genuine connections with them. 

As Wu describes it: “She knew what her audience wanted. Not everyone loves vanilla — like I personally would not use that. But [Mills knew] her audience is crazy about it. She’s a good salesperson.” 

The lesson here is twofold: 1) Trust smaller-scale creators who have engaged audiences rather than simply chasing vanity metrics, and 2) once you’ve hired that creator, let them lead the show. They know their audience better than you do.

Lesson 3: Got a small budget? Flyers in Washington Square Park work, too.

“I know what it’s like to work with a $1 million budget. You can ask helicopters to show up, cars, like it’s a fashion show. But when you don’t have that budget, there are plenty of free tactics.” 

Wu once asked people to put flyers around New York City, telling people about a free contest in Washington Square Park. People showed up, someone hosted the contest, and they got tons of free content from it. 

If you’re not as interested in in-person marketing events, consider these low-budget digital marketing activities that are largely free:

• Newsletters (ahem, ahem) 
• UGC campaigns
• TikTok vids
• Guest-starring on industry podcasts

“For small brands, it’s more about generating buzz within your community. There are so many things they can do that are free for marketing.”