Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Tribe Skincare's Founder Kayla Houlihan shares her winning Instagram growth strategy that you can implement today (Part 1)

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Tribe Skincare's Founder Kayla Houlihan shares her winning Instagram growth strategy that you can implement today (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Kayla Houlihan for Female Startup Club. Hi, hello. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl popping into your ears from Sydney, Australia.
• 0:20
  If you're new to the show, welcome. Every week, I'm chatting with some of the world's most successful female founders to understand how they've built their business to seven figures in annual recurring revenue and above. What's working and what's not working. We also love to talk about the money piece and we love to dig into the challenges and find the insights that come from going through those hard times.
• 0:42
  Today on the podcast, we're learning from Kayla Houlihan, and we had the best chat about her company, Tribe Skin Care. She also shares specifics around what she's doing differently as she launches a sister company to Tribe. We dive into the blueprint for a successful afterpay sales day and how they're approaching sales overall as a company, why she switched off all her digital ad spend and the result of doing that, and a really clever engagement idea for Instagram that you can launch today.
• 1:11
  We've also updated the grant doc with a bunch of new grants from all over the world that are ready to be applied for this month. And you can download it by going to femalestartupclub.com forward slash grants. Alrighty, let's get into this episode. This is Kayla for Female Startup Club.
• 1:28
  Kayla, hi. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I've just been listening to a few back episodes and they're always the best interviews. So very excited to be in the interview chair today. Oh my gosh. Oh, I love that for you and for me. Thank you so much. How's your day going? Where are you? What's happening? Well, I'm at home now. I always come home to record podcasts
• 1:50
  It's a bit of a funny day. I'm at like a very stressful point in the business at the moment. And usually when I come on to podcasts, I'm quite a cruisy person. I'm usually like, yep, everything's all good and like super positive. But at the moment, I am kind of, I guess, feeling the opposite. I'm sort of more of like that burnt out, stressed business owner.
• 2:12
  which is a strange place to be five years into my journey. So I think, yeah, I can kind of talk about it from two perspectives of having a successful business that usually I'm like super positive and happy and proud of, but then also having the other side of me today, which is more like burnout, anxious, overwhelmed.
• 2:32
  You know, I love and like really respect when people can show up and be that vulnerable and honest to say that that's how you're feeling today. Because a lot of the time, especially with social media and just in general, like speaking and interviewing people, of course, we want to share the highlights. We want to share everything that's going really well and all the good stuff. But where we often learn the most is from founders who are able to share when things aren't going so well and what those challenges are and like,
• 2:58
  how they're dealing with it and what's coming from that. So I really appreciate the honesty. What's causing the stress? I think just a lot going on. It's certainly not something I want to complain about. It's all good problems to have, as they say. For me and my business, I'm either stressed if we're super, super quiet or really busy. And at the moment, I'm stressed because we're really busy. So I guess... After pay day. We've just had after pay day. Week, after pay week.
• 3:26
  Yeah, so that's been huge. The last three months, we've almost doubled our online sales year on year. So we're just experiencing huge growth in the business at the moment, which I'll be able to talk about some different viral moments we've had and how that's impacted the business.
• 3:41
  And I'm also in the process with the team of starting up a sister brand to Tribe Skincare. So I'm kind of five years into my journey with Tribe, but then I'm also in the startup phase and startup phase is just so stressful. There's so much going on and different moving parts and aspects that you have to be all on top of. And I think logistics and organization is definitely not my strong point. So I'm a bit out of my depth with it all at the moment.
• 4:10
  I'm excited to hear kind of, you know, your journey with Tribe and what you were doing in those early days versus what you're like, okay, I'm definitely not going to do that again. I'm not going to spend money on that again. I am going to double down on this again. I'm excited to hear the kind of differences in the blueprint, I guess you would say. Just one last question on the burnout and the stress side of things. Yeah.
• 4:32
  I feel like often as entrepreneurs, you can hit a bit of a place of burnout and kind of being like, oh, shit, this is, I'm just like kind of not replenishing my energy levels. I'm like on a bit of a downward slope. How are you coping personally with burnout and what do you do? Like what are your self rituals that are helping get you through that feeling of burnout?
• 4:53
  Well, I think I do a little bit of a silly thing. It's the opposite of what I should be doing. It's almost like this self-sabotage. But when I'm really busy and stressed, I take on more things. And I think it's to distract myself from the busyness or stress or certain tasks I might be putting off because they're stressing me out. So then I start doing all these other tasks and it kind of has this snowball effect and makes it worse. Yeah.
• 5:16
  And then it gets to a point where I'm at now where I'm like, okay, actually, I'm really burnt out and overwhelmed. I've got too much work to do. I'm so behind on everything. And then the best thing I can do is just to delegate. So everyone in my life, including staff, will be like, can you pick up this? Can you do this for me? Or really making sure some of the tasks that can be done by other people and making sure that they are being done by other people, reaching out for help.
• 5:43
  making my husband pick the dog up from the groomers instead of me doing it. So I guess I'm translating that into my personal life as well of just really just delegating and asking for help is the best thing that I find helps me stop being overwhelmed because I can't really...
• 5:58
  get rid of the tasks or not do them. So I still need them to be done. And I think at the end of every day with the business, I always try to think about not just what I achieved, because I can't go in every single day and achieve everything I want to do. But I just look at it holistically of what the business achieved. So what all the staff have done as well. And I guess that helps me feel less overwhelmed that I think even if I didn't get everything I wanted to get done for the day, we've still achieved a lot as a team.
• 6:27
  Oh, I love that. That's so true as well, because yes, there's your to-do list that you're working through, but everyone else that works for you also has their to-do list that they're ticking off every day. And collectively that power and energy and brainpower is all pushing the business forward and helping you achieve the goals for the business and personal. Love that.
• 6:50
  We always love to start these episodes and I know we've jumped ahead a little bit, but we always love to start these episodes by going back to that kind of light bulb moment, the starting story. What was getting you interested in starting a business and why skincare? I actually had another business when I started Tribe Skincare. So I had a skin clinic with my sister and...
• 7:10
  And we were looking for a brand to stock in our skin clinic for our clients that had sensitive skin. So it was very results driven clinic. Customers or clients, we call them, came to us with skin problems and we would essentially find them a solution. The clinic was actually called Skin Solutions.
• 7:26
  And we found our customers that had the sensitive skin, they couldn't use the cosmeceutical brands. So we're looking for something that would be super gentle on their skin. But then when we looked at gentle skincare brands, they often didn't have the actives to actually get them the results.
• 7:43
  And that's when I saw the big gap on the Australian market. I thought there's really nothing out there that's really gentle on sensitive skin and free of all your harsh chemicals and common allergens, but still has all of the actives that a cosmeceutical would have. And yeah, basically, I mean, I make it sound simple, but I combined the two concepts into one to create like a hybrid skincare for sensitive skin that was still results driven.
• 8:08
  And what did that time look like for you? Because obviously you were working in the industry. So I imagine you kind of had some inkling of where to start or what to do. But for anyone listening, who's like, oh yeah, I have a beauty idea and I want to get started, but I don't necessarily know how. What were those early steps to finding a lab or creating a formula or going into R&D with a manufacturer? How did you get that like kind of piece of the puzzle sorted?
• 8:34
  Yeah, I definitely think like being in the industry, I had a little bit of a leg up and I've got that authentic journey when I'm telling the brand story. Like I haven't just gone into skincare. A lot of people, I mean, I shouldn't say a lot, but some brands you can sort of see the founder doesn't have a background in skincare, but they've gone into skincare because it's a very lucrative industry. Yeah.
• 8:54
  I'm having a few contacts in the industry and people to talk to. I mean, at the time, I wouldn't have even known what a contract manufacturer was. So even just having those people I could speak to that explained to me that you need to go through a contract manufacturer. So I'm like, okay, that's a term I can Google. Let's explain it. What does that specifically mean? Yeah, let's like...
• 9:16
  Yeah. I don't know if I know specifically what it means. Yeah. So basically just the manufacturer that is going to produce your product for you because with skincare, you've got all your different compliance that you need to meet. And I mean, I'm not, you know, sitting in the back of a factory with a hair net on and a lab coat and doing all mixing skincare myself. It's just having like a proper manufacturing facility that produce your product on your behalf.
• 9:42
  So I started Googling that, started talking to people. There's a whole spectrum that could be different between all different industries, but in skincare, there's a whole spectrum of different manufacturers that specialize in different products, or some of them might have a minimum order quantity of 1,000, whereas others will have a minimum order quantity of 20,000. So it was really just asking those key questions.
• 10:04
  of who can work with me, who has research and development teams that can work with me within their manufacturing as well, because I'm also not a cosmetic chemist. So while I can work to a brief and have an idea of what I want the product to do, what I want it to look and feel like and what ingredients I want in there, I still need a cosmetic pharmacist or chemist to come up with the actual formula. Yeah.
• 10:27
  So, yeah, I guess, again, I'm just making it sound a lot simpler than what it is, but finding the manufacturer was the key. And then I really had a vision in my head. I feel like there's a lot of parts of the business where as a founder, I'm not necessarily the strongest with like numbers and figures or logistics. But my strong point is product development and really knowing what's
• 10:52
  what's going to be good for people's skin and what sort of fits into the market. I really think that's my specialty area as a founder. So when I first launched, I knew the four essential products I wanted to launch with. And it's crazy, like to look at the business now. It's even for me to look back, I'm like, how did I do that? But I've got to remember, I started really small. It was just the four formulas and the four products that originally went to market.
• 11:19
  Yeah, I love that. It's easy to get swept up in the comparison thing where you look at someone who's five years ahead or ten years ahead and be like, how do I launch like that today? But you've got to remember everyone starts somewhere and they finish somewhere else. So you've just got to start small, do what you can, and slowly chip away over time and eventually –
• 11:40
  you'll get to where you want to get to. I'm wondering for you, you know, when you were going through that process of finding your manufacturer, we always like to understand what was the investment to getting started? So how much did you need to invest to get that kind of first order and get you ready to launch the brand? And like, what size order was it? Were you going for like, yeah, 20,000 units? Or were you like, let's start small and test? Yeah.
• 12:04
  a smaller amount. Yeah, I went for the absolutely smallest end of the spectrum. So your minimum viable product, just so I could afford the opening order basically, but also just to get it onto the market and test it. I mean, it's probably not something five years ago I really understood because I just thought this is the best product ever. Everyone's going to love it.
• 12:25
  But those four products we originally created don't actually exist today in their form because everything's been reformulated over the years just based on customer feedback. But as for the initial investment, I had about $40,000 saved. So I was like, okay, I need to start a business. I'm going to spend $40,000 on my opening order of product. And then all the money is gone.
• 12:49
  And I had no marketing plan, no business plan, and then essentially no cash to do anything with. So very poor planning on my behalf. I don't recommend anyone does it that way. But yeah, so I guess that's when I had to think.
• 13:07
  okay, how am I going to sell these products? And five years ago, Instagram was still sort of in its golden day where you really could reach new audiences and grow a following on that platform. So I really just started with gifting to influencers and growing our audience over there. So luckily, I didn't need a whole lot of marketing budget to begin with. And then as the business has grown, I've always just invested the money back into the business. So I'm going
• 13:30
  The whole five-year journey, all of our growth in online sales, moving into wholesale and going into store, I've never taken out a business loan and I've never put more capital investment into the business. It's just grown from that $40,000.
• 13:47
  Yeah, and I love that. It's easy to think, oh, if I only had, you know, extra marketing budget or if I only had this or if I only had that. But actually, by not having a budget to do those things, it forces you to be scrappy and find your true loyal fans and loyal customers who actually do just genuinely love the product and somehow discovered it.
• 14:07
  organically, which I guess works out for the better. So in those early years, you are focusing on Instagram. Sounds like you're tripling down on Instagram micro-influences and spreading the organic kind of word of mouth. What are the pivotal moments that push you forward in the business over those early years?
• 14:25
  I always say that when we started working with Brittany Saunders, the entire business changed. So we were so lucky that early on in the piece, she started working with us. I think the brands had only been on the market for around about three months when we got her on as an exclusive ambassador. So we were the only skincare brand that she was using and working with.
• 14:46
  Oh, wow. Yeah, we were so lucky to get that. And as a small business that had just started up, we really didn't have like a budget. We weren't going above and beyond to sort of outprice other brands that wanted to work with her. We just sent her the products and she genuinely loved them and said that her skin was just so good for amusing them. So we're very lucky in that respect that she loved them. And then, yeah, just basically had her on an exclusive contract for...
• 15:12
  I think just over a year. And that's when I was like, oh, this business can really be a thing because
• 15:19
  We might be paying her $5,000 to do one post, but then that night we'd get $20,000 of sales. And I could see such an obvious instant return on investment that I was like, this is how I'm going to grow the brand. Like before I put money into anything else, if you're spending $5,000 on advertising and you're getting $20,000 of sales in 24 hours, you can see that you're clearly getting a positive return.
• 15:45
  And then I guess being skincare, we're so lucky it's a consumable product. And because we're for sensitive skin, when someone with sensitive skin finds a product that works for them, they're likely to stick with it for years and years. So even now, five years down the track, we've still got people who said, I discovered you through Brittany Saunders back when she was posting and they've become basically a lifetime customer.
• 16:09
  Holy shit, that is so cool. I know that Brittany, you know, now in the landscape is really well known. Was she at that point a very known kind of influencer or was she still at a micro level? She was already very well known. Right. Probably in the same way she is now, but her brand has changed a lot that now she's very entrepreneurial and creative.
• 16:32
  known as like a businesswoman really and has all of her own really successful businesses. Back then, Brittany's main bread and butter, I guess, was beauty influencing. And she was really known as like one of the sort of key beauty influences in Australia. She's just so personable and trustworthy.
• 16:53
  I think, yeah, people know she's very genuine. A lot of loyalty to her as a person. For sure. I read that in that first year you did like a million dollars in sales. It sounds like a lot of that growth really happened from the combination of finding that kind of unicorn influencer who really shifts the needle, plus actually products that solve a real problem, so word of mouth spreads.
• 17:17
  And I'm wondering, you know, that's so great, a million dollars, everyone listening is like, oh, my God, wow, how do I get to that point? But obviously on the flip side, there are also challenges that you can face with scaling and that kind of fast growth that maybe, you know, logistics and supply chain is a tricky thing. I'm wondering if you faced any challenges in those early, in that early year, first year too. We had a lot of out-of-stock problems today.
• 17:44
  And as a consumable brand, that is very stressful because if people, especially because I was saying our clients or customers have sensitive skin, they don't want to be switching between brands. So if they're using our cleanser and it's working really well for their skin and then our cleanser's out of stock for two months, they can't just not cleanse their skin for two months. They've got to go and swap to another brand. So they would be basically saying to us, well, what are you suggesting we use in the interim? And I was like...
• 18:13
  we're really one of a kind. Like I can't suggest something else because you could use something that is super gentle, but you might not get the results. And if you switch to a cosmeceutical, you might have the adverse reactions. So I think even now, five years down the track, we keep way too much stock in the warehouse, but we just don't want to be having those constant out of stocks because we know that our customers need consistency with what they're using.
• 18:39
  We're out of stock with one product at the moment and I'm stressed about that because I'm like, it's not okay because, yeah, people can't just sort of swap and change with skincare. Whenever you change to a new brand, you're at risk of having breakouts or your skin purging and we don't want that happening to the customers.
• 18:57
  I love how you have this like really direct relationship where you're talking to the customers, you've got the feedback. And you mentioned at the start of this episode, you launched with four SKUs and they don't exist anymore because of that feedback. You were able to iterate and shift. What was the feedback you were getting that prompted you to change? Yeah.
• 19:14
  So just basically feedback on any individual products. So just an example with our cleanser. So we did launch as a balm cleanser from the beginning. People were like, we really love the balm texture. It's nice and gentle, but it's not removing my makeup well enough. So then we'll basically revise that formula and go, okay, how can we keep it so it's beautiful and gentle and hydrating still, but add some different ingredients in there to help remove their makeup. And then we'll relaunch it as a new formula.
• 19:44
  When you're getting that kind of feedback, obviously someone over here might give one piece of feedback and someone over here might give another piece of feedback. But what is enough of a kind of sizable group of feedback that prompts you to actually make a change versus like a one-off kind of offhanded comment or something like that? I guess-
• 20:02
  I'm just wondering like how big does that feedback need to get for you to be like, you know what, I'm going to listen to that and I'm going to change. Because you can't obviously change everything with every piece of feedback that you get. Yeah, I don't know what the actual frequency would be as such, but I guess like daily we have a frequent feedback section on our whiteboard at work and we just write something up if we feel like, yeah, pretty much every day if customers are
• 20:27
  saying something um or I mean even if it was something was coming up three times a week we might think okay that's getting pretty frequent now we need to work on changing that oh I love that that's such a great idea just having a little note there visual see what people are saying and put it on the whiteboard very cool but then it's my job to change things so I go to the whiteboard I'm like okay
• 20:51
  what do we need to fix? You're like, damn it. I loved that. Yeah. That's it. It's not just about what I love though. It's got to be about what the customer loves.
• 21:01
  Yes, absolutely. In the last couple of years, you know, in the beginning, you're focusing on Brittany, you're focusing on Instagram, but obviously the landscape's changed a lot. And you mentioned, you know, in recent times, you've had some viral moments that's impacted kind of your marketing and how things are growing for you now. What has your marketing approach been in recent years? And what are the things that are driving results for you now?
• 21:26
  So we did something a little bit crazy for an e-commerce brand in July of 2022. So last year, and we switched off all of our paid marketing. So that's across TikTok, Google, Facebook and Instagram. And the reason for doing that, firstly, the initial motivation was I got banned from Facebook and Instagram ads.
• 21:47
  And that was because I kept trying to sneak through before and after images in the ads. So completely my fault. Oh, it's not allowed. No. And I got the warnings to say you can't do it. And then I tried to sneak a before and after in like the middle of a video thinking that the algorithm wouldn't pick up on it. And of course it did. And I got banned. So I was like, okay, great. I can only do advertising on TikTok and Google. And Google has never really been that successful for us.
• 22:14
  It's very, very expensive if we want to bid on keywords like skincare for sensitive skin. And then the conversion is low because you're getting basically new people discovering the brand all the time that may not necessarily know the brand's personality or have seen at that sort of seven touch points before they purchase. So Google, just very not cost effective. TikTok is cost effective, but we get very low conversions as well.
• 22:41
  And then Facebook and Instagram was working for us, but we couldn't do it anymore. So I guess when it got switched off, I was like, okay, what's going to happen? Like this is going to be a really big deal, really detrimental to the business. And then suddenly it wasn't. And the weeks went on and our sales weren't changing. And I guess that's when I really thought, where are all our customers coming from? And we realized it's really just from recommendations with friends and family. So yeah.
• 23:09
  When you think about what skincare you're using, it's probably not because you saw a Facebook ad of a brand you've never heard of and decided to purchase it. It's probably because your friends and family have told you about it or someone you know is using it. So we thought that's what's working for us. That's what we need to focus on and really scaling that. So the way we do that is, I guess, well, just getting more customers and hoping that they talk about us.
• 23:33
  But EDMs and SMS marketing is a way we can kind of nurture our existing audience. And same with Instagram because we've already got our community on there. I think it's quite known that brands aren't really growing on Instagram anymore.
• 23:48
  And then some brands think, okay, that's not working. We need to switch to TikTok. Whereas we see our brands not growing on Instagram, but we've got this amazing audience and community who we've nurtured over five years. We don't need to forget about them just because TikTok's a new thing.
• 24:06
  So we really think of Instagram is for nurturing our current customers. And then we use TikTok for our new customer acquisition. So that's really about trying to show up on people's For You page and telling them the brand journey from the beginning to try to get new customers that way. I love that. That's so true. You shouldn't forget about your existing engaged community just because there's a new hot thing over somewhere else.
• 24:33
  Do you still focus on kind of micro-influences and is PR a big piece of your strategy? Yes, PR, I should have mentioned that. That's a big piece of the strategy as well and a huge sales driver for us because I think PR really allows you to tell a full story. It's not just an ad. People are so sick of seeing ads these days. They just scroll straight past them. PR is really about storytelling and we can tell the story of Tribe Skincare from the beginning as me as a founder and,
• 25:02
  like you do on a podcast like this, tell the story behind the products as well. So yeah, PR is really effective for us. What was the other thing you just said? Micro-influencers or influencers in general rather. Yes. Okay. So our influencer strategy has really changed as well.
• 25:20
  We're using influencers more as content creators. So a lot of the time we'll be paying them to create content. If we've got a new product coming out and we want to demonstrate how to use it or what results it can give, we'll pay them to create the content. We're not necessarily paying them to post on their own page to reach their audience. So and then we do a bit of sending out to micro influencers as well.
• 25:45
  And that's across TikTok and Instagram. But very different to years ago when I would have just basically pumped any amount of money into influencer marketing, knowing I was going to get such a big return on it. I just don't think that brands are seeing the same return these days. You've got to be a lot more strategic about what you're doing. You're going to get probably less results than what you got years ago, but you're also going to be paying three times the price.
• 26:11
  So I don't think that the return on investment's necessarily there anymore.
• 26:16
  Yeah, absolutely. I agree. It definitely feels like it's really shifted from those early days. Are there other kind of strategies that you look at now and you're like, oh yeah, I'm excited to try that. I'm excited to like that. That's something that works even if it's on more of a limited scale. So for example, pop-up events or brand collaboration and partnerships with, you know, overlapping audiences or, um, anyway, they're the two that come to mind of what I'm talking about.
• 26:45
  love any kinds of brand collaborations where you can overlap your audiences. I just think that is such cost-effective marketing. As for pop-ups, we've just started doing these. We used to do events. So when we had a new product launching, we were really focused on doing these, I guess, kind of Instagram events where it was all about getting influencers and ambassadors there and hoping that they post on their Instagram and stories and
• 27:12
  then people discover the brand that way. And years ago, that was really, really effective for us. And then COVID hit. We didn't have an event for about two years.
• 27:22
  And then last year we had our vitamin C launch event. And I don't want to say it wasn't a success because it was a beautiful day. Everything looked amazing. We had amazing influencers show up and I'm happy with how the event went. But as for the budget that we put into that event and what we got back from it,
• 27:43
  I don't think that the return on investment was there. So we tested out our first ever. We'd done pop-up stores before at our own events, but we did our first ever like Westfield pop-up in October last year. And that went so well for what we put into usually like a four-hour event. We could afford to have an entire pop-up set up in the middle of a Westfield centre for two weeks.
• 28:09
  So to me, that was a bit of a no-brainer. I'm like, okay, that's where I'm putting the money now. What's the kind of budget for something like that? About $30,000. Yeah. And then you're also obviously getting so many different eyeballs from a variety of different people walking through the Westfield. Yeah, for sure. So amazing for brand awareness. The way we see it is if we do enough sales at the actual pop-up, it's essentially paying for itself so it becomes like a free marketing exercise.
• 28:39
  that we still have to put obviously a lot of time and effort into it but that was hugely successful so we're doing another pop-up in end of May this year in High Point Shopping Centre in Melbourne this time. Wow and so did you find that from that first one it drove more of an impact like it was well above and beyond breaking even? Yeah hugely um it was just
• 29:04
  Amazing how many, I guess we had a lot of customers on the actual pop-up, but we could tell because it was in Geelong in Victoria, we could tell that Geelong and surrounds even online, our sales for that area went up hugely in that time. So people would see it in Westfield and then they'd go home and Google it and purchase it online.
• 29:24
  Or we would have people come in and they would see it and then they would go home and Google. And then they'd come back two days later and say, I saw your customer before and after. I decided I want to purchase today. So it was really good to have that presence that people could come and meet us and try all the products. I think e-commerce brands, you really just don't have that same presence. Like you can try to create it online. But.
• 29:48
  It's just so hard to do. Like it's great to get out in the community and actually meet your customers, whether you do it through events or pop-ups. It's just a whole different ballgame. And I think people are starting to get back into stores now. So it's the right time that you can get brand awareness in, I guess, more creative and different ways rather than just pumping all of your money into digital advertising.
• 30:12
  Absolutely. And I think even if I look at my own consumer behavior, I often do want to go in and just see the product, touch it, see if I like the smell of it, that kind of thing versus straight away committing to buying a full-size product. And so, of course, it makes sense that you see something in a Westfield and you're like, oh,
• 30:30
  yes, now I can actually check out that brand. And that adds to the seven touch points in such a, you know, in such a strong way that maybe that was only touch point number two, but that's the touch point that's just needed for you to then take action and buy the product. Yeah. And it really was that final touch point for so many people that would actually say to us, they're like, I've seen this brand everywhere. And then this was the first time they were purchasing.
• 30:54
  So nothing had actually got them to sort of go through to the website, to the checkout, to the cart and actually try the product. Whereas seeing it in person when they can grab their basket, fill it up with products and purchase right there and then, that was what got them to convert. I'm wondering if there's also the ripple on effect of then being very front of mind to buyers from certain retailers that you might want to be stocked in.
• 31:22
  For sure. We had a few people taking photos and coming in and like asking us about it that were, yeah, buyers for different places. Someone was sent down from Melbourne. She was like, I'm on a little sneaky mission here. I've been sent down to take some photos of your pop-up for the company I work for. Yeah. So there was a lot of that happening and then, yeah, great content you can then share across your LinkedIn and on your socials as well.
• 31:49
  Hmm. Genius. I love it. Something else I noticed just to circle back one other second to Instagram, something else I noticed that seems to be working really well for you as an engagement driver is the ongoing giveaway that you're running. And you mentioned it in every single post on Instagram. I want to discuss, I want to discuss how long it's been running, what's that impact and what are the results of doing that? I love it.
• 32:11
  Yeah, it's been running for, I would guess, maybe two or three years now. And the fact we haven't changed it means it's working really well because I'm definitely not one of those people that starts doing something and then just keeps doing it and assumes it's working. Like I always think what we were doing 12 months ago is.
• 32:31
  that worked really well for us might not be what's working for us now. So we're always looking at like our Instagram analytics and different data to see if we can change up the way we're doing things. But that has definitely just been successful right through for driving engagement to the page. So just getting people to comment on every single post. And usually it's the same people just commenting posts.
• 32:55
  on literally every single post throughout the month, but it just keeps them interested in the page and because they're engaging with it, it keeps showing the content to those people. So I guess over the years, as I've seen a lot of talking to media or different business groups about Instagram engagement, like really plummeting for business accounts,
• 33:14
  and them struggling to still get that organic reach. We've stayed really strong with our organic strategy and definitely still have a really good reach. And I think that the competition has a lot to do with that.
• 33:27
  Yeah, I love that. I've never seen that before. Really cool. Love it. Let's talk about after pay day just because it's super relevant and it's just happened. How do you approach for anyone outside of Australia? I'm not sure if it's just an Australian kind of Australia wide day or if it is international as well, but it's basically like a Cyber Monday kind of day, right?
• 33:48
  where you offer bundles or a promotion or something like that. And it's very like, here's the window of time you can access it. And usually, you know, all of the brands in Australia I saw were getting involved. What is your approach to that day? And how does that day kind of go for you? Yeah, so we've literally just had Afterpay Day. It's been...
• 34:12
  Very, very, very busy this year. I think I don't know if that's because the business is so busy at the moment and we've experienced a lot of growth and new customers or if it's because after payday,
• 34:23
  in general as growing, is growing as a day. Like how Black Friday is getting bigger every single year because more people are waiting to shop at that time. This time we've done a blanket 20% off site-wide. That always works really well compared to doing if we, like, launch a special bundle for it or something. It never performs as well.
• 34:44
  A little tip, so something we record all of our different promotions that we do throughout the year and the results we get from it. And the promotion that just keeps coming up as our top promotion, so in terms of revenue and number of orders we're getting from it, is when we do a mystery discount. So it's basically you have to get to the checkout and then you enter the mystery discount code and they don't know if they're going to get 10%, 15%, 20%, whatever it's going to end up being.
• 35:14
  That promo just absolutely goes off for us time and time again. So we're getting a little bit lazy that we keep being like, let's do another mystery discount just because we know that it goes so well. But I think it's just because they've already gone onto the website. They've selected everything that they want and they're at that cart page. So they're just so close to purchasing. And then they enter the discount. And by that time, they're probably like, I don't even care what it is. I'm just ready to check out. And yes, they're at that final step.
• 35:43
  Yeah, it was fun. I'm ready to buy or like I'm ready to stock up for, you know, when I run out of my existing products, I may as well take this advantage. So you're doing that like on a yearly basis outside of your kind of Cyber Monday after pay kind of day cycles. Yeah. So we might do a mystery discount. Like we didn't fit this after pay day because we'd just done one. But we also do some of our promos.
• 36:08
  This isn't so much about after pay day, but we keep some of our promos essentially like private because you don't want to always be discounting and every day advertising that you're doing something new. So we have a lot of like VIP and private sales, which will only be advertised to our SMS list and our email list.
• 36:27
  And it's a really great way of growing those lists. So we'll advertise on Instagram saying we're going to have an SMS only promotion. Here's the sign up link and then we'll get a whole bunch of sign ups because they want to be a part of that promotion. And then whatever promotion we give to the SMS subscribers, we're not discounting publicly. So we're not, you know, kind of ruining the brand's reputation or value in that way. It's just giving our VIP customers a chance to purchase the products with a discount.
• 36:55
  Oh, that's so smart. I love that. Gosh. Wow. I want to also talk about this new brand. You mentioned that you're, you know, in a whirlwind of all things going on. You are back in startup mode again and you're kind of figuring out like how to build this brand in today's landscape versus five years ago or six years ago. Let's talk about what you're doing differently. Let's talk about what you're doing the same. So I guess the similarities is this is a beauty brand as well.
• 37:25
  And then I know like my friends and family I've spoken to about it. They're like, why aren't you just launching more products under the Tribe Skincare brand? But the concept of Tribe Skincare is a skincare for sensitive skin. So I want to stay really true to that and focusing on products that are for sensitive skin, specifically for the face. We only have one body product.
• 37:46
  and I want to keep the range really simple and easy to navigate. So we've got a few product launches coming up this year for Tribe Skin Care.
• 37:55
  But then there was like another or a few other areas of beauty I wanted to go into that I can't do under the current tribe skincare guidelines and values. So just one example is we've had our customers begging for an SPF product in the tribe range. But because we're all natural, we can't actually create a product that we're happy with because it has to be zinc-based and zinc is really thick and can dry out your skin. And I'm just basically not happy to put
• 38:25
  our name to it and put a product out there that I don't think is 100% something I want to use on my skin every single day. So I'm looking at doing a sunscreen that doesn't have to be all natural. And so I'm doing that under a whole nother brand name so that it doesn't have to come under the same brand values. So I guess it would be like a similar target market, but yeah, just different. I'll just have a bit more creative freedom in that way with the new brand. Yeah.
• 38:52
  Very exciting. Yeah, I guess the things I'll do different, it'll be starting, I mean, we'll cross pollinate our audiences a bit, but starting fresh, we'll definitely be focusing on TikTok because that's really where you can grow a brand now and get that new customer acquisition more so than on Instagram. Yeah.
• 39:14
  I'm investing a lot more into, I guess, the brand's identity and DNA. So when I launched Tribe, I was all about those formulas and what the skincare was going to do for the skin. And I didn't even really think twice about what the branding looked like and who it appealed to. So now I guess it's a lot more focused right from the beginning on getting that branding perfect and getting the branding experts in so that they can create like a really visually appealing product that's going to be perfect from the beginning.
• 39:44
  With Tribe Skincare, we did a big rebrand around about 18 months ago now. So the product looks very different now to how it looked back before the rebrand. So I guess that was something like later on down the track, I had to be like, the branding's not perfect. And I had a few branding experts look at the brand and they're like, your actual product's really good. Your customers are getting great results and you're getting amazing reviews. But visually, the product doesn't look great.
• 40:12
  So then we had to go through the process of making the outside of the packaging look like it reflected what the quality of what was inside the packaging. So I guess I'll be doing that right from the beginning that this time really focusing on the brand identity and yeah, TikTok and probably a whole lot of other things I'll be doing different, but they're the two that come top of mind.
• 40:35
  TikTok, we haven't missed the boat on TikTok, people. You need to be on there. You need to be trying. It is still like absolutely the place to gain viral moments, new customers, organic community. Absolutely. I'm wondering if you're going to follow the same approach to funding and capital, i.e. invest some of your own startup capital and then not put kind of more money towards it or not take on debt, or if you're going for a different approach. Yeah.
• 41:03
  That's the plan is to just invest money into it and grow it from there. But I mean, I kind of
• 41:09
  I'm going a lot bigger with the launch than what I did when I initially launched Tribe Skin Care. So I'm thinking more like pop-ups and activations and I guess investing a lot more in the marketing this time. So yeah, who knows? I might have to keep topping it up, but hopefully not. Oh my gosh. What's the timeline? When are you launching? Hopefully by October, but
• 41:33
  I'm open to it being December if needed, just because I'm with SBF products and getting TGA approval. It's a really long timeline and huge minimum order quantities as well. Cause it's like a pharmaceutical product. So I guess that's where my investments coming into it as well with really having to be like, okay, I've got to,
• 41:53
  go hard with this brand because it's going to be a real thing. It can't be something that just trickles along with like a few sales every day. It's like, right. Yeah. Okay. And so like what's a typical minimum order quantity in the Suncare SPF space? So about 10,000 units. Per SKU. And then you think if you have, yeah. So then if you have a few SKUs in your range and for whatever you pay per unit, it adds up.
• 42:18
  very, very quickly for what all the opening orders are going to be. Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering...
• 42:25
  for you, you know, launching this second kind of business and having, I guess, a portfolio of brands, are you using the same team or are you hiring a different team who will be kind of 100% all guns blazing on that second brand? So for now, while the brand's in the startup stage, it's all the same team working on it. But once the brand actually launches and goes to market, that's when I'll separate it. And that's purely for budget. Like, you know, can't afford to have two separate marketing managers
• 42:54
  and one working on a brand that doesn't exist yet. So it's really just, yeah, at the moment, startup grind. We're just getting things done and then eventually we'll have a few more resources come in and help out. Yeah, absolutely. I have one more question before we get into the rapid fire six quick questions. And that is just, what is the piece of advice that you love to leave early stage beauty founders with?
• 43:21
  Some advice that I got very early on in my business journey that's always stuck with me is there's actually two things. I'll go really quick and tell you both. So the first thing is you've got your product, your price and your service.
• 43:38
  I think that's the three things. And you can only choose two of them to do well or you're going to be out of business. So people try to do all three really well and you actually can't really do so and be like a viable business. So, I mean, just an example that comes to mind.
• 43:57
  would be Kmart. And I don't want to hate on Kmart, but say they've decided they're going to do price really well and they're going to do really good service by having 24-7 open stores all around, you know, in every single town in Australia. So they're doing a great price and a great service. So their product can't be great quality because that's the one that they can't do super, super well. And then you think,
• 44:23
  You know, like Louis Vuitton might say, okay, well, we do a really, really great quality product with like the best leather in the world or whatever they do. And we've got really great service with all our personal shoppers in our stores everywhere. So then they can't do a great price on it because if they try to do a great price, they're going to go out of business. So what's yours? Yours would be product. So...
• 44:47
  Product and service is what we do really well. We offer free express shipping on all orders. So that's what we're doing really well in terms of service, in terms of the product quality. It's really, really good. So we can't do it at a great price. The products aren't super expensive, but they're going to be a lot more expensive than what you find in your chemist or your supermarket because we just can't charge the prices that brands that are in chemist and supermarket charge without giving up our product and service.
• 45:16
  So, yeah. That is such a great piece of advice. And I feel like that applies for, you know, founders of any industry. That's something really great to think about those three aspects and where you can really lean into and kind of own that story around that. Yeah. And then you really just, once you know what two you're doing really well, you can almost forget about that last one. So,
• 45:39
  I mean, it does come into play, but we just need to think like our customer doesn't need to be a super price sensitive person. They know we're offering a great product and a great service. So if we release a product, we don't have this anxiety around or our customer is going to be willing to pay that price because we already know that they are. Yeah, absolutely. And the second piece of advice? Oh yeah, the second piece of advice. So this is like the red texter theory that someone told me.
• 46:06
  And this is just before we did our rebrand. I felt like the brand had just got a bit messy. So we were just throwing so many different messages out there. And we're like, we're skincare for sensitive skin, but we're also natural and we're vegan and we're Australian made and we're down in Torquay and just throwing all this information at people. And this marketing person said to me, okay, so your main message you want to get across to everyone is skincare for sensitive skin. So that's the red texter that he's going to throw at me.
• 46:34
  And then us being, you know, all natural and vegan friendly and stuff, that might be like a blue and green texture or whatever, all these different messages we're throwing out. And he's like, if I throw all of these texters at you, you have to catch the red one. So, you know, throw all the texters. You can't catch the red one because you've got all these texters being thrown at you. So the theory is with marketing, with what we were doing to our customer was we were throwing too much information at them because we were trying to get all these different points across
• 47:04
  And that's where the marketing had essentially got really messy. So we just need to keep throwing our red text right then, which is asking care for sensitive skin. And you feel like you're repeating yourself and just saying it over and over again. But that's essentially what marketing is, is having your one key marketing message. And all of those other marketing things were still important, but we needed to just basically stop throwing them at everyone.
• 47:29
  That is so great. I love that. Yeah, it just gave me a bit of clarity. I was like, it's okay just to be repeating. Like the whole business is around those four words, skincare for sensitive skin. And I felt like I needed to talk about other stuff and, you know, make it more interesting. But I was like, no, that's all I need to focus on.
• 47:48
  That's what you need to be known for. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I love both of those and I haven't heard either. And I'm like, where are all of those things coming from? I want to find more of those little gems of advice. That's so cool. Thank you so much. They were great. They're the two that are really stuck in my head. Glad you liked them. Love that. I did.
• 48:14
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 48:38
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 49:01
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 49:16
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 49:41
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 50:03
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.