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Hey everyone. We are speaking with Jackie Burke today, the CEO and founder of Tiny Lux. We're going to be talking about creating founder led content. Her role is scaling the business and then strategies for first time founders to grow their business.

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How what's your experience been with the two different platforms? We talked about this on the podcast all the time, by the way. I'm interested to hear your perspective because we haven't had a founder who's like been putting out short form content like every single day. Yeah, my take was always that TikTok was so amazing for discovery because people go on to TikTok to see new things.

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So if you're trying to grow, you should be posting on TikTok. And that's what I've been doing. We've been doing that for years. Recently I've started to prioritize Instagram Reels as well. Because Instagram Reels is similar in that sense, like people are going into reels expecting to discover new things. But there's the added benefit of it almost always goes to your followers feed and you are able to, in addition to getting the discovery aspect, also gets the added boost of people who really love your brand.

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Commenting on it and seeing on it and engaging with your posts. So I've started to become an Instagram Reels convert. Yeah, no, I've heard that recently. That where there's just like there's more opportunities there also. So TikTok is such an interesting platform because it's totally different than what you would think of as traditional brand marketing. Like there is no feed.

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Really? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like Instagram, you it's more curated. Total TikTok is like it's a stream of consciousness. Yes, totally. And you kind of have to treat everything you post on TikTok as if the people that are seeing it for the first time never interacted with your brand. Yeah. Which can kind of get pretty debilitating, right?

00:01:57:09 - 00:02:28:10

Yes. But I've started, thanks to Stephanie on your team have started to look at it in a different way in the sense that we used to post, say, one narrative. And if that didn't work, assume that that narrative is an interesting and move on to the next thing. But now we've started iterating on that, iterating on everything down to the opening line, the opening shot, the storyline throughout the video with the idea that every single person is seeing this for the first time, so it feels fresh to them.

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Even if we feel like we've done it 1000 times, it's not boring to that person because they're seeing it for the first time. So that honestly makes it a little bit easier to keep creating content. How was your workflow look like for creating videos? How often do you create them? We have gotten into a really amazing team. I have, myself and two other girls on my team and we map out our whole content for the following month and identify who's creating what video, and then, create all of that content in batch format.

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So I will film for like two, three, maybe four days at a time, film all that content for the following month, and then we can schedule it out ahead of time. And so that makes it way more strategic and way more easy to, actually iterate on everything that we need to iterate on versus doing things as we go.

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Are you doing are you like using cap cut and just finalizing all the videos yourself? How do you think about that? Yes, I actually prefer to just film and tick tock. I think the editing is the easiest, and there, that's where I prefer TikTok over reels, because I don't really like the reels editing style, so sometimes we'll just download from TikTok, move it over there.

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And it's pretty simple. Nice. Yeah. I think the founders I'm seeing struggle the most right now. They're not like, it's it's hard to get into the rhythm of producing or getting a content. It's literally habitual. It's a habit. And you run the risk of being repetitive to like a fault. But I think it's so important and crucial because that's where a lot of discovery is.

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How are you seeing it materially move traffic for for your business? We are starting to measure our organic traffic and engagement. We never did that really before. So we are starting to we have a baseline of like how much traffic we're actually getting from TikTok, from Instagram. And we're also looking at, we're looking at our views in a serious way.

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So we are intentionally trying to you're talking about views on platform? Yes. Views on platform, trying to get intentionally get every video to go viral. And then we can see we've actually been able to see an impact on our traffic on Shopify or on Amazon, which is another big sales channel for us. So, we've actually seen our traffic, I think, on Amazon increased more because it's so much easier to go straight from the app to Amazon.

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Yeah, we see that across the portfolio. Any branded campaign or organic traffic, it spills over into Amazon. Are you looking at like yeah. Like talk to me about how how do you make how do you make videos go viral? Are you thinking through hook or are you thinking through what sort of content is shareable? Are you looking at shares and saves to like?

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What other KPIs are you looking at? Yes, primarily comments, because comments are what really drives engagement and that if you are able to get comments, then you can keep making videos based off those comments and continue to drive traffic through that video. That's really the key to going viral. If you can't get comments, then you can't get a video to get traction.

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We do look at saves and shares, but they don't, in my opinion, get as much traction on a video as comments do. So yeah, really looking at the hook, the opening frame, that's what gets someone to continue watching. And then you have to have content that drives someone to ask questions, drive some controversy, drive someone to say that they love your brand.

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And that's what well, that's that's what can get you that intentional virality. So okay, walk us through how that works for tiny. Looks like you're going through a video idea. Give us an example of like something you're like, oh, this is going to this is going to generate interest. People are going to comment. So I just had this thought just came to me yesterday.

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I posted a video and we got a lot of comments on it. I posted a video starting by saying, weight is something that people ask me about a lot and kind of with the the intention that people would think I was talking about my weight. And then I said, no one likes heavy earrings and kind of what was the hook?

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I said, Summer is coming up and weight to something that's really important to people. It's something people ask me about a lot, and no one likes heavy earrings. And the amazing thing about titanium is that it's super lightweight, and that's something that we don't talk about as much. We usually talk about how titanium, which is the product we make all our jewelry with, is super safe for sensitive skin, but it's also incredibly lightweight.

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So that kind of opening hook of like, you bring in people who have never heard of the brand before. Yeah. Or making, you know, weight is something in a different sense that people that often gets people hooked into watching a video. So I kind of just like had that like idea to do this kind of like bait and switch that like talk about summer weight, but really it's about jewelry.

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And that was something that that alone got just like a lot of people's comments, like, especially people that follow us that were like, wow, you really got me with that one. And that's just one one of many examples that we're thinking through. How much of your time today is focused on on content right now? Roughly 75% of my time is focused on content, which is hard as a small business owner with a small team.

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But and I used to think of it differently, I used to feel like creating content was taking my time away from other things to build my business, but now I feel like it is my primary focus, so I'm not so bothered by the fact that it is taking up probably 75% of my time. Do you think of organic as like the breeding ground for good paid creative?

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Definitely. So I think they go hand in hand, especially now where the consumer is so savvy. You immediately know if something is influencer. Yes. You know, you know, if something is an influencer ad, you know, if something is a paid ad, and that's that can be okay. I still buy things even when I know it's an ad, but if you want to get someone to stop scrolling, often having it appear organic is the best way.

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And if we can understand on the organic side what gets. I want to stop scrolling, then we can also translate that into our paid creative. It's true. I think brands that don't have like a really compelling, like set of value propositions find it really difficult to create organic content that actually has traction interest interests the consumer.

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Tell us a little bit more about so obviously you guys are in accessories, but you have a really strong hook in terms of why people would buy the product, over other competitors in the category. Take us through that. And how that kind of boils in is a lot of your organic content around those ups? How do you make it feel fresh?

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Yes. So our product is a product that solves a problem. I started this brand because I had incredibly sensitive ears, and I couldn't find any products that worked for me. I knew that a lot of people had the same problem, just based on years of talking to people, and I also knew that there was a ton of misinformation out there.

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And I knew that from years of googling and from hearing different myths and tricks and tips from other people. So a big focus for me has always been on clearing up that misinformation. And to this day, even six years, and people still just don't fully understand the problem and the solution. So walk us through that. Okay, so, I have extremely sensitive ears.

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I would always get reactions from my earrings, and I was always told that the only solution was to wear gold jewelry, but I didn't really understand why earrings were causing my reactions, why gold would potentially be better. And then one day I just decided to kind of do some digging and really figure out, like, what is actually causing this when I wear earrings, why am I getting a reaction?

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It turns out the solution or the reason is that I have a metal allergy. So metals are not really meant to live inside the human body. And when you wear earrings that are in close quarters with your skin, so that can cause an allergy to develop, the only real solution is to wear metal that does react with the human body.

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And those metals are titanium, niobium, and platinum. But no one was like really explaining that reason solution. So that was when I discovered that that was my light bulb moment to create a product that would that was made with those materials and would actually be safe for the human body. To this day, other brands still use the term hypoallergenic, which really is meaningless.

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And they don't and they use that across all these different materials. So there's still so it's still unclear to the consumer like what the reasoning behind their allergy is, what the solution is. So I am able it's a it's I am able to continue to create content around that because almost every time I post a video someone ask the same question.

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Yeah, there's like depth. Yes, there's depth to it. Yeah. How many people suffer from, the allergy. So roughly 20% of people are allergic to metals. But what's interesting is that a lot of people know that nickel in particular is a metal that people are allergic to. But you can also be allergic to gold or silver or copper, gold in particular.

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Almost 15% of people are allergic to, which is really not something that's well known, but it's a very common allergy. So some people are just like they're just putting up with it. Yeah. I think something that's really common is that a lot of people will that want to wear earrings, will just wait till the last minute to put them in, and then they'll have some pain and irritation throughout the night, take them out at the end of the night.

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So and I used to do that too. But now I know that that's not a, not something that I have to put up with that can actually have something that's completely comfortable and I don't even know it's there. Would you consider this like an overlooked problem? Like why don't other why we're in other jewelry brands like trying to solve for this?

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Totally. I think a lot of people just didn't understand that it really was an issue. So maybe the brand founders didn't have sensitive ears, so it wasn't a problem for them personally. Also, titanium is difficult to manufacture, so I understand why a lot of brands wouldn't want to use that. I also think historically there's been two types of jewelry categories, or either fine jewelry or fashion jewelry.

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So fine jewelry brands, their brands are based around using gold or platinum. So there would be it wouldn't make sense for their brands. Yes. It wouldn't make sense for them to switch to a different metal based on this small problem. So the problem kind of got overlooked. And again, there was a lot of misinformation. So there was just this white space in the market that no one was creating a solution for.

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Yeah. I mean, you're pretty established though now, just in terms of the team and how you guys have grown. Are there other competitors popping up? A lot of the e-commerce businesses that we speak to, they're always conscious about, like pioneering a category and then having others recognize and try and kind of steal market share. Yes. There are a couple brands that I can think of that also sell titanium jewelry, but those brands don't.

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The difference for us is that we're committed to making all of our jewelry with titanium, so we, a customer can know that if they come to our site, everything's safe for them. So these other brands generally have like a portion of their products are made with that. But they are I do notice, particularly in paid ads, that there are many other brands that have, I would say copy to our value props and the way we've set them.

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They've copied our marketing messaging, even if it doesn't necessarily apply to their product. So that can be frustrating. Yeah, it's part of the it's part of the game though. I think what's interesting, though is you're making your jewelry solving a problem, which is so crucial for e-commerce, especially in accessories too, because if you just get served an ad for a brand you've never heard of before, it's really tough to find a reason to buy.

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Especially in visual categories like fashion or accessories. So I think it makes sense why people want to copy the ad formats, because they're like, this is super functional and it's also beautiful. You've done a great job with the brand, going back to your organic content. So you're doing it's founder led content, which is becoming really important even in the B2B space and B2C.

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I think other founders that I speak with, they don't have the content creation muscle. So they'll like make some UGC for like a paid ad program. But they're not doing it every day. And I think in your case, it's become a real strength. Talk to me about like, some of the pros and cons of most of these other brands have like a social media manager who's running it.

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And I've always just felt weird about that. I'm curious what your thoughts are. I think if it's amazing, if you don't have to do it, if you are able to, if you have a team where you don't have to do it, if you have the funds to, pay content creators and influencers, you don't have to. It's fantastic.

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And I think I think it's risky, though. It's like it's risky from, if I was a brand owner and I was like, outsourcing the. It's essentially like the face of your of your business in many ways. Yeah. Agreed. Yes. Because that person could up and leave and then that the face of your business is gone. But even if even if that person is there forever.

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Yeah. I think it's everyone's dream to not have to be the face of their business to be able to be in the background and run. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of founders that I talk to, you say I want my business to stand on its own, and I don't want it to be about me, but I've come to realize that it's it's not making it about me.

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It's that I'm the number one evangelist for my business. I understand it top to bottom. I understand the product and our value props, and that makes me probably the best person to tell the story and educate our customers. And it's probably the same for almost every other brand founder. So putting yourself out there is a really big, it's a really big plus for your business.

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If you are able to learn how to be a content creator, then it can really improve your business. I think it also just helps in terms of finding future content creators. So I definitely want to talk about how you're thinking about scaling and like does that role change? But when you're starting out, it's definitely I think the pros outweigh the cons because you're giving people reasons to like they're not just, yes, they're following along for the brand and the message that you're putting out, but they're also like watching your journey build the company.

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You're like a builder. Yes. And I think people want to follow that, I totally agree. Yes, people want to follow it. They also it also can help with process, with getting podcast interviews like, you know, if you're a founder and you want to grow your brand and you want to go on a podcast to promote it, but you have zero social media presence of your own, I think that's kind of a hard sell because people are like, who are you?

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You know, unfortunately, if you don't exist online, then you don't exist in the online space. Yeah, I know what you mean. How are you thinking about like, the brands I think are becoming a lot more human, down to earth. You also brought up the point about, you know, you other founders want the brand to, like, exist on its own to be pretty sufficient.

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How are you thinking through that? As you as you scale? Are you thinking like, hey, I'm going to replace myself? Like, if I eventually want to sell the company? Like, have those thoughts crossed your mind? Totally. I think the way to do it is to if I can understand how to do it myself, then I can teach someone else how to do it and it until I can fully understand like this is what works and this is why it converts and this is what gets engagement, then it's really hard to even hire a content creator to do it.

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If I can't say like this, this is a consistent way to get people to comment on our videos. Then how can I pay someone else to do it? So by doing it myself, I'm able to get this routine and the strategy in place, and then I can start slowly bringing other people on the team into it and eventually replace myself.

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Yeah, I think it's when you, like, are in the founding seat and like you are. So your ear is like, you know, down, down to the ground and like you're kind of in the weeds in the day to day. I think it makes you so much more adept as a founder to be able to, like, know what's actually working for your business.

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I think it's probably in consumer is probably the number one most important thing. Once you get through product and and other sorts of things. Talk to us about your journey. So you were an engineer. You obviously that really helped in developing the product, but now you're basically a full time marketer for the brand. And you guys started on a really demand capture platform like Google.

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So just take me through like the evolution of that and you know how you've progressed since founding the company. Yeah. So when I started, I truly was just trying to solve a problem. I, like you said I was an engineering, and I had no experience with marketing. I've never had never even taken a business class. So I really had to learn everything from scratch.

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And I think that was beneficial in some ways because I wasn't unlearning anything. But it definitely caused me to take a very cautious and slow pace and growth to my business. I started with the hypothesis, which I can say now. At the time, I just it was just a feeling that people would be looking for this type of product on Google, because when you have a problem and you're searching for a solution the first place you go as Google.

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So I put all my focus in the beginning on was this before you even launch the product? So you were like, how many Google searches are there for hypoallergenic earrings or earrings for sensitive skin? I wasn't that intentional about it, but I had personally spent years googling and hadn't been able to find anything. So I knew it was 2017, and I thought to myself, it's 2017.

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If you want something, it should pop up on the first page of Google, and if it doesn't, then it then a good solution to it doesn't really exist. So I just had this feeling and this thought whether there were a lot of searches for it or not. There should be a product on the first page of Google that solves this problem.

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So that was my entire focus in the beginning, was just getting my product on the first page of Google, and I knew if I could get it there, then I could get customers. And that's really how I spent the first, probably two years of the business. And then from there, I want it. Google is challenging because you can't really scale up.

00:21:31:13 - 00:21:54:24

Your dependent on how many people are actually searching for that. So then from there, I wanted to layer on the social media and all the other marketing channels. It's a really interesting case study for like bootstrapping a business, basically having your having an own your own problem and then validating the hypothesis just by virtue of how many other people are like searching for it.

00:21:55:03 - 00:22:26:16

You don't need to do any demand generation. You're just kind of capturing what's out there, which is funny enough. Like usually the, you know, lowest CPA in terms of acquiring customers and then starting to build out a lot of the other functions the brand, the creative, the stuff that's generating demand that enables you to scale. Yeah, I think every business, especially today, needs to have a hero channel, a channel where you're able to acquire customers at a low cost.

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For us, that's still Google. Other brands have been able to do it via Instagram or Facebook, but whatever it is, you have to have that one place with a low CPA that will allow you to fund the other areas of the business. How is, Google changed for you? So give us like how much what percentage of your new customers acquired are coming through Google?

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I think today probably 60% of our customers come through Google. But the difference is they're now coming via multichannel. So some customers ultimately come to us through Google. But they first heard about our brand through TikTok or Instagram or Facebook. Initially 60% came through Google and they were really coming directly through Google. So now I feel like it's a piece of a bigger puzzle.

00:23:18:17 - 00:23:46:13

I think consumers like to see that you exist on Google if you search up, or if you find a brand on TikTok or discover a brand on TikTok, and then you Google them and nothing comes up, you probably would be a little skeptical. But for us, it's just this added benefit of you. Discover us on social media, then you Google and you see that there's proof that our product works, that there's press, and that there's blog posts that support what we are saying on social media.

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So it's just this kind of halo effect. Yeah. I think it's important to just like have a marketing mix that speaks to all the different places that your customers are spending time. Similarly, you know, you've been on Amazon now for it's going to be a year almost. Talk to us about that experience. And you know, particularly for me and my perspective is there's some brand founders who like they never even thought about Amazon because direct to consumer was like it was just part of the zeitgeisty.

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It was like, that's where you're going to launch a brand. But in reality, if you look at the data like 95% of Americans are on Amazon shopping, 40% of all e-commerce purchases are on Amazon. And I do think accessories and fashion are one of those categories where people are still very, very skeptical. Amazon is interesting for a lot of reasons.

00:24:32:15 - 00:24:55:01

One, I think people use Amazon as a search engine, but with the intent to purchase. So it's almost like Google in the sense where people are searching for a solution, but if they're on Amazon, that means they're ready to buy it. So that's a good place to be as a brand. I think one reason that a lot of brands are wary of Amazon is because of knockoffs.

00:24:55:03 - 00:25:17:00

As soon as you're on Amazon, if you have any success, then it's likely that someone is going to steal your idea or copy your product. For us, we have built a brand so that gives us this kind of moat on Amazon, where there could be competitors or knockoffs, but that's not going to replace the brand value that we already have.

00:25:17:02 - 00:25:40:18

So I don't feel so concerned about that from a business sense on Amazon. But I also look at Amazon as almost a substitute for retail. I think one of the amazing things about retail is that if you want something, you can get it right now. And Amazon is kind of the same thing. If you want something, you can get it in two days.

00:25:40:22 - 00:26:24:09

So that kind of has allowed us to maintain the ability to get to, to get our brand value props across online, which is harder to do on a shelf, and also gives the customers what they want, which is to get a product immediately. Yeah. It's true. Have you you've been leveraging both Prime. Yes. So we just implemented by with Prime about a month ago and it has been amazing like Christmas really love it it if you're not familiar with buy with Prime it is a it allows you to your customers to shop through your Shopify site, but the order is placed through placed and fulfilled through Amazon so customers can shop as they normally

00:26:24:09 - 00:26:44:11

would on Shopify, but then get their product in one day or two days. And it's really incredible, especially for new customers who want to try our product. They want to see if it works for them and they want to try it right then, so they're able to get it in 24, 48 hours and they're really happy with it.

00:26:44:13 - 00:27:19:21

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, some of our brands are for certain categories where like shipping is just really expensive and direct to consumer doesn't make as much sense. The direct to consumer site is literally just to siphon for Amazon and buy with Prime is huge for them. How does it complicate the customer journey though? Like how does it complicate customer data for people who, like aren't familiar with with Prime on the Shopify backend, we still capture all of the customer data, which I wasn't sure how it work when we implemented it, but we see everything just as we would a regular Shopify customer, so that's pretty amazing.

00:27:19:21 - 00:27:44:16

We still have their email. We can still send them marketing materials. So that's, you know, from the customer data perspective, amazing. For the customer. The one thing that I think is probably a little frustrating is that for us, not all of our products are on par with Prime. So they would have to do if they wanted a product that was on par with Prime and one that wasn't, they would have to initiate two separate checkouts.

00:27:44:16 - 00:28:04:01

Yeah. Are you planning to put all products on FBA or is part of your strategy just using Amazon as like an entryway for the brand? How has that evolved? Because we talked about that initially, and I think a lot of business owners who are DTC think about this. I would say we're still thinking about it. Amazon is still relatively new for us.

00:28:04:01 - 00:28:26:16

We initially thought of it as almost like an outlet. So products that maybe weren't as popular, we could we felt like we could move them to Amazon and sell through them faster. We've pivoted from that to think about more as an entry point for the brand, and I think that's still where we're at. But as we get more data from the buy with Prime, we may consider moving all of our products.

00:28:26:16 - 00:28:44:20

Would you put everything FBA? I'm just curious. Like everything FBA lose your three PL have everything buy with Prime. Is that like a viable solution? I don't know if I would ever do that. I like to have the we love our three PL. First of all, we have a very good relationship with them, so I just don't know if I would ever want to pull away from that.

00:28:44:22 - 00:29:07:11

And the fee is on Amazon are so much higher than Amazon's. Yeah it does cut into profit. So I don't know if I would ever go that route. But also who knows when you look at PNL Amazon versus direct to consumer, do you see higher contribution margin on Amazon only purchases? I hear what you're saying on direct to consumer.

00:29:07:11 - 00:29:29:19

If you're paying FBA fees through your DTC site, it's like you're paying almost like an Amazon tax. But yeah, I'm just curious. We look at a lot of DDC versus Amazon and try and assess the contribution margins. Yeah, totally. The benefit of Amazon is the high purchase intent and the frictionless experience that I think makes people spend more freely.

00:29:30:00 - 00:29:58:00

We've had really good luck with our ads on Amazon. So we now have a pretty significant net profit margin through our Amazon channel. But I think that is bolstered by the marketing spend that you're doing elsewhere, that we're doing elsewhere. So it's hard to like fully differentiate where the profits are coming from. But I think I do think it's important to to have separate channels.

00:29:58:02 - 00:30:19:05

Yeah, for sure. It's this is going to be like I'm curious to hear what you think. But like I think brands just need to accept that, like the customer, wherever the customer wants to buy the product, like you kind of just need to be it needs to just be that channel that you're prioritizing. I think one of the most important things founders can do is if they have a great product and they've done the legwork there, it's like you need to increase your distribution.

00:30:19:05 - 00:30:44:19

One of the best ways to do that is by opening new doors for CPG and consumer founders, getting on to different marketplaces where your customers shop, and then making sure you're marketing is just driving demand. Yeah, no, I totally agree. If, as I mentioned before, I think people are scared of Amazon because of the opportunity for competitors and knockoffs, but if those competitors are, knockoffs exist and you're not there, then there's a 0% chance they're going to buy you.

00:30:44:19 - 00:31:12:24

They're going to buy the one on Amazon. So you need to be there as well. So let's go back to content too, because it seems like your content is working. You guys have been growing on organic, but also we've talked about spillover to Amazon. And how organic is actually driving conversion. What content works for you? What content strategies do you feel like are hitting for me personally, anything green screen or just talking to the camera always works.

00:31:12:24 - 00:31:41:10

I it's crazy. It's crazy. It's like green screen is so popular right now. Do you think that's going to plateau though? Because I was literally just in a content creation course. Everyone is just like they're like green screen. Yeah, I think everything eventually like plateaus. But I think the thing with green screen is that it's your eyes. Visually focus on two different things, plus the header, and that causes you to pause for just long enough that you get sucked into the video.

00:31:41:10 - 00:32:02:05

So if you're able to couple that with a good opening hook, then you really can get people to stop there, scroll and watch for long enough, and then you have to have something interesting to say or people will scroll away. But that kind of coupling of like multiple visual interests is, I think, what gets people to stop scrolling consistently for green screen.

00:32:02:07 - 00:32:30:06

It's also like an innovation and just video capture, like you're able to explain and demonstrate it's basically a presentation directly on your phone. How long does it take you on average to create a video? I try to do the videos are generally 60s long, so I would say it takes me 10 to 20 minutes to film a 62nd video, though I would say the hardest part is coming up with the strategy begin or like the content plan to begin with.

00:32:30:06 - 00:32:54:08

Once you have a content plan and kind of the general narrative, it's a little bit easier to just create that content is content plan. Like, what am I going to be posting for the next three months? Or is that like a script for the video? Both. I don't write out full scripts, but the yeah, the the schedule kind of for the month and then kind of an outline not down to the word but an outline like bullet.

00:32:54:08 - 00:33:23:13

So like this is what I'm going to talk about in this video. And then you just kind of rerecord takes. It's hard if I'm trying to do it right now. Like feels unnatural. It is. And I do think that there's some element of like the first couple of videos that I film are probably better than the last couple that I film, but still, it's, it's what works and allows me to create the videos and get the content out there, and then hopefully we'll get to a place where the amount of content creation can be reduced.

00:33:23:19 - 00:33:43:05

How do you think about product innovation with tiny locks like you obviously have some of your hero SKUs? We've talked about that in the past. Do you feel like at this point in your business, you're you just need to go out and find more customers? Or are you like, I still need to build out this collection. I think we're more to the point of just finding new customers.

00:33:43:05 - 00:34:04:09

We kind of have a little bit of everything that someone would be looking for. If they're looking for something for some sort of year, then we have basically every type of earring that you could want. So I think we're in a place where we have a little bit of everything. We still for sure have to continue to put out new products within that category.

00:34:04:14 - 00:34:26:02

For example, we had our first quarter this year. The conversion rate was really low. In the beginning of this month, we released new products and our conversion rate has gone up by 1% since we had new products out. And I, I can't attribute it to anything else other than the fact that we put out a new collection, and our loyal customers were waiting until them to buy things.

00:34:26:03 - 00:34:45:21

New stuff. Yeah. So it's you. We as a business, we will always have to put out new stuff, but I don't think we necessarily have to explore new categories. Do you think the tiny flex machine right now, it's like, well, it's well oiled. It's just a question of continuing to execute. Are there like initiatives that you're like, we need to attack?

00:34:45:21 - 00:35:11:03

These are new challenges for me. Yeah. Conversion rate this year was challenging. I don't know if it was us or if it was just the general state of the economy and consumerism. When you say this year, you mean 2024, 2024. Yeah. So Q1, Q1 yeah, our conversion rate was lower than it has been historically. And that was one thing that really threw me for a loop.

00:35:11:03 - 00:35:34:20

I felt like we were at a well-oiled machine machine, and everything was working and we didn't do anything differently. So that was I think there's always something that comes up like that where it's like you think you have everything figured out, and then there's like one piece that just changes. So that keeps things interesting. Yeah, I think there's like always stuff you need to refocus on, recalibrate.

00:35:34:20 - 00:36:10:24

What's the next step for you? I think the next step is to continue to focus on content. Once we feel like we're in an amazing place with that, then I think we can really layer on more of the brand marketing elements. I think we have such a good value proposition. We have such good organic content, we have amazing paid content, and all of those elements are in place where we can start investing in those brand marketing initiatives that aren't quite as measurable as everything else and are a little more expensive than everything else.

00:36:10:24 - 00:36:30:07

But those are really what sets you apart as a brand, and what gets you kind of that mass appeal gets you like in the conversation in different ways. So what sort of things are you thinking about? We're looking at a lot of different things. I mean, we definitely we've done events to some extent, but we definitely want to expand that.

00:36:30:09 - 00:36:56:09

We want to do more influencer partnerships and do them in a bigger or more meaningful way. There's a lot of kind of alternative advertising, things like mobile trucks or pop ups, that I think would be incredible. But doing all those things at once is challenging as a small brand, especially when you can't measure the results like you would on digital channels.

00:36:56:11 - 00:37:13:03

Yeah, it's like you've been doing your digitally native performance driven. Yeah, it's kind of like it's one of those like leaps where it's just a bit. It's like ripping off a Band-Aid. You're like, you know, you have to do it, but all of the moments leading up to this point have led you to believe that it's the wrong decision.

00:37:13:03 - 00:37:38:24

Yeah. And it's like everything feels like a gamble. But that feels like a huge gamble. So it's scary. But it also can lead to a really big payoff. Yeah, for sure. It just takes longer, too. I think one of the tough pieces of being a digital marketer is like measurement and just determine determinism. You're just like, this is how I'm attributing a sale and marketing was never like that.

00:37:39:00 - 00:37:58:10

Yeah. Right. To be able to say like 100% this customer came from this place is kind of the name of the game today. But yeah, really, historically, that's not how things worked. And even when I when I think about the way that I shop or the way I discover brands, it's not always just like a 1 to 1 transaction.

00:37:58:10 - 00:38:17:24

It's usually it's a relationship. Yes. It's like a conversation. You start with a person and they become more familiar with your brand, and then they're like, this is a product I want. I'm going to buy. Yeah, well that's exciting. I think brand marketing is really crucial. I'm excited about just how performance and brand are becoming, you know, a lot more part of the same like marketing function.

00:38:18:00 - 00:38:37:10

It's like every conversation that I'm having with different brands, the brands that I find that are doing it the best, they're saying no to the traditional ways of like direct to consumer. They're doing it in a thoughtful way. I was speaking with the Joly founders last week on this podcast. They're very performance driven. They say that they're not.

00:38:37:10 - 00:38:59:21

But like, everyone is like revenue driven, you know? And to me, revenue driven is performance driven. But their repertoire, their normal activities are like trucks and like the pop a pop up in Soho and things like that that are rounding out the the program. I would say, as someone who's, viewed their ads online, I would say they're also a brand.

00:38:59:21 - 00:39:16:10

That is a very good example of understanding what performs well organically and then using that in their ad content, because almost all of their videos that I see, I stop for a song or watch it for a second before I even realize that it's an ad, and I think that's the best way to do it. That's how you have to do it.

00:39:16:13 - 00:39:46:24

To your point, earlier, like influencers, just like when when I see UGC, that's like influencer driven today, it's like this is an I'm like about to watch an ad. This person does not believe this. Yes that's tough. Yeah. Talk shop has made that even worse I think. What do you think about TikTok? Shop for your products? I am warming up to it, but I definitely feel from a consumer perspective, I haven't found a brand yet where it's like driven any loyalty.

00:39:47:01 - 00:40:06:18

It's more so like it's very transactional. Like, I, I bought a tripod off of TikTok. It's like Alex Roll. Yeah, right. Like something that like, you're not developing, you're not building your brand through TikTok shot. But you might get some sales. The I'm interested to see how it develops because I've bought stuff off TikTok shop. Weird buying experience.

00:40:06:20 - 00:40:24:10

I mean the buying experience on platform is fine, it's good. But, like I bought really demonstrable products. That's what I think do well, you know, you buy like I bought a light as well or a tripod. I'm obsessed recently and you can't. But I think that yeah, like, I don't know any of the brands. They're all like functional products.

00:40:24:10 - 00:40:43:02

And then some of the transactional emails were just weird. It takes a really long time to get your product so totally different than Amazon. Be. I got weird transactional emails like, I got your product just arrived at the airport. I don't had you do receive any of those transactional I didn't I think that my product was fulfilled through Amazon really.

00:40:43:05 - 00:41:08:10

So it was almost like I was just shopping on Amazon, but I got targeted with a video. So that was my take that it was really just like, again, a lot of products on Amazon. It's building a brand. It's just sales directly. And that's that was my experience. But I think the prospect of having a social platform where there's a lot of content, people are spending a ton of time and you can also sell your product is like the dream.

00:41:08:16 - 00:41:28:00

Yeah, I agree, I think that if it rewards the content creators, yeah, the people who are best and I think as a brand, if you can, if you can nail the content, then you can cut it. What it will be, I think a viable sales channel and a viable way to build a brand, but I just don't think it's quite there yet.

00:41:28:02 - 00:41:55:05

But that's probably on us as brands to figure that out between reels give us a sense of like the traction you've had on reels and TikTok, for tiny looks and for your personal brand and how you separate those two. Yeah, my personal brand was pretty interesting. I posted like one video six months ago that took off, and I kind of just leveraged that to go from literally zero followers to 16,000, like almost overnight.

00:41:55:05 - 00:42:16:10

And now those followers have been like incredibly loyal and a lot of them have transferred over to knowing my brand and following my brand. So that's been pretty amazing. I think as a person and an individual, it's a lot easier to grow because you're not selling directly, you're just creating interesting content. So that's one kind of a fun journey on.

00:42:16:12 - 00:42:37:08

Do you post any personal stuff or is it mostly mostly post style related content? I actually started posting business behind the scenes content and it didn't really take off. Style content took off a lot better. So that's just what I continued to post. Do you enjoy it? I do, I think it's fun. It's just hard to manage creating content on three different accounts.

00:42:37:08 - 00:43:10:10

So unfortunately it's often takes a back burner to the brand. But it's a lot of fun and people are so kind and interesting and I love connecting with people online. Do you spend like, all Sunday creating content? Sometimes, yeah, I honestly, I recently posted a video. I was going to pick my son up from daycare. I stopped at Chick-Fil-A and I was in the drive thru, and I saw that in the video and I said, you know, if anyone wants me to make a video on Xyzzy, leave it in the comments.

00:43:10:10 - 00:43:29:19

And I got so many comments I made, was able to make so much content just based off that and asking people for things that they wanted to see. And it's pretty amazing. The more vulnerable and authentic you are, the better the content does. I think the more you engage. This is where I'm like, wow, there big opportunities for brands.

00:43:29:19 - 00:43:52:12

Brands traditionally have leveraged email as like their own channel where they're like they own the audience. It's, you know, their own party data and, you know, they're asking questions about product development, but people don't really use email in that way. I think stories and like prompting, like asking your audience, is one of the best ways for brands to like, figure out what they should do next, what their audience wants, things like that.

00:43:52:14 - 00:44:15:16

I agree, it's so much easier to leave a comment than to reply to an email. And it's nice. And comments too are great because other people see them and reply to them and then start having conversations with each other, and that's where you can really build that engagement.