[Voiceover]: We were gifting to these girls who had just been on the Bachelor. They loved it, they shared it, and obviously we had spikes in sales and I thought, wow, there's really something in this. This social proofing is exactly what we need. To be honest, for a while there I did too much of this and what happened, I derailed, I turned out of my lane and I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. Each consumer has a different buying cycle and is a different personality and we've tried to really lean into each of those types of welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e Commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Here's your host, Bushy.
Nathan Bush: Welcome to another episode of Add to Cart. I'm Bushie and I'm joining you from the land of the terrible people otherwise known as Brisbane, Australia on Add to Cart. We welcome everyone to share and listen to e commerce stories. The more diverse the better. I want to especially welcome the traditional owners and the original storytellers of the land that we are on, our indigenous and Torres Strait Islander listeners to join us in our e commerce conversations and our community. In E Commerce, inspiration is everywhere and
Nathan Bush: everything is out in the open.
Nathan Bush: So it's great that we can learn
Nathan Bush: so much from others.
Nathan Bush: It's something that we've heard time and time again from our guests and it's in fact why I started this podcast because I just love learning and hearing from other people in the industry. We've got some amazing people out there, but there are times when staying true to your vision and blocking out exterior noise is so critical and today's guest is a great example of someone whose
Nathan Bush: mission demanded that focus.
Nathan Bush: Stacy Hollands is CEO and Creative Director of Lust Minerals. Stacy was an experienced beauty consultant and used her knowledge to create the clean makeup products that she felt was missing in the industry. Lust Minerals today is vegan certified, Paraben free and Australian made. These were all non negotiables for Stacy. The brand launched in 2014 and hit $1 million in sales within the first 18 months. They continue to grow as an e commerce powerhouse with turnover today of more than $20 million. In this chat, Stacy shares the story of how she launched her business just as influencer marketing was getting started, for example, gifting to contestants from the Bachelor and she shares all the tips that she's had and what that means today for her presence in social media and influencing. She's got some great tips around reach and how to get reach and frequency out of social media Influencers. She shares the learnings from her recent $300,000 rebrand. It wasn't an easy exercise. And we find out why. For Lust Minerals, 7 is the happy number. Stacy has an offer for you all too, so don't miss that code at the end. Let's get into it. Thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Deliver in person. Here's our conversation with Stacy Hollins, CEO and creative Director at Lust Minerals. Stacy, welcome to ADD to cart.
[Voiceover]: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Nathan Bush: Thanks for being here.
Nathan Bush: I think you're the first guest we've
Nathan Bush: had join us from the car, which is fantastic. And that's a true, that's a true E Commerce CEO there. Right?
[Voiceover]: I'm so sorry, it's been one of those weeks, but I'm absolutely here.
Nathan Bush: Fantastic to have you here. You said in our pre chat that you thrive in chaos. Tell me about your last year and what's been happening with Lust Minerals.
[Voiceover]: I think the last year for a lot of people has been a little bit challenging. I mean, there's a lot happening in the world. Expenses are high. So it's been chaos. It's been, been busy and I think it's been, I don't like to use this word, but almost a bit of a slog. I mean, yes, we did obviously do well last year and we did slightly, you know, beat the year before and you know, we've had that growth, but it was challenging and I think that's the chaos that I live in. I thrive in chaos. When it's not chaos, my brain doesn't function very well, so I think I just put myself in it.
Nathan Bush: That's beautiful. What's the secret to bringing the team along on the chaos?
Nathan Bush: Because I could imagine as a founder
Nathan Bush: of a brand such as Lust Minerals, like you're all in, like you are going for the chaos.
Nathan Bush: How do you bring the team along?
[Voiceover]: I think it's cultivating a high performing team and on boarding a team that you want to be around, we go through quite an extensive onboarding process and really start to understand, you know, who we would bring into the team. I live at work so I want to be around people who want to be there. And, you know, I'm a very open boss. You know, if anyone's got any troubles, we talk about it. If you've got a problem, I can help you with a solution. If you don't tell me it's your problem, you keep dealing with it. So I think just having a really open communication. Our teams thrive in not only Chaos. But the excitement of the growth and the amount of women we're helping and you know, we do huddles every week. We share our wins with the team, you know, positive reviews, every department jumps in and shares reviews. So I think it's just the chaos, the excitement and having everyone a part of everything is what really motivates and inspires the team because they are a part of a bigger picture and a bigger project and I think that's, you know, fulfilling for them as well.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. So it all comes down to, you
Nathan Bush: know, being open to it. So let's take everyone back to the
Nathan Bush: start if they haven't come across lust minerals or they don't know the Backstory. Founded in 2014 by yourself. Now, from what I've read, $20 million plus business take us back to the start. Where did you come up with the idea and the inspiration for Lost Minerals?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, of course. Okay. So I actually left school in year 11 and went straight to beauty school. It was a 12 month full time course, eight till five, five days a week. And it was my, actually my Sodesco diploma and it was exactly what I wanted to do. I loved helping people, so. So from there I went straight into beauty therapy, doing all things like seeing facials and I found a real love for facials, treating people's skin. And I actually had a bit of a niche of treating a lot of people with not only anti aging, but also acne. So I went through my years. I was a dermal therapist for six plus years and what I found was I was treating these women with their skin and their skin conditions, but they were putting products on their face that were clogging their pores and it was a vicious cycle. And there wasn't a lot of knowledge around 10 plus years ago. We're talking 2011, 2012 before lust was was here, there wasn't a lot of knowledge around mineral makeup and the knowledge that there was all the products that, you know, were easy accessible, weren't that concentrated, didn't give the coverage. So I did find an incredible brand that I started to recommend, but their foundations for $89 plus. So I found a bit of a niche there. There was, I needed an affordable product, one that wasn't going to clog their pores, one that was good for acne. I also suffered acne, so I know the pain. And around this time it was about a eight month period. My dad also was diagnosed with cancer and you know, young me all of 21 when I found out my therapy at the time was Research. And all I wanted to do was research a cure for dad. And upon doing this, I did hours and hours upon doing this, I actually discovered the connection between chemicals and our health. And of course it's not the only thing. There's a, there's a list a mile long that we need to be conscious of, but chemicals is one of them. So, so this is all unfolding and then another thing that happened that was literally my pinnacle moment of enough's enough. I started to get what I can describe as the hand burns. And I was doing facials 8, 9 hours, 5 days a week doing these facials using these cosmeceutical products with my hands on these people's skins, creating amazing results, but by the use of chemicals and you know, it was evident happening on my skin, it was just all sort of happened and I was like, you know what? Enough's enough. I'm going to create a product that is not only affordable, accessible, it's Australian, it's good for the skin, it ticks all the boxes that I was craving. And I think I was just so young and naive that the rest is history.
Nathan Bush: And so that's a big leap, right, to go from being a beauty therapist, obviously going through all of that with your dad and doing all that research, but then activating that to create not only a brand new brand, but almost a totally unique product in market that's chemical free but also affordable. How do you take that leap from an idea into actually producing something that is unique like that?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, well, I mean, I was definitely my ambitious years, you know, Google was my best friend. You could find anything you wanted. And I think the biggest thing for me was I knew what the industry needed. I've been in salons at this time. By the time Sage Lust was born, I'd been in salons for eight years. So I knew what was missing within the industry. I knew what the stockers wanted. And for me, the first thing I did was just find a manufacturer. I went through quite a few, finally found one within Australia which obviously was a big value of mine. I worked with her for quite a while. We came up with a loose powder foundation was the very, very, very first product I trialed. Absolutely loved it. And then I obviously went on to two other products. I released three when we first launched, but before last even was Lust Minerals. It was actually perfect Touch Minerals. And that was the brand, that was the name of my home salon, which looking back is a little cringe, but you know, we grow. And I actually used it on my bride so lust was merely just there for me to use in my home salon to use on my brides. And the feedback was insane. And I was like, there is something here. I need to take this further. I need to get this into salons. I need to make this a product that goes to market. I need to make it affordable. So that's kind of where it all started. And once I had a manufacturer and I was confident the product, the rest just was, you know, flowed from there.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. I've got actually your team sent me the serum that I've been using.
[Voiceover]: Oh, amazing.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, right in front of us. So it's been great.
Nathan Bush: I'm no beauty expert by any means,
Nathan Bush: but my wife gives me the odd compliment but it does feel natural. It doesn't feel like you've got a layer of stuff on your face. Is the loose powder foundation still your number one seller? Is that the lead product?
[Voiceover]: It's in the top four. I have slightly reformulated, added a little bit of vitamin E in there. So it's a very hydrating loose powder. Now our best seller is the pro finish currently. So we sell one of those generally every two minutes which is amazing.
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Nathan Bush: Tell us about the sales channels that you set up because I know that you know you talked about selling it out of your own salon. How did you get it out to market originally and get in the hands of new customers? And then how has that changed over time?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, so 2014 I launched, I had my sister in law on board. She had done makeup as well. And what we actually did for a good two plus years was cold call. We would spend day in, day out cold calling salons we would drive around the whole Sunshine coast within sort of three to four hours, up to five hours, sometimes drive to salons, show them the range. And the first three stockists was the hardest. I was like, how are we going to crack through this? We're a brand that nobody even knows about. But once we got to three, it just dominoed from there. And we started to get that, you know, other salons started to get the confidence in us. You know, we even offered, we said to these originally, first three, like, you're our first three. Like if other salons ring you, are you okay with that? So that was really handy. Obviously they could ring them for referrals and see what they thought of the range. But yeah, the first couple of years was a solid cold calling on the road, going around, talking to everybody. And then around 2007, 2017, 2018, it's a little bit blurry. But around that stage, I realized I was relying on the employees and the team of these stockers to sell my range. And they're not as passionate as me. And I was like, you know what? We're doing great. By this stage, we had about 83 stockists, but it was slow and not as fast as the ambitious young me wanted it to be. So that's where I decided that it was time to take it online. And we obviously set up our store a little bit more user friendly. We started to gift to influencers and it wasn't even a thing then. Influencers wasn't even really on the radar. But we were gifting to these girls who had just been on the Bachelor. They loved it, they shared it, and obviously we had spikes in sales. And I thought, wow, there's really something in this. This social proofing is exactly what we need. So from there we delve right into influencer marketing. That's still what grows us today. And then obviously we moved into. We moved our website to Shopify, sort of 2019, I think that was, and really set up Kalaviyo, all of our flows and really got sophisticated there. So, yeah, it's kind of progressed over the years. We've gone from the stockers to, you know, more of your retail. But yeah, it's been a journey.
Nathan Bush: Are you still in touch with those original three stockers?
[Voiceover]: You know, at least one of them, we definitely still have another one has closed down. But I often still talk to her through my DMs.
Nathan Bush: Amazing how nice that you can trace it all the way back to where it kicked off.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, so you're manufactured in the Sunshine
[Voiceover]: coast, still we're in Australia, not Sunshine Coast. Our warehouse is in Sunshine coast where we dispatch all our orders, all our team up. But our manufacturers are all over Australia.
Nathan Bush: Great. And are you selling into international markets now?
[Voiceover]: We're dabbling. I think that's our next thing. We need to decide, you know, what avenue we want to go down. Do we want to go down retailers international? We're definitely dabbling international, but we probably need to get our big girl pants on and dig a little bit deeper over there.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. Like obviously great message there. You got the founder led story, you've got the Australian made story as well. Like huge potential. Right, tell us more about influencer marketing because I'm fascinated to see how that's changed for you since 2008 in gifting to bachelor contestants, which I can imagine a lot of that was fairly organic
Nathan Bush: and ad hoc, for lack of a better word, through to where it is to now.
Nathan Bush: Obviously much more sophisticated and commercial market. How has that changed for you over that time in accessing the influencer market?
[Voiceover]: I mean, honestly, it's been quite dramatic. I mean, consumers are a lot more aware now and I think there's the fine line between somebody loving a product and promoting it genuinely and somebody getting paid to be a part of a campaign. And there's nothing wrong with either. You know, you could be a part of a campaign 10 years ago whether you liked that campaign or not. So I don't think there's a problem there essentially, but it's more that the trust of the consumer is slightly blurred. So for us with influencers, yes, it doesn't, it's not like it used to be. You know, it was probably a bit of a risk back then, but also you did see quite an increase in sales, whereas now it's probably a little less risky because we're aware of how it works. But the response isn't quite as immediate as it used to be. So it has definitely evolved. I mean, for us, influencers are. We've been with some of the influencers for eight plus years. So for me, our influencers and our ambassadors are like family. They're a part of our community and we don't just work with them as a once off. We build that relationship and build that trust with their community as well. But also it's just finding those that are genuinely in love with your product and genuinely use your product and yet want to share that with their community because they are passionate about it as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense in terms of tying that back to sales. There's so many more mechanisms now for doing that. Everything from being able to tag in Instagram posts and co create posts together all the way through to affiliate links, to even influencers having their own storefronts with your products in it. How have you found any tips around how best to integrate products into an influencer's world to be able to track those results?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, I mean, definitely there's a range of things and I suppose it depends on what you're wanting to achieve. You know, when you're working with an ambassador, is it just branding, is it sales, is it link clicks, is it people to the website? I think understanding what you want to achieve from that particular ambassador first, so then you're not disappointed by the results. Because if you're onboarding someone assuming they're going to get you sales, but generally they're someone that's going to give you the branding, then I mean, I suppose your budget slightly different there. Not only that, we think about the whole ecosystem. So for me, I don't let any loose ends with the team. They know if we're going to do a collaboration with an ambassador, we make sure we follow through with we have some sort of campaign for them. If they're talking about a particular product, we're talking about a particular product and we really make sure that we really flow that whole ecosystem. And I think trialing too. You know, years ago we used to say every ambassador needed to tag lust in their story and although they need to make sure it's an ad these days and everything tagging in every frame actually drops story views by half. We found in a lot of cases, I know personally, if I share lust content to mine, my stories drop. So it's all about learning and understanding and getting that feedback from not only the ambassador, but doing your own research and just trialing things. And as I said, getting back to what are you really trying to achieve from that particular person? Because not everyone's going to generate you sales and you can't look at everyone to generate you sales.
Nathan Bush: That's a brilliant example around adding the brand into all stories, reducing views. That makes a lot of sense in hindsight. But I suppose as a brand owner you would always like, I want my brand in there, I want to be tagged in everything. So that's a really great example. Has there been anything else that surprised you or that you've experimented with that's gotten you great results?
[Voiceover]: So there's a few things. I suppose once you understand what you're working with an influencer for, then you can build out the brief, essentially. So for us, if we're not tagging the brand in every frame, we'll make sure that they're showing the brand within the first three seconds or they're mentioning the word lust minerals in the first three seconds. I think what works really well for us is when we've created bundles for our ambassadors as well. So if they love a certain product, we create bundles, whatever they love, and. Or we can create collections on the website and make sure that they link through to those as well. That always works really well for us. And just as I said, making sure what we're posting and what they're posting, you're getting those touch points because, you know, if an influencer or a community member is seeing a product for the very first time, they need to see it seven times. We really want to make sure that we get that ecosystem and they see it here, they see it there. You know, we might even look for friends of the particular ambassador if their budget's a little bit higher, to make sure that we're touching as many people as we possibly can and they're seeing it that seven plus times to then want to visit the website and explore us further.
Nathan Bush: Is seven plus times a rule that you try and stick to?
[Voiceover]: You know, we've been dabbling with 4 plus, with 13 plus. With 7 plus, I feel like 7 is like a happy number because the first couple of months of working with an ambassador, you don't see a lot. It's around month three, which is generally around five to seven touch points, that we start to see the momentum. So we've developed seven.
Nathan Bush: I love it. I love that you've got a metric there that you're aiming for, how across the detail, and you mentioned brand before. Do you review content? Do you give really strict guidelines in how you want lust minerals represented, especially when you are entering a commercial relationship with an influencer?
[Voiceover]: Yes and no. I mean, this is a touchy subject, in my opinion, purely because you can give an ambassador a detailed brief and you can say, you must say this, but then that's it. It's not organic, it's not natural to them. And do their audience actually resonate with that type of content? In my opinion, nine times out of 10, no. So if you're working with an ambassador, you need to trust that they understand their community better than you do. So for us, yes, we have do's and don'ts essentially speak about the brand show the pink tube. Can you mention maybe some hooks about why you love lust here's? Some examples, but we'll never say, you must say this word for word. It just doesn't work. We have tried it, we've tried to put it build a campaign. A couple of years ago we wanted everyone to say the same thing, but it was a bit of a flop because as I said, it wasn't genuine to their community. And we've got some ambassadors, that funny, silly content grabs the attention, whereas others are more like, oh my gosh, like I love this. And others is just literally showing the pink packaging everywhere, applying their makeup, talking about something completely unrelated. And that'll get more link clicks and sales than someone sitting there trying to sell you the product. So I think the biggest thing is just understanding the ambassador, like I said in the community. And we do, we have, we're quite sophisticated in the way that we track things. We have link clicks, we have like a URL tracker, a code tracker. We put all of this into a spreadsheet and understand, you know, the cost of the ambassador versus the links clicks. We know how many cents a link click costs us, how many dollars and cents a sale cost us. And as I said, we don't look at one metric. We can't just look at how many sales this ambassador created and yes, they're successful. It's like, well, how many people did they get to the website? How many people came to our Instagram page, how many people purchased? So we do look at all metrics as well.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: Now you've got some really interesting things
Nathan Bush: when you do get to the website. So there's a lot on the website. It's not a standard Shopify template page by any means. I was really interested in some of the quizzes and the interactive elements that you've got in there that you really drive people to. I'll let you explain what they are, but can you tell us around what role they play in that customer life cycle where you really want people to get involved in, you know, testing skin colors and getting recommendations on product?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it comes back to each consumer has a different buying cycle and is a different personality. And we've tried to really lean into each of those types of people. So we have live chat. It's one of our real in house people, no AI. We're on from 7am till 10pm so you can instantly reach out for a color match. We've got in person, one on one color matchings or via Zoom. We've also got a form you can fill in. So if you want a detailed consultation, you can fill in a form, put a little bit more detail and we email you back within 12 to 24 hours. And that's just so it's on email. Some people don't like to talk face to face, some people like an email. So we kind of cater for all of that and then we have the quizzes. So that's for people who are you just want to do a quick quiz like yep, I'm dry skin. Yep I'm. This, this is my concern, this is what I want to achieve. And then at the end it will list out some products that are suited to them as well. Every we have a complete custom website. So nothing's. Nothing's a template and we find this works really well for us because you know most shopping, believe it or not our busiest time in our store is 9pm and later. So for us it's really important that yes we try and stay until 10pm but then those who are you know, a lot of us breastfeeding or mums, you know, up late, we have a lot of different options that are tailor made for them and their needs as well.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: And I love those different options all
Nathan Bush: the way from live chat to email consultations, zoom to self service quizzes. Are you able to share any insights on the end conversion differences between those ways of interacting?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, I mean the highest conversion will always be live chat because once people get through the first message they're like oh you're a real person and I feel like you're really talking to someone then in person actually is definitely the highest converting. I think like 80%, 80% convert in in person zoom. And then live chat would be the next and then you do. We do find the form works quite well but it's a lot slower and what we find with that is a lot of the time it's a spontaneous purchase so they want to be served there and then and they want to make the decision if they've thought about it too long sometimes it can be oh do I really need this? So you almost need to resell again or re remind them why they are coming to you for that product. So we do find obviously the one on ones in person is obviously the higher converting and then the other ones are there just to, to sort of support them as part of their journey.
Nathan Bush: And do you have different email flows set up post all these interactions?
[Voiceover]: Yes, we absolutely do live chat. Not necessarily, that's a little bit more manual but the girls do follow up closed tickets and things like that. But we do have flows in place so if you've been in a in person color match, Jess personally follows you up and then there's a flow to follow that up. And same with our forms as well. We once we've sent you an email back, there is a flow to if they haven't purchased and hasn't come back to remind them and see if we can help them with anything else.
Nathan Bush: Amazing custom website. That's a big undertaking, big overhead. How do you manage that?
[Voiceover]: To be honest, it was all of the startup. I mean, we manage it in house now. Any little updates? We've got all of the templates there, all of the coding being done. So if we wanted to create a landing page, we've got all the templates made and saved that we can do all of that in house. We did have our rebrand in 2021. That was a complete new custom website from the ground up. And then last September, early September, last September, we did a refresh and we just brought in a new font and just sort of refreshed things and updated things, updated product pages and made them a little bit more user friendly because, you know, as we grow and then yeah, day to day, we just manage that in house. All the hard work's been done so far.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, great. You mentioned the 2021 rebrand and when we're talking about influencers, I thought it was really interesting that you talking a lot around, you know, show the pink tube, show the pink packaging, obviously that's really central to what you're doing and getting recognition and awareness. Can you talk us through that rebranding process? Where did you come from, where did you go and what were the kind of activities that you did to make sure you were confident that the new Lust Minerals brand was the brand that you wanted to be representing you going forward?
[Voiceover]: For us, when we started, I obviously just got packaging that I could get in low quantities and I got my name stamped on it here in Australia. So I did, I made do with what I could in the time. All I spent my time and money and energy on was the product on the inside and the outside. I just made do as best I could. And not only that, we went with silver because I was in clinic and silver, white, black was very clinical colors. So that's where that came from. I think in 2019 was when the idea came about. We rebranded in 2021, but 2019 was when I was like, you know what? We are an incredible product on the inside. We've made do with the packaging on the outside. But everything being an E commerce online Business is visual. And not only that, I love nice things. I wanted our community to have their products on their vanity and be proud of how they look. You know, be excited to have the packaging that looks nice, feels nice, and the product on the inside as well. So it was really important to me that I delivered that whole package. So I really started to work on that. I worked with an incredible. I worked with a few people, actually. The very first one took my ideas and came up with a bit of a concept. I forget what it's called exactly, but imagine like the. The bones of it and all the ideas came together. And then I took that to a graphic designer who has a lot of experience in rebrands and branding. And then what she's done is crafted all these ideas and come up with the colors and the pantones and the logo and everything like that. And we just worked back and forth for about 3, 6 plus months to get it exactly how we wanted it to be. And then from there, I just designed all of the packaging and I wanted to make sure the packaging was unique. You know, like our pro finish has a little sponge on the end, which I've never seen before. But we also offer a pump as an alternative so that the consumer can choose. Our loose powders have a little puff in them. So we really tried to think the packaging through. I designed that all myself and I tried to make it sophisticated and clean and minimal. And also, yeah, the pink and the blue for skin care, because men and women love our skin care and the pink for makeup and really just made it, you know, stand out and be different and have its own identity. That rebrand, not only was it a good two year project, but it cost 300, just over $300,000 just to do a full rebrand. And that was from concept to packaging, obviously, we had to. I had to get the whole range of packaging, all boxes, because I wanted the minimalist look. We've actually only got the name of the product in our logo on the packaging. So then we needed the boxes, which I got in linen stock of the most beautiful, luxurious cardboard you can ever get. So I really thought the whole thing through and I really just wanted to give our consumers that dopamine hit and that reward for buying online because, you know, it is competitive in this space for. In the beauty at least to go in and get that dopamine hit and that excitement in store. So we really wanted to create that online and as I said, for them to be proud of the products that they had on their vanity.
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Nathan Bush: With such a significant rebrand, did you have to do any campaign to almost like reintroduce the brand to your customers so they knew what to look out for?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. We did a full rebrand. We revealed it over time. We revealed the website site. We had a big ambassador event down at the Hellenica the Callal in Brisbane and we had like the logo covered and we had everyone calm and we gave them like hints of what it would look like and we revealed it live with our whole community. It went live online at the same time it went with the ambassadors and we also did a video which was from the heart of my whole journey. I'd pre filmed this of course, but it was like the journey of my life and my dad and how, you know, the range came about and the real story behind it so that when we rebranded and we could show people it wasn't just a rebrand. Here it is. It was actually a journey and, and we pulled all that together and told people the story and I think it had that emotional connection as well and it was a real hit.
Nathan Bush: That's awesome. You're not already thinking about a new rebrand, are you?
[Voiceover]: I think that's what was my refresh last year, the refresh I was craving last year and just like reboost everything but yeah, every time packaging comes up to be, you know, remade, I'm always looking at how I can slightly improve it and. But I think the pink and blue will be around for a while.
Nathan Bush: Love it. Now given in your space, I could imagine you've got a younger demographic.
Nathan Bush: Is that fair?
[Voiceover]: Our demographic is 27 to 35, closely followed 35 to 45, very, very close, within 4% but very social, very online, very social. Very online. Yes. Yeah.
Nathan Bush: With that world changing dramatically, obviously moving more towards short form video. What kind of channels are exciting you at the moment from a marketing perspective and being able to tell the lust mineral story.
[Voiceover]: You know what, I am actually loving email marketing right now. Really. We've brought it back in house and really getting sophisticated with the flows and the customer journey and what they need to hear in that education and the free content that is so fun for me. I really, really love that. And it's funny, it's the content you don't think is going to do that. Well, that's not at all sales related. That does better than campaign related content. So I'm loving that at the moment. But from a socials perspective, Instagram is definitely our shop front. That is where we are very social and very, you know, that is where our stomping ground is. But we're just starting to learn how lust needs to show up on TikTok and what of our community want to see there. I mean, obviously we've been testing it for a few years, but I really feel like now's the time where we can have some fun with it and I think there's a bit of a niche for that education, curiosity, awareness in the makeup space and the skincare space that we can really dive into over there. So that's kind of a bit of fun for us, a bit of learning. And the email marketing is probably also the same, but it's almost like a hidden gem that there's so much potential that you just need to spend the time doing it.
Nathan Bush: On the email side, I find that fascinating. Are you spending most of your time on automations rather than campaigns in like honing what the best automations are? Or are you still spending a lot of your time sending out campaigns on a regular basis?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, we do a lot of campaigns. So generally from the marketing team, most of it is campaign led, but then there are a few of us that behind the scenes are constantly redoing our flows and we redid our flows. We redid them and we did the rebrand. We obviously redid them again last year. Just a refresher in the new branding. But even looking back since September last year, it's a cringe. I'm like, wow, some of these emails are so cold. Like where is the love? So it's been fun. I feel like it's one of Those things every 12 months you can get back in there and just be like, hold on a minute, what are we trying to do here? What are we trying to give what value are we adding? And that's the funds. That's more like a side hustle, side project that we're doing, sort of chipping away because we have a lot. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: And you mentioned that there was some
Nathan Bush: content in emails that you were like, oh, I don't think this will work. But it actually is some of your best performance. Can you give us any little hints or insights around what kind of content that was?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, these are free downloads. So we've created the last beauty hub. We have our beauty school, but we also have our beauty hub, and that's where every couple of weeks we added free downloads, which is just resources that we want to educate our community on. And so we've been doing emails, mainly only monthly. It's like a mini newsletter, but it'll be a little bit of an education discovery piece. And then we'll have free downloads with just information for them. You know, why is my makeup separating? Here's how to fix it, or how to. Why is my skin feeling this way? Or how do I achieve this? And that content does really well and I think it just shows how much value there is in giving back without any intention.
Nathan Bush: You mentioned there, the beauty school.
Nathan Bush: How does this all tie together?
Nathan Bush: Because it feels like a long game.
[Voiceover]: It really is. You know, my biggest thing is education. I am. I love talking about it. I love educating. Someone says they're sick, I might go and get these millions of vitamins. This is what you need to do. If someone says this is happening, I'm like, yep, this is what you need to do. I love that side of things. And that's what I was craving. There's only so much I can, you know, get across through social. So that's why we developed the beauty school. It's like six modules and it's really integrating gut health to skin to make up to skin care and sort of allowing you to understand the whole, whole body, whole process.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I love it.
Nathan Bush: And from your journey all the way
Nathan Bush: from when you were in the beauty salon through to trying to find ways to help your dad to manufacturing locally, it feels like you've tread your own path and that you haven't necessarily tried to emulate anyone or copy anyone, to stay motivated and to stay ahead of the game. Who do you look up to in business? Like, where do you get your inspiration from?
[Voiceover]: Honestly, two things to this, how I stay motivated. I look at my daily p L. Believe it or not, that's scary thing to look at sometimes. Honestly, I don't take no for an answer. I never have. I'm not someone to ever fail. You'll never want me to fail. And if I fail, I'll pivot and move on. So giving up, not succeeding, not working, isn't even on my agenda, in my vocabulary. But looking up to people. To be honest, for a while there, I did too much of this. And what happened? I derailed, I turned out of my lane, and I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. So now I'm back into my lane. I'm looking forward, I'm focusing. Focusing on me. If you go within, honestly, you know the answers. If you listen to your community and you learn what they really want, no one else needs to tell you. No one else needs to show you what to do. You know what to do. Obviously, there's lots of brands that aren't I'm inspired by, but they don't fulfill my values 100%. So you might take a little bit of campaign inspiration or a little bit of inspiration, but I think the biggest thing is listening and learning to your community because they tell you all your answers.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: And any tips to any other founders or entrepreneurs out there who do have
Nathan Bush: a really strong direction and a really
Nathan Bush: strong inner voice, but are being hit by a thousand opinions, a thousand stakeholders, a thousand other people who don't maybe share the same vision on how to stay the course in what you want and what makes you happy.
[Voiceover]: I think it comes back to values. Like, it took me a few, like, a little while, few years to actually understand that I needed a vision, mission, and values for a brand. And once we really honed in on those in sort of 2018, 2019, and we sort of looked over them as through the rebrand and got really clear on those. I think you're the only one that knows most of those answers. And I don't take advice to someone who hasn't walked in my shoes or in the shoes of a, you know, at my level, because there's a lot of opinions out there. We've worked with different people, different consultants, and while they'll have a lot of valid opinion and a lot of support, if they haven't run a business to your level, you know, you're shooting yourself in the foot. So I think for me, I don't. I continue to learn. I'm currently studying my advanced cosmetic science degree in the background as well. Like, I'm just willing to continuously learn and learn. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, just like, continually to learn is the biggest thing. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. All right.
Nathan Bush: I expect that there is lots of
Nathan Bush: answers to this question, but what is next for yourself and the team at Lust Minerals? We obviously talked about internationals. In the back of your mind that you are continually learning, continually developing. What's the next 12 months hold, do you think?
[Voiceover]: Honestly, I think it's just getting crystal clear on where we want to go. Where do we scale into international? Do we scale into, you know, a retailer or are we scaling into more ads? And, you know, our organic, international and retail is definitely on my agenda. Lust has its own identity though, so I don't. I'm very picky with where it goes. So it's definitely in the stages of just working out where we want to scale into. But also I'm continually reformulating our products to be what I believe is, you know, really, really good. So for us, it's just really reformulating those products, getting clear on that. And we've got a goal to educate and have a million people sign up to our beauty school. So I think over the next 12 months that's. And we're doing it for a dollar at the moment because obviously it's. We just want everyone to learn. So that's a bit of a goal for us as well. Just really make a difference in the community.
Nathan Bush: That's amazing. That's so cool. That's a huge goal.
[Voiceover]: I love it.
Nathan Bush: It's refreshing hearing you talk about considered growth because with your product being Australian made, chemical free vegan certified local Sunshine coast team and operations, I could imagine that there would have been times where you're like, actually there are ways to make this much more profitable and to grow much more quickly. We cut some corners and maybe go against our values. So it's really refreshing to hear that, you know, you keep those principles at core and that you've just got to find the avenues that open themselves up of others who share those values with you rather than chase people who may not be totally aligned.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was a non negotiable for me, you know, to take it anywhere else.
Nathan Bush: Stacy, can you share with us how
Nathan Bush: people can get in touch, whether it's
Nathan Bush: to visit the Lust Minerals site to maybe take one of the quizzes or test the skin color or maybe sign up to beauty school. What's the best way to get in touch and learn more?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. So we're Lust Double Underscore Minerals for Instagram and if you want to jump online and have a look at our beauty school or our retreat or our products or anything that we're doing this year where www.lustminerals.com or if you want to follow me personally, I am at Stace S T A C E Holland H O double L A N D S on Instagram and I am a bit of a mixed bag over there. So if that interests you, I think
Nathan Bush: you've just intrigued people. People like what this mixed bag is now. Stacy, thank you so much for joining
Nathan Bush: us on Add to Cart.
[Voiceover]: Thank you so much for having me.
Nathan Bush: I really enjoyed meeting Stacy. At first I was a little concerned that we were doing the podcast from her car, but as she was explaining the thriving in chaos, it all kind of made made sense to me. And for her, doing a podcast in a car wasn't a big deal. That was just part of the job
Nathan Bush: that was part of the day.
Nathan Bush: Adapting to the circumstances around her being where she needed to be really amplified
Nathan Bush: her philosophy to business.
Nathan Bush: Now as promised we have an offer of $20 off@lustminerals.com so if you want your dopamine hit and receive some beautifully packaged, check out that pink packaging clean products. Use the code Add to cart all one word minimum spend of $50 for $20 off@lustminerals.com all right, here is three lessons that I will take away from this episode. Number 1 influencer marketing frequency we don't often talk about frequency. When we talk about influencer marketing, we talk about reach. But I love that Stacy was focused on frequency. Now Stacy relies on ambassadors and influencers as a huge part of Lust Minerals growth. It's always been her strategy, but the way that she's engaged with influencers has changed a lot over time with frequency and measurement key throughout. Rather than aiming to get a sales spike off a single post, Stacy and the team aim to build a plan that has seven exposures of the product or message and they support influencers with their own own marketing or campaigns to power that conversion rather than aiming for influencers to support their campaigns. I love that strategy. Number two Variety of touch points as we heard from Stacy, they've put a lot of effort in customizing their Shopify website, and they have a variety of ways that customers can interact with the brand. This could be a straightforward E Commerce purchase, could be a live chat, beauty quiz, video consultation, or even an email consultation. Now when managing all of these channels, Stacy said the best conversion comes from real time channels such as live chat because the customer is closer to making a decision. However, those non real time channels such as the email consultations are still convertible, but you need to rely more on having strong email flows south. Those don't skip out on that. And number three, thriving in chaos. I know I've mentioned it before, but I love that Stacy talks about thriving, not surviving in the chaos. Whether it's a tough market like today or a booming market, I think there's always going to be an element of chaos in e commerce. That's just what we're working with most founders are or over time, become equipped for a bit of chaos. And I love Stacey's tip to make sure that you interview and onboard the right personalities who can thrive in your type of chaos. Because founders, entrepreneurs, leaders, they may love chaos, but we've also got to make sure our team are on board as well. Before you go, we'd love to invite you to join our free e commerce learning platform Add to Cart Campus, meet other professionals and learn from e commerce experts to take your business and your e commerce career to the next level. Register to join campus@addtocart.com now. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague. Or even better, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple.
Nathan Bush: It really makes a difference.
