🤸‍♀️ SET Active's smartest marketing move, RSVP for Launch Lab, TikTok x Shopify news

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👇 Today we're covering

• 🎟 You’re invited to Launch Lab

• 📓 Resource roundup

• 🗞️ Skim the headlines

• 🤸‍♀️ Customer-generated marketing lessons from SET Active and Gorgie

• 💻 URL event: Business coaching with Elavi founder, Michelle Razavi

We’re one day away from the start of Female Founder World’s free six-part LAUNCH LAB 🚀 workshop series for founders and consumer brand marketers, presented by TikTok. This series covers the scrappy new marketing tactics that are driving sales and success in consumer brands right now—the old DTC playbook is dead, bestie. We’re doing this instead.

Workshop one kicks off TOMORROW—Tuesday, 12 September at 6pm ET. Tune in live to learn how to build your affiliate PR engine with Emma Moon, the expert scaling affiliate PR strategies for brands like Kinfield, Golde, Great Jones, and Jones Road.

Here’s what we’re covering in tomorrow’s first Launch Lab workshop. 👇

You know the media industry is going through a huge shift, but are you one of the brands using this transformation to your advantage? Emma Moon is at the forefront of the movement and knows how brands are really getting incredible press coverage in 2023 and beyond. She will teach you:

• What is affiliate PR?

• Old school affiliate marketing vs the future

• What the new media landscape means for brands

• Affiliate pitch checklist

• Who to pitch at media companies

• Affiliate PR pitch email template

• Affiliate PR <> traditional PR

• How SEO impacts affiliate PR

• Top affiliate networks and how to use them

• How to evaluate a success affiliate PR campaign

After workshop one tomorrow, we’ll be hosting video calls every Tuesday for six weeks (12 September-17 October) where you can learn straight from a curated lineup of experts and operators building the buzziest brands right now.

We kept this entire series totally free for you. 💕 But, space is limited and we will hit capacity. Tell your Business Besties.

You know what to do.👇

• Sephora’s Accelerate program is accepting applications! Brands like Range Beauty and Topicals are alumni, so if you’re a POC beauty founder don’t miss this one. 🔗 Tell me more

• This post went viral and we think you need to see it. Someone shared what exactly a “view” means on each platform, and it’s a great reminder to stop chasing vanity metrics. 🔗 Tell me more

• Aussie founders, this fellowship program has $180,000 up for grabs. 🔗 Tell me more

• Google’s new AI platform is one you’re doing to want to start looking. This post covers how it can help you with your marketing. 🔗 Tell me more

• Who actually influences shopping habits most. Family, friends, ads or influencers? Or is it FYP content on TikTok? 🔗 Tell me more

• Win a quick $1,000 for your biz with a new competition open to US and Canada-based founders. 🔗 Tell me more

• GirlsWhoVC wants to connect you to their VC network. 🔗 Tell me more

• You’ve probably heard something like “in 2023 you need to prioritize profitability over growth”. This post from a top VC breaks down what it actually means. 🔗 Tell me more

• If you’re feeling behind on Black Friday - Cyber Monday, we found a great guide on planning for this year’s season. 🔗 Tell me more

• Credo Beauty shared what’s actually selling at their stores right now. 🔗 Tell me more

MONEY: D’Amelio Brands (yes, like Charlie and Dixie D’Amelio) raised $5M from Fifth Growth Fund as they look to expand in food this fall with “Be Happy Snacks”.

E.L.F Beauty acquired skincare brand Naturium for $355M. Naturium was created in 2019 by The Center, the incubation hub behind influencer brands like fragrance biz Phlur (Chriselle Lim) and body care brand Saltair (Iskra Lawrence).

KARDASHIANS: There’s been talk that Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are buying back the majority of their beauty businesses, Skkn by Kim skincare and Kylie Cosmetics, that they sold to Coty. Coty is home to beauty brands like Burberry and Gucci, and it’s rumored that the KarJenner sisters are disappointed by their brands’ performance since joining Coty.

CELEB COLLABS: Beauty biz Starface brought on singer PinkPantheress as the face of its latest campaign. This move is a great play for Starface’s Gen-Z audience, and is being hyped across PinkPatheress’ 2M+ TikTok followers.

Wondering how to make a collab like this happen for your brand? According to Glossy, Starface’s Content Director spends a lot of time looking for new talent and has been growing this relationship via Instagram DM for years.

TIKTOK: As TikTok prioritizes its new TikTok Shop, they’re shutting down Shopify storefronts on 12 September. This may be the push TikTok Shop needs, as they’re reportedly on track to lose $500M this year.

There’s more TikTok news: they just launched a “Search Ads Toggle” which means ads will now appear alongside organic search results, kind of like what already happens on other search platforms like Google.

LAUNCHES:

• Benefit launched a limited edition makeup bag with Alix Earle.

• Hailey Beiber’s Rhode launched a peptide lip treatment with Krispy Kreme and the internet loved it.

• MOB Beauty launched a collaboration line with mega-influencer Rose Siard.

• Best known for their natural deodorant, Curie is launching in 4,300 Walmart stores across the US.

• Alo Yoga expanded into supplements, launching their own wellness shots.

• RANAVAT rolled out into all 530+ Sephora doors.

CAMPAIGNS WE LOVED:

• Glossier partnered with the WNBA for their new foundation campaign and it’s a slam dunk (lol, had to).

• Mara hosted a walk for its community with a brilliant strategy.

• Pamela Anderson for Artizia is taking over the internet.

• SET Active did the coolest campaign, making anyone feel like an influencer (we did a deep dive on this below).

• Saie Beauty launched lipgloss and the campaign shoot is beyond.

• Prenatal brand, Carenatal, did a really great job building a TikTok following for their pre-launch campaign.

Lindsey Carter built SET Active into the celeb-loved brand it is today from her apartment. But, even though the fashion girlies like Hailey Bieber and Kylie Jenner are fans, SET seems to know customers can be your best influencers.

For their recent collection drop, SET hid pieces all over Los Angeles to gift customers in a brand-led scavenger hunt. What followed was a stream of customer generated marketing, with content being shared on IG and TikTok. This winter, SET even launched a “Community Collection”, which was designed and modelled by their own community. Kira Mackenzie broke down SET’s community strategy on TikTok.

What’s the lesson here? Customer-Generated Marketing is the new influencer marketing.

It’s a strategy also working for new beverage brand Gorgie, who have built hype around their products by sending 700 ‘normal people’, mostly on TikTok, curated PR/influencer boxes. The team told Female Founder World this strategy is more impactful than influencer or celebrity gifting.

Want to learn exactly how to build your own Customer-Generated Marketing program through community gifting? Join our FREE Launch Lab workshop series to learn directly from the woman helping to drive Gorgie’s growth, Madi Lieber.

URL Event: Group Business Coaching with Elavi Founder Michelle Razavi

🕒 Wednesday, 13 September, 3-3:30pm ET

Michelle Razavi, founder of Elavi, is joining the Female Founder World community for group business coaching.

Michelle was juggling a demanding full time job and teaching fitness classes when she launched her gut-friendly superfood snack brand. She saw a huge gap in the market for on-the-go food that was actually clean and also included functional ingredients like marine collagen. After bootstrapping through their initial 2019 launch, Michelle and her cofounder raised an oversubscribed pre-seed fundraise round and have just shared they’re launching in Costco!

Pop into this Q&A to ask Michelle how she managed to scale her business while bootstrapping, how they’ve built an engaged community online and IRL, and how they landed Elavi in major retailers like Costco and Erewhon.

🎧 New podcast episode: SmartSweets Founder, Tara Bosch