🪐 Small biz tax refunds, hire the TikTok face of your biz, wholesale tips

Hey, this is Female Founder World, where you find out how female founders start and scale their companies.

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Today we're covering:

• 📓 Resource roundup

• 💰 Founder finance diary: Hitting $1mil in 2 years

• 💡 17 SMS marketing content ideas

• 👀 Freelancer shoutout: Ruby Hibiscus Water's illustrator and graphic designer

• 🗓️ Event recap: LitRituals founder Christina Ellis' tips for growing your wholesale biz through independent retailers

• 🎧 Latest podcast episodes: Nisha Dua (BBG Ventures), Mo's Crib, Swoon

📓 Resource roundup

• Hire the TikTok face of your business! 🔗 Tell me more

• Obsessed is the book fashion designer Tanya Taylor recommends to learn how to create a brand that people love and your team believes in. 🔗 Tell me more

• Do small businesses get tax refunds? Learn the basic influencing factors on tax refunds for small businesses. 🔗 Tell me more

• Gen Z is considered the hardest generation to please, according to a brand survey by Qualtrics. 🔗 Tell me more

• A new report shows that female founders broke barriers across IPOs, growth rounds and acquisitions in 2021. 🔗 Tell me more

💰 Founder finance diary: Let the ca$h flow

Business category: Home goods

Location: Australia

Years in business: 2

Revenue in year 1: $450,000 (approx US$335,000)

Revenue in year 2: AU$1,000,000 (approx US$745,000)

Total social media followers: 21,000

Revenue split: 50% wholesale (small, independent stores—no large retail stockists), 50% ecommerce

Biggest expense: Wages

Funding source: Entirely bootstrapped

Biggest marketing channel: Instagram 

How long it took to the founder to take a salary: One year

Founder's annual salary now: AU$70,000

💡 17 SMS marketing content ideas

By Sam Safer Valentine, Cofounder and COO, Norby

SMS marketing is the move if you want to increase your click-through rate, boost sales, and build relationships with your customers. We know that 98% of text messages are read (compared to 22-23% of emails) and there's a >50% clickthrough rate with SMS.

Here are three strategic tips and 17 content ideas to fuel your SMS strategy.

Tip #1: Add value, not discounts

SMS is most effective when used selectively and intentionally. Don't blow up your customer's phones with discounts and sales, instead consider the value you can add to your customers’ lives through this very direct short-form communication. 

Content ideas to add value via SMS

• Styling tips

• Links to quick how-to videos or blogs

• Motivational messages

• Recipes

• Interesting articles 

• Podcast episode recaps

‍Tip #2: Foster a community

If you’re building an SMS community, think about the types of messages you would want to receive: the voice, the tone, and how you want to feel after reading the message. Shape the content you share to speak directly to your unique community so they feel seen, which helps create an even deeper connection to your brand. Take your audience on a journey with you, ask questions, and ask for their feedback. Then follow up with them on how you have taken that info and acted upon it. 

Content ideas to build community via SMS

• Behind the scenes

• A daily mantra

• Activities/happenings for the week ahead

• Curated playlists 

• Surveys or polls

• Authentic feels 

• A voice note 

Tip #3: Take an integrated approach

It’s easy to think of SMS as a standalone channel, but savvy marketers use it to complement their other marketing for a blended, omnichannel experience. We are seeing product drops pushed via email with exclusive access given to those on SMS; social channels and SMS campaigns syncing up to drive conversion, and a powerful combination of paid marketing, email, and SMS.

Content ideas to take an integrated approach to SMS:

• Product drops and launches

• Calls to action like signing up for an event

• Launches of new programs or courses

• Video content that performs well on social media like a Reel or TikTok

Norby is the modern creator's hero, HQ, and haven. Norby helps creators and brands thrive with our all-in-one marketing platform. We combine essential marketing and CRM tools, eliminating the need for users to bounce from platform to platform to connect with their audience. Try Norby's marketing tools for free here. 

👀 Freelancer shoutout: Ruby Hibiscus Water's illustrator and graphic designer

Small and new businesses are built on an ecosystem of freelancers and consultants, and we want to let you know who's out there doing a great job for other consumer brands right now. 

Ruby Hibiscus Water was the subject of our recent newsletter about brandverses and the death of pastel aesthetics, and we needed to share the creatives behind the biz. And Talmor does the majority of their design work, Sharmila Banerjee is behind the fun illustrations and Seriously Fun Studio does Ruby's 3D work.

🗓️ Event recap: LitRituals founder Christina Ellis' tips for growing your wholesale biz through independent retailers

Christina Ellis bootstrapped her candle business, LitRituals, from $60,000 in the first year of business to $740,000 in revenue the second year by targeting small, independent retail stockists. This week she hosted a Female Founder Office Hours to answer your questions and tell you how she's scaled her wholesale business. Here are the top takeaways from the conversation: 

• Join Abound, Faire and Bulletin.

• Utilise the referral programs on these platforms to entice new wholesale accounts.

• Reach out to the teams at Abound and Bulletin and find ways to get the most out of the platform through social media features and other highlights.

• Create social media and email content about the referral program. Link the social media posts to a Google Form to help moderate inbound requests.

Join our female founder community, Founderverse, to join the next founder office hours.

🎧 Latest podcast episodes: Nisha Dua (BBG Ventures), Mo's Crib, Swoon

Catch up on the conversations you missed.

• Ep 57. What Makes a Good Founder? With Nisha Dua, BBG Ventures

• Ep 56. Ethically Scaling an Artisan Supply Chain with Mo’s Crib

• Ep 55. How Swoon Expanded into 260 Target Stores