Catie O’Neill and Olivia Burrows launched My Glow 2 in November 2019 with their flagship product, a Turkish hammam-inspired silk exfoliating glove. It has since gained an almost cult-like following, thanks in large part to the pair’s social media-focused marketing approach, in particular through TikTok. Here, they talk about finding a gap in the market and how viral videos and relatable authenticity led to their small business success.
The Beginnings of a Beauty Brand
Catie: The idea was sparked after a trip to Turkey back in 2019, where, at a hammam, I experienced an exfoliating glove made from pure silk. This tool has been a staple in Turkey in women’s routines for centuries, and the hammam is one of the oldest bathing rituals in the world. I was amazed at how the product worked – I’d never experienced exfoliation like it before. I bought one home to give to Liv.
Olivia: I had [dry skin condition] keratosis pilaris on my chest and on the back of my arms. Catie was raving about this glove and, of course, I was a little bit sceptical but over a four-week period the texture of my skin transformed, and the pigmentation and all the little bumps had faded. It was unbelievable. We were trying to get all of our friends to use it and to order more, and that’s when we realised you couldn’t purchase this product in Australia.
Catie: It was a lightbulb moment; there was obviously a gap in the market. We looked at one another and said, ‘Why don't we do it?’.
Spend Time Doing Research and Development for Small Business Success
Olivia: It was about a six-month process from the idea to launch. We spent the first 48 hours not sleeping, just brainstorming everything and figuring out the basics: the website, the URL and the name were all done in that 48 hours. But from there, it was about a six-month process to launch.
Catie: A lot of research went into the actual fabrics. There are a lot of mitts out there and we did look at other countries where we could get it made, but it’s specifically woven in Turkey in a way that they have done for centuries and it has to be done that way to ensure it works effectively. Our glove still comes from Turkey.
New Social Platforms Suit New Businesses, Especially When Budgets Are Tight
Catie: We recognised from a really early stage that, as a small business, marketing budgets are small. With Facebook and Instagram, you’ve got to spend thousands of dollars to reach your consumer. You can post organically, but it will reach 10% of people who are actually following you. We saw that TikTok was essentially a new platform that had the ability to take anyone to a viral stage. Anyone can use the platform and potentially reach millions of people. We jumped on it straightaway.
Olivia: It’s a lot of fun when you see the conversion from video to views to sales. Just by looking at the sales you can see that a video has gone viral.
Viral Videos Are Amazing – If They Have the Right Audience
Catie: Our strategy has changed quite a lot from the early days. There was a lot of trial and error. We spent hours trying to figure out the algorithm. With our first Tiktok account, @myglow2, we were focused on pushing out product-based content. One video went viral and reached over 10 million people. The lead-on effect was thousands of emails, DMs, messages asking, ‘How can I buy one?’. Unfortunately, the country that it went viral in was India and due to COVID, we couldn’t sell there. After that, every post that we pushed out was only going to India because the algorithm said our content was popular there. That really opened our eyes. We had to step back and think about what else, aside from our product, we could start pushing.
Watch and Learn From Other Businesses
Olivia: We loved watching other businesses on the platform and seeing what they were doing, how they were setting things up, their branding, their packing. Because we loved it, we realised there had to be an audience out there for it.
Catie: We decided to give people a little bit more of an insight into our brand and show the behind-the-scenes of My Glow 2 and that’s when @behindtheglow2 was born.
Like any Marketing, Social Media Requires Strategy
Olivia: The first video to go viral on that account was quite a strategic move. We put aside five or six hours to film the TikTok. It’s just a 40-50 second clip of us showing the packing process of one of our gloves, from start to finish, using ASMR [autonomous sensory meridian response] and other trending sounds and effects. It blew up and that’s when we thought, ‘we are onto something here’. It was the right market, the right countries that we could sell to, the right age-group demographic, and we continued down that track.
Catie: It was a calculated move and decision. There was always the chance that it was going to go viral in another country but it came down to the hashtags, music and the type of video we filmed: how we edited it, the voice over. It was relatable and interesting for our demographic.
SEE ALSO: How One Small Business Grew During COVID-19 Lockdown
Adaptability and Agility Are Hugely Important
Catie: We started with a business plan, as all companies do, but that was in November 2019. I don’t think anyone saw what was coming in 2020. So while we still do have strategies and goals to grow the business, in this world, it’s more about how agile we can be, and how quickly we can adapt. Because, yes, a business plan is amazing, but it is very difficult to stick to [pre-COVID] timeframes in these times.
When Things Don’t Go to Plan, Try Something New
Olivia: [During COVID], we dealt with [the issue] of being sold out. We are still dealing with the effect of that. The first time we saw it as an opportunity to develop our database, to collect emails and expand our email marketing. The second time we sold out we put in a strategy, which was for pre-order. We weren’t sure how it was going to go and how customers would take it but we were surprised at how effective it was, and how many people were actually happy to pre-order.
Communication Is Essential
Catie: Our social media strategy has kept our communication open with our customers. We could tell them: ‘We are really sorry but we’re sold out; we’re working our hardest to get new stock in’. The community really understood that and stood by us because we were open and transparent.
SEE ALSO: 10 Ways Your Business Can Smash Social Media
Bring in Experts Where You Need Them
Catie: We tried to do PR in-house and just weren’t getting anywhere. We found an agency that had had success with other companies and publications. Having PR strengthens credibility and we’ve had articles written about us. The Australian Financial Review picked up a story on us which is notable for a company of our size. We heavily invested in PR, and it has probably been one of the greatest decisions. Also for operations and logistics, it is a really big department and there are companies out there that are better suited and better fitted for that [than us]. One of the hardest things, as a business owner, is handing over to someone. While we have a basic understanding of every facet, we have tried to build and bring in people who are clever in those areas.
Our Biggest Piece of Advice for SMEs: Use TikTok
Catie: We see this all the time; small businesses say, ‘I feel like I’ve hit a wall, I’m not making sales’. The one piece of advice from us is to get on TikTok. We can’t express that enough. It is certainly daunting but it isn’t as daunting as possibly closing your business. People say the target demographics aren’t there, but they are 100% there. You just have to put out the content that relates to them.
Be Authentic
Olivia: Businesses worry that by showing their struggles, the back end and behind the scenes, and by not having a glamorous office, that people are going to be turned off. In fact, it makes people relate to you and the business. They want to purchase your products because they see your humble beginnings, where you have come from, where it is going. They see you as people and see how you are developing and growing a community. We are not people that necessarily like putting ourselves on social media as much as we do, but people love seeing us at 1am with a little printer, printing labels. They want to see that stuff. It doesn’t need to be glamorous.
