How to Use Organic and Paid Social to Scale Your Business

Welcome to the Lazy CEO Podcast. I'm Jane Lu. I escaped the corporate grind at 24 and started my own business, Showpo, a global 9-figures online fashion brand. And now I want to share my learnings here with you every Tuesday. So join my conversations with the entrepreneurs behind the iconic brands we all know and love. In between interview weeks, you'll find me talking about hot topics that fascinate me in the world of business and personal development, alternating with Help My Small Business episodes where I deep dive into a small business every month to help them grow. And why the lazy CEO, you ask? Well, give a lazy person a problem, they'll find the simplest way to solve it. Hey, Podifam, welcome back to Help My Small Business. Today I'm joined by Jeremy Cabral, co-founder of Finder and a seasoned entrepreneur who scaled a bootstrap startup into a global brand trusted by millions. Today we're reviewing Stacy Jane the Label, a luxury fragrance brand for homes and businesses. Now, before we get into it, pull out your phone or laptop, look up Stacy Jane the Label's website and on socials so you can play along with us at home. By the end of this episode, you'll learn how to choose between organic growth and ads to get the best results, strategies to increase exposure on social media and improve SEO, and also e-comm and conversion rate optimization best practices. All right, let's get into it.

Help!

I need business advice.

Let's get down to business.

Let's get down to business, shall we? Well, I need your advice on official business now.

Hi, I'm Stacy, founder of Stacy Jane, the label, an Australian home fragrance brand known for our 24/7 Lux Plug-In Diffuser. I launched in April of 2025 with spending over a year going through the manufacturing process with one setback after another. I create nostalgia-driven fragrance collections, including luxury-inspired dupes of well-known scents. We are pet safe, free from hormone disruptors like phthalates, and no parabens or PEGs. Forget candles with limited burn time. Our diffuser gives you luxury fragrances 24/7. I've invested well over $25,000 into creating and manufacturing my ranges. I'm building this while working full-time, so that is one of my biggest challenges. I struggle between choosing organic growth versus paid ads. Increasing exposure on socials and SEO and finding the funds to scale marketing and launch new collections for my products. Also, while trying to inform my audience that we aren't like supermarket plugins.

Okay. So Stacy wants to know how to choose between organic versus organic social versus ads. Let's tackle that question first. First of all, Stacy, love the idea. Um, love that it's something quite unique in the market. Um, just before we tackle your big question of choosing organic versus ads, I just want to say a few things about the website. Basically, she's still got content and Christmas imagery. It's currently at the top of VM. So guys, I think everyone needs to just audit, um, what their website looks like. It's even ShowPro. We got back and we still had like other websites, like when, when your last shipping is for Christmas and New Year's. I'm like, dude, guys, we're 15 years old. We're still making mistakes. So Stacy, update the website, remove any Christmas mentions. Sorry, I need to mention. Right now it's January, so you guys are listening to this in March, so it is January. We're not that bad. Neither is Stacy. So anyway, another thing is, would be to elevate the product photography. Like, so I think look at how you can elevate your product. And then also she currently has zero reviews on any of the products. So either get reviews, which you should just get reviews, or just remove the feature altogether. No reviews, like no reviews is better than reviews saying zero reviews. Also, back, last point on the website and e-com, and I think a lot of small businesses have this gift card feature because I think maybe you think it makes your website look more full, but I think maybe when you're not at a stage when people are buying gift cards, it clutters the website and confuses your customers.

Yeah, I saw most of those things. Yeah, I think, um, the website definitely In my view, it's like, this is the hack. Find someone spending money on ads for your space. So whatever keyword you want to rank for on Google or, you know, whatever your competitor runs Facebook ads for, you know, Instagram ads, look at the way that they're constructing their websites. If they're sending traffic to their website and they're paying for it, whatever they're doing on their website, probably works.

They optimized it for you already.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it removes the guessing, like just go straight to the—

they paid for like UX experts to to optimize it.

Just do it. Exactly. And maybe they're running ads incorrectly, but if they're at a certain scale, hopefully you're not.

Or you do a few and you look at the commonalities.

Exactly, right? Um, actually, again, I think I spoke about this in the pod, but you know, if you, you want to look at a space that's like got every single little hack involved, like look at something that's very competitive, like antivirus software or something like that online. Like people still buy antivirus software. I mean, if you're on a PC, probably.

You mean because they've optimized the shit out of it?

Yeah. And it's like pure paid search. There's no other channel.

Everything's about conversion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that's 100%. And you'll start to see these patterns emerging. Like, I think that you're right. Like the, the, the photography and elevating the brand and all that sort of stuff, I think is important given the luxury positioning. Um, and, and then having the, the kind of typical things that you would see from a conversion perspective, like, yeah, the reviews, the, um, in general, I think the site just needs a bit of a structure to it and it didn't lead with the positioning. It's like, you know, it's like luxury and then kind of you go down towards the bottom and it speaks about some of its benefits about not having certain chemicals and stuff like that. So the pattern I see in e-com is like, here's the product on the left, you know, in terms of this type of product, here's the 3 bullets of why it's amazing or kind of 5 underneath or something. Uh, a social proof of like how many thousands of people have bought this thing, or say hundreds, or like some, some level of social proof.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, and you know, the, the, the money button, like, you know, kind of take them into buying a flagship product or whatever it might be. And then, you know, it might be that they're buying one product and they're choosing, um, fragrance versus like going and choosing buy fragrance, like, and there's like 20 listed, say. Um, so you choose the one product, you choose the fragrance, how many you want of it, and whether or not you're going to buy on subscription, for example. So again, one clean funnel. Yeah. Um, the website's almost a product grid at this point.

Yeah. It's a bit of a, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. And, um, and there's a legibility problem with the kind of font, like I get it for the logo, but I couldn't read half the stuff.

It's hard to read.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's kind of get the base right before you consider driving any traffic at it.

Um, exactly.

That was critical.

Um, you need the website to, you, you want to make the most of your marketing dollars.

Yeah.

So you need it to convert.

100%.

So moving to organic versus ads, I really think it's like It's not an either or.

Yeah.

And I think that's where some people do get confused. Organic, um, socials builds trust and proof, and it also lets you get better at creating the creatives for your ads.

True.

Um, but then ads only amplify what's already working. So if your organic content isn't able to drive traffic, then you're just, even if you pay for it, it's still not going to lead people to the website. But then if your organic content leads people to the website and it's not converting, you're just doing it en masse.

Agree.

So figure out where you're, I mean, improve both, but figure out the first thing you need to work on.

Yeah, I fully agree with that. And I think organic as a first move is important, uh, because you get the signals that, you know, improve your accuracy with the type of ads you're running and so on. Like, does this message work or not work and so on? Um, but it's hard to crack it with organic. And so often it's like, wherever you're making it work in organic, how do you supplement that with paid? Um, And, you know, finding the pockets of traffic that you can't organically get for whatever reason, but you know, that's your customer and you need to effectively buy that customer's attention through an ad. So yeah, I think some sort of mix of that. Um, and yeah, I think still for me is like every company needs a hook. It's like, oh, I wrote some hooks for her. Oh, did you? We should go into it.

Well, this is the thing. We were like, if you guys, in case you guys missed it, we, Jeremy and I, You know, we did a Q&A podcast earlier and we were talking about hooks. So make sure you tune into that if you've missed it. But shall I tell you something?

I love that.

Yeah. Okay, Stacy. So I thought the approach would be like, think of Who Is Elijah also recently being on the pod. One of her videos, and it's from a UGC or an influencer. It's, it's date night and I'm wearing Who Is Elijah. So you can do like, it's— oh, this is more like content in general. It's date night and I'm putting on this scent. I'm inviting people I need to impress. So that's why I'm using this scent. I'm putting this in my home office because it's giving success and it makes me feel expensive, or this set makes me feel homely. And then, so with your piece-to-camera content, so that's the overall vibe you want to give. And then, so here's the hooks for your like piece-to-camera content: the home fragrance industry doesn't want you to know this, the real difference between supermarket plugs and luxury diffusers, why hotels smell expensive and your home doesn't.

Oh, that's a cracker.

Yeah, I like that one.

That was very good.

Your home should smell like a memory, not a cleaner. If you grew up in the '90s, this scent will hit. This, this summer smells like a European summer you haven't taken yet.

Anyway, so good. That's, they are amazing.

Pat on my own back. Yes.

No, seriously. And I think it's like testing those hooks, you know, hopefully you can get some traction organically, but then yeah, doubling down. Yeah. But also use that messaging on the website, right? It's like, yeah, you kind of lead with that messaging.

So it needs to, a lot of people, like, it just stops at socials. It needs to go through the funnel.

Totally. And I think that, you know, changes the imagery and all this sort of stuff. And I think, um, once you've got that hook, just ride that hook all the way through, like generate as much value as possible.

Even post-purchase email, like keep it going.

Yeah, legit.

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Yeah, yeah, kind of vibe.

Sorry, that's tough, but like, font selection matters, that's for sure. You applied to Help My Small Business to hear this stuff. Also, in terms of socials, you currently— I don't think she's on TikTok yet, and I think that is where all the discoverability is. So absolutely get on TikTok. Um, something I think that— who was again, I referenced Elijah because it's a, it's you are fragrance and people can't really like, you know, you can't really describe— I don't know, people don't necessarily even want to read all the words, right? Um, they have— I think they have Tolstoy, which is basically a video gallery of social content. And it could be like your own content, UGC creators, influencers talking about the product. Um, and then so that way you can get people to start with your friends, you know, talking about like this, what what that perfume scent reminds them of, or like even go out in the street, approach people, get like that kind of like, yeah, get that reaction. Maybe like even collab with like a hotel or, or like, like a facial clinic or something like that. And so because she doesn't have TikTok, I'm assuming she's not a social media native girly. So I do think organic content is going to be hard. So definitely the path is going to need ads. but you need your social organic content for the creatives for the ads. So in terms of the ads, I think with limited funds, you want to avoid awareness ads too early at this stage because cold traffic ads will just feel, it'll be like money disappearing. It's like bye-bye money. Um, so, you know, start retargeting site visitors and engaged Instagram followers and people who have engaged with your content and then boost proven organic content instead of creating ads-only content in this stage. So you're going to have to create that organic content and try and optimize that. Okay, let's get to SEO because she did ask about that and you are the expert.

Yeah, so, um, it's interesting when you're starting off in SEO, there's long-term answers and there's also kind of, I think, what in my mind is what you could do now is a bit of a growth hack. So I think with a The product, one of the interesting angles is the fact that it's like, you know, the chemicals that it doesn't have. And perhaps part of the audience they might be able to tap into online is on Reddit talking about the effects of, hey, I've got this fragrance, you know, I'm worried about chemical X. What do you guys think? It's like, oh yeah, um, actually this company is what I've used and, and they have this awesome fragrances that don't have that chemical. Highly recommend them. I've, I've, I use this scent or something like that. And so a Reddit thread response is really interesting. It gives you a chance of ranking on page 1 for a query like that, but also can start informing answers in ChatGPT. So Reddit's highly referenced and also in Google's AI overviews and AI search as well, AI mode. So Reddit's fast and impactful. And also, you know, the video formats actually, and actually doing those short-form videos that might focus on search more than, I guess, selling, like, so the keywords that, you know, people are typing in on TikTok, for example, and building that really niche video is like that answer the intent. It's not perfect, but it's, it's an SEO driven strategy where the video will appear in Google search and also on TikTok. So it's like lower hanging fruit.

Um, like writing your product descriptions, like answers, not just like marketing fluff.

Exactly.

So it's like having that, but like, what are the people? What are people searching for?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's also, there's this, you know, a part of Google called People Also Ask, and it's basically frequently asked questions on your website can feed that section. So being a really good answer on the internet around that's, I think, really important and structuring the data on the website around that. There's a plugin for Shopify that will help you do that. Search like FAQ on the App Store for Shopify. Um, and, and then beyond that, I really think from there, borrow keyword, like borrow other brands and position yourself as an alternative. So it's like cheap alternative to, not that we want to use cheap in this, um, case, but say alternative to, um, environmentally friendly alternative to whatever, like, and it's going to be such a low friction keyword, but if you position your, your brand as a, as an option for that, I think it's really powerful. Um, these keywords are, yeah, less, less links to the pages that are ranking on the internet for them. So they're not going to be a link-based determinant as to whether or not you rank. And so you hopefully will get on page 1 for some of those terms, which are quite niche, but you can kind of ladder up from there and get, um, traffic over for bigger terms over time. So yeah, that's strategy.

Okay. And final point on finding the funds to scale marketing and launching collections. Like you don't need that many cents, like there's already So many different scents on the website. Fewer SKUs means just less product tied up in stock. Um, and I think just, you know, focus on getting that organic content to work, getting that, um, validating the product and business model, amplifying using paid ads, and then you should be reinvesting your profits back into growing the business, um, without having to look for external funding.

Yeah, I agree. And I think, um, if you struggle to create traffic yourself, you can borrow other people's traffic. So affiliate's really powerful. I would create the most insane affiliate program, like where you basically almost give 100% of profit on your first sale, but you're making money on the backend through subscription. So like first sale, you make no money. And then for every month thereafter that the product's getting delivered, like the top-up refills or whatever, that's where their profit exists. And so they get those early—

Sounds like a pyramid scheme. No, I'm joking. Yeah.

And I, it's like, so you might have, you know, uh, TikTok, you know, home organization or whatever people like that are like looking for a very lucrative, um, affiliate program. And, um, and yeah, like, or bloggers, whoever it might be, um, give it a shot. And I think, um, it's zero risk on your side because you're not putting up funds and, and they're just effectively trialing to see if it converts. So yeah, finding pages that already rank for the keywords you, you rank for on the internet, but are not competitors. So like someone's written a blog post about this sort of stuff, um, and giving them an incredibly valuable, um, affiliate offer and see where it goes.

Yeah, love it. Okay, well, Stacy, hope this has helped and answered your questions. Um, and thank you so much and good luck with your business. Thank you, Jeremy.

Good luck. Thank you.

Okay, that's it from me for now. Thanks for listening. If you're loving the podcast, don't forget to follow, and I would love it if you can do me a favor and leave us a review. And if you want more, join the conversation on the podcast Instagram @theladies @EasyCEO_podcast, all linked in the show notes. Catch you next Tuesday.

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