ELEANOR PENDLETON - GRITTY PRETTY
ON WALKING AWAY FROM A PART OF HER BUSINESS THAT NO LONGER SERVED HER
Eleanor Pendleton is the founder of Gritty Pretty - Australia’s first interactive digital beauty publication.
It’s no surprise that Eleanor has built a business in the beauty space.
She was Australia’s youngest beauty editor at the age of 20, but after feeling disillusioned with the traditional media landscape, she gave up her career in glossy mags to launch her own media brand.
Since then she’s worked hard to bring her vision for an interactive digital magazine to life, featuring big names on the front cover from Hailey Bieber and Miranda Kerr to Lara Bingle.
We covered how Eleanor convinced brands to get on board from the get-go and how she’s built a business by layering revenue streams one on top of the other.
You’ll learn:
What NOT to do if you’re thinking about taking the leap into business full-time
Why it was important for Eleanor to write a business plan
How Eleanor landed her first paid advertiser for the Gritty Pretty magazine before she’d launched the first issue
How Gritty Pretty has diversified its revenue streams over time, and why the focus is now on building out passive streams
The best way to pitch to new brands or clients, and the importance of having a solid deck
How to strike the right balance between editorial and sponsored content
Why Eleanor decided to shut down her ecommerce store, and how she came to this difficult decision
We hope you enjoyed this conversation – for more podcast action follow us on Instagram @lady.brains, or sign up to our monthly newsletter at www.ladybrains.com
THE BITS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
“My husband said to me, I just think you actually need to start believing in yourself, you’ve had six months to think about this. If you want to go freelance and have a career as a freelance beauty journalist, you’re gonna have to start believing in yourself, because no other adult is going to believe in you if you don’t.”
“Sales does not come naturally to me. But we’re built off an advertising model, so I needed to be able to sell. I hit the pavement and I emailed people as many brands and agencies as I could.I winged all of those first sales meetings, but managed to land one advertiser for the first issue, and I thought...I’m going to make it.”
“Gritty Pretty has been monetised in many ways. We sell brand ads and sponsored content opportunities. We review the best beauty salons around Australia, then they’re published on the site as part of a B2B subscription model. We have a podcast, where we sell pre roll and baked in ads. We have events, which are sponsored by brands and are ticketed. We have Gritty Pretty Productions, where we create, produce and execute digital campaigns on behalf of brands.”
“About a year in I realised how much I don’t enjoy logistics, and how much of an investment it is to sell physical products. In making the call I felt this pressure...because I’m shutting it down, have I failed? I sat with that for a good nine months. Then eventually,I got to a point where I was like, it doesn’t make me happy so why am I doing it? I’ve realised I don’t need to justify my answer to anyone about that.”
“When it comes to editorial versus advertising, I believe so strongly that our audience should receive more editorial content than advertising content. I generally follow the 80-20 rule. So in a week, we publish 5-6 stories. Only 1 of those pieces will be sponsored. It’s what has fostered trust between us and our community. It’s not easy though, because at the end of the day, I’m trying to ensure that I’m scaling the business and paying people what they’re worth. So it’s this constant push and pull, just moving along in terms of cash flow.”
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