The Pennock Knockdown: Beauty, Brains, and Breakthroughs with Justyna Wilson

Watch or Listen to Episode 1 with Justyna Wilson

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With over 15 years of experience in marketing, digital innovation, e-commerce, and go-to-market strategies, I specialize in helping brands unlock their full potential. As a Fractional CMO, I provide leadership and strategic insights to drive top-line growth, blending short-term wins with long-term sustainability through a 360 cross-channel approach.

I’m also the founder of Fancy Salt, a UGC creator agency dedicated to producing high-impact, authentic content for beauty, wellness, and D2C brands. Guided by my strategic expertise, our team of experienced creators delivers videos that resonate, convert, and align seamlessly with broader brand goals. From building community engagement to turning views into action, Fancy Salt ensures every piece of content drives measurable results.

Brands I've worked with include Biossance, Face Reality, iero Beauty, Cliganic, and more.

You can get in touch with Justyna Wilson via her email or Instagram.

Transcript

Welcome to the Pennock Knockdown, a podcast where we unpack key strategies and tactics for digital marketing leaders.

I'm excited to be joined today with Justyna Wilson. Justyna has had some really awesome experience in her background. So prior to becoming a fractional CMO, she worked in-house in leadership positions for Bioscience and Face Reality to name just two of many different brands she's had exposure to as a full-time employee and since has dialed off into her fractional capacity.

All right, let’s get started!

What products you're really excited about, ones you've recently started using or ones that you're excited to start using but haven't tried yet.

Justyna - There's a few actually. I don't know if you are familiar with a brand called Allies of Skin. I just recently actually discovered the brand. They're kind of big in Europe and Asia, but really getting a lot more traction in the US. Super efficacious, full on powerful ingredients, skin care.

With a ton of before and afters, very results driven. So I've been using that. They had a few recent launches that look quite interesting. Brandify is another one that's really interesting. I don't know if you've ever heard of the brand, but they're actually just really working on creating alternatives at a more accessible price point.

I love their products, but I really love that they're also just kind of going after the brands that are just overcharging all of us. So check out some of their content that they're creating and how we're all getting basically just for a lack of a better word, screwed on some of the products that we're buying. So I like that they're exposing some of the brands with what they're doing. And then from makeup, Mob Beauty. That is, you know, love their whole sustainability story and all of that. And obviously the product is amazing, but I also have been just watching them from a marketing perspective and they're just killing it on TikTok, really just building a really strong community. And so I'm just really buying into the whole community vibe, even though obviously I love the product as

Nikki Lindgren - Yes, MOB product is pretty amazing. So I can't complain about anything they put out to market. It's all super amazing to use as a consumer. Well, moving forward, you know, this show is really about learning about best practices and, you know, tactics, strategies that you've explored, used in the past, etc. So I'd love to kind of have you walk through some of what you're seeing be successful at this moment in time, like as we're coming to almost the beginning of 2025.

Justyna -Yeah, you know, mean, for the kind of a fractional, you know, head of marketing fractional CMO perspective, really, through working with a variety of different brands, what I'm noticing is what's really critical is to have a solid holistic 360 cross channel strategy, where I'm seeing brands really tend to, you know, fail at some capacity is when they really focus on siloed channels. And I think really that this connect kind of starts to show to the consumer and, you know, the brands really start to lose traction. So I think what's really important is to kind of take a step back and look at your, you know, primary goals as a brand and really come up with that cross channel strategy that's really comprehensive across all different channels.

Nikki Lindgren - What do you think is like the cause of this siloed thinking and like siloed mindset?

Justyna - I think it depends where the brand is in terms of like there's the stage, right, of the business. So, I mean, if you are an early stage brand that maybe potentially doesn't even have a resources to think that way, you know, they tend to just grab on to different channels, vendors, partners without really taking a step back and taking a minute to put a comprehensive strategy in place, right? So often this is, know, lack of resources driven, to be honest with you, and just trying to push through. And so I would really encourage taking a step back and do that foundational work before you jump into

Nikki Lindgren - Yeah, so I think from like our perspective being agency side doing growth marketing in the paid and SEO lane, we do experience this with some of our clients, right? Where they want to kind of keep us in the box and like keep us focused on a couple of the metrics and initiatives. And then, you know, we're on their email list. So sometimes we'll see emails and we'll be like, my God, you guys have a great promo going on. Like you didn't tell us about it or, or whatever. Like you not want to pick it up for ads. And like, those are the relationships that are usually a little bit harder on all fronts, right? Like there's a lack of trust between the two parties that they don't want to dial us into things or even like make us aware of them going on and that too, yeah, like the collaboration that could happen should we have not siloed this out and been involved and brought to the table for said promotion, like it could have had so much bigger of a bang for the buck. We just wrapped a promo with one of our clients for friends and family and we were really strategic with their email team for figuring out where it fit into the funnel and should paid media get access first, should email get access first.

Like how could we make sure we are complementing and not double dipping and then like maximizing ultimate return and I think that when we're all looking at the same page and the same expectations like it made us a lot more productive in what we were doing together so I echo what you're saying completely from a 360 approach and not siloing the stuff.

Justyna -Yeah, I mean, sounds like communication, you know, is the number one goal here. And I don't know if traditionally, you know, a lot of the brands operated that way. And maybe at some point it did work and it's just they never thought that it just needs to be, you know, more, more consistent and comprehensive across the board. You know, the consumers are challenging us and with just multiple places where they shop and how they shop. And where they appear and how they're getting targeted with messages is just so much different than what it used to be years ago, which is why we have to be so much smarter now.

Nikki Lindgren - Yeah, anything else. The 360 approach, I love that. Just breaking down the silos. Anything else you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of what's preventing people from moving forward or elevating them to the next level

Justyna - I think brands feel constricted by no budgets and I think it's just that we should get a little bit more creative these days and really feed into organic as much as we can If budgets don't allow for big spans and I'm sure you're hearing that often as well and what you do. And then, you know, at the end of the day, organic will feed paid and paid will feed organic. But it's really how do we, you know, build and foster community where we can in the most organic possible authentic way instead of jumping into a lot of the spend at the beginning. I think it's possible. I've already mentioned Mob Beauty at the beginning of this talk, but I think they're a perfect example of really doing that. And it's just really leaning into building authentic relationships. And I think it's a lot of hard work and it's not easy and it's not overnight, but it does pay off. think in the end in a steady pace.

Nikki Lindgren - Five years ago when, you know, one was doing paid media, they really didn't look at what was going on organically on like paid social versus organic social. Cause it's like, there were two different strategies. Sure. You could boost things from time to time, but it was just like a feel good to like get their organic channel going a little bit better. But now like the lanes have blurred so much. would still say anyone who's boosting or sparking from the app and not from ads manager is doing themselves a huge disservice. But aside from that.

Like picking up and sparking or boosting organic content is the way that things are working best right now So it's sort of silly like I'll get on pitch calls with brands that are like well What should we do for paid creative and I'm like no like tell me your best organic stuff like let's start there We don't need two different creative strategies, and I guess that like dovetails nicely into your new business So you recently founded? Fancy salt a creator content business where you're getting UGC assets for brands to use across their portfolio of marketing channels, what led to the creation of this?

Justyna - Yeah, so you know, through my fractional work with a variety of different brands, you know, what I kept pitching the brands, basically, I kept saying, hey, you just need to become a content machine, you know, brands, I know you're selling the product, but really brands are becoming, you know, media machines at this point. And that's, you know, that is where you should head, right? Easier said than done.

And every time I tell them that, they say, okay, well, how do we get content? And it's actually interesting to hear that because there are so many content platforms out there already, right? And then there's so many influencer platforms already. you know, AI is playing a role as well now. And so the...

You know, there's a lot of ways where you can get content, but I kept running into an issue where brands still ask that question, where do I get quality content that really truly represents my core DNA and that is really reflecting who we are as a brand, something that I can actually post on my feed.

And so, you know, I didn't realize that this was possibly still an issue and a gap. And it seems to be on the creator side with the rise of TikTok shop. You know, I've ran into issues where creators and TikTok shop affiliates, they're getting extremely overwhelmed by brands as well. They cannot keep up with their inboxes can't really dive into who the brands are and who they really represent in the best way, authentic, authentic way, right? Possible, because that is at the end of the day, that's what's working. And so I felt like it would be great to have a small team of creators that can really truly dive into the brand DNA and really create that UGC content.

With brands, ethos in mind that then brands are proud to post on their feeds because it really represents who they are. And then as you said, that could be used across channels. It's basically content that could be repurposed and recycled for sparking, boosting, for paid media, for other channels like email or even website or product detail pages. So it's just something that is quality. then creators feel good about that as well because they can really dive into the brand and who they are and just give that authentic review of the brand.

And so it's just really helping the brands become influencers at the end of the day because they become their own influencers and their own kind of content media machines, if that makes sense.

Nikki Lindgren -And it sounds like some of the gap that your managed services is helping fill is having the creators tap into the brand ethos and like understand the brand position maybe at a more deep and intimate level than like a typical creator on TikTok affiliates might be interested in doing on their own.

Justyna - Yeah, exactly. And, know, from a fractional perspective, I still think brands still should have solid influencer strategies in place. again, going back to 360, I think they should tap into that. They should also tap into producing their own really strong UGC content that's really representing the brand. And, know, with TikTok, is not really a social media platform. It's really a content media platform. So it's just you really have to become an educator. You have to become an entertainer. You have to be all those things. you know, as much as you need influencers for reach and brand awareness, they might not necessarily represent that for you, for your own brand feeds.

Nikki Lindgren -You mentioned TikTok being a content platform and creators being educational and entertaining. Are you finding any hooks in the wild that are working much better than others? Or what are the general types of assets that you think creators make that work so well at this moment in time?

Justyna - I wish there was a perfect recipe also. I think the goal here is that we're all also, you know, need to be open to testing, right? Because what might work for one brand might not necessarily work for another brand. However, you know, there's definitely some some trends that are ongoing that brands should play into and play into fast.

And you know in skincare and beauty and I know this is not this is honestly nothing new but it is so critical and important It is really showing the authentic results before and afters Really going after you know what's in it for me in that particular skincare and just authentic real raw reviews

At the end of the day, I've surveyed so many consumers with the brands that I work with. At the end of the day, all of us just want to see the results. And that is specific to the industry we're talking about. But, you know, all this fun and great, but does it work?

Nikki Lindgren -Moving into 2025, you are a purchaser of B2B services and you're kind of looking for different vendors and agencies and you are a vendor now for some of your brands at Fancy Salt. What do you think are the things that buyers are looking for? And again, I mean like, in-house marketing buyers looking for when they're looking for partners or technologies and how has that shifted over the years?

Justyna - Gosh, there's such a variety of vendors. I'm actually in the process of working with a brand that's launching next year. So I'm looking at the budgets and how to...

really get proper resources. I mean, I really would just in the overarching strategy, I would really try to double down on organic investment and in content based on everything that I just said thus far. And just really, I would say investing in, you know, in headcount. I would definitely invest in a solid, you know, paid media partner that has, you know, solid experience across Meta, TikTok, and Google. I think, again, with the rise of the TikTok shop, it's just critical to either figure out the platform on your own or find someone who can get you going there with all their tools like affiliate marketing, potentially maybe lives or shockable content. I think there's a lot of misconceptions there and again, some things are working, some things are not working as well. And I think it would be great to get some feedback from someone who has tapped into it already and has some actually data and numbers to provide what's worked and what didn't work.

I think, you know, community building, think that's just rolls up to a head count probably on the team. It's how do we really foster the community and just really lean into the audience with that, you know, human storytelling. I think that's really critical before you even start kind of, you know, spending money on all the tools.

Nikki Lindgren - Would you say like PR stacks into it? Is that an always on necessary for many brands that are just starting or when do you load that into plans?

Justyna - I think it depends again, if this is a brand that is about to launch or is this a brand that already has established their presence and has a pretty big reach and brand awareness for the brand that I'm actually working with right now that's launching. We're definitely 100 % considering PR, traditional PR, because it could really help, you know, with just overall initial brand awareness launch. And know, honestly, traditional PR is really not traditional PR anymore either. It does tap into a lot of influencer relationships or expert relationships, ambassador programs. So this is how we're actually looking at that more than just getting an article featured in one of the publications. So for launch, it's definitely part of a teaser and launch strategy. Now, later on, as you start getting some traction and you have your separate influencer or expert programs running, maybe it's not as necessary. And I would just reevaluate and see where you get your ROI on each channel.

Nikki Lindgren - I think that's an interesting one to bring up too because it goes along with like, well, what are...in-house teams looking for from vendors. And I think like while the siloed approach doesn't happen anymore and there's a lot of collaboration, there still have to be like lanes of understanding who's doing what because affiliate teams can do some PR, PR teams can do some affiliates. So like, where are you drawing the line? Is it now just one team that's helping with both initiatives? How does that play in with TikTok? And by the way, like TikTok has done such a great job of hiring so many employees from Amazon to figure out their shops and their affiliates. And so that's been amazing. But as a shop partner, we have experienced firsthand the level of support and attention that TikTok now provides, even agency partners is being reduced and it's pulling back. it's just an interesting time to be super involved with TikTok because it is still such a young business.

Justyna - for sure. It all kind of overlaps to some extent, right? Which again, going back to our point, first point that we've made, it all has to, you know, you've got to have a resource that kind of brings it all together. But hopefully, TikTok doesn't get banned. you know, we continue doing what we're doing. So we shall see. But if it does, there's going to be another one.

Nikki Lindgren - I know, I know. So we just have to be at the ready for whatever our industry responds to most thereafter. Well, this has been great. mean, you see, we're about to wrap here. So I'd love to have you share out how people can get in touch with you. Should they want to learn more about you and fancy salt or you and your fractional capacity?

Justyna - Follow Fancy Salt on Instagram at Fancy Salt Creators and my personal email is justyna@fancysalt.com.

Nikki Lindgren - Excited to share more and follow your journey and thank you so much, Justyna, for being on today's episode!

Justyna - Yes, thank you so much.