We recently connected with Annabelle DeGrazio and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Annabelle, thanks for joining us today. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?

We manage our social internally. After many attempts to outsource, it became clear to us that we could do a lot more with our social media if we handled it ourselves because we could show the process of candle-making more intimately, interact with our customers much more (in fact, we get a lot of orders via DM), and change things up last-minute. Our IG has always been a main driver of sales and customer interaction, so we have a team devoted to posting, engaging with clients and building brand partnerships. We recently hit 30K followers and couldn’t be more excited to continue to build and grow it!

Annabelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started TAJA Collection when I was a lawyer at a Biglaw firm looking for the perfect gift for my secretary. It was the holiday season and I knew she loved candles and she was obsessed with her cat. I tried to find a way to put her cat on a candle, but couldn’t find anything! Soon after, TAJA was born! TAJA is redefining gift-giving by offering completely customizable candles, vases, diffusers and more. Our goal is to help you become the best gift-giver. TAJA creates what was missing from the market: fully customizable home accessories. Beyond a monogram, you can engrave anything from your favorite song lyrics, to your wedding vows, or even a family photo! We ship our products all over the US and Canada and work with a lot of businesses to create custom scents, personalized logo products and much more!

Our best-selling “Completely Custom” candle can be engraved with your dog’s face or your favorite quote, and is hand-poured with love in Miami, Florida with creamy-dreamy 100% natural soy wax, and indulgent fragrance oils and essential oils, free of parabens & phthalates. We are not only female founded, but we are female run!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We hand pour each and every candle in small batches in our HQ in Miami. When I first started TAJA, I visited a few candle factories and realized that the labor involved was manual, in which case I thought, why not just make the candles ourselves? Luckily, my research skills from law school came into play and helped us create the perfect formula and process for candle-making. It was imperative that the candles be non-toxic and clean, strong smelling and vegan, so having control over the candle-making process is important. Candle-making has been a learning process and has taken a lot of trial and error, especially because we don’t add any fillers or synthetic dyes, but we’ve got it down!

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Most of our clientele comes through referrals. Since TAJA products are perfect for gifting, most of the recipients are introduced to the products when they receive it, and then they pay it forward by gifting it to someone else. TAJA products are so thoughtful, which encourages recipients to want to mimic the same feeling for their friends and family. It’s so important that the gifting experience is seamless: sweet gift notes, beautiful luxe gift wrap and high-end packaging all add to the experience.

We also use email marketing, social media and SMS texting, which are all great ways we keep our clientele engaged and invite new clientele to shop. Offering clients valuable tips for gifting and showing photographs of designs for inspiration have always been helpful, too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tajacollection.com/
• Instagram: @tajacollection
• Facebook: @tajatribe
• Linkedin: @AnnabelleDeGrazio
• Twitter: @tajacollection