Building successful beauty marketing campaigns are an important consideration. Retailers spend a large proportion of their budget on marketing and as a brand they anticipate you to do the same. Not only do you need to spend money on your own marketing – your brand, your website, your marketing collateral, your packaging, your sampling campaign, your instore fixtures and fittings, your staff training – but you also need to spend money on marketing your brand in their stores across events and promotional campaigns.
A brand joining a retailer will be provided with a sales target for the first 6 – 12 months. The future success of their relationship will be measured on their ability to deliver against this sales target, amongst other factors. Ensure that your promotional plan is a well thought out and well executed strategy that favourably contributes towards achieving your annual sales performance.
Promotions play a big role in retail, you only need to visit department stores, pharmacies and grocers to see how many promotions take place in-store. Whilst the central idea of a promotion is to drive volume and financial targets, they can also help a brand in driving brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Successful promotional planning is a fine line between balancing margins, profitability and stock levels with no room for error. As a brand, your discussions with a retail buyer will centre around how many promotions you will be running a year and what level of stock is required to manage these, sales planning is key. Retailers set sales targets and margins for each category and buyers are measured on the success of delivering to these KPI’s. They therefore need to be confident that the promotions you are recommending will meet their targets and that you have proven sales history and the inventory to support this. Retail promotions are an essential way of retailers connecting with their end customers.
Ideally you should be recommending promotional events run with similar retailers, where you know what the uplift in sales will be and you know that you have all the elements in place to be able to run with these promotions successfully. When discussing promotional events, outline your sales projections and the expected performance of your products.
They can be about providing value. You could offer a GWP, a limited-edition product, an experience, a competition instead of just another 3 for 2, buy 1 get 1 free or product bundle. Something enticing enough for your customers to enable you to drive sales. Standing out on shelves can be difficult, however when you are in a central promotional space, use impactful POS to highlight your promotion and benefit from the use of consumer claims on your packaging, product reviews online and in-store magazines. Authenticity and measurable claims are important to your end customer, particularly when it comes to beauty products.
Ensure that at the end of the promotion, even if it has been an overall success, that you have sufficient stock levels to meet your sales expectations for the coming months. Whilst a successful promotion is great, a retailer wants to ensure that they are always in stock.
Are you looking for support to help you plan your marketing calendar and promotions? Get in touch to discuss how we can work with you.
We love partnering up with award-winning beauty and wellness brands, well-established companies, retailers, investors, trade bodies to bring your ideas to life. With over 60 years combined experience in building brands we know what it takes.
As a beauty brand consultancy, we support you in taking your business to the next level through strategy, brand management, product development. Introducing our 3 C’s – we draw upon years of Clarity, Creativity, Commerciality to deliver your results. We design brand identities and visual elements, create products, develop go-to-market strategies to help you to engage with your ideal customers. We work with you to develop a comprehensive strategy for your business by understanding your vision (and the marketplace) and then delving into the details to create order and structure, neatly packaged up to deliver you commercial results.
We work with clients based in different corners of the world – from the UK, to Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia, the Middle East and across Europe. Over the years we have worked with a diverse portfolio of businesses – here’s a snapshot. If you would like to discuss your ideas with us, get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
‘Janet has a wealth of experience across retail, buying and marketing. She conducted a full strategic review of our cross functional business and the travel retail market to develop a comprehensive buying and quality control strategy that was signed off at board level. I highly recommend her as an asset to any business.’
‘Through Janet’s management skills, expertise and proven track record on the job she successfully managed the purchasing of our retail operations and ensured the integrity of our brands in-stores. Her enthusiasm and total dedication, delivered results in any project she was involved in.’
‘Janet has excellent beauty market knowledge. Level headed with clear vision, direction and the ability to drive business forward, Janet led the teams through a complete product design change advising on what the key marketing messages should be, incorporating her technical knowledge and beauty expertise.’
‘Unless someone comes from a background in this industry, you wouldn’t know what is required. Not only do I have the support of an experienced team to help me to make things happen and to grow my brand, but I also have a great personal relationship with Janet and her team, working in this way means I have someone to turn to, to share the journey of running a business.’
‘Absolutely fantastic course. Condensed learning from Janet, an expert in developing beauty brands. Also, valuable introductions to expert professionals, in the Masterclass sessions. In 12 weeks, you will learn from Janet, what would take years to learn by yourself. A very worthwhile investment’