Wondering how to build a beauty brand? Having a substantial marketing budget, certainly helps. One of the brands I worked with a few years ago had a marketing budget of £5 000 000. This is a lot of money, however being a luxury brand, this needed to cover their advertising campaigns, model shoots, sponsorships, usage rights for advertising across a global market as well as driving print and online media and PR. It was soon put to good use, and it was challenging to ensure we didn’t go over budget.
As a small brand, this marketing budget may sound incredibly appealing, it may be difficult for you to even think about how you could put such a sizeable figure to task. One of the first things I do when working with a new client is understand what their marketing budget is, and I carefully study their marketing strategy and how they plan to deliver this.
If they don’t have a marketing strategy in place I work with them to create a clear marketing strategy, marketing and promotional calendar for the coming year and product campaigns. I also work very closely with them to review their New Product Development Plan, and to create a clear, concise product development process to steer their product pipeline for the next 12 – 18 months. As a product-based business, your products sit at the core of your business, everything else in your business is there to support and to promote your products, your marketing is designed around elevating your products and telling your story.
Whether you are a small business owner, or a multi-national brand, key to your success is having a great formulation and very strong branding. To create strong branding, you need to identify how you are going to position your brand in the marketplace, you need to know exactly who your competitors and customers are.
Branding refers to your logo, typography, brand colours, font type as well as your packaging and your copy, tone of voice and brand personality. Remember that you can have the best formulation in the world, but if you don’t present your brand in packaging that resonates with your target audience, nobody is going pick up your brand, let alone buy into your brand. If you are a cosmeceutical brand, does your packaging and branding clearly communicate this? If you are an ethical, vegan skincare brand, is this clear to your customers at first glance.
Always think about your marketing and product development from your customer’s perspective. Consider your website, copy, ‘about us’ page, brand messaging, and ensure that you have clearly defined your USP, what you stand for and what makes you different, and that this is consistently communicated across all of your marketing materials and your packaging. Ensure that your customer knows exactly why you are the brand to solve their problems. Tell a powerful brand story, and let your customers know why you started your brand, who you are and what you believe in. Share where you source your ingredients from and why you have selected these ingredients for your specific products. Tell people about your packaging and your stance on sustainability and environmental issues.
Your marketing strategy should include a strong content calendar, that supports your brand values, your philosophy and your products. Think about how you can effectively utilise your social media channels, and how you can make the best use of your videos, your tutorials, influencers, vloggers and bloggers. Instagram and Instagram stories along with Facebook Live are incredibly powerful for beauty brands in terms of driving engagement. Video is key for your brand, you can create your own videos, based on research, unpolished videos have a higher level of engagement than professional videos. Plan your blogs and how you are going to communicate with your customers, and educate them about your products, ingredients and techniques.
One of the key advantages you have as a small business owner, is that you invariably launched your brand because you couldn’t find a product that solved your problem. Build up your online community so that you can reach out directly to your customers and help them to solve their skincare, body care or hair care problems using your products. Create a private Facebook group and engage with your online community to help you to develop your products, so that you know that you are developing products they specifically need and may even have requested.
Look at how you can collaborate with other brands, to promote your products to their customers, build affiliate relationships. For example, if you are a body care brand, is there an opportunity to promote your products to a gym or a yoga studio or to another business that has similar customer values? On your website include a reward programme, and a referral programme where people are rewarded through points or vouchers for recommending friends and family. Provide free samples with every order, so that people can test other products in your range, sampling is incredibly important in the beauty industry. Entire businesses like Birchbox have been created around product sampling. There is nothing more powerful than word of mouth. Include product recommendations and customer reviews on your website.
We are living in the age of authenticity and technology, people value transparency and trust above all else. There has never been an easier time to reach out directly to your customers online, across the world, and if you are selling into retail, reach out to buyers and to retailers. Embrace this, as a small business owner, this provides you with so much more opportunity and power than ever before.
We love partnering up with visionary entrepreneurs, beauty brands, companies, retailers, spas and salons like you to develop and launch new brands or to reposition your existing business.
As a brand management company we draw upon strategic insights, creative thinking, commerciality and years of experience in branding, product development, retail and travel retail to help you to develop and grow your business.
We build marketing strategies, conceptualise brand identities and visual elements, create products, develop marketing, social media and PR to help you to engage with your ideal customers – whether you are selling direct-to-consumer or through bricks- and-mortar.
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.
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.
‘Thrilled to be working with Bespoke Advantage. They have already done some great things for Hollywood Browzer Beauty in the very short time we’ve been working together. Looking forward to the future!’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘Bespoke Advantage helped us to bring our brand to life creatively and strategically. We have a clear strategy in place, with a distinctive brand message that enables us to articulate our brand to retailers and to journalists.’
‘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.’
‘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.’
‘Janet is extremely professional, knowledgeable and thorough, an expert of her field. This shone through from our first conversation, which instinctively led me to want to work with Bespoke Advantage. As a new skincare brand the expertise of Bespoke Advantage has been invaluable.’
‘Janet, absolutely fantastic to meet you today. Thoroughly enjoyed The Beauty Workshop. You definitely excel in your area and beyond.’
‘Many thanks again for all the help, support and words of encouragement, as I said before, best and most sensible thing I’ve done in developing my beauty ideas is to engage with you!’
‘It’s been inspirational working with Janet. We are in the process of launching a skincare brand however have received conflicting opinions from so many people we were really confused. I am so impressed by Janet’s knowledge and experience in product development, marketing and retail and the way she explains everything so clearly. She is very motivating and positive, and so much fun to work with. I have much more clarity and confidence in how to move things forward.’