Investment in indie beauty is soaring, making it harder than ever to stand out as a new player. Data from 2017 suggests that the worldwide market for cosmetics, beauty products, and skincare has already eclipsed £482 billion. In the UK alone, the beauty industry earns more than £17 billion annually and employs 1 million people. Beauty is undoubtedly a saturated market, yet industry experts reiterate the need for original effective products, with a compelling brand story.
Paul Michaux, the co-founder of Prose, one of the leaders in custom hair care explains that to succeed, beauty brands need a product that is safe, that is effective, and that has strong branding behind it. – Cosmeticdesign.com
How do you create a product people want, and build a brand people grow to love? The answer is sometimes as simple as a 3 letter word – ASK. In order for you to sell your product or service, there has to be a demand for it. Your audience knows what they want (and don’t want). And, wait for it, they’re more than happy to say it. Whether it’s on social media or a skincare junkie message board, your questions have already been answered. Use that to your advantage.
Many successful beauty brands had already done just that, putting concept testing over product testing in their early stages. Startups are by definition data-driven, and that applies to all industries, including beauty. Entrepreneurship happens in real-time and both brands and founders have no other option than figure things out as they go. The moisturizer you launch is not necessarily the same as the one consumers will get when purchasing online a few months later.
The product should iterate, evolve, and optimize.
Brands like Summer Fridays or Augustinus Bader achieved enviable success by upending the usual brand launch approach and debuted with one single “hero” product. Instead of unleashing a wide range of different products and hoping a few will catch on, the brands are then focusing all their marketing effort on a single “hero” product.
When a beauty brand launches with just one product, the stakes are high, but so are the rewards. The best example here being BeautyBlender, and their iconic makeup sponge that revolutionized makeup application. Just like Apple, who seldom launches completely new products, for years, BeautyBlender was focusing solely on creating improved versions of their original product. Nowadays, millions of makeup aficionados all over the world are calling their makeup sponges “beautyblender” even when they’re produced by another brand.
Before launching with a range of dozen products, make sure that everything from product formulation and ingredients, to the name, and packaging highlights the uniqueness of the products, what makes your brand and your products unlike anything else on the market.
Launching with one hero product or a selected few is a high risk-high reward approach but it can be turned into one of the brand’s strong suits, indicating that the product has been carefully thought out and meets the highest quality standards.
When just building a brand, you don’t want to overwhelm potential customers with confusing messaging and too much information. Focusing on one or a selected few products helps strengthen your brand image in the minds of the consumers.
Whether you’re building a brand, or launching your products in a new market, when deciding on which products to go with first, look at the products that are used together. The success of various “bundles” across the beauty, makeup and lifestyle niches proves that hinting to consumers which products should be used together, and showing them how to do it, is an effective strategy.
It’s often said that you can get anyone to buy your products once, but the key to success is to build a loyal customer base who will also buy your second, third, and 20th items. The key to creating a returning customer is simple: product quality, user experience, and thoughtful branding.
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MABE’s brand development consultancy services support new and developing beauty and lifestyle brands with sustainable content creation, brand messaging, values and culture, social influencer marketing, and recruitment outreach in addition to promoting a brand’s efforts in reaching new audiences.
