How to Help Your Beauty Business Reach More People
The last decade has seen a significant rise in beauty brands, which became even more popular in the last couple of years. Enormous brands invest a lot in TV and advertising products, and it is this industry that understood the power of an “influencer” first. This means that the competition of beauty businesses all around the world is vast. But what are the things that make one brand stand out from the crowd? Apart from having high-quality products (which is always the #1 rule), every business owner should turn to other ways of reaching more people. But what makes the health and beauty industry a bit more different in this case is that most customers are omnipresent on social media, so this is the primary type of marketing that you, as a beauty business, should invest in. But apart from that, what other tips and tricks should a beauty business have in its sleeve? Is it implementing SEPA as a payment option that Europeans love? Is it organizing events and conferences? However, one thing is certain – giving your customers exactly what they need (and the things they don’t know they need) will make your business somewhat unique.
Think about your marketing strategy
It’s not a secret that your marketing strategy can either make or break your brand. Just like good marketing can bring you plenty of customers, a bad one can ensure that no one ever steps in your shop again. So, it’s not only important to have marketing, it’s important to have good marketing. These are the things that you should, as a beauty business, have in mind:
Brand awareness
Even though it’s highly recommendable, not every business should pay the same attention to brand awareness. However, beauty businesses should indeed invest a bit more into brand awareness, as it’s their brand they’re selling in a way. Working on the brand is not an easy task, and it involves more than one person to create something memorable. Apart from the quality of the products (more about it further down), an authentic brand needs to have a visual identity that will differentiate it from its competition. This includes the logo, the website, all the social media platforms, and customer experience. One of the best beauty companies that slay the brand awareness game is Fenty Beauty by Rihanna – yes, it does have a celebrity as its CEO, but their brand is incredibly strong because of their digital campaigns and their presence on all social media platforms. Mac is also a brand that’s rather memorable as it generated a big following in the previous couple of years, and their logo is instantly recognizable. Having a brand and a visual identity that people will recognize instantly can only improve your business.
Social media
Once you get the idea of what your brand is going to look like and invest into the people who will create something out of your brand, it’s time to think about your social media. Presence on social media without a distinctive brand is okay. Still, the beauty business in question will get so much more from social media once they have a visual thread that will connect all social media platforms and the website. Bear in mind that most beauty business clientele is present on social media and follows all the latest trends, so if you want to excel in this category, it would be wise to hire a professional social media manager. Maintaining your brand’s social media is not only posting announcements, photos of your products, or before/after photographs of your customers. All of the posts have to be aesthetically appealing, but also be informative and encourage interaction. You’re in the beauty business, so make sure your social media feeds radiates beauty as well.
Word of mouth
You can spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a marketing campaign, but if you don’t practice the word-of-mouth marketing, you’re not going to get far. This is the best practice to complement your visual identity, as you cannot have a great campaign without one of these two. The word-of-mouth advertising speaks volumes, as it should always be your #1 goal to have all your customers satisfied and recommending your business to their friends. Top-notch quality and excellent customer experience are the key factors here.
Event marketing
As a final thing on your marketing to-do list should be different events that you will organize as your brand. Promotions, conferences, or seminars where people will come and listen to a speaker give a certain speech on a topic are all good so that your brand reaches more people and that more customers hear about your business in a positive light. There are two ways in which you can play this event marketing, and one does not exclude the other:
- events for customers: these include promotions of different new products where your customers and potential customers can come and get that product in question at a reduced price. You can also think about events where celebrities or influencers will show up during which you will advertise the products you have. Having panels on some of the most debatable questions in the beauty industry is also a good idea. Finally, hosting events where your customers can learn something new to do (such as a new make-up technique, how to combine different colors on their faces, or how to take care of their skin properly) might also be something you want to have in mind.
- events for other businesses: in order to differentiate yourself from the competition, you need to think outside of the box and place yourself as a business that can teach something to amateurs and other professionals. These include conferences with other professionals from the industry, panels, seminars, or meetups.
The word-of-mouth advertising speaks volumes, as it should always be your #1 goal to have all your customers satisfied and recommending your business to their friends.
Think about customer experience
Apart from a proper marketing strategy, it’s customer experience that you need to have in mind. Giving your customers the possibility of not feeling lost or confused when they get to your website is crucial. It’s also essential to know what to do exactly if you want to provide your customers with this.
Apart from doing your best to make your website very user-friendly and reduce cart abandonment (which is a challenging issue to fix), it would be good to give your customers all around the world equal possibilities. One of the best ways to do this is by implementing alternative payment options and giving everyone a chance to pay with whatever method they want. If one portion of your customers is from Europe, for instance, implementing SEPA is a great way to reach out to more people. In case you don’t know, SEPA is a viral payment method in Europe, just like Sofort is very big in Germany. This seemingly unimportant fact can increase your payment coverage to over 500 million customers. Not only do you make your e-commerce beauty business more tailor-made for the people, but it will also increase your sales volume. Different parts of the world prefer different payment methods, so make sure you know about all of these in case you want to make your international game strong.
Speaking of the website, bear in mind to keep your website mobile-friendly as well. Many make a mistake of not optimizing their website in the right way, which can seriously harm one’s business, especially if it’s an e-business. Take yourself as an example – how often do you purchase things on your laptop/desktop browser, and how often do you do the same thing via your smartphone?
Keep the quality of your products
However, even though an e-commerce business should invest in all the above, it should keep its quality. This is the best and most effective way of gaining a lot of customers.
Once you start with your product (if you have a product), you will most certainly do your best to have a product of the highest quality. Yet more often than not, businesses tend to save money in the production phase, so they substitute ingredients with cheaper alternatives. Also, trying to be economical on product quality’s expense can cost you even more in the long run. This can cause problems with productivity (especially if you’re using machines of poor quality that can easily break down). It can impact your business’s profitability and, of course, influence the dissatisfaction of your customers. If you want or need to save money, make sure to follow some tips that will help you cut costs without affecting your product’s quality.
Apart from that, make sure to test all of your products before putting them out there. The testing phase is incredibly important as you want to be selling a product that you’re 100% sure in from the start.
Conclusion
In order to maximize your traffic, engage more people, and eventually reach more people, you will have to put all of these together. Make sure to have a budget and make a plan of how you’re going to play this out. Since the marketing campaign might be quite tricky, especially if you’re a business without any experience in the marketing industry, it would be wise to hire a professional marketing agency to do the job for you. It might be an unplanned expense, but it’s worth it, mainly because you will have time to spend on something else, such as researching the countries where you want to place your product and what payment options they prefer. Some countries prefer SEPA, some prefer Sofort, others would rather go with something else. It is your job, as an e-commerce, to give everyone the commodity they want. It’s a small thing that can definitely make your brand reach more people.
Nobody said that building a big business is easy – it’s something that you work on for many years. But the start is the most difficult, and it matters a lot, so play it smart.
