Tips for Marketing Your Cosmetics
If it’s your dream to create your own beauty brand, you need a proven plan for success. With so much of the industry migrating online, you need to know what techniques work and which ones are already outdated. Try these tips for marketing your cosmetics so you can reach your customers wherever they are.
Be Mobile Friendly
When in-person shopping isn’t possible and computer screens aren’t convenient, buyers rely on their phones to find the next big thing. You don’t necessarily have to make your own app if you can optimize the shopping experience for your customers. Before anything else, make sure that your website or product pages load quickly and boast a wealth of quality visual content. Visitors should find it easy to navigate through the menu, and find it hard to resist the unmistakable “buy now” button. Completing payment should require the fewest number of steps possible. If you can add fun tools, they’ll want to come back; many beauty sites have shoppers upload their photos so they can virtually try on different colors. At the very least, encourage buyers to post reviews and pictures of how they use your products. An honest forum can create a community that beauty lovers trust.
Create Content
Offer something to consumers before they buy your products. Straight-up advertising isn’t as effective as sincere efforts to connect with your audience. More and more, you can reach them via videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Here are a few ways to get their attention:
Educate Them
Beauty enthusiasts used to stop by makeup counters for free samples, recommendations, and makeovers. Now you can show them how to apply your cosmetics with a video tutorial. Explain your ingredients and what your label really means. Share tips and tricks to keep them engaged.
Take Them Behind the Scenes
Show them what your company looks like, and tell them your origin story. Give them a sneak peek of future products. Show them how you use your lip gloss-making material or how you manufacture your products sustainably. Introduce them to the employees or a brand ambassador.
Inspire Them
There’s no one way to use a beauty product. Today’s consumers want to make it their own and get creative. You can alert them to new makeup trends, have fun with special effects looks, or suggest ways to use your cosmetics for cosplay.
Engage Consumers
User-generated content is an authentic and organic way to get out the word about your line. Everyone’s opinion has value because everyone has their own philosophy about looking and feeling good. Encourage detailed reviews of your products and pay attention to the feedback for the future. On TikTok, you can involve anyone with a “challenge.” Sephora promoted an eye palette by challenging viewers to create a look to represent their city, and the response was overwhelming. You can recruit fans of your cosmetics as “brand advocates” and give them samples to model and review. The beauty community is collaborative and generous, and when they stumble on something they love, they want to tell the world.
Work With Influencers
Any loyal customer can be a micro-influencer with recommendations, but more established influencers have a built-in audience. You don’t have to lay out big money for a mention from a supermodel because they’re not relatable to most buyers. Someone with an Instagram following between 10,000 and 100,000 is more effective because they’ve earned credibility in their niche.
You can do your own research, or use automated influencer tracking tools such as Pitchbox, HYPR, and Upfluence to find a “celebrity” that fits your brand. Their content may be more imaginative than yours if they’ve been doing this for a while. Images, videos, live streams, stories—they probably have a better sense of how to connect with an audience than you do. If they have great engagement with their followers, they can directly influence their purchasing decisions. And the association with your company will boost their profiles, as well.
Personalize Communication
When you’re still getting your business off the ground, make sure you don’t lose any customers because they don’t understand something or don’t feel heard. Provide plenty of transparent information about your products and be available for questions. You can interact with new consumers directly through messaging or responding to comments and reviews. The idea of “perfect” beauty went out with helmet hair, so don’t be afraid of criticism if it’s constructive. Be real, and customers will associate your brand with the person behind it.
Target Interested Parties
Have you ever added something to a virtual shopping cart and clicked away, only to get an email or ad that urges you to go back and complete your purchase? Today, consumers like to shop by clicking around until they have enough information to make a decision. Those reminders can encourage visitors to visit your website or product pages once more. Those abandoned carts have a good chance of turning into sales.
Try Dynamic Ads
Larger sites like Facebook and Instagram can target anyone who visits your online store or interacts you’re your social media posts. Just upload your products and information, and dynamic ads will automatically find potential shoppers.
Email Current Customers
You can retain consumers by alerting them to new deals and products via email. You may want to experiment with different kinds of emails to find out what gets the most clicks from your audience. Use their data to personalize their messages, and offer giveaways, tutorials, promotions, discounts, loyalty programs, and first looks. Don’t just fish for sales. Remember the big picture and create a community where you can be useful and really connect with your loyalists.
Explore Google Ads
Although their model is always changing, you can take advantage of paid Google ads in two ways. Search ads can help you get closer to the top of the list when someone searches keywords related to your products. Shopping ads can showcase your offerings on a cost-per-click and cost-per-engagement basis. Rather than keywords, they use your product images and descriptions to determine the best opportunities for your ad.
It may sound like a lot, but don’t let yourself become overwhelmed by this era’s marketing practices. Look at it as a huge opportunity—there have never been so many ways to get the word out about your business. There is no wrong way to publicize your products, but if you can diversify your approach, you can quickly determine what’s effective for your brand. These tips for marketing your cosmetics work best when you make the effort to connect with your shoppers. Remember that you believe in your products. Communicate to consumers why they should, too. At No Prob-Llama, we want our supplies and collections to inspire you to define your own kind of beauty.
