The natural beauty industry and personal care market have become extremely fragmented due to a large number of natural, indie brands being created constantly. The industry grows increasingly fast, the U.S. vegan cosmetics market is expected to exceed USD 3.16 billion by 2025. Such predictions create a lot of business opportunities for global growth, but also come with new challenges and business struggles. In order to stay on track, natural beauty businesses will have to come up with innovative ideas on how to differentiate themselves and stand out in the market.
Your content has to speak for itself
A good concept and design and can make your communication more interesting. Take advantage of your packaging, brand’s gadgets or something that is strongly connected with your cosmetics’ story. I really love the way MeowMeowTweet presents their cosmetics on Instagram. Obviously, their company’s hero is a cat, so expect cartoon characters and beautifully designed graphics, surrounded by natural ingredients that the cosmetics are made of. Also, Herbal Dynamics Beauty knows how to create some magic sharing photos of their cosmetics amongst fresh vegetables, fruits and herbals. Their content makes you feel hungry and ready to use all the products!
Showing the concrete results
When it comes to communication and promotion of natural cosmetics the best strategy is to prove that your products are outstanding and trustworthy. How? Simply showcase concrete results, presenting examples of “before and after.” Try to turn this strategy into an actual challenge for your clients. How about pushing people towards skincare routine #7daysSkinCareChallenge, helping them become more aware of their holistic and health benefits. Taking advantage of your community and running a contest using your social media will help you easily collect a decent amount of user-generated content and product reviews. Find out the main focus and cause, set your brand’s hashtags and think about how you can reward the most engaged brand advocates. If you already maintain close relationships with influencers, don’t forget to ask them to help you by spreading a word or two.
Limited edition strategy for natural cosmetics
Marketing is all about attention to detail and a little bit of magic that you put into everyday activities. Determine your customer base, based on research, data and your previous sales. Think about the demand and solutions that you can create for your customers. Limited edition marketing can help you leverage the market, sales, and social media. This strategy gives you an opportunity to think outside the box, provide something fresh and yet unseen. While it focuses on short-term buzz, the long-term desirability will help you build exclusivity and intimacy between you and the client. A couple of weeks ago a UK based beauty subscription service BirchBox launched its own vegan box named “The Natural Edit”. How about making your own indie beauty box?
Follow industries that are not related to the beauty business niche
The market for vegan cosmetics is highly competitive due to a number of international companies with diverse products. If you want your brand to become an innovative leader, look for the inspiration and solutions in places where your competitors don’t. All ideas are repetitive and have already been done and “redone” over and over. Following your competition definitely should be an inseparable part of your marketing strategy, but if you want to be one step ahead make sure that you don’t choose the same roads and paths.
Corporate Social Initiatives
The customers’ decision-making process has changed dramatically within the last couple of years. Consumers have never been more engaged at a deeper level. Showing a real interest not only in the products but more so in the brand’s voice and business operations. That’s the reason why indie beauty brands have started familiarizing themselves with social initiatives and campaigns. Being a socially responsible business helps you increase awareness, and moreover become more authentic and trustworthy. Your corporate social marketing should be strongly connected with your beauty brand philosophy and values. For instance, Mad Hippie spends every $1 from every sale helping the Save The Elephants organization secure a future for elephants in a rapidly changing world. This makes people want to buy their products and play a small part in improving animals’ lives.
Outstanding customer service as a core of natural beauty business
When the market is so crowded and filled with similar products and messages. Now it’s time to find your unique selling points for your brand. Lately, customer service has become the most widespread strategic driver of business. Building strong relationships can help companies transform clients into real brand advocates. In the long run, this means positive word-of-mouth offline and online, as well as proven social trust. Youth To The People is a good example, as the company strategy is driven heavily by the community and its engagement.
Create some magic on Instagram
According to Statista, 95% of beauty brands are using the platform. Almost one-third of Instagram users make purchases through mobile devices. Instagram has recently launched a standalone e-commerce shop, positioning the platform as the main e-shopping center. The data proves that you can’t walk by without investing your time and effort in this highly engaging medium.
Content ideas to skyrocket your beauty marketing:
- Publish visually appealing and “Insagramable” content. If you don’t have a huge budget consider collaborating with talented photographers and content creators.
- Publish “before and after” stories to prove the effectiveness of your cosmetics,
- Collaborate with aspiring beauty MUAs (makeup artists) – they love natural cosmetics and they usually share their skin care routine via Instagram, so it’s a powerful way to attract new prospects.
- Make use of Instagram e-commerce shop by tagging your products, as it refers to a clear call-to-action.
- Analyze popular hashtags in the beauty niche using IQ Hashtags, then easily plan, manage and schedule your communication with Planoly.
- Tell your brand stories through Instagram Stories, and Instagram TV. Record tutorials, tips, and tricks on how to apply cosmetics, what are the benefits of using it, etc. To make your content last longer, feature your favorite videos through Instagram Highlights.
- Share your customers’ stories and user-generated content, there’s no better strategy to show true love to your products!
- Offer a free giveaway of your products; think about the contest in a creative way. Is there anything people can do for your brand to spread the word about the products? Ask them to do this so that they could win awards!
- Collaborate with an organization who supports animals, planet Earth or other initiatives that you are strongly connected with. Almost 87% of consumers will choose a product when the brand supports organizations, activities, social issues for which the client himself cares.
- Switch your profile to a business account and make use of Instagram e-commerce by tagging your products and helping your customers get to know you
- Stay proactive and customer-centric, respond fast and friendly to customers’ feedback. Make them a center of all of your ideas and marketing initiatives.
- Engage with people through gifs, content-in-motion and, of course, with videos. Creating video content, which focuses mainly on the product, increases your brand awareness up to 26%.
In this highly competitive market, the key is to learn how to stand out in a crowd, and to learn how to do typical things differently than your competitors do. Follow the market, discover new trends, but stay alert and find out the way to become a trendsetter, a leader within your industry. However, sometimes limitations are the greatest resource.
