Tips for Starting a Skincare Company
As the skincare market continues to expand, the time is right for starting your own company. You’ll never reach the level of success you desire, however, without establishing a disruptive brand that stands out from the completion. A 2019 study by the independent market research company the NPD Group singles out the prestige beauty market as one of the fastest-growing sectors in United States retail sales with an annual growth of 6 percent. And, with an annual growth of 13 percent, the skincare category stands out as a particular achiever, comprising a full 60 percent of the prestige beauty market’s total industry gains. “If I had to use one word to characterize the state of the U.S. beauty industry today, it would be disruption,” says NPD Group executive director and beauty industry analyst Larissa Jensen. “Whether we look at categories, brands, or retailers, there are sweeping changes taking place in the market landscape.” Jensen proceeds with a warning to skincare entrepreneurs everywhere, stressing the fact that “brands and retailers must not only be cognizant of these transformations and act upon them, but identify new white space opportunities to captivate consumers and further differentiate themselves from the crowd.” Leveraging Areas of Disruption in Skincare Industry Prospective skincare company owners and chief executive officers should pay close attention to the specific growth areas within the skincare industry if they want to capitalize on areas of disruption and establish a distinct, unique, and valuable brand. The booming popularity of natural beauty products, for example, represents a dramatic sea change in terms of the qualities and characteristics that customers have come to expect. Reflecting this change, the top contributor to the $5.6-billion skincare industry are natural skincare brands. The NPD Group reports that natural skincare products accounted for more than one-quarter of annual skincare sales, up 23 percent from the previous year. The NPD Group report goes on to identify lip treatments, toners/clarifiers, facial sprays, and alphabet creams as the fastest-growing skincare product classifications. Customers are also increasingly purchasing skincare for the body, protective sunscreens, and self-tanning products. Legal Requirements to Operate a Skincare Business Before starting a skincare company, it is absolutely imperative that you understand all the licensing and regulatory issues that you will face. In general, the legal requirements that you must meet to operate a handmade cosmetics business are similar to the legal requirements that other small business must meet. However, as part of the cosmetic/beauty industry, you must ensure that your skincare product(s) pass muster with the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Regulated by the FDA under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, all skincare products must be deemed safe for consumers for indicated conditions of use prior to their release. They also have to be labeled properly. It isn’t against the law to make cosmetics in your home, but it is your responsibility to ensure that this is accomplished safely. In his article “How to Start Your Own Line of Skin Care,” Houston Chronicle contributor Michael Flanagan suggests accessing the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practice Guidelines/Inspection Checklist before designing your manufacturing space. This is the best way to prepare this space for its required FDA on-site inspection. Manufacturing Your Skincare Products The Houston Chronicle article goes on to offer a number of skincare product manufacturing tips including cutting down on overhead costs by looking for bulk suppliers to secure all necessary raw ingredients. It recommends accessing online distribution networks such as MakingCosmetics and Admix to meet both your supply and equipment needs. If you choose to start your business with a manufacturing space on your residential property, you can often use your kitchen as your main hub of activity. The equipment that you will need depends entirely on the type(s) of skincare product(s) that you want to make. Skincare companies that plan to make clay facials, for example, can probably begin by using existing household mixing bowls and spoons. Those who want to make soap, however, must first buy soap molds and a few other essential pieces of equipment. Skincare Company Marketing No matter how great your skincare products happen to be, you won’t get far in the skincare sector without a comprehensive and outstanding marketing campaign. Here are just a few elements that you’ll want to include in your unified skincare company marketing efforts. An official website – In virtually any industry, a high-quality website is absolutely essential. Your website should reflect your company’s core values and commitment to excellence. Even if you don’t plan to sell your skincare products online, customers will inevitably turn to your website for answers to important questions as well as information about your company and what it does best. A strong social media presence – Reach your target consumer base on the social media platforms that they already frequent. Depending on your target demographic this might mean maintaining compelling, informative, and up-to-date company pages on multiple platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Social media outreach is a great idea for a wide range of reasons, but its ability to engender both consumer-to-company and consumer-to-consumer interactions is simply unparalleled. Email newsletters – As a skincare company, you’ll want to turn each buyer into a repeat customer. Email newsletters are a great way to drive consumer loyalty. Although you don’t want to bombard customers with constant messages of little value, occasional newsletters can be a great way to make customers feel valued. Share content that will command attention, announce the release of new products, and motivate consumer action with various sales and promotions. Non-digital marketing efforts – Don’t forget that the majority of people still buy their skincare products in brick-and-mortar stores. Consider visiting regional beauty salons, spas, and health/beauty stores to offer free samples. If these establishments express an interest in buying your products, you should provide them with attractive wholesale pricing. Other traditional sales techniques that continue to work well include the staging of at-home skincare parties. Skincare Branding While all of the techniques outlined above can effectively reach
3 Reasons You Should Be Using Direct to Consumer Advertising
Today’s marketplace focuses on strong consumer relationships and with to DTC advertising you can craft genuine conversations that build loyalty. There’s a lot more to direct to consumer advertising than most realize, agencies and clients alike don’t always understand its scope. DTC, or D2C, stands for direct to consumer and refers to any communication that goes from a brand to the user or buyer specifically. A one-to-one communication with no middleman. Which sounds pretty simple but covers quite a bit, including direct mailers, social media, brand and voice apps, native advertising, and plenty more.Here are 3 of the top reasons you should be utilizing DTC: 1. Control the perceptions of your brand Brands are only as strong as their storytelling. When consumers don’t know, believe, or understand your narrative they make up their own. Leveraging the power of direct to consumer marketing, your brand can take full control of your narrative telling your consumers your story directly to get them engaged, listening, and interacting. The more you can inspire your target market to get involved with your brand, the more invested they’ll be in your services. It’s not really your company’s products or services that keep consumers coming back, it’s strong branding and spellbinding storytelling that turns customers into true brand advocates. While direct to consumer strategy is all about direct communication, it’s important to know what you want to say and how best to say it. There are tons of channels for DTC and choosing the ones that will draw in the correct audience is just as integral as the communication itself. Get in touch with strategy and content experts before deciding on any specific execution. As these words will come directly from your brand they will be seen as an honest representation of your company, so they need to reliably strike the right cord. 2. Cut costs while growing your consumer base The efficiency that comes with DTC strategies stems from the funds you keep by cutting down on middlemen. While cutting costs is a great goal, DTC would still be a waste of resources if it’s not effective. The impact of your D2C marketing, another term for direct to consumer advertising concepts, will be determined by the quality of the content and channel. For instance, if your brand is communicating through an app then the user experience needs to be just as strong as the content. The program is representing you and the consumer learn more from experience than from content. Build out your D2C marketing strategy with an advertising agency that understands the intricacies of app development and marketing to reach your goals without wasting time or resources. Streamlining your communications is only useful when those communications are what your consumers want to hear served in a way that will make them listen. 3. Instantly update your narrative as trends shift Having direct control over your band’s communications gives you unique speed when it’s time to make a change. Consumers and cultures are ever-changing so your content needs to be as well. When looking at native advertising DTC channels such as social media, you can shift the perceptions of your entire audience over just a few weeks utilizing crafted strategic posts. When your communications are controlled by you, shifts and swerves are well within reach; so is direct interaction. Through strategic interactions with your consumers, you can learn about them as much as they’ll learn about your brand. As your communicators begin to genuinely understand the target market, they’ll be able to tweak your approach better and connect more effectively. For all this to work you’ll need skilled communicators in charge of your DTC communications, to monitor and adjust messaging in real-time. The takeaway Direct to consumer advertising has a great deal to offer brands that effectively use it. Leveraging effective strategy, well-executed content, and a deep understanding of their audience, direct to consumer brands can drive incredible profits and build loyalty. Correctly managing all the variables at hand takes a lot of strategic skill and industry understanding. Being a full-service agency with a strategic center that deeply understands audiences and how to best position brands to appeal to them. When you’re ready to build effective consumer relationships through DTC marketing, Let’s connect.
The science of restaurant menu design and what you need to know
It’s no secret that restaurant branding – specifically in terms of restaurant menu design – is truly an art form. Be it unique, exquisite, quirky, or reminiscent of the latest fad in bringing the scrumptiously delicious to life, there’s much to be appreciated about menus that possess that special quality. Think of it as a certain creative ingredient (or perhaps an entire recipe) that only serves to elevate a pleasurable dining experience – even if from the very first brand interaction. Below, we bring you 5 outstanding restaurant menus, and why we believe they’re prime examples of complete culinary design genius at work: Brass union I love everything about this concept! I’m such a mark for industrial-style design and you can’t get much more industrial than menus made to look like invoices straight out of a 70’s-era brake pad factory. The layout is straightforward and easy to navigate, and the descriptions of the items aren’t too long and complex. Overall, this menu doesn’t look very daunting when it’s first presented to you. For authenticity’s sake, I hope these menus are printed on a dot-matrix printer. Some burros Who doesn’t enjoy bright and friendly colors paired with bold, hand drawn lines? This menu design makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I like that the only actual menu descriptions are specific to this brand’s speciality items. It definitely helps to keeps the clutter to a minimum – and let’s be honest…it’s Mexican food. If you don’t know what a taco is, then I pity you. Black tap It’s so easy to get minimalist design wrong, but this team got it oh so right. The flow of this design is great because what this restaurant does best is placed front and center. I’ve been to so many restaurants that bury their signature items deep in the menu, and I’ve never understood why they do so. If you are known for a signature dish (or even have it in your name), then it makes perfect sense to ensure that it’s a cinch to locate on the menu. Made The ingenuity of this menu is to be applauded. The design team kept the actual look of the menu simple so that the experience of going through the menu is what stands out to the restaurant patron. It’s so intelligently thought out – brunch, side items, and drinks take up the least amount of room so they are up front, while lunch has a larger selection, followed by dinner (which typically has the largest selection overall). This menu just begs to be explored, no matter what time of the day you are visiting the restaurant. Salty’s When I’m going to a seafood restaurant, this is the kind of menu I want to see. The illustrations are great, and the overall feel of the brand definitely reminds me of the beach. The menu being rubber-banded to the wood backing board is a nice touch, too. Overall, the presentation is an inexpensive, easy way to make a customer feel perceived value in their meal, all while enhancing their dining experience. Do any of these menu options whet your appetite to further bolster your restaurant’s brand to create a positive dining experience to make your customers take notice – and come back for a second helping? Contact our team of uber-talented creative design experts today to determine how we can help you achieve your goals!