How to Launch a Beauty Brand on a Budget
Dreaming of launching your own beauty brand but feeling overwhelmed by the costs? It's possible to launch a successful beauty brand on a budget. In this post, I'll share practical tips to help you get started, from building your community to nurturing your audience.
Whilst it is no easy task, with the right strategy in place launching a beauty brand on a budget and achieving those first few sales is possible. This blog will outline the initial steps I recommend taking to launch your beauty brand. This is presuming you already have your product ready to launch and you have a thorough and complete brand strategy. This includes your brand foundations (aka your brand mission, vision, values and purpose), you have done audience research and know exactly who you are targeting. You have also undertaken thorough competitor research and analysis and you know exactly how you are going to communicate your brand story and deliver your brand message to your customer so they actually convert. If you haven’t yet completed the brand strategy work, I would recommend going back a step and doing this fundamental work prior to launching, otherwise you run the risk of wasting lots of time, money and resources on launching a brand that doesn't resonate with your audience.
Create a Buzz: Build Your Community on Social Media
A thriving community is a cornerstone of success for many beauty brands. To foster a strong community, brands must connect with their customers on a deeper level through compelling storytelling and clear messaging. Community-driven brands often spend less on advertising, as their loyal customers become advocates, spreading the word and attracting new customers.
Social media provides a powerful platform for building a community. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram allow brands to connect with potential customers and nurture relationships. Building your community before launch can create excitement and anticipation for your brand. Start by sharing your brand story and connecting with potential customers on social media. Consumers enjoy being part of a brand's journey and appreciate having a say in its direction. This can foster loyalty and create a strong sense of community.
Create a Waitlist to Build Anticipation
To convert potential customers, brands need to consistently engage them through multiple touchpoints. The average number of touchpoints a customer will go through before making a purchase is around 8 times. This means they will need to see your brand through different marketing channels before even considering a purchase. To generate excitement for your product launch, focus on nurturing your audience. When potential customers first discover your brand (often through social media or blog content), aim to entice them to join a waitlist through your email service provider. Email marketing has a higher conversion rate (2-5%) than other channels, making it more likely that waitlist members will become paying customers.
To do this, I recommend setting up a landing page either through your website, or through your email service provider such as Klaviyo. This can be a really simple landing page with a sign up form, your brand visuals and catchy messaging that tells the audience what they are signing up for.
Build Trust and Nurture Your Audience
Once you have a growing mailing list, focus on building trust and nurturing your audience. Your brand story, messaging, and understanding of your customers are key. Create an email series of about 3 emails to introduce your brand, share your mission, and build excitement for your launch:
Tell your brand story. Why would this customer want to buy your products? How will it change their life? What will their life look like after they buy your product?
What is the mission you are on as a brand? You want to give your audience something to connect to. Why would they want to stick around? Consumers love to follow along with a brand’s journey and if you have a specific mission for your brand consumers will be much more likely to connect to something that is emotionally driven.
Get your audience to interact with you. This is one of the most effective strategies to implement start building a relationship with your audience - talk to them directly! When sending an email to your waitlist, ask them to reply directly to your email to start a conversation with you. Encourage engagement rather than just sending out blanket emails. The best strategy for building community is to authentically communicate directly with your audience. It seems simple, but is highly effective.
Start Getting Social Proof
You don’t need to wait until you have launched to start getting reviews for your products and social proof. Even before you launch, I recommend sending out products to 10-20 creators to start building up content you can use on your social platforms, website and emails. These don’t need to be creators with hundreds of thousands of followers. Start small with a few thousand and ask them to film unboxing videos, application videos, before and after comparisons and videos of them talking about the product. This social proof in the early days is vital for your audience who might be on the fence about buying from an unknown brand. This builds trust and if the videos are created authentically and are high quality, this will build brand equity in the minds of your consumers and make your beauty brand launch much more successful.