Goodness&Wonder Ltd All rights reserved.

Transcription

1

2 The 10 step proven system to launch a successful beauty brand and the one thing you don t need to do, to get started! STEP 1 Be clear on your vision & set effective goals Having an idea of where it is you want to get to and what it would be like to get there, will significantly help you to reach your destination. So it s important to have a business vision! Your business vision will help you to know (and remember) what it is you want to achieve and experience, and why. It will help you to stay 1. Focused on the outcome 2. Positive about the possibility of achieving it 3. Clear about what needs to be done to realise it and 4. Motivated in times of need Setting goals is important because if you don t know where you want to go, you will almost certainly NOT get there and by setting goals you are actually turning your vision into reality, step-by-step. 1. Take a few minutes to sit quietly and imagine where you want to be in 5 or 10 years time.

3 What success do you want for your business? What will that give you? How does it feel? 2. Set at least 3 twelve month goals related to what you want to achieve with your business. STEP 2 Get Supported Starting and building a successful beauty business and brand is not easy. It takes hard work (we won t lie to you), motivation and a strong desire to achieve! And at the same time, it is totally possible to do! Don t try to do it all alone, don t struggle and fumble in the dark, wondering what to do next, what to prioritise, what to focus on. You ll get frustrated, confused, overwhelmed and feel like giving up. And you don t want that do you? 1. Find and work with a relevant business coach 2. Do a course that is industry-specific (check our website for the next Build Your Beauty Brand course 3. Join our Grow Your Natural Skincare Business Facebook Master mind group here: By being supported, you will be guided every step of the way, so you can get where you want to go faster, more directly and with less stress.

4 STEP 3 Research the Market You need to know what brands are out there, what gaps in the market there are and what prices other brands are charging. Once you ve done some research you can start to identify what gaps in the market you could fill, think about what niche you want your brand to fit into to and build your USP. This will help you to stand out from the crowd, find, get and keep customers. 1. Go out into the marketplace, to some real shops and look around, play with some products, look at various brands in various different shops. 2. Make some notes and take some photos (ask permission). Ask yourself these questions as you re looking: What do you like and why? What do you dislike and why?

5 STEP 4 Create your capsule range The NPD (New Product Development) process is something you will always need to be investing your time and energy into if you want your business to grow and succeed. Plus creating new products, is part of the fun of building your own beauty brand too! Your Capsule Range should start off small with just 3-5 products. Keeps things simple and enables greater focus Makes it easier to track, manage and administer everything Makes it easier to design & manufacture your products You ll also more easily be able to identify, target and market your brand & products to your ideal audience. Write down ideas in answer to these questions. 1. What 3-5 products could you start with? 2. How do they create a coherent capsule range?

6 STEP 5 Create your Name and Branding Your branding is an important part of creating the overall look and feel of your business and it s products as well as how you get your message across to your target audience. Now, your overall brand name and design has to integrate (and be consistent) with your: Business vision, values, ethics, mission Brand positioning, niche & USP Target audience (it has to appeal to them) It s also important to note that branding design includes: Brand logos and icons Company/brand colours Company/brand fonts/typefaces Unless you re a graphic or brand designer, one investment worth making is to enlist the services of a designer. Its really not worth scrimping on this if you want a professional looking brand. Get an A3 Card and some coloured pens, ensure you have a smile on your face because now it s time to get into your creative spirit! 1. Write down all the words, phrases and ideas that come to you when you think about your brand, business, products and cus-

7 tomers. 2. For at least the next week, write down any names, ideas, phrases that you come up with, see or hear as you go about your day that really resonate with you, whether they are related to your brand or not.could be anything something in a film, on TV, on a poster, something someone says, something you read in a book etc etc. We honestly advise that you just keep adding to your A3 Card. Keep thinking about and observing words, phrases and ideas as you go about your day. Keep taking notes because over time your brand name will emerge from this creative exploration! STEP 6 Design your Products Product Packaging Design takes the aim of the individual product, the values of your brand, your personality and all other considerations and conveys that visually through the overall design. The design needs to have consistency across several products within a range, i.e. the logo always appears top right, the font is the same and the size of the product name is consistent, the colours are consistent. This links all of the products in your brand together, so they look like one brand and they look good all sitting together on a shelf or a website. Product Packaging Design includes decisions on all elements of

8 the design, i.e. Componentry (bottle/jar, cap, spray/pump mechanism, lid etc) Packaging (retail carton, labels, decoration, inner/liner etc) You will need to research and source the componentry and work with your graphic designer on creating the packaging designs (aka artwork) for each product in your capsule range. This takes time so get working on it while you re formulating. STEP 7 Get Feedback Its so important to get some feedback from your target audience on your products, packaging and branding before you take them to market as if there s something that they really dislike, its much better to find out at this stage, where you can make alterations and improvements and hopefully get a fantastic and successful range of products to launch! The best way to get feedback is through running a focus group, which is a method of market research where you gather people in your target audience together to try your products and answer whatever questions you have about them. By listening closely to your target audience you will get to know them better, get to know their needs and wants and be able to use their language back to them in your marketing too, so they feel she s totally talking to me! which can be very very effective.

9 1. How can you reach people who fit the criteria of your target audience and ask them questions or get them to try your formulas or products? 2. What answers would you like to get from them? 3. What questions do you think you should ask? STEP 8 Price for Profit Pricing your products for profit is one of the hardest things to get right, especially when starting out. Profit is essentially the difference between your sales income and your total costs. So you have to control your costs as well as sell your products for the best price. Costs: You should be able to calculate the cost of making a product. You add up all the costs such as the ingredients, the bottle, the label and box and divide by the number of products you ve produced, relatively simple. Remember, you also need to take into consideration the other places that you spend money too! Design work, printing, stationary, equipment, product testing & certification, insurance and advertising/marketing and you need to think about your time too :) Income: this may come from selling your products direct to cus-

10 tomers either through your own website or at fairs and events, or this may come from selling through retailers - which will buy from you at a much lower price but offers a way to sell higher volumes. The difference between the two is your profit margin! This needs to be at a level where you make money and can pay yourself. To begin with though, keep it simple! Put together a nice simple excel spreadsheet to track your income & expenditure If you don t know how to do that, I am sure you can find someone who can help you can even find good video tutorials online! Check out STEP 9 Get Marketing Marketing is an absolutely crucial part of running a successful business. Every business owner needs to make friends with marketing and make it a priority every single week (if not every day!) to undertake some kind of marketing activity. Marketing is essentially about: 1. Getting and keeping customers 2. Telling people about your products 3. Inviting them to buy them

11 There are many many ways to market your brand and products; through social media, blogging, PR, newsletters, through Joint Venture partners, through your retail partners, YouTube, Facebook ads, your own website if you have one, awards and competitions, trade fairs, customer fairs/events, word of mouth, loyalty schemes, promotional activity and more! The good news is that many of the methods listed above are either free or won t cost a lot. Most will cost you time but not much or any money if you do it yourself. You can certainly get going with your marketing on a very limited budget. The marketing methods you choose must make sense when related to your target audience. Research and brainstorm the answers to these questions: 1. Where do your target audience hang out, online or offline? 2. What social media do they use? 3. What magazines do they read? 4. What blogs do they read? 5. These answers will help guide you to which marketing methods will be best for you to use, to reach them.

12 STEP 10 Sell, Sell, Sell In order to build a successful brand you need to be consistently and regularly selling your products. You can do this through retail partners or direct from you to your customers, you can do either both online and offline too. You need to be selling your brand through several outlets, not just one and growing your brand through increasing these outlets and your sales in each outlet all the time. Top Tip: get your brand stocked in retailers as soon as you can. They do a lot of the hard work of finding customers, for you and you ll be able to increase your sales and volumes of sales so you ll have income to invest in developing more products. Which retailers (online and stores) would you love to have your brand stocked and why?

13 AND FINALLY The one thing you don t need to get started is.. Your own website! Yes you heard that right! You are better off selling your products through retailers than on your own website, because they do all the work of building traffic for you (both into a store and to an online store) which takes time and effort. We hope that this guide has got you thinking about the steps YOU can take to launch your successful beauty brand! Whats next? 1) Every now and then we ll send you more tops tips direct to your inbox to help you grow your successful business 2) Join our online mastermind Grow Your Natural Skincare Business (hosted on Facebook). Be inspired and have your burning questions answered by an expert!

14 About the Author Hilary Crisp (known as Hils to most!) is an expert in the business and marketing arena of beauty and skincare, having worked as a marketer for premium beauty brands for more than 15 years. Hils is the Course Tutor for our Build Your Beauty Brand course. Hils specialism is new business development working with smaller brands such as The Organic Pharmacy to expand their distribution into retailers and prestigious high end department stores such as Harvey Nicholls, John Lewis, House of Fraser and Harrods. Her expertise also includes: Launching and marketing brands, collections and products Developing new products and collections How to price products and increase profit margins Helping brands increase their distribution and get stocked by retailers; both online and in high end department stores Working with designers and suppliers of componentry, packaging and formulations. Hils has worked with countless different niche brands, across all beauty categories; skincare, colour cosmetics, fragrance, home fragrance and toiletries. Notably, she has worked with The Organic

15 Pharmacy, a truly exciting, high quality, beautiful, ethical, and award-winning organic lifestyle brand. Other skincare brands she has worked with include Nuxe, La Prairie and Nickel; designer brands include DVF (Diane von Furstenburg) colour cosmetics and Designers Guild home fragrance; and quirky, creative brands such as Lolita Lempicka fragrance. With this professional experience, plus a degree in Business and Marketing, her personal passion for organic products and eco/green lifestyle, and the skills gained through her recent transition into a new career of coaching, Hils is the perfect person for us to be working with; to help, guide and support you to create and build your very own natural beauty brand.