Types of Beauty Marketing

A beauty brand’s marketing strategy can be broken down into 4 categories, although some activations will naturally overlap. Regardless of the activity, you should take a 360º approach to promoting your beauty business. This ensures each level of the marketing funnel receives the attention it needs.

Consumer marketing

The first category is consumer marketing. This includes sampling, which aims to raise awareness and get product into customers’ hands, encouraging them to purchase the full-size product. Beauty is very subjective, so expect to over-invest in this area. Consumer activations are promotions on your website that drive sales or encourage an upsell, through discounts, gift with purchase (GWP), bundles and more. Media advertising covers anything from PPC to print adverts. Subscription boxes offer an easy way to target a new database of already engaged consumers. However, depending on the box, they can require you to manufacture large volumes of samples.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing is the second category beauty brands should consider. This includes digital advertising, such as Google AdWords, display adverts and website banners. Influencers can also fall into this category, through campaigns such as affiliate schemes. Online competitions offer a great way to build your customer database and raise awareness. They can also position your brand alongside other, more established brands through collaborations. Finally, paid social media advertising can serve a number of objectives, such as building your follower count, driving newsletter sign ups, or increasing conversions.

Trade marketing

Our third category is trade marketing. This covers anything you do in partnership with a retailer. Activity includes GWPs, point of sale (POS) materials, limited edition products or exclusives, promotional displays, offers and promotions, and targeted email marketing.

PR

Finally, PR forms another major category for brands to consider, even if you initially manage this internally. This can involve influencer or expert led events, press events, creative mailers, interviews with both trade and consumer press, awards, and affiliate press campaigns. Ultimately, this should help increase your brand’s reach across a wider beauty network.

All 4 categories should form part of an overarching beauty marketing plan. You should communicate this plan to everyone involved in the activity. The aim is to ensure consistent messaging across all touchpoints of your beauty brand, helping you strengthen, capitalise on, and monetise your exposure.