Why It's Crucial to Begin Your Marketing Strategy Before You Approach Manufacturing

A founder might assume that marketing takes place solely when the product is complete and ready to sell, but that can actually be detrimental to branding and sales. Knowing in as much detail as possible how you'll be marketing your beauty brand and precisely who you'll be marketing it to is a huge part of brand development. And it's a part you should never skip before the manufacturing part of the process.

A lot goes into the manufacturing stage, and it's during this stage when you'll be faced with a variety of decisions that will play a big role in your brand's style and how you present it to the world. Consulting a beauty marketing professional before this stage can go a long way in setting your brand up for a fruitful launch as well as long-term success.

Establishing Brand Values

In branding, you have your why - why you do what you do and why you started your brand. But you also have your brand values, and those are equally vital to communicate with potential buyers.

As a beauty founder, your brand values can include anything from sustainably and ethically-sourced ingredients to eco-conscious packaging and shipping materials, and anything from community enrichment to fostering healthier beauty standards, or simply giving a percentage of proceeds to charities that support a cause that is important to you. Whether it be specific ingredients during manufacturing, certain materials for packaging or even a values-related tagline printed on shipping materials; your values can and absolutely should play a role in the manufacturing stage of your beauty brand.

Effective Brand Positioning

In line with values, you also have positioning. For example, do you plan to promote one of your key ingredients as a unique selling point? You need to know that before going to manufacturing of course.

You may also be able to position by promoting your clean beauty standards on your packaging, for example listing "no artificial fragrances" etc. Are you going to be cruelty-free and/or vegan certified, certified organic, etc.? These things play a huge role in positioning for a beauty brand. It's crucial to know where you stand before you can know how to position yourself.

Your beauty line's unique qualities are necessary for effective brand positioning, including your packaging. I often spot different beauty brands with the same exact packaging style, which is of course a big mistake. A marketing specialist with an expertise in beauty can help you through the manufacturing stage, to help make sure you retain the utmost uniqueness in your product design and packaging.

Reaching Your Ideal Buyer

It's easy to misconstrue all of the initial leg work as R & D and branding, but marketing is all about how you plan to communicate and leverage your branding in order to target your key demographic within the beauty market.

Though everything you do from start to finish must be aimed at the individual. In marketing, we don’t really use the phrase "key demographic" anymore. We use the phrase, "ideal buyer" with emphasis on the buyer being singular. So one of the first questions I ask clients is who is your ideal buyer? As a beauty founder, you should be able to describe them in as much detail as possible, both in specific details and in more obtuse ways like is she sexy or cute? Is she minimal/modern or traditional? Whatever your answers to those questions are, they should be easily answered with but mere a glance at your brand. Because sometimes that is all you'll get. So every detail from product names to brand colors, from the fonts you use to the feel of the packaging materials; you need a very clear idea of those elements before you approach manufacturing.

Packaging types can be largely dictated by your ideal buyer too. For example, if she is a jet setter, you'll want to have travel-size packaging available.

A big benefit with marketing intentionally like that is it creates a back-and-forth effect where you're not only catering to this particular buyer, you're also attracting her in the first place.

Your Buyer's When

Another question I make sure beauty founders know the answer to is what is their ideal buyer's when, meaning when do they buy? Do they most often buy whenever they are personally wanting to switch to more natural ingredients, for example? If that is the example we're going with, there are times when they might have a stronger urge to buy, like during the new year and during Earth month. In that case, you may want to produce something like a special starter pack or discovery set to encourage new buyers to come your way. Again, this is something you will need to know ahead of time before approaching manufacturing.

PR Packages

Packaging choices you may also be faced with during manufacturing include whether or not you plan to send out special PR packages to influencers and creators. It's important to consult with a marketing specialist who can help you devise a strong strategy when it comes to gifted campaign products.

So whether it be about brand positioning or communicating your brand values, reaching your ideal buyer and hosting successful creator campaigns; there are a number of reasons to get your marketing strategy squared away before you go to manufacturing, not the other way around.