Building successful beauty marketing campaigns are an important consideration. Retailers spend a large proportion of their budget on marketing and as a brand they anticipate you to do the same. Not only do you need to spend money on your own marketing – your brand, your website, your marketing collateral, your packaging, your sampling campaign, your instore fixtures and fittings, your staff training – but you also need to spend money on marketing your brand in their stores across events and promotional campaigns.
A brand joining a retailer will be provided with a sales target for the first 6 – 12 months. The future success of their relationship will be measured on their ability to deliver against this sales target, amongst other factors. Ensure that your promotional plan is a well thought out and well executed strategy that favourably contributes towards achieving your annual sales performance.
Promotions play a big role in retail, you only need to visit department stores, pharmacies and grocers to see how many promotions take place in-store. Whilst the central idea of a promotion is to drive volume and financial targets, they can also help a brand in driving brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Successful promotional planning is a fine line between balancing margins, profitability and stock levels with no room for error. As a brand, your discussions with a retail buyer will centre around how many promotions you will be running a year and what level of stock is required to manage these, sales planning is key. Retailers set sales targets and margins for each category and buyers are measured on the success of delivering to these KPI’s. They therefore need to be confident that the promotions you are recommending will meet their targets and that you have proven sales history and the inventory to support this. Retail promotions are an essential way of retailers connecting with their end customers.
Ideally you should be recommending promotional events run with similar retailers, where you know what the uplift in sales will be and you know that you have all the elements in place to be able to run with these promotions successfully. When discussing promotional events, outline your sales projections and the expected performance of your products.
They can be about providing value. You could offer a GWP, a limited-edition product, an experience, a competition instead of just another 3 for 2, buy 1 get 1 free or product bundle. Something enticing enough for your customers to enable you to drive sales. Standing out on shelves can be difficult, however when you are in a central promotional space, use impactful POS to highlight your promotion and benefit from the use of consumer claims on your packaging, product reviews online and in-store magazines. Authenticity and measurable claims are important to your end customer, particularly when it comes to beauty products.
Ensure that at the end of the promotion, even if it has been an overall success, that you have sufficient stock levels to meet your sales expectations for the coming months. Whilst a successful promotion is great, a retailer wants to ensure that they are always in stock.
Are you looking for support to help you plan your marketing calendar and promotions? Get in touch to discuss how we can work with you.
We love partnering up with visionary entrepreneurs, beauty brands, companies, retailers, spas and salons like you to develop and launch new brands or to reposition your existing business.
As a brand management company we draw upon strategic insights, creative thinking, commerciality and years of experience in branding, product development, retail and travel retail to help you to develop and grow your business.
We build marketing strategies, conceptualise brand identities and visual elements, create products, develop marketing, social media and PR to help you to engage with your ideal customers – whether you are selling direct-to-consumer or through bricks- and-mortar.
We work with you to develop a comprehensive strategy for your business by understanding your vision (and the marketplace) and then delving into the details to create order and structure, neatly packaged up to deliver you commercial results.
Over the years we have worked with a diverse portfolio of businesses – here’s a snapshot. If you would like to discuss your ideas with us, get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
Unless someone comes from a background in this industry, you wouldn’t know what is required. Not only do I have the support of an experienced team to help me to make things happen and to grow my brand, but I also have a great personal relationship with Janet and her team, working in this way means I have someone to turn to, to share the journey of running a business.
‘Through Janet’s management skills, expertise and proven track record on the job she successfully managed the purchasing of our retail operations and ensured the integrity of our brands in-stores. Her enthusiasm and total dedication, delivered results in any project she was involved in.’
‘Janet has excellent beauty market knowledge. Level headed with clear vision, direction and the ability to drive business forward, Janet led the teams through a complete product design change advising on what the key marketing messages should be, incorporating her technical knowledge and beauty expertise.’
‘I highly recommend Bespoke Advantage to business owners across the beauty, spa and wellness industry. Janet has been a fantastic support to my business. Through her in-depth knowledge of the beauty industry she has provided me with strategies specifically tailored to my business needs, to help me to grow my business across the marketplace’.
‘Janet has a wealth of experience across retail, buying and marketing. She conducted a full strategic review of our cross functional business and the travel retail market to develop a comprehensive buying and quality control strategy that was signed off at board level. I highly recommend her as an asset to any business.’
‘Janet is extremely professional, knowledgeable and thorough, an expert of her field. This shone through from our first conversation, which instinctively led me to want to work with Bespoke Advantage. As a new skincare brand the expertise of Bespoke Advantage has been invaluable.’
‘Janet, absolutely fantastic to meet you today. Thoroughly enjoyed The Beauty Workshop. You definitely excel in your area and beyond.’
‘We have been really pleased to work with Janet. Through her 6-Month online coaching program she showed us exactly what we needed to do each step of the way. Really look forward to having future opportunities to work together.’
‘Many thanks again for all the help, support and words of encouragement, as I said before, best and most sensible thing I’ve done in developing my beauty ideas is to engage with you!’
‘It’s been inspirational working with Janet. We are in the process of launching a skincare brand however have received conflicting opinions from so many people we were really confused. I am so impressed by Janet’s knowledge and experience in product development, marketing and retail and the way she explains everything so clearly. She is very motivating and positive, and so much fun to work with. I have much more clarity and confidence in how to move things forward.’