4 Beauty Branding tips to be a Stand-out Business
The cosmetics business is enormous and rapidly expanding — local and international companies compete for a valuable position on our vanity shelves. With the proliferation of online cosmetic schools and private labeling enterprises, the entry barriers to the industry are low.
Despite the industry's saturation, there are still several options for beauty product businesses to prosper in the digital age. You have an opportunity to fill a market gap as long as there is an audience.
How can you be a stand-out beauty brand with hundreds of brands launching every month?
Does this imply that you must provide something unique to the market? Or perhaps a new product development that your rivals do not yet offer? Although new and innovative ideas are lovely, they are not necessarily the best solutions.
By the end of this article, you will have figured out how to be a standout cosmetics brand. But, as a heads up, I'm not going to provide you with a miracle pill or a single easy cure. Instead, I'll give essential branding tips that you may readily adapt to your company.
We will cover five brand foundations to assist you in developing a cosmetic business that will attract more customers, produce more revenue, and represent a distinctive identity.
Exist for Your Super Fans
Everything starts and ends with your people. Beyond the monetary reasons, you launched your brand for a purpose: to help someone with their problem. Without an audience, you don’t even have a brand.
If you try to target everyone, you’ll target no one. Who you target affects everything in your brand: messaging, design, and products. Have you experienced seeing a marketing message that is not directly talking to you, so you dismiss it immediately? You either scroll it up immediately because it's not connecting to you. This happens because unsolicited junk gets ignored in less than seconds.
So, make sure that you target a specific group of people that you can help the best. You are committed to a group of people to make their lives better by helping them be a better version of themselves. As a cosmetic company, you help your audience be more confident and accentuate their natural beauty.
FREE WELLNESS BRANDING WORKBOOK
Simple but effective exercises to kickstart your branding now with the right foundations.
2. Have a Unique Differentiator
Even a niche like “natural cosmetics” is no longer narrow enough to stand out in the crowded beauty product marketplace. But your brand needs to have a unique differentiator that will be a key buying factor for your audience.
To have an idea about your differentiator, ask yourself, "why should you target customers to buy your product instead of a similar product from any other brand?”
This will take knowing your competitors and evaluating the positive reviews, compliments, and testimonials you have received from past customers. Be crystal clear about what you do better than your competitors and what they do better than you to know what you can improve on in your business.
Image from Tata Harper’s website
Skincare giant Tata Harper changed the game with a process innovation that both differentiates them from the competition and positions them as an ethical and transparent company. Their "farm to face" method allows customers to trace their products back to where they were the ingredients were grown, products tested, and manufactured.
But, your differentiator doesn’t have to be a whole innovative infrastructure or another product, but just a minor tweak can result in the most significant impact on our audience. It can be a different experience physically/virtually, price, story, purpose, personality, and design. Look at your brand from your customers’ point of view and see how you can make the experience better.
Here’s a shortlist of differentiators you can use based on Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow.”
Are there gaps to fill between what they want and what they’re getting?
Underserved niched
Two lists: reasons to recommend and not to recommend
Remarkable packaging
Limited edition for your 20 best customers, what would that be like?
Explore limits
3. Mold your Brand with Personalities
Brands are becoming more and more human nowadays. Before, we only had 1-way communication where brands had all the control in molding our thoughts about them but, now the audience has found their voice through the internet and social media.
That is why modern brands have rediscovered how it's vital to talk to your consumers, not at your consumers. But, how can you do that? By connecting with them through personality.
You and your friends have a smooth and valuable conversation because your personality clicks. As humans, we decide whether or not we like a person based on their characteristics and traits. And that is no different in our relationship with brands.
Again, we're going back to who our audience is; knowing their likes and dislikes and who they want to be will help us build our brand personality. Displaying characteristics behavioral traits that they’re drawn to, nurturing that relationship will help us convert them from strangers to buying loyal customers.
Different personalities attract different people, so make sure you embody the correct characters for your unique audience.
So, how do you know your brand personalities?
We don’t just cherry-pick human characteristics, but we will rely on psychology and a proven characteristic framework designed by Carl Jung called the “Archetypes”- a collection of 12 personalities we unconsciously recognize.
Each one raises a particular desire within us, which makes us connected to that archetype. You will see how famous brands fall into each archetype. An excellent example is Dove which embodies the Innocent archetype. The innocent is an upbeat personality with an optimistic outlook on life. They crave safety but ultimately want themselves and everyone else to be happy. Dove’s visual identity, messaging, and commercials show an honest and pure character.
Still, figuring out your brand personality? Don’t worry because I made a personality quiz where you'll discover your brand archetype in just 2-minutes.
4. Stand Out Visually and Verbally
After we have made a strong foundation for your beauty brand and humanized it for your audience, it is time to translate those insights into a visual and verbal identity.
But why do we care so much about visuals? As humans, we quickly make decisions based on appearance, at least to decide whether or not we might like to know more about that brand or that person. It’s a bit harsh, but it is the truth.
These are the visual identity foundational elements you should have: logo, colors, fonts, texture/pattern, and style imagery.
Click the photo to see the full body and bath branding project.
Logo design
Your logo is the face of your brand, so make sure it is simple, distinct, memorable, and strategic. Everything you do and invest in for your business shouldn’t just be an extra expense, but it should help you get your next customers.
Characteristics of a great logo:
Simple - aims for clarity, avoids noise and complication, produces well in the black in white and vice versa
Distinct - strive for uniqueness and avoid looking like the competition
Memorable – seeks to make an impact and embodies a meaning to its t
Strategic - should appeal to your audiences’ personality
Color Palette
The color palette is a set of specific colors with specific color values that ensure the representation of the brand remains consistent.
You can start by curating your chosen three colors - the primary (first choice color), secondary & complimentary (second choice color), and supporting neutral colors.
Focus on your audience's emotion - use color psychology but don't limit yourself to it. Specific colors are used frequently in the beauty industry due to the feelings they invoke, such as white (clean and pure), pink (feminine), and green (natural & soothing).
Knowing who your brand is and your market will help you decide on your color palette. Your colors are crucial because they can be used as your key differentiator.
Typography styling
Typography styling cannot overlook the importance of typography. It can add a real character to the brand identity because each font family has its unique characteristics.
Typography selection is key to achieving the intended style and positioning of the brand. The subtle differences in spacing and weight can completely transform your identity, making it a susceptible element.
Some fonts, particularly script, can be challenging to read on small packaging and are not ideal if your business creates cosmetics or other small products.
Remember, these visual designs aren’t just a part of your branding checklist, but each decision should help you connect to your customers.
Packaging design
Because packaging is the first thing people see when considering whether to try a new product, it's critical that your product packaging catches their attention and distinguishes itself from the competition.
When customers view well-designed, high-quality product packaging, they are more likely to put their faith in the company and product and are more likely to purchase. High-quality packaging assures the consumer that the product will be reliable and well-constructed.
Well-designed doesn't mean having a lot of elements and texts - it depends on your branding. Let’s look at Drunk Elephant. The colors stand out from the neutral packaging colors of other natural beauty products. It connects with millennials and the younger generation to have an effect that doesn’t just improve their skin but has a bold and fun personality.
Social Media Branding
Your social platforms are the windows into the activities of a brand, news released, and what is discussed. The beauty industry is driven primarily by visuals, be sure to use lots of beautiful images of your products that align with your brand personality.
One vital element in your virtual presence is not just the visuals but also your messaging. You have to put your voice out there, don't just copy and paste other people's content or quotes. They are looking at your brand and listening to your unique voice - make that interaction valuable for your customers.
Click the photo Hebe Botanica’s branding project.
Website as your Virtual Home
Your website is your office online, and your audience should get the feel of your brand, get to know you, and take action. The website for your beauty brand needs to attract your target, be easy to navigate, and coordinate with the visuals of your packaging, logo, and marketing.
Your website’s goal is to encourage visitors to buy a product, give their email address, or follow you on social media.
While social media posts can only share little snippets of your brand at a time, your website is where your website visitors can dive deeper into your story, products, and why you are the best option.
Now, let’s do a recap on how you can be a stand-out beauty brand:
Exist for your super fans - know them personally because everything you do is for them.
Have a Unique Differentiator - know your competitors and market and look for gaps and unmet needs.
Mold your Brand with Personalities - humanize your brand as much as possible
Stand Out Visually and Verbally - have a solid and compelling visual identity and create unforgettable brand experiences.
Building a stand-out beauty brand is not easy, but it’s possible with the right strategy and effective branding. Start your cosmetic or beauty business with your target customer in mind, and everything will follow through. Be strategic with every business decision, big or small, because all of it will be a part of the brand experience you will give to your customers. And that experience will be the reason why they will choose your brand— or not.
Redd Creatives can help your beauty business be a modern brand that your audience will remember and love. We are a branding agency specializing in developing intentional and stand-out wellness brands through brand strategy and visual design.
Whether starting from scratch or scaling your business, we will work with you to strategize and design the best roadmap for success to reach your vision and goals. Contact Redd Creatives here to have a free consultation call.
AUTHOR - GHIAN RED of REDD CREATIVES
BRAND DESIGNER & STRATEGIST
A branding expert who is passionately focused on transforming wellness businesses through effective strategy and experiences. Working with global, small to large businesses, she makes sure that each detail and decision is carefully made to ensure each clients’ success to grow and scale their brand with ease and clarity.
