If you’re a beauty industry executive, you are seeing the
train take off toward digital, social, and mobile technologies, but you may be
unsure of how you can incorporate it into your brand or if your brand fits. As
a student in the Medill Integrated Marketing Communications Master’s program at
Northwestern University, studying marketing trends and customer value, I have
researched two articles that show that the beauty industry is headed toward technology
integration to stay ahead of consumer needs.
Beauty industry managers need to start meeting their customers at every
touch point. Vlogs are becoming increasingly popular with beauty professionals
and influencers demonstrating make-up, hair, skin, and nail tips as stated in Deanna Utroske’s article Women’sMarketing Outlines Top Trends for Personal Care Brands from CosmeticsDesign.com. Women are looking
for content that is relevant to them and easy to navigate. Sites like YouTube,
Instagram, and Facebook have attracted popular beauty brands to create accounts
where they give tips, tricks, and how-tos on their products. Real connections
are being made between brands and their consumers through social media and
digital applications.
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| Photo Courtesy of VRWorld |
Furthermore, in the article How Technology is Transforming the Cosmetics Industry from The Telegraph, Sophie Curtis states that
cosmetic companies are starting to partner with technology firms to produce
apps and other digital content for their consumers. Customers seeking beauty
products still like the tangibility of in-store purchasing, however, with these
digital technologies customers can accurately try products on their own face
with their cellular device. According to Curtis, 87% of people are expected to
be shopping online and 45% of people via mobile phones by the year 2020. With a
growing population in mobile shopping, cosmetics companies must learn to give
their consumers the tangibility they seek with the ease of purchasing digitally
as well.
After researching these two articles along with my
graduate learnings in the Medill IMC program, here are three action items I
recommend you consider:
1. Embrace
digital: Computers and laptops are becoming outdated as more users switch
to their mobile phones and tablets to surf the Web. Creating content that is
adapted to those devices means your brand is being seen in more places.
2. Vlog
to gain credibility: Seeing someone red carpet ready is different than knowing
how to make that look happen for yourself. Consumers roam the internet in
search of trustworthy beauty insights and it will also make your brand visible
in yet another way.
3. Meet
the customer at every touch point: With the amount of brand saturation in
the marketplace, companies need to be able to connect with their customer at
each point of contact. This will ultimately make the purchasing decision easier
for the customer.
As a beauty industry executive, incorporating these steps
into your businesses will create long lasting customer loyalty which will
increase revenues and profits. Not only will customers be loyal to your brand,
but they will become brand advocates because you are what they need you to be,
when they need you to be it, how they need you to be it.
Christiana is
currently a 2015 graduate candidate for the Master of Science in Integrated
Marketing Communication at the Medill School at Northwestern University. With a
Bachelor from the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State University,
Christiana focused her early career on public relations in start-up’s and major
corporations. Realizing she had a passion for the customer, she switched to a
career in consumer event management. Christiana would like to find work with building stronger, sustainable beauty brands.
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