Episode 1 of 5: A Primer On Developing A Clean Beauty Brand!
As an aspiring Indie Beauty entrepreneur the first step in your quest to build a beauty brand is … Research!
Step 1 – Identify your Consumer Persona. A Consumer Persona is a profile of your target customer. Some common personas are Clean Beauty Connoisseur, The Skinminimilist, and Ingredient Inspector. Personas encapsulate your target consumers wants, needs, likes and shopping habits and can be helpful in developing your brand and products.
It is important for you to understand what products your Persona wants, needs and actually purchases. Where do they purchase their cosmetic products? What is their average spend per product? What are their unmet needs and desires? Where do they congregate online and how do you attract their attention?
Oftentimes, YOU, the beauty entrepreneur, ARE the target Persona. And, that makes developing a brand much more intuitive because you know the answers to many of these questions and the problems you are trying to solve.
For instance, if your target Persona is the Skinminimilist Cleanical Beauty Connoisseur you will target your product line product development to products that are naturally-derived bases infused with performance active ingredients that deliver results.
You will most likely find these consumers shopping online at Credo, The Detox Market and Dermstore as their favorite destinations.
Step 2 – Identify your Competitor Set. Let’s say you are targeting a line of products for the Skinminimilist Cleanical Beauty Connoisseur with Sensitive Skin. Go to www.credobeauty.com, click Shop By Concern, click Sensitive Skin. This will define you set of competitors on Credo. Do the same on Dermstore. Research best Sensitive Skincare products on Google.
Let’s say you have identified ZO Skin Health, CeraVe and Glo Skin Beauty as your competitor set. And, you have determined that the products you want to develop are a Moisturizer, Calming Serum and Anti-Aging Serum targeting Senescense.
Research on Google … Best Moisturizer, Best Calming Serum, best Anti-Aging Serums. From all of your research compile the List Of Ingredients of three product in each category that best fit the criteria of your target Persona. Note the sales price points. The List Of Ingredients of these competitive products that are top-rated by consumers and product reviewers will be an invaluable guide to your cosmetic chemist in developing your products.
The question is: How can you develop products that are competitive (or superior) in performance, yet differentiated, and meet the needs of your Consumer Persona at their preferred retail price point?