The pandemic has drastically changed the public relations industry, which means beauty brands -mainly indie beauty brands- had to find different ways to boost awareness. Many beauty brands started utilizing strategies such as SMS marketing and outreach, affiliate promotions, and connecting with consumers in person.
Affiliate Promotions
According to researchers, the global ad revenue with print magazines is constantly decreasing compared to previous years, and that trend is going to continue in the next few years. With a large number of media companies looking for new sources of revenue aside from traditional print ads in magazines, one recent critical marketing effort has been through affiliate promotions. Affiliate promotions allow digital media companies to earn commissions from their digital product sales.
These days it’s quite common for many outlets, and even influencers, to have their own affiliate codes which they use to promote branded beauty products to consumers and take a small percentage of the earnings. Although the commission rates vary with different outlets and influencers, the minimum offer in recent months has been about 15% for brands looking to get placements in publications. This has been an effective strategy for a number of beauty brands, but it doesn’t guarantee that brands will immediately receive a lot of attention from the public.
Commerce and Content
There’s an overwhelming amount of content in the digital space, and even when brands are going through what was considered the “off-season” for various product sales, they’re still able to convert customers specifically for those products. A great example of this has been The Sunscreen Company, which became an exclusive sunscreen sponsor at a poolside event during the off-season for Poosh. Poosh is a content and commerce website by Kortney Kardashian.
The Sunscreen Company’s product was included in the gift bags that were given out to the celebrity attendees of the event, and was also integrated into the event as the last step for one of its activities . Poosh then shared an article with photos of the event on its website, and allowed The Sunscreen Company to also share visuals from the event on its own social media. This type of combination of commerce and content led to both brands being able to sell four times the amount of what they usually did in previous years during the same time period.
Community Building
Many businesses need to operate on the basis of building relationships, which is one of the most useful strategies for brands looking to expand and connect their audiences. Beauty brands that have been able to continuously communicate with their consumers, and that have ongoing conversations with them, have successfully built strong communities of supporters. A similar effect can be achieved through SMS marketing and outreach with consumers by creating specific and personalized messages for the audience instead of simply notifying them of current promotions and time-limited deals. This type of communication is very effective at building communities around brands, because consumers will feel more connected to the companies if they appear more human.