Marketing Strategies For Cosmetics Companies

The beauty industry is expected to be worth $558.12 billion by the end of 2026, making it one of the most profitable industries worldwide. People are attaching more importance to personal care, which explains the strong increase in demand for beauty products and services. This is big news for any beauty brand! All these companies are inserted in a very promising market and it’s just getting started. However, it also means that the competition will be tough and you have to stand out to succeed.

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That’s why we’re about to give you all the tips and ideas to create a successful marketing strategy for your cosmetic brand. Ready to take some notes?

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Influencer Marketing for your Social Media Campaign

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If you plan to create a social media campaign to promote your cosmetics products, you must use influencer marketing!

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As you might know, influencer marketing is when brands and content creators work together. These people, known as influencers, are typically considered experts or thought leaders in their respective fields. Most of the time they use their platforms to share information and opinions about products or services and highlight the brands they’re working with. Working with them is the key for success if you want to increase your brand’s visibility, reach new customers.

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In short, working with content creators brings a bunch of benefits:

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🔥 Visibility & Engagement. Content creators have already established a strong online presence and have a large following of engaged individuals. By partnering with them, brands can tap into this pre-existing audience and increase the visibility of their products or services. Influencer content is also more likely to be shared and re-shared, further increasing the reach and engagement of the marketing message. It's a virtuous circle ✨

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🌟 Brand image. Content creators are often seen as trusted sources of information and recommendations. By working with them, businesses can leverage their credibility and improve the perceived trustworthiness and authenticity of their brands. Influencers can also help to position a brand in a more aspirational and relatable way, which can be particularly effective for luxury or lifestyle products 👀

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🎯 Target audience. Content creators often have a specific niche or area of expertise, which allows businesses to target a specific audience and reach consumers who are interested in their products or services. This can be especially useful for brands that are looking to reach a younger, more digitally-savvy audience that may not be as responsive to traditional advertising methods. We can say that working with creators is THE solution to create brand awareness!

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Which creators for your Cosmetics Marketing Strategy?

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Planning an influencer marketing strategy for a cosmetics brand requires careful thought about the chosen content creators. You can’t just pick a random creator! Before you start looking for creators, make sure you’ve listed your objectives and the expected results of your campaign. In the beauty sector, there is a whole plurality of content creators, specialized in various fields. You can find beauty bloggers, makeup enthusiasts, lifestyle creators… There’s a bunch of possibilities! And it’s up to you to decide which ones correspond the best to the brand’s image you intend to build 💪🏼

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💄 Beauty influencers: We can consider that beauty content creators can be separated into two main categories: professionals and enthusiasts

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The “professional ones” are often specialized in makeup. We call them Makeup Artists! They work with celebrities or in restricted circles such as entertainment (cinema, theatre, television...). They have a strong voice on social media and their work is well appreciated by lots of people. They are creators with high authority, authenticity, and expertise in their field. And since they are so specialized, they usually provide important informations to their niche audience such as makeup advices, best practices and tips, but also products and services overviews, tutorials, and so on. Therefore, their followers have strong trust in them.

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"The Enthusiasts" are not professional make-up artists, but as their name suggests it, they are real make-up lovers. They have mastered the art of makeup on their own and decide to share their knowledge to others. Whether it's everyday makeup or more advanced creations like SFX makeup, these content creators love to share their tips and tricks to those who share their passion. Their community is very engaged and has great trust. Thus, their opinion on products is taken into account and their advice is precious !

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🧴 Skincare influencers: Once again, the content creators specializing in skincare can be separated into two categories: professionals and enthusiasts.

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By “professionals”, we mean health professionals and especially dermatologists. These professionals know the human body better than anyone and use their platforms to share some advice on skin care and treatment. They also are creators with a high authority and expertise in the field, which means that their niche audience have a very high level of trust and follow their guidelines with regard to their specific field.

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“The Enthusiasts” are usually people with an experience (past or present) with skin problems. Most of the time, these creators use their own experience to advise their audience on how to take care of their skin and guide them on which product to buy or not, etc. But sometimes, these creators simply seek to share their daily life with their community. Their audience recognizes themselves in them because they share a similar experience. In these cases, influencer’s communities are very close to them and incredibly supportive.

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🤳 Lifestyle influencers: If you want to be a little less specialized and reach a wider audience, you can work with lifestyle content creators.

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Who has never watched a morning or night routine video on Youtube? The creators who make this type of content are lifestyle creators: they are defined as a type of content creator that focuses on a variety of topics such as home decor, beauty, food, travel, fashion, and more. Basically, these creators are simply documenting their daily life without filters, be it a trip to another country, a new product they’re trying out, or the challenges of juggling a busy professional life.

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The reason these accounts attract such a large following even though they don’t have a clearly defined niche is because of what they do have: impeccable taste and trust with their audience. They attract their audience because of their distinctive style and compelling content. As a result, these accounts become popular destinations for ideas, advice, inspiration and a lot more - in sum, they create a community of thousands of people that also aspire to follow their lifestyle. Also, their relatability, authenticity and closeness to their audience generate something invaluable: trust with their followers. As a result, their community listen to them when recommending products, such as their new favorite lipstick or face soap or sunscreen!

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To conclude, when you are looking for a content creator for your influencer campaign, you must therefore think about which category you want to establish yourself in to reach the right audience. Then, you must define which creator will give you the desired results according to the goals of the campaign.

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Influencer Campaign Ideas for your brand

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If you're looking for inspiration for your next influencer campaign, we're here to help. In the world of cosmetics, you can find so many varied and original formats, but these are some classics that work every time!

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Reviews:

Let's start with a great classic! What could be more effective than a review of your products? The creator sits in front of the camera and directly tests your products. This gives an authentic video with the creator's live reaction to your products. These reviews are highly appreciated by viewers because the reaction and opinion of the creator on the products they’ve just tested are genuine and sincere. There is no artifice, nor beauty enhancement of the products, it is a simple crash test that allows the creator to express an honest opinion.

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Here’s an example of a TikToker @naomimiz who made a short video testing new products from the brand Maybelline:

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Makeup tutorials (or guides):

Did you know that this concept was even picked up by Vogue? This is proof that this good old makeup tutorial still works! They are the perfect vehicle to drive conversation around a product and build a rapport with the audience whether you are launching a new product line or generating brand awareness. The concept is quite simple: the creator will make a video in which he will create a makeup look with your products. This allows them to give an honest opinion on the products but also to test them live. Plus, it inspires the viewers who are going to want to buy the products to replicate the look.

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YouTuber Amanda Benko did a makeup tutorial only using Charlotte Tilbury products:

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Giveaways & Contests:

We all know what it is, since we often see it on social media! And yes, it's not the most original concept. However, it is a concept that works very well! Contests and giveaways are easy to plan and they are very efficient: they bring visibility, they grow your engagement in a flash, they create word of mouth and they help you grow your number of followers in just a few weeks. By setting clear rules to participate to the contest, you can achieve some of your campaign goals, such as following the brand account. However, this type of content isn’t sustainable for the long term, since most users might unsubscribe once the results are out. That’s why working with content creators is a great way to keep these users loyal to your brand!

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TikTok creator @alyssatorres made a giveaway in partnership with the makeup brand About Face:

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Co-creation:

Co-creation is a very effective and creative influencer marketing strategy. Co-creation goes beyond a simple partnership with a content creator. The goal is to create a product or a range of products with a creator. This means that this product must correspond as much to the universe of your brand as to that of the creator. By creating this type of campaign, the chosen content creator can be considered one of your ambassadors. It will also help your brand with a higher engagement rate, which then could boost your sales for the specific model of products you’ve created with the creator. Indeed, co-creating with a beauty content creator ensures the success of the campaign since it directly appeals to the creator’s community.

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Here’s an example of co-creation with the Sephora-exclusive skin-care brand “OleHenriksen” which partnered with influencer @ItsJennaRennert to create a three-product nighttime regimen in a co-branded kit:

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Measuring your success

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Now that you have launched your great social media campaign, you need to be able to evaluate its success! But how to do it?

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Depending on your campaign goals, you can calculate your EMV. This allows you to know the impact of your content creators’s posts and your brand's success with their community. The EMV is calculated more globally on your campaign because it takes into account the publications of your creators and also all the word of mouth that the campaign has provided (mentions, repost, etc).

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You can also calculate your ROI. If you’re not familiar with this term, it means the “Return On Investment”. This metric helps you determine if your investment was efficient or profitable. In this case, it helps you determine if the money you spent on your content creators were profitable compared to the results you got.

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The way to measure ROI in influencer marketing depends on the objectives and the KPIs that were chosen for your campaign. So according to your objectives, you can look at the number of sales, the number of views, or your engagement rate… ROI is usually calculated in the short term. But when it comes down to brand awareness, it is more interesting to measure it in the long term.

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