LAUNCHING A PRIVATE LABEL BRAND: 3 KEY THOUGHTS TO KEEP IN MIND

It’s 2017 and perhaps you’ve thought “I want to launch my own skin care/cosmetic collection.” If you are a small business owner, an esthetician, or a cosmetic medical or spa owner, launching a new product brand is a great way to establish yourself in the marketplace and gain additional income for your business.

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If a new brand is in your future, here are a few things to consider.

1.  Have a plan. Start out with a  business plan supported by a marketing plan. Your plan is adjustable and you can change it along the way. Consider it almost like a living document. In the plan, consider your mission statement, your goals, the financial commitment needed for your brand for development and sell-through, your target market, pricing strategy and competitors. It doesn’t take a long time to create a plan, but you need to know where you are going and how much this will all cost. And consider the extra help or expertise that you may need to hire on, even if temporarily, to get your brand launched. THE TAKEAWAY: Create a business plan.

2. Marketing. Alongside a business plan is a marketing plan. Sometimes marketing plans are included at the end of the business plan as an addendum. However you treat it, it’s best to have a marketing plan in place. Once you have thought about your products and created your business plan, how are you going to sell the product through? What PR support or other media will you use to promote your collection? How will you plan new product launches or introductions? This, like the business plan, can have room for adjustments along the way. THE TAKEAWAY: Create a marketing plan as you create your business plan.  

3. Start small. Depending on the size of your facility, there is no need to rush into launching a 10 to 20 sku collection. Start with just a few key pieces to give you the opportunity to introduce the products and its special features to your clients. Also, launching with only a few pieces allows room to spare for new product launches in the future. THE TAKEAWAY:  A conservative launch is okay.  

Bonus point: Hire an expert to help you.  Can you launch a brand on your own? Sure, yes, you can. However, like everything else, is this really the one more thing that you want to add to your plate? Adding product development can be a great note for your CV, but if you want to get your product out in a timely fashion, don’t hesitate to bring on the extra help you’ll need to source vendors, finalize the technology, develop formulas, speak in chemist language, or to use as a second eye for design, copy, and marketing.

If launching your own private-label brand is in your plans or if you’d like to learn more, contact me to schedule a consultation to talk through your goals.  Email Cherie@beautyedgeinc.com  Check out our site www.beautyedgeinc.com

Stay tuned for the next post in this series: “Protect yourself against possible product liabilities.”

RAW HARVEST: AN INTRIGUING PRODUCT STORY

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Creating new ideas and concepts around promotional materials for beauty products can be daunting.

 The challenges? 

•   Creating a story different from competitive products
•   Aligning with trends
•   Telling an appealing ingredient story  
•   Engaging the consumer  
•   Translating high-end technology to an understandable consumer      level

One way to get away from the mundane of creating an intriguing ingredient story is to literally step outside and examine your environment.

It’s October.  Apple picking season is in full swing.  Colorful pumpkins are adorning manicured gardens.  Fragrant smoky notes from backyard fire pits fill the cool, crisp nights with a familiar and cozy aroma that welcomes a chillier season.  If you’re reading closely, there are at least 5 ingredient concept ideas in this last paragraph…did you notice them?  

What better way to create a marketing ingredient story than around fall harvest-inspired ingredients that are familiar, comforting, and healthful? You can count on Fall coming back again next year - seasonal materials will always be on trend – no room for mistakes here!

To help tell the story of promotional materials to incorporate within beauty formulas, I reached out to a few industry raw material experts keen on trends and healthy ingredients.   

Janice Hart of Bell Flavors and Fragrances, which sources botanicals from all over the world, states, “As we are now in the Fall Season the following botanicals come to mind - Cranberry, Pomegranate, Yam and Pear. Mostly these extracts are known for their high anti-oxidant  or moisturizing properties. Each of these extracts have been launched in unique skin and body care products in the last year. So this season, you don’t have to source the globe for exotic materials in order to keep up with skincare trends. Instead, simply step outside and find fresh ideas in the familiar ingredients of your local harvest!” 

While focusing on the ingredients of the fall season, also consider today’s lifestyle. Health and wellness are prominent lifestyles that have moved from trends to ways of living. Products that protect the skin from the aggressors of urban living, pollution, and the environment continue to be desirable performance attributes for the consumer. 

Need ideas for healthy fall materials? Consider walnuts! Yes, Grenoble walnuts - green walnuts, sourced from the French Alps.  The walnut tree, is able to live up to 400 years, and is an example of a real challenge to aging. Over the centuries, it has protected the secret of its long life.  According to Lauren DelDotto, Marketing Manager at Gattefosse,  “Gatuline® Age Defense 2 is an active extract of Grenoble walnuts.”

And, how can we forget pumpkin this time of year?  The powerful orange fruit is, above all, rich in nutrients and is one of the fruits with the highest anti-oxidizing carotene content to which it owes its fine orange color. 

Using fresh pumpkin cells, not extracts, can be a unique way to talk about this powerful active.  “Fresh Cells™ are cellular suspensions of whole, fresh plant cells resulting from a mild and selective extraction process.”    According to DelDotto, “when Fresh Cells™ come in contact with the skin, they will degrade due to enzymes in the epidermis and physical application, and will sparingly pour out their precious content – protected, until that point, in a sort of natural microcapsule.”

Creating new concepts can be fun and challenging at the same time. But a simple walk around the block can help open your creative eyes to what’s possible.  

Need help creating product concepts using high-level technologies or familiar ingredients?  Contact info@beautyedgeinc.com   We can schedule a conference call to discuss some starting point ideas for your next beauty product launch.

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PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - FIRST TO MARKET

Product Development – How a Setback Became a First to Market Product

first to market concealer

Speed to market, first to market … to market, to market, to market … how fast can we get there, and can we get there first?! 

A number of years ago, I was working with a third party lab on an under eye concealer project - one texture and five shades. While this type of out-of house development was unusual for my employing company at that time, the brand I worked on opened doors to collaboration with outside manufacturers. 

Mid-development, a financial issue arose between the vendor and the corporate company. Long story short, I was blocked from doing any further development work with the vendor.  My dilemma: I still needed to deliver a product to meet the calendar dates for Marketing - five skus for 4th quarter.  The products were scheduled in the calendar, they were in the budget, and development started—there was no time to rework the product calendar at this point. What to do?

And then—that aha! moment.  I thought outside of the normal color cosmetic development process and re-evaluated an anti-aging skin care formula that I helped develop a few years earlier.  It contained an encapsulated retinol release technology.  

My questions were:

 1.)  Can I use the skin care bulk as a concealer base? 
2.)  The bulk was white.  Will it hold enough pigment/color without drastically changing the texture?  
3.) Would the retinol technology in the skin care bulk still perform if pigment was added to the bulk? 
 4.) Could the product maintain anti-aging skin care claims and deliver color performance? 
 5.) Could this be first to market???  

With time tight and preliminary stability testing on its way, the R&D team bought into the idea immediately and started testing the product with pigment. And voilà!  We had a remarkable product to deliver that was better than the first concealer concept originally slated on the calendar! 

The final product was innovative, with skin care performance claims and color payoff.  The legal team confirmed that there was no other product on the market at that time with this type of performance.  You could say it was a CC under eye concealer way before its time!  

Are you looking for innovation?  Think about ways you can turn your current product development projects around to make them something even greater than your original concepts!

If you liked this post, keep an eye out for future posts on first to market product development. 

Missed the last update?  Check out what we’re up to at www.beautyedgeinc.com - click on the InnerEdge tab.