Stand Out With These 7 Beauty & Skin Care Marketing Strategies

TL;DR:

• Identify the defining characteristics of your brand, then lean into them in your marketing efforts.
• The ideal skin care product description should include features, benefits, selling points, an ingredient list, instructions, and a few other key details.
• Take a cue from NARS Cosmetics, which uses a quiz created with Jebbit to help their customers minimize the amount of research needed to choose skin care products that address their specific concerns.
• Create an elegant routine builder that makes it easy for customers to build a curated routine that suits their individual needs — just like REN Clean Skincare did via Jebbit.
• Capture the attention of deal shoppers with product bundles offered at a discount.
• Use influencer marketing — that includes micro influencers — to build brand awareness.
• Consider incentivizing reviews and testimonials through a loyalty program so you can build the kind of social proof that turns shoppers into buyers.

E-commerce brands in the skin care space face a ton of competition. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you’ll need a great product — and, just as importantly, an innovative approach to marketing that gets your offerings noticed.

So how do you hook new customers and keep them coming back for more? In this incredibly crowded industry, it isn’t always an easy feat to accomplish — but we’ll show you seven skin care marketing strategies that can deliver real results.

1. Set Your Brand Apart

These days, it’s not enough to simply market a collection of effective skin care products to a broad, generalized audience. If you look around at all of today’s top skin care brands, you’ll soon discover that most feature some sort of hook or defining characteristic as part of their brand identity. 

To see what we mean, just take a look at the cult classic brand The Ordinary, which specializes in scientifically proven formulations at affordable prices, or Drunk Elephant, which delivers high-end luxury using “biocompatible” ingredients. Another example is TONYMOLY, a popular Korean beauty brand known not only for their cruelty-free products, but also the adorable packaging they come in.

These are the kinds of distinctive qualities a skin care brand must have in order to stand out in today’s saturated market. Find out what makes your brand unique in a sea of creams, serums, and other products — then lean into that with your skin care marketing.

2. Write Holy Grail Product Descriptions

Too many brands approach product descriptions with the idea that it’s all about keywords and SEO optimization. Here’s the thing: Skin care addicts are always on the hunt for holy grail products. Your product descriptions need to show why you have everything they’re looking for. Today’s shoppers are smart — and that means this is not the place to skimp on the details. 

Here’s an example that frustrates many would-be customers: Skin care brands that don’t offer a full listing of each product’s ingredients on the product page. 

It’s frustrating because some shoppers are looking for products containing specific ingredients, while others want products that omit various ingredients. There are also people who are looking for simplistic formulations or products that are water-based  or oil-based, for example. Product descriptions that don’t list the ingredients won’t satisfy any of these audience segments — and even worse, savvy shoppers may perceive the brand as being secretive, as if there is something about their formulations that they don’t want consumers to know about. 

Here’s what the ideal skin care product description should look like:

• Start with a short paragraph or two describing benefits, features, and key ingredients, all written according to your brand voice.
• Add a section with instructions for use including not only how and when to use the product but also when not to use the product (for example, if it doesn’t pair well with certain chemicals or ingredients).
• Clarify whether the product should or can be used as part of a routine, then list complementary products that can also be part of the routine.
• Be sure to mention selling points (like whether your products are organic, cruelty-free, vegan, petroleum-free, or something else).
• Last but not least, include that ingredient list so customers can look it over and verify that it meets their unique needs.

3. Engage and Inform With a Beauty Quiz

Picture this: You have dry, flaky skin, and you want a moisturizer with the right ingredients to address this issue. Or maybe you’re looking for powerful anti-aging formulations, or something that will brighten up dull skin. Where do you turn?

You could spend hours researching beneficial ingredients and products — or you could take the handy quiz that a particular skin care brand is offering to figure out what is right for you.

That’s one way that brands can use quizzes as part of their skin care marketing strategy. Not everyone who is interested in beauty products has the time to ferret out the high-quality products that will address their specific needs. You can make this process easier — and accumulate loyal customers along the way — by creating quizzes that help people navigate all the choices in your skin care line.

This quiz from NARS Cosmetics is a great example of how brands can leverage quizzes to make decisions and research so much easier for their customers. It starts by identifying the user’s skin type, asks some questions about preferences, then goes on to inquire about particular skin concerns like redness, lines and wrinkles, acne, and more. By the end, users get a personalized recommendation for a foundation that meets all of their beauty and skin care needs.

NARS made this quiz with Jebbit for the benefit of their customers — but the brand also sees some benefits. It’s a great way to build loyalty and drive conversions, for one thing. With this quiz, NARS has seen a 9% increase in average order value (AOV), for a total of $28,000 in total U.S. revenue generated. One-quarter (25%) of customers engaged with the quiz at least once, and 74% of those customers completed it, resulting in 183,000 questions answered. That’s a whole lot of customer data that the brand can learn from and channel back into their skin care marketing campaigns — plus the contact information of the people who completed the quiz will be useful for future email marketing efforts. 

4. Routines Are Everything

While some people prefer to keep things simple with a basic cleanser and moisturizer combo, for many modern skin care enthusiasts, it’s all about creating a routine. It’s partly a daily ritual and partly because people enjoy skin care routines with powerful ingredients that all work well together to deliver even better results than a standalone product.

Problem is, for your potential customers, it can be incredibly challenging to create a great routine that covers all the bases without accidentally combining products that won’t work well together. With a beauty industry that spans millions of different products from thousands of brands, some skin care enthusiasts have spent years trying to curate that perfect routine.

As a skin care brand, you’re positioned to make this process super easy for your target audience. All you need to do is design an interactive experience similar to the NARS quiz we talked about above — except this time, instead of helping customers choose a single product, transform your quiz into a routine builder that helps them choose an entire suite of products. Brands that do this well often see measurable improvements to both their engagement rates and their conversion rates.

Here’s a beautiful example of a routine builder that the skin care brand REN Clean Skincare created with Jebbit. This routine builder asks a series of questions about your skin type plus concerns (like dullness, fine lines and wrinkles, blemishes, and so on). With this information, it can create a hyper-personalized skin care routine that accounts for each customer’s individual concerns.

Customers love it — and that’s why this routine builder has a 75% completion rate. With it, REN has seen a 55% lift to AOV, and they’ve also collected 173,000 data points that they can use to optimize their digital marketing efforts.

5. Hook Deal Shoppers With Bundles

In the skin care industry, the right incentives can set you apart from competing brands. Since even basic skin care routines can be on the costly side, you’ll likely find that large portions of your target market will respond to incentives involving deals and discounts.

That’s what makes product bundles such a powerful skin care marketing tool. When customers can purchase multiple products at a discount as opposed to single, full-priced products, they’re more likely to hit that checkout button.

There are several ways you can approach bundling, too. Some brands — Sephora does this often, for example — create gift sets or discovery sets. These are curated collections of products that people can purchase to experience a range of items for less than if they purchased each item separately. Collections like this can feature samples, trial sizes, or full-sized products, depending on the needs and wants of your target market.

Another approach to bundling involves letting shoppers choose their own products. This is a good option for brands that have large product ranges because it makes it easier for potential customers to navigate your offerings. For example, your bundle builder can let customers choose a cleanser, a moisturizer, a serum, and an eye cream, all at a slightly discounted price than if they purchased these items separately. It’s sort of like a routine builder — but instead of developing a curated routine for each customer, you’re letting them choose their own products from among the categories that you’ve specified.

6. Invest in Influencer Marketing

While influencer marketing has been around for decades, if not longer, now the beauty industry has taken it to entirely new levels. For the modern skin care business, influencer marketing is an essential way to build brand awareness.

In fact, some skin care brands take it a step further and do collaborations with influencers. Not only do collabs help to build awareness, but they can also drive a large amount of conversions among the influencer’s audience. 

Partnering with major influencers can work wonders to get the word out — but don’t discount the power of micro influencers. Micro influencers are those that have a follower count somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 — and while they may not have the reach that larger influencers have, they offer benefits that you shouldn’t overlook.

• Micro influencers provide a more intimate, authentic experience — and because of that, their followers tend to be more engaged and more loyal.
• They charge less and are more accessible to brands than celebrity or other high-profile influencers.
• Micro influencers often focus on a particular niche, which can be helpful for brands that do the same (think niches like K-beauty, vegan beauty, natural ingredients, and so on). 
• Whereas celebrity influencers tend to only work with established brands — and usually under strict conditions at that — micro influencers are often easier to work with and open to working with new brands.

In fact, for some brands, micro influencers might be the way to go instead of celebrity influencers. Your budget and your brand’s reach will likely play the largest role in your decision of what kinds of influencers to work with.

Content marketing can also be a big part of it. In addition to building trust and brand awareness, influencer marketing is a great way to give customers an inside look at new products. You may not be able to get celebrity influencers to do specific types of marketing content like unboxings, product tests, or tutorials — but micro influencers who are building out their careers are often happy to work with you on these types of videos.

7. Reward Reviews and Testimonials

User-generated content — both on and off social media platforms — can offer another powerful way to market your skin care brand. Customer reviews and testimonials, particularly when they feature photos or videos of products in use or their benefits, are a great way to show the kind of social proof that can turn uncertain shoppers into paying customers.

The big question is: How can you encourage customers to leave reviews on your website, on social media, or elsewhere? A few will naturally share their experiences, but the average consumer is busy enough that most won’t leave a review unless they’ve had a particularly good (or particularly bad) experience.

Unless, that is, there’s something in it for them. 

That’s where rewards and loyalty programs can come in. With these programs, you can offer exclusive rewards to customers who complete certain actions — purchasing products, taking quizzes, or leaving reviews and testimonials about the products they’ve purchased. Sephora is an example of a beauty retailer that has done exactly this with their Beauty Insider Challenges, which rewards points to users who complete various tasks.

If you’re considering a loyalty program for your brand, you should know that Jebbit integrates with Yotpo. Yotpo makes it easy to automatically award points and rewards to customers who complete certain actions — like leaving reviews or testimonials. When you integrate Yotpo with Jebbit, you can offer incentives for quizzes and interactive experiences, too.

Make Jebbit Your Go-To Skin Care Marketing Tool

To market your skin care lineup effectively, you’ll need to work hard to build a strong brand identity that differentiates you from the competition. Content marketing — everything from product descriptions to routine builders, quizzes, influencer marketing, social media marketing, and more — will play a huge part in your success.

Jebbit is here to help you take your skin care marketing plan to the next level. Through our platform, you can create interactive experiences in a variety of formats, including quizzes, routine builders, and lookbooks. When you’re ready to learn more about how we can help you elevate your brand, schedule a strategy call.