The beauty and personal care industry has continued to be a dominant force for businesses looking to expand, grow, and increase revenue in this massive category. Currently, beauty and personal care are expected to grow annually by 4.40% (CAGR 2021-2026). Stripped-down routines, skincare, and clean living are just a few of the trends that have become a staple of marketing in the past few years. Marketing soap, lotion, and beauty products have never been more popular as we’re seeing high-value branding, social campaigns, and killer content that’s helping distinguish each individual business. If you’re looking to strengthen your initiatives for marketing soap and lotion products, here are 4 tips you can start implementing into your 2022 strategy.
Determine Unique Value Proposition & Ideal Customer
If you were a customer, the question would be-why should people buy your product? A value proposition allows you to combine your customer’s wants, needs, and desires with your product benefits and features. It is a marriage of copywriting and product that centers on the value your product adds to the customer. Within the lotion and soap marketing, the benefits can range from skin properties, aromatherapy, moisture, and hydration. Those benefits have to be uniquely positioned to connect with your ideal customer.
In addition to your value proposition, buyer personas will help steer your marketing efforts. Who is your ideal buyer? Buyer personas are a fictional representation of your target audience and can be applied to each portion of marketing campaigns whether they are digital, internal, or external. To create the ultimate buyer persona you’ll want to start with:
- Conducting audience research
- Identifying your customer’s goals
- Determining how your product helps your audience
- Combining all the data to build individual buyer personas
Buyer personas make it easier to create content, develop your products, and frame your messaging so you can create a personalized marketing experience to target different segments of your audience.
Keep Color & Design in Mind
The influence that color can have on a customer can be strategically incorporated into the design and packaging of a product which scientifically has been known to elicit specific emotions within our brain. Color Psychology deals with how humans consume packaging and how the feelings elicited can influence purchasing decisions.
This tactic can be applied to soap marketing or lotion bottles because the right colors can help enhance your brand perception and build interest from the right customers to purchase your products. For example, natural products often feature neutrals, whites, or a clean look to evoke a sense of calm and balance.
Feminine branding can feature light colors or pastels which can reinforce feelings of creativity, imagination, or wisdom. Finally, masculine branding can incorporate more muted tones or darker colors to appeal to the male audience. There has never been a better time to get creative with your packaging as 72% of American consumers say that product packaging design influences their purchasing decisions.
Don’t Forget About Current Market Trends
Whether you’re a small business, luxury, all natural, affordable, etc. the packaging is an extension of your brand and helps to tell a crucial aspect of your story. Current packaging trends are leaning towards eco-friendly bottles and labels, inclusive designs, simplified messaging, and sustainability that encourages users to refill their bottles instead of single use.
Always remember to keep your value proposition and buyer persona at the forefront of your packaging design and choice.
Marketing Soap and Lotion in Multiple Forms
Today’s customer wants as many options as possible when shopping for their favorite lotion jars or soap bottles. Including sample sizes or sample packs can be a great way to include your bath and body products as travel options, trial sizes, or an exclusive product you offer to influencers.
If you’re a brick and mortar store, offer in store samples or sample packs for discounted rates to encourage customers to try new products without the risk of buying a full sized item. During seasonal times like the holidays, the National Retail Federation predicts that the typical American will spend over $1,000 on gifts and other holiday items. Repackage customer favorites in holiday packaging or create gift packs for birthdays, and baby showers. Leverage the versatility of different packaging sizes to present your products in multiple forms that can be marketed all year.
Make Sure You are Marketing Soap and Lotion in the Right Place
Determining where you will sell your products is an integral aspect to seeing success or failure with your marketing efforts. If you’re going the E-commerce route, selecting your online store front will be a crucial component to building and sharing your products online. In the Beauty & Personal Care market, 29.3% of total revenue will be generated through online sales by 2021.
Social media is only growing bigger each year and creating a buzz online with your products can help drive traffic to your website and business. Not only does it increase brand visibility, but it’s a great way to interact with current and prospective customers. Customers report spending 20%–40% more money on brands that have interacted with them on social media (Optinmonster).
Last but not least, the experience of the physical stores fronts never goes out of style. Do your target customers like to shop in person? Are they attending farmers markets or boutique shops? If the answer is yes, then you need to be there as well.
In Review: Marketing Soap and Lotion
Whether you’re trying to increase your soap marketing efforts or increase visibility around your bath and body products, the bridge between your business and customers can be shortened with these tips. It’s a new year which gives marketers plenty of time to start building out their soap marketing strategies whether it’s changing the design of the packaging or reviewing if the products appeal to the ideal customer.
Review your buyer personas and see how they can be updated or changed to fill any holes you may see that are preventing success in your sales.
