Marketing in the beauty sector operates on a Jekyll and Hyde basis. The consumer side is characterised by excess and wild expense (£18 million ads and Cristal parties) whereas traits usually reserved for the caring profession apply to its B2B side. Virtues such as patience, consistency and reliability are demanded of its B2B marketer because the channel beauty therapists and salon-owners need nurturing advising and guiding when it comes to marketing issues.
Unlike channel marketing in the IT or automobile industry where the intermediaries are sales people, the majority of beauty therapists are not. Many of them qualify as young as 17 after an eight-month course in beauty therapy, which skims the marketing and to a large extent the business side of running a salon.
Beauty companies have perfected their part in ensuring that they and their salons stay in business. The crux of their success is simplicity, everything from the brand’s philosophy to the methods of communication are straightforward and uncomplicated.
The first step in selling beauty products and treatments is finding a suitable platform, ie. a salon. US skincare company Dermalogica was founded in 1986 and started distributing here in 1992. Today its products are available in 4000 salons across the UK. This sort of growth is owed, in part, to advertising and PR in the trade press, magazines such as Professional Beauty, Salon and Health & Beauty. Stuart Leitch, marketing manager at Dermalogica, comments, We’re strictly trade. Although we have a £1 million marketing budget we wouldn’t spend £10,000 on a Vogue advertorial.
This element of the mix publicises the brand, but it’s the one-to-one dialogue with salon owners through 300 reps (also qualified beauty therapists) that secures the relationship. Leitch comments, they approach the salons from a strong position, tackling controversial issues that people are afraid to ask, like ‘how much profit will I make from retail?’ or ‘if I’ve got stock left over what happens?’
Increasingly for Dermalogica, salon owners are approaching them, Leitch adds.
Exhibitions and beauty schools also help facilitate this type of personal interaction at the early stages. Anna Bowles, head of training at the London College of Beauty Therapy, comments, The companies get exposure to 850 students. We get two companies a month to talk to students [an NVQ in Beauty Therapy takes eight months therefore students are exposed to 16 brands before they qualify]. Some companies, however, are less enthused about the prospect of selling themselves to students. Carolyn Taylor, executive commercial director of Decleor, comments, We don’t visit schools so much because we need to be a brand that students aspire to use in the future. Only in the beauty sector could affecting this sort of elusiveness work.
Which takes us to the extreme opposite: exhibitions. This is a thriving medium in the beauty sector with some companies attending up to eight a year. The biggest event is the three-day Professional Beauty exhibition which pulled in 42,553 (ABC audited) last year at Olympia.
Of the 450 companies that exhibited almost 100 launched a new product and a similar number had a special exhibition offer. Nica Lewis, marketing manager at R Robson, distributor for Guinot, comments, Although exhibitions are useful for prospecting, most of the people who go know about us, so increasingly we’re using it as a platform to launch something new. This year we will launch the body Hydradermie lift. All of the account executives and sales management will be there there’s a lot of might behind it.
Conversely, prospecting for new accounts plays a significant part on Dermalogica’s stand where an express education in the ethos behind the brand can generate up to 100 leads over three days, according to Leitch.
Converting the channel to a particular brand is easy but thereafter the real challenges of building brand identity in a remote suburban salon and imbuing the therapist with brand values comes into play. The first obstacle to this is a distinct lack of emphasis on marketing in the NVQ. This problem is compounded by the probability that the beauty therapist has no interest in selling; inevitably this is not true of the salon-owner but they are the minority.
Anna Bowles of the London College of Beauty Therapy comments, There is a gap in marketing knowledge. We became aware of this from talking to the industry where it emerged that there was a big jump between a good therapist and a good salon owner.
She continues, Currently we are looking at upskilling the salon management aspect of the NVQ because more therapists are working for themselves. They are SMEs who need these skills to survive. While this imminent change may alleviate the problem, it’s unlikely that it heralds a new era of the ‘straight-from-school-marketing-savvy-beauty-therapist’ because there’s simply not enough time to learn the trade and study marketing extensively in eight months. As such, the beauty companies must continue to do their damnedest to ensure their product sells.
The foundation of any successful B2B marketing initiative in the beauty industry is having a simple brand ethos. ‘Guinot for life’, which essentially means once you start using the products you should never stop (ideal for the company as women tend to start using professional products at 19 and continue to do so their whole lives). This philosophy not complex by anyone’s standards is a hugely effective sales and marketing tool, according to Guinot’s distributor’s marketing manager, Nica Lewis. Therapists are exposed to this ‘philosophy’ from day one through talks with reps and other communications material, as such it is likely to filter down to clients during a treatment (some of which take up to two hours).
Dermalogica’s philosophy is somewhat anti-establishment in that ‘beauty’ is not a word in its dictionary. Beauty therapists are skin therapists, salons are skin centres. Leitch comments, We’re about the health of the skin rather than beauty and pampering. This is carried across all mediums. Another simple, consistent message which automatically gives the Dermalogica ‘skin centre’ a point of difference to the ‘salon’ across the street.
Talking the talk is important but it needs to be supported by so much more, including effective merchandising, product awareness and customer relations. Guinot eases the burden by sending a two-monthly newsletter to all of its salons, called the Guinot Gazette.
At just two pages it is a compact, yet comprehensive guide to what’s going on in the company including product launches, new staff, new ad campaigns etc. and, crucially, tips. In the December issue there were five practical tips for retailing at Christmas, including: create an attractive display of gifts and send Christmas cards with vouchers for special offers in January. Although all of the content is serious, the tone was personable, even chatty which probably works well for the busy therapist who has little time to mull over wordy, corporate copy.
Dermalogica’s newsletter was much more pointed, only delivering content that applied directly to the salon-owners. Two ads dominated, one offering 20 per cent off, another introducing a new product; there was no company information (apart from news of its recently announced status as a Cool BrandLeader).
What Dermalogica lacks in its newsletter it makes up for online where salon-owners can ‘ask the expert’. Not surprisingly, many of the hundred or so questions posted online related to marketing issues such as merchandising, promotions, developing a website, selling online, creating a customer database and encouraging therapists to sell.
Which brings us to the online debate yes, it is still at the ‘should we/shouldn’t we’ stage in the beauty sector. According to a survey carried out by Decleor on its 900 salons, only 25 per cent of them are computerised (let alone online). Taylor of Decleor is keen to update the professional side of the site but can’t justify the investment.
Even Leitch of Dermalogica who’s site is bursting with relevant trade information is sceptical: It’s a challenging route of communication as not that many skin centres have embraced the computer and email culture, he says.
While the online interaction between salons and beauty companies is minimal, the human interaction is massive. Reps, account executives, area managers who’s role it is to visit the salons and explain new products, promotions and treatments are invaluable.
Nica Lewis comments on Guinot: It’s a family-run company and a personal business so there’s lots of meetings with reps and getting feedback and brainstorming with them. She states that an idea for a new product, the ‘Detox Duo’, was born after such a brainstorming session with reps who were reporting on what the beauty therapists were saying. She adds that the reps are also quick to report back on any products that are not faring so well.
The B2B beauty marketer might wish for an online revolution or a new breed of marketing-savvy beauty therapists but this is unlikely. Resources are too thin (the average salon is made up of 2.5 people) and their principal focus will always be treatments an area vast and complex in itself.
While few of the techniques mentioned were cutting-edge they all work effectively. Imagine the inappropriateness of a viral email campaign or spending thousands of pounds on a wordy white paper encapsulating the corporate objectives of the beauty brand the therapists would not have the time or the inclination to read it. So this sector has found its ticket to success: simplicity. And in no way does this diminish the role of the beauty B2B marketer, in ways it exalts what they do because the simple things are never easy.
B2B marketing in the beauty industry is centred on the treatment sector ie. beauty salons and spas an area worth £1.3 billion in 2003 according to Mintel
There are 11,454 health and beauty salons operating in the UK (according to a survey carried out by the Guild of Professional Beauty Therapists)
Skincare companies supply salons with products and train the beauty therapists in bespoke treatments
Essentially salons become a franchise for the brand without paying a franchise fee
Salons offer treatments such as waxing (prices vary between £5 and £110), facials (prices average £50) and beauty packages ie. a combination of treatments (prices average £100).
