2019 will be the year for health and beauty brands. That’s according to trends mapped out by a recent Facebook report which shows that the health and beauty industry is 2019’s biggest opportunity for growth on their platforms and family of apps.
In particular, ‘natural’, niche and independent brands have shown one of the biggest growth curves of all businesses on the platform and are the fastest growing sector of the beauty market in general.
This is partly to do with the fact that audiences increasingly value small independently owned brands that fit a niche market and social media marketing has given smaller brands the opportunity to compete with huge brands with huge budgets.
As an agency working to grow a number of health and beauty brands and there’s another reason I think this market is growing so fast and that is a simple one – consumers enjoy content around health and beauty.
If we look back to traditional media, we see that health and beauty pages are a staple of any women’s magazine for instance. Having been health editor on a number of print publications you would often find health and beauty content taking up around ½ of the entire publication with the rest handed to other content forms that people simply enjoy engaging with – fashion, celebrity.
If as humans we are naturally interested in health and beauty content (we want to look better and live for longer!) then it’s not surprising that brands around this are growing fast in the social landscape.
So how can health & beauty brands moving into this space today gain market share with the consumers of tomorrow?
The next generation of beauty consumers is going to be far more complex than the consumer of a decade ago; and will demand more from the brands they choose to shop with.
Influencers are creating brands, consumers are starting movements and people want to interact with the brands they love and be part of communities that involve and inspire the people within them.
In order for brands to engage with the next generation of beauty consumer innovation and strategy on the digital platform is going to be vital. Facebook recently commissioned Accenture and Canvas 8 to unravel people’s relationship with the beauty industry and figure out how beauty brands can best utilise the full potential of Facebook and Instagram in their marketing strategy.
Go video first
Beauty brands find themselves in quite an advantageous spot when it comes to reaching out to consumers through videos. Given the fact that beauty products like makeup and haircare are expressed in a visual way, the beauty market lends itself nicely to taking advantage of the wonderful power of video marketing.
Which is good news because in research from Facebook. it was found that 79% of Facebook users would rather watch a video to learn about something, over reading a text article.
Instagram has seen a 60% increase in the time users spend watching videos and report their highest user engagement with video driven media.
With 90% of surveyed online shoppers stating that videos where helpful in making purchasing decisions, it has become a vital medium for building a brand or promoting a product. The rate at which visual media is shared is just another reason to jump on video with a recent Facebook study finding that visual content is 40x more likely to be shared across both the Facebook and Instagram networks there is no excuse not to implement it into your marketing campaign.
With 66% of online consumers stating they would prefer a video under 60 seconds, and the most effective video ads in terms of click through rate and engagement being 15 seconds and under, social media sites are the perfect environment for this highly effective form of marketing.
Let the customer help you create your products
Tomorrow’s makeup brands are going to be all about collaboration. The days of industry developed products is coming to an end, more and more beauty brands are going to have to react to the developments their consumers drive on social media.
Creating online communities and boosting social media engagement is going to be an important way for beauty brands to communicate and collaborate with their consumers. Being able to react to the trends that consumers organically develop is what’s going to make a beauty brand stand out to tomorrow’s consumer. Therefore, having an interactive and engaging digital marketing strategy is a must for tapping into the desires of the next generation of beauty consumers.
Relate to consumers wider interests
When wanting to engage more with your consumers on social media it’s important to recognize your customer segment, who is buying your product, why are they buying your product and how do you keep them coming back for more. One of the most important things a brand can do is relate their products to the larger life of their desired customers.
Someone who buys an organically produced lip gloss that uses no animal testing will obviously be interested in more products that focus on being against animal cruelty. This Organic and cruelty free trend has pick up a significant amount of traction in the past few years. Ads that feature products with #crueltyfree receive a significant amount of engagement from people on social media. Relating the consumers wider interests and showing them your brand cares as much as they do will increase your brands ability to generate customer loyalty.
