The best KPIs for your eCommerce site

The personal care sector is undergoing continuous growth. We live in a world in which our image is on permanent display. Videos and photographs play a starring role in social media and beauty plays a fundamental role in our social lives. The sales of cosmetics products never stop growing, so much so that some people argue the market has become saturated. There's room for everyone, however. To stand out from the competition it's essential to pursue a strategy. The best way of doing this is drawing up a marketing plan for a cosmetics company.

The importance of the cosmetics industry

According to the Spanish association of cosmetics manufacturers and distributors, AECOC, Spain is the fifth largest market in Europe for cosmetics thanks to sales that exceed €4 billion every year. And the fact is that the business seems unlikely to shrink. Whereas some years ago it was middle-aged women who predominantly bought these items, today younger people and men are increasing their consumption significantly. The market continues to open up.

And as Oscar Wilde used to say: "Beauty is higher than genius". Why? Simply "because it doesn't need explanation". It's unsurprising then that we strive to always keep it at its best. Of course, we don't wish to be superficial. We know that there as many beauties as there are people and the most important thing is that everyone is capable of feeling at ease with their own beauty. Cosmetics can help us in this and the goal of digital cosmetics marketing is to ensure the perfect product can reach the appropriate person.

What does a marketing plan consist of?

As already mentioned we're surrounded by beauty products and if we want our brand to stand out we need to develop a marketing plan for a specific cosmetics company. But let's start at the beginning. What exactly is a marketing plan?

Let's start by pointing out that it's one of the pillars of the brand's business plan. Its an essential aspect for building its reputation, for creating value and for differentiating it from competitors' products. These days it's especially important to focus on the online world and, in the field that concerns us, the digital marketing of cosmetics, it's going to play an essential role in the outcome of our business.

A marketing plan is a document that has to serve as a way of guiding the company through the steps it needs to take for brand value creation and the possibilities for growth that stem from this. It has to emerge from highly detailed prior research giving a diagnosis of the company's situation and setting out the goals we want to achieve and the marketing strategies that will enable us to attain them.

The fundamental point is that a marketing plan has to be based on data. In other words it must include percentages, what investments are needed and in what aspects, what are the benefits linked to making such investments, how much time we have to achieve the goals and what is the economic viability. It is advisable to draw up a periodic marketing plan, if possible annually or biannually.

A marketing plan for a cosmetics company: Steps to follow

Like all other sectors, the cosmetics industry has its idiosyncrasies. This is why drawing up a marketing for a cosmetics company should take into account the situation of the sector, the transformations of consumption and forecasts over the short, medium and long term. Following these steps is the best formula for designing an appropriate plan that helps the company.

Analysis of the brand's position

The first thing is to plunge into all the data about our products. When they sell, where they sell, what consumers are like in terms of age range, the times, days and months they buy from us… In the digital marketing of cosmetics we have tools that offer us this information in a very detailed way.

Delving into the competition

The cosmetics market is especially buoyant and there are many establishments and brands competing in it. We need to analyse their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing everything about the way such aspects as the logo, their star products, etc. are perceived.

We'll place special attention on the packaging.

The packaging used for cosmetics products (link to cosmetics packaging post) plays an essential role The packaging in which we present our product is going to have a major effect on sales. We have to conduct all manner of market research and analysis and evaluate how one design or another, one colour or another, may impact the purchasing decision. The development of the packaging and the way in which we position it in bricks and mortar and online stores needs a special section in our marketing plan for a cosmetics company.

Let's assess the needs of our potential customers

Carrying out qualitative and quantitative market research can help us understand how consumers perceive our competitors' main products and ours and to compare one against the other. Moreover, it's the first step towards putting strategies in place that ensure we build a betterimageand differentiate ourselves.

Creation of marketing strategies

Once these concepts have been established it's time to decide what strategies can secure the loyalty of consumers who have bought from us and attract the attention of those who don't know us. It's important that we develop at least strategies of differentiation, of positioning, of loyalty-building and of product development. We need to specify what our action plan consists of and how much it's going to cost.

Analysing the influencers who can help us sell more

Cosmetics is one of the sectors in which interaction with influencers onsocial media has most impact on purchasing decisions. A marketing plan for a cosmetics company must ascertain the impact influencers have, analysing which might be most appropriate for our brand in accordance with the characteristics of their followers and ascertaining their rates and the cost-benefit ratio if we decide to involve them in a promotion, deciding who will most closely match our needs.

Monitoring programme

As part of a cosmetics company's marketing plan we also need to establish when and how we can monitor what results are being yielded by the strategies being carried out.

Another way of increasing your cosmetics company's level of sales is to offer your customers the chance to pay for their purchases in a flexible way. At SeQura we have years of experience providing our retailers with the best alternative payment methods so that their customers can defer paying for their purchases or make the payment in convenient instalments. You can contact us easily be using our form and a team of professionals will attend to you without any commitment on your part.