Launching a new beauty brand is always so much fun – as a total beauty lover, I always get so excited whenever I work with a new beauty brand. Building brand awareness for pretty new skincare, fragrance, makeup, and more is so rewarding – growing brands from the ground up has always been a passion of mine, and even better when it’s for beautiful items!
That said, with so many new launches out there, it can be a bit difficult to stand out amongst press and consumers when you are a brand-new line that no one has heard of (yet!). Below are some of my top resources I turn to when working to launch a new line – I highly recommend all of the below to both publicists and brands alike!
While Instagram is a great way to share photos of your relaxing beach vacation or delicious dinner, it’s also an incredible resource for those launching beauty brands. Instagram is an incredibly easy way to keep tabs on top contacts you’ll want to reach out to about your brand, including beauty bloggers, YouTubers, makeup artists, editors, and influencers. Instagram also easily lets you find new contacts in your space – search for hashtags relevant to your industry such as #nailart, #beachwaves, or #brows to see who is posting about these topics. You’ll also gain insight into trends and what the top influencers are posting about – great to get ideas for media outreach!
Instagram is an incredibly easy way to keep tabs on top contacts you’ll want to reach out to about your brand, including beauty bloggers, YouTubers, makeup artists, editors, and influencers.
If you’re looking to get your products used on celebrities, look at some of the top artist agencies based in both NYC and LA. They handle bookings for their makeup artists, hair stylists, and manicurists for gigs with celebrities at cover shoots, red carpets, and events. These agencies have many of the top artists all in one space and it’s usually quite easy to reach out via email to the agent with info about your brand. They’ll usually let you know which artists they think would be the best fit for the line and where to send product for them to test. I’ve had great success by reaching out to these agencies – they’ve put me in touch with top artists who have gone on to use clients’ beauty products on celebs like Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank, and countless others!
You can have a compelling pitch and story, beautiful images, and a reasonably priced product, but none of that matters if you’re not able to contact the right editors with the news. There are a variety of great media databases out there but they can be quite pricy – if budget is an issue look to ready-made media lists from PR Couture as well as our How to Pitch series. This interview with Holly Carter, Beauty Director at StyleWatch is a must-read!
Canva is a wonderful online graphic design tool that allows you to create beautiful visuals for your brand. The options are endless – you can create infographics to show the results of studies on your skincare product or easily put together a stunning, on-brand graphic for social media channels. (Bonus: they have different size templates already set up for various social media channels). Imagery and graphics are crucial when launching a beauty brand to the press and consumers, and this tool makes it very easy to ensure have you have gorgeous ones available.
These four resources are just the beginning of how to creatively launch and capture the attention of media, influencers and customers about your new brand. Remember, you only launch once, so enjoy the journey!
