When you walk into a store, you easily can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of products on the shelf. In a market with thousands of companies are selling similar products, how do you break through the noise to reach your target consumer?
We spoke brand strategist and designer Kady Sandel with Aventive Studio, an Austin-based branding agency that helps beauty and wellness businesses stand out from the pack. Staying competitive in an oversaturated skincare market is tough, but a reality that most companies face. Although the term “oversaturated market” can instill fear and doubts in any entrepreneur’s mind, there is a lot you can do to make your brand stand out and even grow in your niche.
Although her focus are beauty and wellness brands, she provided some best practices that can be applied to any CPG.
Solve the Customer’s Problem
The oversaturated skincare industry is often about big claims but fewer results. Similar to other markets, the skincare industry also has big, slow-moving players that dominate.
In beauty, to stand out you have to figure out what solutions customers need for their skin issues, but they are not getting them from those existing dominant players. Develop the best possible solution for those issues and create a fresh and authentic brand around it.
What creates breakout companies is when the solution matches what customersare looking for and is better than the existing options. It sounds easier than done because even if your solution is genuine, you have to convince customers amid all the other brand noises.
Focus on Niche Marketing
We’ve all heard the axiom: If you’re focusing on everyone you’re focusing on no one. In this competitive market, a skincare brand should find a niche that stands out and proves useful to customers. As said before, identifying a problem and finding a solution is the key to winning this space.
There are many good examples where skincare companies made it big by focusing on a niche.
For example, there are skincare brands that focus on treating “Tween and Teenage” skin issues such as acne, blackheads, dry, greasy, and oily skin. This is an exclusive niche, and teenagers are responsive to such products.
Z&MA is a French skincare brand – the brainchild of two childhood friends – creates tween natural skincare products for teens. All their products are organic and formulated for sensitive and acne-prone teenage skins.
Such examples prove that even the skincare industry is saturated, there is still scope for players, provided they offer a unique angle that solves a specific problem or appeals to a particular demographic.
Based your Brand on Creating Customized Solutions
When the skincare market has so many products, it is easy to think that every aspect of skin issues is covered. However, there are still many areas that skincare brands explore to offer exclusive custom beauty to consumers.
The concept of custom beauty converges science, technology, beauty with eCommerce. By combining these elements, brands can develop ideal products by customizing them to the needs of individuals.
For example, Skin Inc. offers glass-made “My Daily Dose” skincare serum bottles. The company says that, unlike plastic, glass is a non-reactive material, in which the serums stay potent for long.