Stuck Inside The Bottle?
10 Hot Tips To Starting Your Own Successful Private Label product program
By Keith West-HarrisonSign-up below for more information and a free brand building guide!
The idea of starting your own professional private label product brand can seem like an overwhelming project, yet it doesn’t have to be. Some simple planning makes the process of creating your own brand easy and seamless. We will go through ten simple tips to get your new products created and to show you how to successfully launch them. As you work through this process, our recommendations are based on my personal experience helping hundreds of other spas and brand owners. 1. What Products Do You Want To Brand? Skincare, haircare, body care, nailcare, clothing? The branding process is the same, yet it is always good to have a short and long-term plan for now, 1 year and 5 years. Spa owners with a good plan and strong vision are the most successful. Not sure what your vision is? We suggest that you work with a coach or consultant to help. Many offer a free introductory consultation to show you how they can help.
2. What Will Be Your Product Philosophy? Who is your target audience? Do you have a certain skincare or spa philosophy that you want to emphasize? Is there anything in particular your spa business is known for? Is there a certain type of specialty product that you want to focus on? Answering these questions will help us guide you on your look as well as brand name and product names.
3. What Are We Going To Name Your Brand? Some spas choose to name their product brand the same as the name of their spa, which works well. Your clients will recognize the name and it will blend in with your concept. Typically this also means you have a logo ready to go, so you can get started on creating labels.
Others will choose to create their own unique brand that has a different identity from their business. This is our preference and it has some distinct advantages. For example, if you think you might want to sell your products through other salon, aesthetic and spa outlets besides your own spa – this is the way to go. You may want to be able to sell your brand to other spas at some point or maybe your dream is to get your products into a high end boutique retailer. To go one of these routes may mean a little more work up front to create the name and look, but the future flexibility it offers is great.
If you are going to create a new concept and name for your brand, that usually starts with a good brainstorming session. Write down all the possibilities that come to mind. Look on the web for inspiration. Ask friends, co-workers and family for ideas. When naming your brand, do some preliminary trademark research online too at http://www.uspto.gov to ensure the name you want is available. Find something that’s not already trademarked or overused. We also want to look at the internet. We would only use a name that also had a “dot com” domain name available too so that you can create an online store!
HINT: Made-up names are more easily trademarked than words in proper English. For example, add two of your kid’s names together like they do with couples in Hollywood: Ben + Jennifer = Beniffer
HINT: Non-beauty names are also more easily trademarked. Think of how many brands already use the word skin.
4. Where Should You Source Your Professional Products? The internet is a wonderful thing. All you have to do is research “private label skincare” to get a list of big and small companies that will create all types of products. Here are a few things to consider:
• Price guarantee to keep your costs low
• Shipping in less than one week
• Quality control for product shelf life
• Personal customer service
• Professional salon and spa quality & experiences
• Label process: They will create the labels or bottle and jar imprints or you may need to add them on in your spa
5. How Will The Brand Support Your Business? This is where you will need to tie your new professional products into your spa service menu, your signature treatments and all your marketing programs. Why do you think the big brands offer you protocols and service menu descriptions? They know by developing your brand through a complete marketing program, you will use and sell more of their products. The same works for your own private label brand.
• You will employ the power of your own professional reputation to convince a client to follow your advice.
• You will significantly reduce your cost of doing business.
• You will build competitive new equity in your spa business. Private lines typically give you anywhere from a 200% to 800% markup.
• You are not investing in your own brand when you are promoting someone else’s name – or their profit margin over yours.
• Clients will not be able to buy their new favorite products anywhere else
6. Developing Your Name Brand: Your brand is underway and it’s time to stop using the term “private label.” Companies use this term to define what it does in the marketplace, but your line is now your own line. You and your team should be calling your brand by its own name now! You truly want your brand to be YOURS –that’s the most important point of private label brand programs.
When telling people about your new product line, it’s OK to say it’s YOURS. Technically, your products may not always be customized formulas, but the brand will in fact be -- YOURS. You have created it! The brand is customized, even if the formulas aren’t. You may also want to say that you worked with a lab to create your own brand, with formulas handpicked by you to get excellent results for your clients. When describing it, here a few phrases that work nicely:
a. Our signature line of professional spa products
b. Our exclusive brand
c. Our proprietary brand
d. The brand we created
e. Our custom brand
f. Once it has an actual name, you can just call it that.
7. Create Support Materials For Your Brand. Now just because you created your own brand, doesn’t mean you can skimp on the marketing, advertising, promotions and merchandising materials. One of the benefits of your own brand is the markup is much greater than buying someone’s brand. This extra money needs to be used to create your product samples, brochures and training programs. So, you have to plan for a simple or extravagant brand support plan. You will want to consider the simple things: counter cards, shelf talkers, hang tags, training materials, press releases and a retail brochure.
8. Motivate & Educate: The most critical step you can take now, is to have a staff meeting to introduce them to your new brand. Your enthusiasm and confidence is critical at this juncture! Your staff will be taking their cues directly from you. They will often borrow their confidence from you, until they get to know the new product line themselves. You will need to be the ultimate evangelist and educator for your own signature brand. If you come in strong from the beginning and consistently cheerlead for your own brand, you will reap the rewards in staff support.
9. Stay Focused! Many spa owners get all excited at this point and search for the next item to build their brand. You will need to first nurture your new brand with each product, just like a child. We all know handling twins is more work than a single child. Don’t take on another product or branding project until your first ones have grown while being totally embraced by your staff, clients and the media.
10. Do It! If you take anything away from your reading, it is that you will need to brand yourself and your spa! Today’s homework is to take a 2-hour block of time in the next 7 days to work out the answers to all the above questions or if you need help, to find an experienced private label brand coach that will help you. You will be amazed at your new business growth. We did a study of spas over the last five years. The ones with their own brand had an average of $100,000 more in profit than the ones with out it. It really is a great time to create your own professional spa signature brands!
We are no longer affiliated with Douglas Preston, Preston Inc. or Preston Private Label. Preston Spa Business Solutions has dumped Preston to become Spa Enrichment Strategies!
