The Importance of Knowing Your Public

The fact that not all of our customers sell their products is not important as everything made or purchased is going to perform one or another job for someone. You may think it funny but even if you come into the showroom to buy essential oils for brightening and cleaning your home you need to know your demographic! Often when people come in looking for say Lavender oil for a room spritz and we show them all of our 10 or more options they look at us and say 'well, which one do you recommend? While that is a valid question as we do have the benefit of being quite familiar with or products but I'm always inclined to answer 'well what about you, what do you like the best? After all, there is no point in buying something like lavender to spritz your house, give you a peaceful nights sleep and freshen up the laundry if YOU don't quite like the smell.

So, back to demographics - the statistical characteristics of a population - and as much as we all know that 'we' are all 'individuals' like it or not, people can be grouped reasonably accurately into 'types' once we understand certain facts about them. As far as the personal care industry goes top line features such as - age (or life stage), sex, health, lifestyle and income are good starting points to uncovering what people want from their personal care products. These top line features can be assessed from a distance and will give a brand owner the opportunity to roughly assess the potential size of the market for their offering. However, as with anything the devil is in the detail and the nitty gritty of what each demographic like usually involves a bit of fieldwork and that fieldwork should start with you.

The most difficult thing that New Directions deals with each year is that of helping brands to establish who they are. It might sound silly but once you understand that many brands grow organically, usually out of something that starts as a private passion for tinkering then grows to encompass making products for family and friends for Christmas and then markets and then... It becomes easier to understand. There comes a point in every successful brands life where it has to grow up and do its own talking and to do that it has to understand a few things about its self. In short it (the brand) has to know what demographic it fits into, what are its features and benefits and how it will stand out from the crowd. So, with that in mind let's do a simple exercise together remembering that even if you are your target audience it pays to be honest with yourself about what you want, can afford, like and need.

Before you start thinking about the specifics of your brand or product it pays to get into the right mindset. Here are our top tips:

• Be honest with yourself. There is no shame in wanting to create a brand just so that it makes lots of money - no shame but lots and lots of work.
• Critically evaluate what you have already produced and be prepared to accept that it may be wrong or need tweaking.
• Give it 110% in terms of effort and accept that in the early days you may feel like you are hitting your head against a brick wall from time to time.
• Work hard on building up an image of your perfect client. Pinterest is great in this regard and we have some starter boards to help you, which I'll talk about later. Visualize the person, their lifestyle, the clothes that they wear, their income, their family status, how they spend their free time. EVERYTHING. This will help you set the right tone in terms of language, pack shape/ size/ colour and price point.
• Get professional help before making critical, brand changing decisions.

Now that you have that sorted it is time to start thinking about your brand or product.

Can you successfully complete the following?

• Do you know who buys your products in terms of sex, age, location etc.?
• Can you paint me a picture of your absolute target customer?
• Can you sum up in one sentence what makes your brand or product special?

OK so if you found that tricky don't worry, many people do at first and that's why we are here to help. When it comes to getting help in working through your brand identity it is important that you set clear goals about what input you want, need and are willing to take on board. If you have a great idea you will want to be quite cagy about it with strangers as the last thing you need is someone running off with it. It is also important to avoid people who see your idea as a 'cash cow' for their milking. Here are some mindsets that you might encounter:

The: 'this is just great, I'll support and enjoy it'
PERFECT, MORE PLEASE!

The: 'this is great I want to 'buy' a piece of it'
BE CAREFUL. AS TEMPTING AS IT IS TO BE OFFERED FREE HELP FOR A SLICE OF THE COMPANY OR WHATEVER IT IS ONLY ADVISABLE ONCE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR BRAND HAS TO OFFER. OTHERWISE YOU MAY GIVE AWAY TOO MUCH.

The: 'this is great I want to take it over'
STAY AWAY! YOU DON'T NEED THIS KIND OF RESPONSE AT ALL.

And finally the: 'this is great but it would be so much better if they did it my way'
THIS IS A HARD ONE, AS YOU WILL HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS AS YOU ROLL OUT YOUR BRAND BUT UNDERSTANDING WHAT TO TAKE ON AND WHAT TO LEAVE ON THE TABLE IN TERMS OF IDEAS IS SOMETHING THAT YOU HAVE TO LEARN.

If you are in the market for some professional help with your branding then we recommend our workshop: How to Start Your Own Business Workshop. Being in Sydney, Australia will obviously be a barrier to some of my readers but if your brand is your future it is worth the investment in time and money to come along. Following on from that we offer our drop in clinic on a Thursday for a chat, gentle support or a brainstorm session and there is always our Facebook page for tips advice and a virtual coffee break! Other than that we recommend contacting your local cosmetic society for help in building your contact base and getting help with identifying brand opportunities You can find your local cosmetic chemists society here at the IFSCC members page.

Amanda Foxon-Hill

7 January 2013