How PR Can Help Promote Your New Beauty Product?

Explain what’s different — and better — about your new beauty product to get the most out of a press release

by Jill McCoomber

When it comes to product promotion,“new” is so overused it’s an anachronism. To capture journalists’ attention with a press release and secure valuable earned media exposure, you need to explain what’s different and better about your new beauty product.

Potential angles could be unique colors and ingredients, proven effectiveness — this particularly applies to products that contain sunscreen and vitamins — eco-friendly contents and/or manufacturing methods, a new and better delivery method, or numerous other product features that add newsworthiness to your story. Is your product waterproof? Conversely, is it easy to remove? Is it hypoallergenic? Is it medicated? Even price and package sizes are acceptable news angles in the highly competitive world of products aimed at skin, hair, lips, eyelashes, fingernails, and various other parts of the human anatomy.

Journalists and bloggers tend to snap up well-written “How To” and “Eight (choose your number) Tips…” articles, so it’s possible to gain exposure by providing a number of reliable beauty tips to educate consumers about how to choose the best products or how to get the most out of a particular line. This angle provides the opportunity to mention related products rather than focusing on just one, which can garner additional brand recognition.

It’s always best to start with a list of the attributes that separate a product from its direct competitors, then think about your specific target demographic and drill down to the top three features that will attract customers to your product and brand. Once you have determined the best angle — the product’s stand-out features — use proper journalistic style to turn this short-list into a newsworthy press release.

This means your release needs to start with a captivating headline that shouts your message in about 10 words. Follow this with a one-sentence summary of your three top product features. Then, in the first paragraph — known as the lead — it’s imperative to convey the gist of your story in 25 to 50 words. The lead needs to tell readers what you’re selling and why they should buy it in a style that appeals to journalists and editors. This means no “ad-speak” or buzzwords, just the facts. It’s important to convey the news value of your content right from the start.

Providing the facts up front helps save journalists’ time and can pay off in numerous pick-ups that will get your news out to consumers via a trustworthy medium. Advertisements bombard Americans day in and day out, so craft your content to make it interesting enough to keep readers’ attention all the way to the end without an obvious sales pitch. Make sure to answer the six all-important questions: What, Who, When, Where, Why and How.

Make your content more personal by including quotes from your top company spokesperson or satisfied customers. Use the third and fourth paragraph to provide quotes that emphasize the core of your announcement. Quotes are the only place opinion can be expresses in news content, so this is the chance to explain the specifics of how using your new beauty product makes a customer feel or look better. Customers tend to select beauty products using emotion more than logic — this is particularly true with cosmetics and nail products — so use the quotes within your press release to appealing to their emotions.

To capture the attention of journalists — and through them, consumers — you must write like a journalist. A well-written press release is the gateway to reaching potential customers who might ignore an ad campaign by lending legitimacy to your content because it’s published by a news organization.

FASELIS NOTE:

No matter how good a job you don crafting a compelling and newsworthy story, it only has value if it reaches the right journalists. Faselis gets your press release into the in-boxes of a long list of vetted journalists in industry and general-interest news organizations across the United States, and reports help you zero in on the specific journalists who pick up in your content and continue to target them with subsequent press releases. Tracking earned media is easy with Faselis Growth!