The Top 5 Tips For Driving Your Beauty Brand Sales With YouTube
1) Work With YouTubers
As we’ve shown before, the beauty brands that have found the greatest success on YouTube do so not by getting views on their own channels, but by working with YouTubers to get the word out about their products. Relatively new companies, like NYX, BH Cosmetics, and Sigma Beauty, each founded after the birth of YouTube, have teamed up with YouTubers who love their products. And these companies have grown to yearly sales of over $100 million, $14 million and $25 million, respectively. With these blueprints in mind, you should do whatever you can to get your products in the hands of interested, knowledgeable YouTubers who will demonstrate and review them. When at all possible, give the YouTubers as much freedom as possible to say whatever they like about the products in their own way — because those are the videos that viewers crave.
2) Create Your Own Affiliate Program
Brands like BH Cosmetics and Sigma Beauty have created their own lucrative affiliate programs where they’ve offered generous commissions that engage and incentivize YouTubers. Essentially the YouTubers have become part of an extended network of salespeople.
Sigma Beauty has a special section of their website dedicated to YouTube affiliates. They pay these video creators 10% for any sales they brought in through affiliate links. The cosmetics company grew from to $25 million in sales in less than five years, largely supported by its YouTube affiliates. According to our study of Sigma a year ago, YouTubers had created videos with more than 16 million views about the brand, while the company’s own YouTube channel had less than 100,000 views. Creators were thus responsible for a 99% share of voice about the brand.
BH Cosmetics is one of the fastest growing private companies in America. The company was founded in 2009 without any outside funding and by 2013 had made $13.7 million in yearly revenue. It also has an affiliate program where YouTubers can make a 15% commision. And according to our study of the brand earlier this year, creator-made videos have a 98% share of voice about the brand, with 382 million views vs. 9 million views on the brand’s own channel.
Here’s a video by a Sigma affiliate, YouTuber “ThatGirlShaeXo” in “Must Have Sigma Brushes!!!”
3) Celebrate YouTubers
The top YouTube beauty brands have each taken the emphasis away from themselves and their own YouTube channels, instead focusing their efforts on helping YouTubers do what they do better. In the case of NYX, the company sent YouTubers many products to conduct their own experiments, then created the FACE Awards and created a community of mutually supportive beauty gurus. And BH Cosmetics features videos from YouTubers who talk about them on their own YouTube channel.
4) Encourage Unboxings
Wouldn’t it be great if the YouTubers made not just videos about using your products, but also made videos about opening your products? Well, this can happen — it all depends on how nicely you package it up. Opening a beautifully-packaged product is a like opening a present — it can bring great joy. And if you’re a YouTuber, getting something in a cool box can make you want to share it. And anytime a brands logo or products get seen in the video, it’s free promotion and raises its profile as a “love brand.”
In this video, beauty guru Lorraine Stanick does her version of the “Get Ready With Me” makeup routine while parked in the car and the baby is asleep:
5) Encourage events, friendly competitions, and collaborations
The days of waiting for official holidays to do product releases or launches is over. With YouTube, brands can create their own tent-pole events, as NYX did with the FACE Awards. If these events encourage or facilitate friendly competition or “collabs,” then the beauty brand will gain a lift of reputation and goodwill as a community builder.
Start a movement — connect with your YouTube influencers today. Octoly can help.
