Dalia Wallach of New York, New York writes:
“As your hair gets healthier, it starts to look better and you don’t have to wash it as often which is better for your hair’s health. Our products have wonderful scents and really make caring for your hair a more pleasurable experience.
“We’ve gotten a fair amount of coverage in national magazines which you can see at http://getglow.com/press.html but we need more people to find out about us and experiment with our products. Do your Hounds have ideas for spreading the word?”
Both men and women whose hair gets exposed to chlorine will benefit from your product. Contact health clubs/gyms that have swimming pools – if your shampoos come in a small size they might stock them for their hirsute clients!
Are there any colleges in your town? If so, try to find out when the sororities on campus meet. You might want to do a round on the sorority meeting night to all of the houses and introduce yourself and your company, and offer samples to the girls. Of course, be sure that they know how to order your products once they fall in love with them!
The college-age demographic is one that is very plugged in to social networks as well, so if you haven’t already, create a profile on as many social networks as you can.
Best of Luck!
-How about developing partnerships with hair salons? You can give them samples to try out.
-Develop a profile on sits like Ryze, Facebook, and/or Linkedin. You can share your expertise there.
-Write articles that demonstrates your experience in hair care.
If you’re wanting people to experiment with your products, you’re going to have to give them away as samples. How about offering free samples to some of the best salons in your local area, to get started?
You need to get your products into the hands of “big mouths” – people who will talk and talk and talk about how wonderful they are, preferably to all their friends, colleagues, on their blogs and in their columns.
Also, have you considered the angle of travellers toiletries? With the new liquids and gels regulations on airlines, if you have a small enough bottle, you could corner the market in travellers’ needs. If, as you say, you’ll have to wash your hair less, a mini bottle could potentially last a whole 2-3 week vacation, and certainly a short business trip. To promote these sizes, get your product into hotels and airline magazines.
If you want to get people to try the product, why not send samples to beauty bloggers? There are quite a few out there who will try products and blog about their results. One of the biggest is http://beautyaddict.blogspot.com/, but you can scroll down the list of other bloggers listed on her site.
If you have the budget, taking a booth at festivals and events is also a great way to give away samples and connect with people.
As you note, your issue may not be exposure so much as exposure that promotes interaction.
Few demographics are better than spreading the news than college kids if they like something.
How about doing some kind of back to school activity? If you you could participate in a street festival near a college, give samples and ask students to try it for a week, if they like it, they send you testimonials via your site in exchange for a coupon for more.
If that’s not an option, try to set up something via Myspace or Facebook, rent a space to do demos of your product maybe partnering with other vendors trying to reach the same market.
Additionally, have a contest for the best student created commercial with judging taking place on You Tube. Maybe even offer a semester’s supply of your product, pizza gift certificates to the winners.
Like Susan mentioned, consider sending samples to bloggers. In addition to beauty bloggers, consider mommy bloggers. I’m a member of Philly Mom Bloggers and many of the moms regularly review products and services. Bloggers are great about reviewing the product and posting links back to the product’s website. Your company could also have a series of giveaway contests in exchange for reviews after the giveaway is received and used.
As a piggyback to Susan’s comment, I suggest creating a series of short 2-3 minute videos where you show women how to deal with common hair problems and of course you will be using your products in the demos. Once your videos are produced you might consider the following distribution options:
– YouTube: Millions of people now use YouTube videos to help them solve everyday problems…why not haircare problems
– Your website: Upload your videos to a multi-episodic streaming environment like SplashcastMedia.com where you can easily feature all of your videos in a single player on your website and viewers can select from among all of your demos
– Pitch the videos to beauty industry bloggers. Bloggers love “good” video content. See my blog post on this: http://www.customerflypaper.com/?p=48
– Lobby Loops: Give the videos to salons to play as looped content in their waiting rooms.
-Evangelists: Create handheld versions of the videos for your satisfied customers to download on their multimedia capable smartphones and iPod devices. They will become walking commercials for you.
– Pitch your video to popular social networking site managers (myspace, etc.) You would be surprised at how much traffic some of these sites get and if you select sites that attract your target audience, your videos will work 24/7.
John
[…] stumbling upon a “request for marketing help” post at the Publicity Hound’s blog (Natural hair care Products Company needs publicity ideas) I decided to add my two cents. The inquiring company’s plea went something like, “We’ve […]
I think it would be a great idea to pitch your products to websites that carry related products or have customers that may get hair damage. One of your commentator’s above posted about contacting gyms/health clubs. We would love to sell your products as they could help our customers from damaged hair in the summer time from using their swimming pools.
Is this product sold in salon, or other?
I am a designer who worked for many top international companies.
I found flaws in the one size fits all hair cutting method, and so just launched my own hair cutting philosophy.
It is a method of interpreting the personal (genetics) identity of each ones hair, and then follow precise postural movement/principles to allow the personal hair character to emerge. These principles allow the craftsman to get out of the way; thus understand or interpret the hair correctly so as not to impair the hairs character to emerge.
We interpret the truth about hair and allow it, not make the hair do something artificially.
Hair is like your thumbprint or DNA; it is one of a kind!
No one looks like you, so why do we attempt to clone haircuts that the body rejects anyway?
Modern hair cutting is anciently and archaic in form. it is always attempting to augment or manipulate; not mindful of the personal biology.
Bottom line: Hairdressers go to shows and listen to reps who sell them on product, but it is the art of hair craftsmanship that influences people to buy product mostly.
Great products support an individuals hair (like a haircut SHOULD do), rather than the MANY products which hide behind artificial gimmicks; thus impairing hairs healthy balance.
Our salons globally know nothing about a genetically appropriate design.
Haircuts are always imbalance or asymmetrical in posture.
Suppose the salons and clients could understand how to get a clean, symmetrical, genetically appropriate shape? They might be inclined to take your product line seriously.
Food for thought.
Feel free to contact me if this sounds like it can help you.
Sincerely,
Ezell