Based on adoption readiness, your beauty brand’s target consumer & influencer evolve with the growth stage. So does the best modes of influence and how you influence.
Beauty Brand Consumer-Influencer Evolution Curve
Stage 1 Consumers: Trendsetters
Trendsetters- If you’re targeting trendsetters within a community, which is usually when you’re just starting, then the experts, the opinion leaders, for that category matter, like bloggers. You can even call and speak to beauty influencers, et cetera, who influence the category. Innovators like yourself and the brand could also be influencers to the trendsetters.
When you ready the creative or education campaign, et cetera, you will repurpose it to work with influencers too. And that is where you’ll decide what kind of influencers you will submit your creative kit to.
So, you will use opinion leaders to influence the trendsetters in the community. If you’re starting, influence tools will be deep dives, education, digest, and newness deep dives. But remember, knowledge will do your job here, meaning you won’t have to convince them to convert. And you could even go the mass route.
I know this is tricky. These people are seeking what’s new on their own. They are slightly price-conscious, though. For example, we launched with a few bundles for one of the brands I’m working with. Of course, we discounted them, et cetera and a derm who influences multiple Facebook Communities of skin care, over a few hundred thousand-sized communities, shared the deep dive with community leaders who went in on the deal and shared with their audience, prompting the trendsetters within their groups to place the early-bird, exclusive orders.
She looks for newness because that’s how she adds value to her audience. She also wanted educational content because if she’s giving such a bundle at such an attractive price, she also wants to reinforce that these are great enough products.
Their motive is to set trends for the community.
Adoption Curve Stage: Launch
Target Consumer Type: Trendsetters
Influencer: Opinion Leader for the category (could be beyond the category)
Tool: Deep Dive, Content Digest
Media: Mass and Big Social Media
Motive: Set Trends
Stage 2 Consumers: Early Adopters
The second stage is the early adopter consumers. Let’s say you’ve crossed a million dollars or a couple of million dollars, a few million dollars. So, you’ve already gone over trendsetters and are now targeting the early adopters. These people look for social proof; within the community, they want to be the first.
So, their influencers are trendsetters for the community and social celebs; these are the people who will influence them within the community.
Remember, the trendsetters were influenced by the opinion leaders outside the community or community leaders for the category. Here, the early adopters are influenced by the trendsetters of that community, particularly communities within beauty, for example.
They want to stay ahead of the community, which will also help you devise messaging, FAQs, persuasion, etc.
Again, here, you need more knowledge, and as you go towards the right, you need more persuasion with the later stages or consumers, and the influencers move from category to interpersonal. That’s the difference! So, it’ll also change the media.
Adoption Curve Stage: Early Adopter
Target Consumer Type: Early Adopters
Influencer: Trendsetters
Tool: Trendsetter Reviews & Observable Adoption
Media: Social Proof
Motive: Adopt ahead of the others
Stage 3 Consumer: Early Mainstream
When you want to target the early mainstream, which is when the proper growth phase starts happening, let’s say across $5 million, between $5 million and $10 million or really beyond $10 million. Now, it is all about the circle in which they roam, personal or professional circles, the early mainstream consumers.
And they look for advice. So that is how they get influenced. And the media is one-on-one for influencing. And the persuasion needed is more. And what they are looking for, their motive is progress. They don’t want to be left behind too far.
Brand advocates/super fans also play a role. So, beyond the circle, they can look at people passionate about the brand and then at how delighted they are with it. This is where storytelling can also be seen when working with influencers/brand ambassadors and advocates like your brand superfans.
You can work with them to influence early mainstream consumers.
Stages 2 & 3 perfectly fit with a tribe strategy to identify, find and leverage 6X profitable super fans for influencing their circles and communities.
Adoption curve stage: Early Mainstream
Target consumer type: Early Mainstream Consumer
Influencer: Pro & Persona Circle
Tools: Proactive 1:1 Advice Medium
Media: 1:1
Motive: Not to be left far behind
……………
Alternative influencers: Brand Advocates, Super Fans
Tools: Reviews, Stories
Media: Storytelling
Motive: Not to be left far behind
Note
The Early Adopters and Early Mainstream Consumers Stage are a perfect fit for a tribe strategy targeting advocacy via 6X profitable super fans, as the beauty brands at this stage have resource constraints, and advertising is not likely to yield the highest ROI.
Stage 4 Consumer: Late Mainstream
An early-stage beauty brand should not bother about it much at this stage. But they are highly concerned with the inner circle; they are passive. They need recommendations, of course, one-on-one interaction, but they need absolute assurance that, when they spend money, there’s no risk whatsoever. They need the highest amount of persuasion. So, that’s why the inner circle.
Adoption curve stage: Late Mainstream
Target consumer type: Late Mainstream Consumer
Influencer: Inner Circle
Tools: Proactive 1:1 Advice Medium
Media: 1:1
Motive: Safe
Application for Early-Stage Beauty Brands
Seeding communities: For early adopters and early mainstream consumers, seeding communities are an excellent strategy for conversions & advocacy to feed the funnel back.
Experiential campaigns: Again, these campaigns help at the early adopter and early mainstream stages as you need both social proof and conversions, loyalty and advocacy all in one step.
Social media campaigns: More of a fit with early adopters & early mainstream, where social proof and brand advocates can help convert better.
SUMMARY
An early-stage beauty brand’s target consumer type, influencer, tools to influence, and media change with the adoption curve stage because of the underlying motive to try and adopt a solution.
At the launch-post launch stage, you are targeting trendsetters within communities, and the influencers are opinion leaders for the category (could be beyond the category); tools you can use are Deep Dive and Content Digest & the correct media is Mass and Big Social Media. You can always do 1:1, but Mass will help you find all those looking for a brand like yours on their own and don’t need much convincing.
At the early adopter stage, you target early adopter consumers; influencers are the Trendsetters within a community; tools you can use are trendsetter reviews & observable adoption with media using social proof by the community.
At the early mainstream consumer stage, you target the namesake consumer type, influencers are Pro & Personal Circle and brand advocates(super fans), tools are Proactive 1:1 Advice Medium, reviews and stories, media is 1:1 and storytelling with motive of safety and not be left too far behind respectively.
The inner circle is the most significant influencer at the late consumer adoption stage. You can use proactive 1:1 Advice Medium, which is the inner circle of friends and family, and security is the biggest motivator.
Do check out my article on How innovative is your beauty brand?
Jump accelerates women-led, early-stage beauty brands with a”fit, fundamental & fully executable” solution using first principles of diffusion
OR