Ways to Advertise Bath and Body Products
Slipping into a hot, fragrant bubble bath is one way of calming down after a hectic day. Help your customers soak away their cares and worries with your bath and body products through a variety of advertising methods. After all, if a customer can't find your products, she can't buy them.
An online presence keeps your bath products accessible day and night. Include social media in your advertising mix. Facebook allows paid advertising that shows up on member's profiles. Take advantage of Pinterest by posting photos of your lotions and potions. Videotape yourself, or a spokesperson, demonstrating how your bath oil products are organic, made from essential oils or use special ingredients. Post the video on your website or on a video platform site. Send out samples of your products to beauty bloggers and fashionistas to review on their websites.
You might not be able to justify leasing retail store space for an entire year. If that's the case, consider a "pop-up" store instead. Lease a vacant store for a month, a week or just during certain times of the year. Use the store to sell products, hand out promotional materials and build up a list of potential mail-order customers. Bath and body products make ideal gift items, so a pop-up store during November and December makes sense. Mother's Day in May and Valentine's Day in February are two other times a pop-up store should work. Set up signage in the windows to advertise your products and how long you'll be at that location.
Hundreds of trade shows take place every year all over the country. Trade shows are directed toward an industry or focused on retail customers. Some shows result in orders and others in exposure to potential customers, such as gift shop owners. Place an ad in the trade show's program. If you can't afford to set up a booth at an industry trade show, seek out a distributor who will represent your products at a gift show or personal-care trade show. Provide the distributor with samples, brochures, order forms and price sheets for your products.
Leave fliers in shops that sell products similar to yours, but are not direct competitors. A bridal shop might be interested in selling your luxury bath products as gifts for the bridesmaids, as wedding shower gifts or as a thank-you from the bride to those who helped with the wedding. In other shops, leave a basket of your goodies for the owner to display with brochures and order forms. An organic farmers market could be interested if you sell all-natural bath products. Spas and salons are other alternatives.
Coupons and discounts are proven methods for increasing sales. Place the coupons in newspapers and magazines. Put printable coupons on your website for redemption at your store or booth at a craft show. Hand them out to current customers. Consider a group-purchase coupon company such as Social Living, Groupon or Daily Deal to generate local traffic. Keep in mind that the purpose of those group-purchase coupons is to generate new customers -- not make money. Because you must offer at least a 50 percent discount and you split the proceeds of the coupon sales with the coupon company, you'll most likely end up losing money on every sale. For example, say you offer a $30 bottle of body lotion for $15. The customer buys the coupon for $15. The coupon company sends you $7.50 for every coupon sold. Each $30 bottle of lotion costs you $15, so you lose $7.50 for every coupon.