How YouTube Has Drastically Changed The Beauty Industry
YouTube is continuing to emerge as the dominant source of referral traffic for major cosmetic brands. Marketers of cosmetics can no longer simply rely on the Photoshopped models of billboards, lifestyle magazines, and urban murals to secure market share. The vast, constantly expanding world of beauty-centered content has been thriving in YouTube for years now, with literally billions of beauty-focused videos uploaded to the social site. Getting in on the YouTube action is a marketing mandatory.
Here are 3 reasons Beauty Industry leaders pay full attention to YouTube (and why you’d better start paying attention, too!):
YouTube Users Are Obsessed with Beauty
In 2017 there were 88 billion beauty-related video views on YouTube, growing from “only” 55 billion in 2016, according to Statista. Every month YouTube registers more than 700 million views of beauty-related content. Like cat videos, YouTube beauty videos aren’t going anywhere.
Your future customers are engaged with YouTube and the big beauty brands do not own this space. Their videos represent only 3 percent of total views. Individual “vloggers” control a stunning 97 percent of all beauty topic videos.
The level of attention and celebrity these vloggers are gaining is staggering. Some of the most popular beauty vloggers have upwards of 100 million subscribers, replete with talent agents and branded beauty product lines.
The demand for beauty related videos on YouTube is real, or as a beauty maven might put it, “like, literally really real.” Create videos for your beauty products and get them on YouTube asap!
Cosmetics Customers Crave Benefits, Not Fantasies
The Devil may wear Prada skirts and rock Urban Decay lipstick, but on YouTube no one cares. Cosmetics customers are not looking to project themselves onto 30-second lifestyle fantasies concocted by the heirs of Don Draper and his Mad Men brethren, according to Pixability.
Customers want longer-format content that discusses what’s new and what’s trending. They want to know how to achieve different looks, coordinate outfits creatively, and look good from desk to date. And they’re more inclined to purchase products presented to them by independent vloggers.
The vloggers are the new gatekeepers. You can’t just directly post your own content. You must engage with the vloggers. Getting them to review new product lines and mention your cosmetics as they discuss all things beauty is key to connecting with customers. This is a world where touting your international brand name could hurt you.
Meredith Foster, one of the most prominent YouTube beauty vlogger powerhouses, has 4.8 million subscribers, 2.3 million Instagram followers, and 1.3 million Twitter followers. Although her reach is primarily centered around YouTube, vloggers like Meredith have a reach combined with personability that more mainstay brands simply can’t replicate.
Beauty vloggers like Meredith can easily generate six figure earnings every year, and even more. This is more evidence that when a YouTube vlogger with that much clout recommends a product, their subscribers listen.
L’Oréal Is Cashing In (Yes, So Can You!)
Have you heard of L’Oréal Paris? Yeah, thought you might have. Well, they’ve been leading the way in getting products featured in YouTube videos, according to Cosmetics Design, This is no small task. Pixability reports less than 25 percent of all beauty related YouTube videos even mention a brand name cosmetic.
L’Oréal achieved success by gifting its products to top beauty vloggers and by placing ads within their videos. This allows it to drive traffic to its many labels’ websites. You can do the same. Connect with top vloggers, such as Michelle Phan and Dulce Tejeda, get them talking about your products, and then place ads within their videos that connect to your website(s). You don’t need to drop millions on Manhattan billboards and the coveted back cover of Vogue. You can compete with the biggest cosmetic brands effectively and efficiently. Digital Surgeons has pioneered digital marketing. We hit the full-spectrum, from YouTube to beyond.
Peruse some of our case studies (we think you might especially enjoy how Xomad is bringing influencer marketing to new heights) and see how Digital Surgeons places its clients at the forefront of digital marketing.
