Two days ago I was talking to a customer who was working on the packaging for a new perfume, having learned to sell perfume successfully. He asked me about my own sales and I told him candidly that, at present, I am more interested in learning to make perfume than to sell it, although I have several fragrances for sale at one of my websites, and I "give away" a growing amount of perfume with the books I sell, as examples of what can be done with a very limited budget.
But getting back to selling. SALES are the difference between a hobby and a business. To be in business -- any business -- you have to develop the ability to make sales.
SELLING is a skill that can be LEARNED. That is why giant corporations run training sessions for their sales STAFF. If they relied on the ability of a handful of "naturals," they could not do business on the scale they do.
Once acquired, the skill of selling works equally well in good times and in bad. In a down economy, it is interesting to see who is doing the most advertising and selling. You can't be in business if you stop putting substantial attention on sales!
Today there are more opportunities than ever to make money with perfume. But SELLING is involved. And selling -- successful selling -- involves creative thinking about products and markets and the ART of perfumery.
Today the raw materials of perfumery, the raw materials of packaging, and the "raw materials" of sales promotion are available to ANYONE who can put together a few thousand dollars in capital. Five thousand dollars can be a GIANT budget for the independent perfumer, more than enough to get the product and the message out there.
So what do you REALLY need to make sales in your own perfume business? Start with perfume -- a perfume that grabs you ... and others -- add PACKAGING -- packaging which is APPROPRIATE for the people to whom you want to make sales (and cost-effective for you!) -- and finally you need PEOPLE -- people who will buy your fragrance, because you have sold it to them.
That is a business and it can be very profitable. If you understand the importance of developing YOUR OWN ability to make sales!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
5 Day Perfumery Course In New York City, May 5-9, 2008
Greetings --
This may be considered a "commercial" announcement but I believe that it is important to independent perfumers who are looking for new ideas, informations and contacts. Hence, I have reproduced our recent press for a 5-day perfumery course in New York City that we are co-sponsoring:
=========
For Immediate Release:
Maybrook, NY, May 10th, 2008 -- How often do fragrance, fashion, beauty biz professionals, and business owners have the chance to roll up their sleeves, reach for bottles of aroma chemicals, and work "hands on" at creating a perfume of their own?
This May 5th through May 9th a select group of industry insiders will have the opportunity to become students again when iconoclastic British perfumer, Stephen V. Dowthwaite, brings his 5-day "The Art and Technology of Perfumery" immersion course to New York City. Students will observe and take notes as Dowthwaite creates an original perfume and answers all questions concerning the process. Then, in afternoon sessions, they will create their own individual fragrances which will be completed by day four of the course.
If this sounds impossible, look to the results achieved by 42 youngsters, age 10-18, who recently took Dowthwaite's course at Harrow International School. After just six hours of training in smelling techniques, odor classification and basic fragrance creation, each had created their own personal fragrance, working from their own personal perfume brief.
Far from being a weapon to destroy the perfume industry, Dowthwaite's perfumery training courses give students a greater appreciation of both perfume and the work of perfumers. Dowthwaite believes that perfumery -- like art and music -- is a creative form that can and should be enjoyed by a far wider range of men and women than those selected for salaried positions in industry.
And -- good news for the fragrance industry -- Dowthwaite's students are far more likely to build vast personal libraries of new fragrances than the average man or woman.
Besides "hands on" creation, the course will cover a range of technical and aesthetic issues including aromatherapy and spa theory, perfume applications including cosmetics and toiletries, cosmetics ingredients, perfuming for functional products, dealing with perfume inquiries, marketing the language of smell, product trouble shooting, quality control, safety, standardization and packaging.
On May 7th, Hugues Thibaud, head of of O.Berk's luxury packaging group, will be explain the technology of semi-automatic bottle making which is now being used to produce custom and factice bottles in runs of less than 50 bottles. Thibaud's most recent project was a signed, limited edition set of decorative bottles created by legendary package designer, Pierre Dinand.
Dowthwaite, trained at Picot Laboratories in England, claims authorship to over 300 fragrances and flavors currently on the market. Based in Bangkok since 1989, Dowthwaite helped launch Thailand's first perfume compounding facility and currently consults for all three of Thailand's major fragrance houses. He is also a consultant to Thailand's National Science and Technical Development Agency and has been teaching perfumery at the university level and to private students since the early 1990's.
Attendance is limited to fifty. Advance registration is required. The course is sponsored jointly by PerfumersWorld, Ltd. (PerfumersWorld.com) and Lightyears, Inc. (PerfumeProjects.com)
For more course details and registration information, visit www.PerfumeProjects.com.
This may be considered a "commercial" announcement but I believe that it is important to independent perfumers who are looking for new ideas, informations and contacts. Hence, I have reproduced our recent press for a 5-day perfumery course in New York City that we are co-sponsoring:
=========
For Immediate Release:
Maybrook, NY, May 10th, 2008 -- How often do fragrance, fashion, beauty biz professionals, and business owners have the chance to roll up their sleeves, reach for bottles of aroma chemicals, and work "hands on" at creating a perfume of their own?
This May 5th through May 9th a select group of industry insiders will have the opportunity to become students again when iconoclastic British perfumer, Stephen V. Dowthwaite, brings his 5-day "The Art and Technology of Perfumery" immersion course to New York City. Students will observe and take notes as Dowthwaite creates an original perfume and answers all questions concerning the process. Then, in afternoon sessions, they will create their own individual fragrances which will be completed by day four of the course.
If this sounds impossible, look to the results achieved by 42 youngsters, age 10-18, who recently took Dowthwaite's course at Harrow International School. After just six hours of training in smelling techniques, odor classification and basic fragrance creation, each had created their own personal fragrance, working from their own personal perfume brief.
Far from being a weapon to destroy the perfume industry, Dowthwaite's perfumery training courses give students a greater appreciation of both perfume and the work of perfumers. Dowthwaite believes that perfumery -- like art and music -- is a creative form that can and should be enjoyed by a far wider range of men and women than those selected for salaried positions in industry.
And -- good news for the fragrance industry -- Dowthwaite's students are far more likely to build vast personal libraries of new fragrances than the average man or woman.
Besides "hands on" creation, the course will cover a range of technical and aesthetic issues including aromatherapy and spa theory, perfume applications including cosmetics and toiletries, cosmetics ingredients, perfuming for functional products, dealing with perfume inquiries, marketing the language of smell, product trouble shooting, quality control, safety, standardization and packaging.
On May 7th, Hugues Thibaud, head of of O.Berk's luxury packaging group, will be explain the technology of semi-automatic bottle making which is now being used to produce custom and factice bottles in runs of less than 50 bottles. Thibaud's most recent project was a signed, limited edition set of decorative bottles created by legendary package designer, Pierre Dinand.
Dowthwaite, trained at Picot Laboratories in England, claims authorship to over 300 fragrances and flavors currently on the market. Based in Bangkok since 1989, Dowthwaite helped launch Thailand's first perfume compounding facility and currently consults for all three of Thailand's major fragrance houses. He is also a consultant to Thailand's National Science and Technical Development Agency and has been teaching perfumery at the university level and to private students since the early 1990's.
Attendance is limited to fifty. Advance registration is required. The course is sponsored jointly by PerfumersWorld, Ltd. (PerfumersWorld.com) and Lightyears, Inc. (PerfumeProjects.com)
For more course details and registration information, visit www.PerfumeProjects.com.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
"The retail price of a bottle of perfume is largely determined by the environment in which it is sold."
One of the first lessons I was taught in the mail order business -- lifetimes ago, so it seems -- is that the retail price of any particular item should be the price at which profit is maximized.
Sometimes profit is maximized by keeping the retail price low and selling in volume; other times the price is maximized by restraining volume and pumping up the price.
In the mail order business, as it existed in the days of old, the optimum price could be determined by "price testing." Ads were run offering the identical item at several different prices. Then, analyzing sales volume, merchandise cost and advertising expense for each of the test cells, the most PROFITABLE retail price could be determined. From that point on, the item would be sold at that price.
Notice that, in this model, setting the price has nothing to do with the COST of the item. In fact, the most profitable price could be one at which the item is sold at a LOSS, although I hope this never happens to you.
This method of pricing ignores the concept of a "standard" markup, be it 3 time cost, 5 times cost or even 10 times cost. Instead, the retail price is set based on
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR.
Now how does this apply to perfume?
What does a buyer EXPECT to pay for a bottle of perfume?
Think quick. If you see a perfume in a dollar store, what do you expect to pay for it? Certainly not $45. No, you expect to pay ONE DOLLAR. Conversely, it you saw a bottle of perfume priced at one dollar in Saks, Bloomingdales or Neiman-Marcus, you would ask, "What's the gimmick?" The price would not seem right. If you saw a one-ounce bottle of Chanel No.5 EDP in WalMart's prices at an "everyday low price" of $145 -- you would ask, "What is Chanel No.5 doing in WalMart?" because you might feel that something about this bottle and price was "not right" -- "not right for regular WalMart shoppers because regular WalMart shoppers don't buy real Chanel No.5; "not right" for anyone else because they would question how WalMart happened to have obtained a Chanel perfume.
The simple truth is, the perfume buyer goes into a particular store EXPECTING to find perfume prices within a certain RANGE. The more desirable -- "hot, new" -- fragrances can be expected to be at the high end of this range, the proven standbys in the middle, and perhaps a few "economy" fragrances at the lower end. But the buyer HAS a price range in mind for ALL of the store's offerings and a fragrance prices outside of this range will seem "wrong" -- and will be harder, or even impossible, for the store to sell.
The cost of making your perfume
When a major fragrance marketer plans a new fragrance, the FIRST step in the process is to determine a retail price point. From there, an acceptable manufacturing COST can be determined, based on the margin the manufacturer wants for this product. (Major fragrance marketers DO NOT "price test" in the way mail order people once did, but they do have huge amounts of accumulated data on what consumers have been willing to pay in the past for particular fragrances.)
For the creative perfumer, the fragrance itself comes first and cost is secondary. Big companies rein in this tendency. The small, independent perfumer is not so constrained but this lack of constraint can cause problems by allowing the perfumer to build a fragrance that costs more to produce than it can fetch at retail.
So you, the independent perfumer -- just like the mass market perfumer -- MUST give consideration to the retail price that your creation can reasonably fetch -- and build your formula accordingly.
This issue is particularly important for independent perfumes who use a lot of NATURAL materials in their compositions as these can pile on the costs VERY quickly.
The selling environment
Where are you going to sell your perfume? What kind of retail outlet? Let's look at the LEAST likely first.
A Website -- IF you are mad enough to think you can make money selling your fragrances on a website, the "aura" you create for that website will largely determine what price you will be able to get for your fragrance, assuming you are ABLE to sell it at all on the internet -- which is a tough proposition, so don't give up your daytime job!
"Fancy graphics" are necessarily the component needed to create the aura needed to sell perfume at $85 an ounce and up. Remember how Chanel build a perfume empire stressing SIMPLICITY -- but also by stressing Chanel!
How you create a website aura that will allow you to get the price you want ... is YOUR problem to work out. But unless you can do it, forget trying to make money selling your perfume "web only."
A retail boutique -- IF you are really into it, with money to burn, you might try your own retail boutique. A few companies have done it; none too successfully. Giorgio tried it in New York, as did Helena Rubinstein (for her husband!) If you own your own store and have lots of money, you can create whatever retail environment you want. The danger is you won't be able to sell enough of your perfume to cover your expenses.
Somebody else's retail store -- Most people making their own perfume at least HOPE they will be able to retail it through someone's existing store. THE BIG FANTASY for some is that the fragrance will become a huge hit and be taken in by a major retailer. I know of NO instance where this has ever happened. Coty, Estee Lauder, Gale and Fred Hayman all came close to this ideal but none of them opened the doors to major retail sales outlets by simply having a "good" fragrance. Each of them engaged in a LOT of selling!
A more realistic approach is to deal with stores -- boutiques -- where you feel comfortable shopping and where you feel comfortable working out a deal with the store's buyer. Buyers know their customers. They KNOW what customers want AND WHAT THEY WILL PAY. Assuming they are willing to give YOUR fragrance a shot, they know pretty well how to price it.
What this means is that the price for your perfume will be determined by the STORE ... not by you. If you've put your all natural fragrance into an eighty dollar bottle and the store says they can't price it above fifty-five dollars ... you've got a problem!
Conversely, if -- because of the selling environment of the store -- they want you to price your perfume at $135 ... you don't have to tell them that your cost comes to less than six dollars a bottle!
When we sold our first successful fragrance for $26.95, we didn't tell our customers that our cost to make it was less than $1.50 a bottle. (See our book, Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!)
Sometimes profit is maximized by keeping the retail price low and selling in volume; other times the price is maximized by restraining volume and pumping up the price.
In the mail order business, as it existed in the days of old, the optimum price could be determined by "price testing." Ads were run offering the identical item at several different prices. Then, analyzing sales volume, merchandise cost and advertising expense for each of the test cells, the most PROFITABLE retail price could be determined. From that point on, the item would be sold at that price.
Notice that, in this model, setting the price has nothing to do with the COST of the item. In fact, the most profitable price could be one at which the item is sold at a LOSS, although I hope this never happens to you.
This method of pricing ignores the concept of a "standard" markup, be it 3 time cost, 5 times cost or even 10 times cost. Instead, the retail price is set based on
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR.
Now how does this apply to perfume?
What does a buyer EXPECT to pay for a bottle of perfume?
Think quick. If you see a perfume in a dollar store, what do you expect to pay for it? Certainly not $45. No, you expect to pay ONE DOLLAR. Conversely, it you saw a bottle of perfume priced at one dollar in Saks, Bloomingdales or Neiman-Marcus, you would ask, "What's the gimmick?" The price would not seem right. If you saw a one-ounce bottle of Chanel No.5 EDP in WalMart's prices at an "everyday low price" of $145 -- you would ask, "What is Chanel No.5 doing in WalMart?" because you might feel that something about this bottle and price was "not right" -- "not right for regular WalMart shoppers because regular WalMart shoppers don't buy real Chanel No.5; "not right" for anyone else because they would question how WalMart happened to have obtained a Chanel perfume.
The simple truth is, the perfume buyer goes into a particular store EXPECTING to find perfume prices within a certain RANGE. The more desirable -- "hot, new" -- fragrances can be expected to be at the high end of this range, the proven standbys in the middle, and perhaps a few "economy" fragrances at the lower end. But the buyer HAS a price range in mind for ALL of the store's offerings and a fragrance prices outside of this range will seem "wrong" -- and will be harder, or even impossible, for the store to sell.
The cost of making your perfume
When a major fragrance marketer plans a new fragrance, the FIRST step in the process is to determine a retail price point. From there, an acceptable manufacturing COST can be determined, based on the margin the manufacturer wants for this product. (Major fragrance marketers DO NOT "price test" in the way mail order people once did, but they do have huge amounts of accumulated data on what consumers have been willing to pay in the past for particular fragrances.)
For the creative perfumer, the fragrance itself comes first and cost is secondary. Big companies rein in this tendency. The small, independent perfumer is not so constrained but this lack of constraint can cause problems by allowing the perfumer to build a fragrance that costs more to produce than it can fetch at retail.
So you, the independent perfumer -- just like the mass market perfumer -- MUST give consideration to the retail price that your creation can reasonably fetch -- and build your formula accordingly.
This issue is particularly important for independent perfumes who use a lot of NATURAL materials in their compositions as these can pile on the costs VERY quickly.
The selling environment
Where are you going to sell your perfume? What kind of retail outlet? Let's look at the LEAST likely first.
A Website -- IF you are mad enough to think you can make money selling your fragrances on a website, the "aura" you create for that website will largely determine what price you will be able to get for your fragrance, assuming you are ABLE to sell it at all on the internet -- which is a tough proposition, so don't give up your daytime job!
"Fancy graphics" are necessarily the component needed to create the aura needed to sell perfume at $85 an ounce and up. Remember how Chanel build a perfume empire stressing SIMPLICITY -- but also by stressing Chanel!
How you create a website aura that will allow you to get the price you want ... is YOUR problem to work out. But unless you can do it, forget trying to make money selling your perfume "web only."
A retail boutique -- IF you are really into it, with money to burn, you might try your own retail boutique. A few companies have done it; none too successfully. Giorgio tried it in New York, as did Helena Rubinstein (for her husband!) If you own your own store and have lots of money, you can create whatever retail environment you want. The danger is you won't be able to sell enough of your perfume to cover your expenses.
Somebody else's retail store -- Most people making their own perfume at least HOPE they will be able to retail it through someone's existing store. THE BIG FANTASY for some is that the fragrance will become a huge hit and be taken in by a major retailer. I know of NO instance where this has ever happened. Coty, Estee Lauder, Gale and Fred Hayman all came close to this ideal but none of them opened the doors to major retail sales outlets by simply having a "good" fragrance. Each of them engaged in a LOT of selling!
A more realistic approach is to deal with stores -- boutiques -- where you feel comfortable shopping and where you feel comfortable working out a deal with the store's buyer. Buyers know their customers. They KNOW what customers want AND WHAT THEY WILL PAY. Assuming they are willing to give YOUR fragrance a shot, they know pretty well how to price it.
What this means is that the price for your perfume will be determined by the STORE ... not by you. If you've put your all natural fragrance into an eighty dollar bottle and the store says they can't price it above fifty-five dollars ... you've got a problem!
Conversely, if -- because of the selling environment of the store -- they want you to price your perfume at $135 ... you don't have to tell them that your cost comes to less than six dollars a bottle!
When we sold our first successful fragrance for $26.95, we didn't tell our customers that our cost to make it was less than $1.50 a bottle. (See our book, Creating Your Own Perfume With A 1700 Percent Markup!)
Friday, November 2, 2007
Website Essentials: Your NEXT product
A wise man once explained the secret of mail order (read "internet marketing") success to me: Before you put money into selling your FIRST product, have your SECOND product ready!
Let me explain. It's hard to make money with a business that has only one product to sell. It simple costs too much money to ACQUIRE a customer. The big profit is made in getting REPEAT SALES from a customer. The person who likes your first product is a very good candidate for your second product.
So if you don't have a second product, you've lost out on an opportunity. Your business struggles rather than flourishes.
If your "first" product is a perfume that took you a year to develop, can you afford to wait another year until you have a second perfume? Certainly this would slow down the growth of your business but, perhaps, you can find OTHER products that COMPLIMENT your perfume.
The classic line extension for a perfume is the soap, bath oil, linen spray, candle routine. But this is tricky as, not only does it involve a significant cash investment, it also requires a good deal of technical skill -- the skill of a cosmetic chemist perhaps. Going down this path may not be appealing to you.
But there are alternatives: scarves, costume jewelry, (somebody else's) soap and bath products -- items that can be purchased through normal, wholesale, "gift boutique" channels. You won't get the markup you might like on these products but you can buy them in small quantities and these other products -- if well selected -- can put the icing on your cake.
You might have a better idea for a "second" product -- but those "second products" will speed your way to business success.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
How to succeed in marketing your own perfume
I once knew a not very good artist who, to my amazement, sent me an invitation to a show he was having at a prestige gallery. I went, out of curiosity, (the paintings were junk) and observed him making sales!
We can argue over tastes in art but the fact was he was a far better salesman than he was an artist. And this should give us all hope.
Creating a successful perfume is not easy. Just ask anyone at Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Inter Perfumes, IFF, Givaudan, Firmenich, or whoever. For every fragrance that "makes it" in the market place, an uncounted number die -- because they weren't "the right" fragrance at the right time and place, and because they were not SOLD successfully.
Yes, you can make profitable sales with a less than brilliant fragrance. If you couldn't, the perfume industry would be quite different than it is today.
Marketing people often don't have much choice about what they are called upon to sell. In advertising circles, the mantra is, "there are no dull products, only dull copywriters/artists/art directors."
The simple fact of business life is that you have to work with what you have ... sell what is in front of you ... generate a profit for your company from a product that might not be as great as what your competition is selling.
If you don't, your company will be out of business, your employees will be out on the street, and your spouse and children might start to wonder about you and your business sense.
Yes, you have to learn to sell what you have, to be enthusiastic about it, to find its good points, to find customers who can appreciate it, and convince them to pay you, not a "fair" price, but a price that allows your company (especially if it is a 1-person company!) to flourish.
BUT.
But while you are selling the perfume that you HAVE, the perfume that you have made already, it is essential that you keep working on your NEXT perfume, using the feedback (or lack if it!) gained from your current fragrance, working toward new fragrances rather than sitting idle.
I was recently reminded that, when Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel first tried to make a comeback in fashion, at the age of 70 after being out of the business for 16 years, her collection was a disaster. But when her financial backer tracked her down, she was already working on her NEXT collection. Which proved a huge success.
Life does not revolve around a single fragrance. As a perfume creator, you have the opportunity to create many scents. You don't know which of them might be your big breakthrough. But if you keep selling hard with what you've got, and keep developing new fragrances, there's a good chance that you will, in time, find yourself with a very good business.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
How Do You Sell Your Unknown Perfume Successfully On The Internet?
Here are some points that may help!
Point # 1
The first step in selling perfume successfully from a website it to establish your yourself as a credible merchant. The websites used by successful internet merchants differ radically from "corporate information" websites that may be built around beautiful images, music and animations, all of which delay navigation from one page to the next. To sell on the internet, your website has to function like Google or Yahoo. Navigation must be simple and rapid. Pages must pop up quickly -- with the information buyers are looking for. Ordering has to be functional -- simple -- straight forward -- crystal clear -- and easy to navigate.
Point # 2
The next step is building traffic -- traffic from potential buyers. Traffic from non-buyers only serves to help the search engines take an interest in your site. Your traffic mix must include a good percentage of qualified prospects for your perfume.
How do you achieve this when your perfume is unknown? The search engines can't bring you traffic if nobody is looking for you. Shouting "My New Perfume" at your website won't help.
Since your perfume -- and, probably, you -- are unknown, you will need some sort of CONTENT at your website that people ARE searching for, and, to be effective, it should relate to the possible internet searches of people who might be good prospects for your perfume.
Articles, information, solutions to problems all offer you opportunities to build the right kind of traffic on your website. Don't fall for the line that these will make your website look ugly. The only people who tell you that are people who don't have to sell something from a website.
Point # 3
Let the customer sample your wares. Unless you are a VERY good advertising writer, or unless there is some VERY special association with your perfume, it is unlikely that you will generate sales without offering samples. Samples will not eliminate the need to "sell" your perfume -- as you now must "sell" the visitor on taking action to request your samples. BUT, if you price your sample order so that it appears "generous" (i.e., you don't appear to be trying to make money by selling your samples!), it will be far easier to sell a few samples for the cost of postage and handling than it will to sell a full size bottle.
And remember, if they DO NOT like your samples, they are telling your something! Perfume is a VERY personal product and, if a person likes what you are selling, they will PAY. But if your perfume does NOT strike them as being special -- more special than anything they would buy at the mall, they will not order the full size bottle.
Today consumers have many fragrances to choose from at the mall and, if you are simply trying to imitate a fragrance that is already a success, you have little chance of making a sale. To succeed in selling your perfume or cologne online, it had better be special! -- or your promotion for it had better be special! At least to your target buyer!
Point # 4
Once you have, through your samples, attracted a consumer for your fragrance, make it affordable. If you need to get $50 on ounce or more for your perfume, consider selling it in 1/2 ounce -- or even 1/4 ounce bottles, so that, at least for their first order, the customer don't have to shell out such a big chunk of money.
In the early days of the Coty perfume business, the company prospered by offering its perfumes in a range of different size bottles. Those who had little money could still enjoy a Coty fragrance by purchasing a small (almost tiny!) bottle. Those who had more money could buy a larger bottle. How did rich woman distinguish themselves from their less fortunate cousins? Why they could use MORE perfume and perfume themselves more often!
Let me know how these suggestions worked for you!
Point # 1
The first step in selling perfume successfully from a website it to establish your yourself as a credible merchant. The websites used by successful internet merchants differ radically from "corporate information" websites that may be built around beautiful images, music and animations, all of which delay navigation from one page to the next. To sell on the internet, your website has to function like Google or Yahoo. Navigation must be simple and rapid. Pages must pop up quickly -- with the information buyers are looking for. Ordering has to be functional -- simple -- straight forward -- crystal clear -- and easy to navigate.
Point # 2
The next step is building traffic -- traffic from potential buyers. Traffic from non-buyers only serves to help the search engines take an interest in your site. Your traffic mix must include a good percentage of qualified prospects for your perfume.
How do you achieve this when your perfume is unknown? The search engines can't bring you traffic if nobody is looking for you. Shouting "My New Perfume" at your website won't help.
Since your perfume -- and, probably, you -- are unknown, you will need some sort of CONTENT at your website that people ARE searching for, and, to be effective, it should relate to the possible internet searches of people who might be good prospects for your perfume.
Articles, information, solutions to problems all offer you opportunities to build the right kind of traffic on your website. Don't fall for the line that these will make your website look ugly. The only people who tell you that are people who don't have to sell something from a website.
Point # 3
Let the customer sample your wares. Unless you are a VERY good advertising writer, or unless there is some VERY special association with your perfume, it is unlikely that you will generate sales without offering samples. Samples will not eliminate the need to "sell" your perfume -- as you now must "sell" the visitor on taking action to request your samples. BUT, if you price your sample order so that it appears "generous" (i.e., you don't appear to be trying to make money by selling your samples!), it will be far easier to sell a few samples for the cost of postage and handling than it will to sell a full size bottle.
And remember, if they DO NOT like your samples, they are telling your something! Perfume is a VERY personal product and, if a person likes what you are selling, they will PAY. But if your perfume does NOT strike them as being special -- more special than anything they would buy at the mall, they will not order the full size bottle.
Today consumers have many fragrances to choose from at the mall and, if you are simply trying to imitate a fragrance that is already a success, you have little chance of making a sale. To succeed in selling your perfume or cologne online, it had better be special! -- or your promotion for it had better be special! At least to your target buyer!
Point # 4
Once you have, through your samples, attracted a consumer for your fragrance, make it affordable. If you need to get $50 on ounce or more for your perfume, consider selling it in 1/2 ounce -- or even 1/4 ounce bottles, so that, at least for their first order, the customer don't have to shell out such a big chunk of money.
In the early days of the Coty perfume business, the company prospered by offering its perfumes in a range of different size bottles. Those who had little money could still enjoy a Coty fragrance by purchasing a small (almost tiny!) bottle. Those who had more money could buy a larger bottle. How did rich woman distinguish themselves from their less fortunate cousins? Why they could use MORE perfume and perfume themselves more often!
Let me know how these suggestions worked for you!
Monday, September 3, 2007
Fragonard's unique approach to perfume marketing
Parfumerie Fragonard, named for grassoise French painter Jean-Honore Fragonard, was founded in Grasse, France, in 1926, in an historic factory building. Fragonard has been in the business of creating perfume for others (i.e., Elizabeth Arden's 1936 Blue Grass) and of marketing perfume under their own name. Fragonard's contemporary marketing technique is worth studying.
Fragonard, under the management of the founder's granddaughters, has created a perfume museum in the old factory building. The museum offers tours, both of the museum, with instruction on perfume making, and of Fragonard's modern factory and laboratories on the outskirts of Grasse. As with most such tourist tours, the final stop of a gift shop where visitors have the opportunity to purchase what they have just been primed for -- Fragonard perfume.
Backing up on site sales is a website that allows new converts to reorder -- and gives those who failed to order at tour's end a second bite at the apple.
So for Fragonard, sales promotion involves getting tourists to visit Grasse and -- since Grasse was once the heart of the French perfume industry -- once in Grasse it is only natural that they would want to see a perfume museum and perfume making,and once they have signed up for the tour, it is only natural that they would want to try a bottle of one of Fragonard's excellent perfumes. And, if they really liked it and now felt an affinity for Fragonard, the chances are excellent that, in time, they might reorder using the website.
This is very much like the promotional strategy used in the U.S. by small wineries.
How could you put this strategy to use? If you owned a B&B, you could feature a tour of your perfume "laboratory", demonstrate a few simple accords, romance your product a bit and take orders. (Be sure to have your perfume available in affordable sizes!)
If you do not happen to own a B&B, consider working with someone who does. For them, to be able to offer a visit to a perfumery would be a plus. For you, this would be a sales opportunity.
Of course the key to it all, besides having a few decent fragrances to sell, is to create a home perfumery that is visually interesting and a "tour" that holds the visitors interest. Probably some hands on lessons would be appropriate -- to get the people involved. And once they are involved, sales can be made. And, of course, you'll need a simple website that can take reorders.
Fragonard, under the management of the founder's granddaughters, has created a perfume museum in the old factory building. The museum offers tours, both of the museum, with instruction on perfume making, and of Fragonard's modern factory and laboratories on the outskirts of Grasse. As with most such tourist tours, the final stop of a gift shop where visitors have the opportunity to purchase what they have just been primed for -- Fragonard perfume.
Backing up on site sales is a website that allows new converts to reorder -- and gives those who failed to order at tour's end a second bite at the apple.
So for Fragonard, sales promotion involves getting tourists to visit Grasse and -- since Grasse was once the heart of the French perfume industry -- once in Grasse it is only natural that they would want to see a perfume museum and perfume making,and once they have signed up for the tour, it is only natural that they would want to try a bottle of one of Fragonard's excellent perfumes. And, if they really liked it and now felt an affinity for Fragonard, the chances are excellent that, in time, they might reorder using the website.
This is very much like the promotional strategy used in the U.S. by small wineries.
How could you put this strategy to use? If you owned a B&B, you could feature a tour of your perfume "laboratory", demonstrate a few simple accords, romance your product a bit and take orders. (Be sure to have your perfume available in affordable sizes!)
If you do not happen to own a B&B, consider working with someone who does. For them, to be able to offer a visit to a perfumery would be a plus. For you, this would be a sales opportunity.
Of course the key to it all, besides having a few decent fragrances to sell, is to create a home perfumery that is visually interesting and a "tour" that holds the visitors interest. Probably some hands on lessons would be appropriate -- to get the people involved. And once they are involved, sales can be made. And, of course, you'll need a simple website that can take reorders.
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