Public relations (PR) has always been integral to the beauty industry, especially for getting the word out about new brands and products.
In the past (think pre-internet), the beauty PR game revolved around networking with journalists from influential beauty and fashion magazines to secure brand mentions, features, and reviews.
Currently, most of these publications have transitioned to the digital space almost entirely, which has led to the prominence of digital PR for beauty brands.
Besides online beauty magazines, other digital marketing channels have become even more important for beauty brands, such as:
- Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok
- Building links from influential beauty and fashion websites/publications (for more referral traffic and better search rankings)
- Prominent beauty and fashion blogs
- User-generated content (think user reviews and social media posts containing photos and videos)
- Influencer marketing
- Sponsored content and guest posts on relevant websites
As you can see, digital beauty PR encompasses quite a lot.
The global beauty market is set to hit a whopping $615.92 billion in 2024, and it’s an industry brimming with both opportunity and fierce competition – hence the need for stellar promotional techniques.
In this article, we’ll fully explore the world of digital PR for beauty brands.
Along the way, we’ll teach you how to develop a digital PR strategy from scratch for your brand to increase your online visibility, search rankings, and brand awareness – so stick around to learn everything you need to know.
Beauty Brand PR vs. Beauty Product PR: What’s the Difference?
Digital PR for the beauty industry involves boosting awareness and managing the reputation of beauty brands and products.
For the most part, it’s about getting your beauty brand or products featured on the websites, social media platforms, and publications that matter most to your target audience.
By securing brand mentions, building backlinks, and creating engaging, authoritative content – beauty brands can expand their influence online. Digital beauty PR isn’t something that you only invest in once, either.
Instead, it’s a strategic, long-term strategy that pays dividends when done right.
For example, if you build a bustling online presence and become an authority figure for your target audience, you’ll generate tons of new customers, and you’ll be able to scale your brand as a result.
Search engine optimization (SEO) also plays a role in digital beauty PR, as it’s always beneficial to boost your visibility on search engines like Google, but it’s only one aspect of the process.
The digital beauty PR world has two unique branches, which are:
- Beauty brand PR
- Beauty product PR
Beauty brand PR is about building a positive image for your brand as a whole, and beauty product PR is focused on generating buzz for specific products and product lines.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s dive a bit deeper into both concepts.
Beauty brand PR
Are you most concerned with positioning your brand as a thought leader and trendsetter?
If so, then beauty brand PR should comprise the majority of your efforts. It’s where you focus on building brand awareness by aligning your brand’s values with those of your target audience.
Beauty brand PR is best for the following types of businesses:
- Newer brands that have yet to build a loyal customer base.
- Established brands that have unique value propositions (in other words, you’re truly different from the competition).
- Brands that are already highly trusted and respected within their niche.
Remember, this type of PR is all about building a positive image for your brand as a whole. If you’re trying to boost sales for a specific product line, you’re better off using beauty product PR (although there’s certainly no rule stating you can’t incorporate both at the same time).
Key activities for beauty brand PR
Whenever your goal is to improve the visibility and reputation of your entire brand, you should take part in the following types of activities:
- Brand storytelling. There’s a reason why 72% of PR professionals consider storytelling to be the most important skill in their profession; it’s because narratives are extremely powerful marketing tools. If you want to effectively use storytelling in your promotional materials, then you need to frame your customer as the hero, while your brand is the Obi-Wan Kenobi-style mentor that helps them transform (i.e., transforming into a more beautiful version of themselves, thanks to your products).
- Media relations. Newsjacking is a popular brand PR technique where you take a trending news story and insert your brand in some way. In the most successful examples, brands can actually hijack news stories and make it all about them. Arguably the most famous example was when Oreo tweeted about the blackout during Super Bowl XLVII back in 2013. Their claim that ‘you can still dunk in the dark’ placed the cookie brand front-and-center whenever anyone mentioned the news story.
- Events and event coverage. Keep an eye out for relevant events that you could use to promote your brand. It could be a fashion event, a conference, or even a webinar. The only qualifying factor is that the event must matter to your target audience.
- Sponsorships and influencer partnerships. If you want your brand to become a household name, you need to partner with the right people. Look for influencers in your specific beauty niche that have significant followings, and then reach out to partner with them in some way.
Beauty product PR
If your brand wants to boost sales above all else, then you should look into beauty product PR. It involves heavily promoting specific products and product lines through media outreach, link-building, and other methods.
Your goal is to get your products featured in prominent ‘best buyer guides’ in your field (preferably from popular bloggers and influencers).
Beauty product PR is best for:
- Brands eager to boost product revenue.
- Businesses that have unique product lines that are distinct from competitors.
- Brands that are about to launch a new product line.
Third-party reviews are also integral for beauty product PR, so your outreach efforts should include review sites, prominent beauty and fashion blogs, and influencers (that you can hopefully get to review your product).
Beauty product PR tends to drive more relevant links to your website, which is good not only for referral traffic but also for better search rankings on Google (and other search engines).
Key activities for beauty product PR
These are the types of activities you should focus on if your primary goal is to boost product revenue:
- Product launch strategies. If you’re about to launch a new product, you must brainstorm effective ways to promote it, and having an intimate understanding of your target audience really helps. An example would be filming short influencer videos on TikTok if your products cater to younger audiences. It’s also a good idea to designate relevant influencers as ambassadors for your new product launch.
- Start an affiliate program. One of the most popular ways beauty brands promote their products is through affiliate programs. This is where content creators, affiliate marketers, and influencers sign up to become affiliates for your brand – which means they’ll actively promote your content through their various channels. They receive an official link to direct customers to your products (and they earn a commission for every sale), and you get to enjoy boosted sales and brand awareness.
- Media features. Get your products featured and reviewed on influential media outlets in your niche, such as websites, online magazines, blogs, and social media profiles.
While beauty brand PR and beauty product PR are both distinct, they typically intersect – leading to integrated campaigns. As stated before, there’s no reason why you can’t make use of both methodologies, which may actually provide better results. The most effective digital PR strategies are ones that communicate a brand’s values all while promoting its products.
How to Develop a Digital PR Strategy for Beauty Brands
Quite a bit needs to go into a digital PR strategy for a beauty brand if you want it to be successful.
It involves building an in-depth list of media contacts, engaging in link-building techniques, creating high-quality content, and conducting outreach to all sorts of professionals (bloggers, influencers, online journalists, etc.).
To ensure you don’t get overwhelmed, we’ve put together this step-by-step guide for building a digital PR strategy for your beauty brand, so let’s dive right in.
Step #1: Build a media list
First, you need to focus your PR efforts where they matter most, which means building a list of relevant media contacts.
In particular, you need to identify the journalists and publications that are most likely to share your stories and link back to your website. You need to hunt down:
- Media outlets
- Editors
- Bloggers
- Journalists
- Online magazines
- Beauty blogs
- Social media influencers
How do you do that?
Luckily, there are several tools that will help you build a bustling list of media contacts, which are:
- Prowly. With Prowly, not only will you find relevant media contacts, but you can also pitch to them directly from the platform (and create press releases).
- Muck Rack. This is another platform that will connect you with journalists, editors, and bloggers.
- Google. You can also handle things the old-fashioned way and do Google searches for media outlets, journalists, and bloggers.
Step #2: Engage in PR link-building
Whether you’re focusing on beauty brand PR or product PR (or both), you’ll want to build relevant links that point back to your website’s content.
Why is that?
There are two reasons why. First, the more links you have on other websites pointing at yours, the more you’ll generate referral traffic.
Next, backlinks are a crucial ranking factor for search engines like Google. They act as ‘credibility votes’ for your website, meaning you need to build links from trusted websites. The more reputable links you have, the higher you’ll rank in the search results.
Link-building is a core aspect of both SEO and digital PR, which is why you shouldn’t ignore it.
Here are the two most common ways digital PR professionals build links:
- By creating compelling content that naturally generates shares (videos, infographics, how-to posts, etc.).
- By securing brand mentions and guest posts through targeted media outreach.
Also, you can uncover valuable backlink opportunities by analyzing your competitor’s link profiles.
How do you do that?
The quickest and easiest way is to use Ahrefs free Backlink Checker tool. Simply enter a competitor’s URL, and you’ll see a breakdown of where their backlinks come from. Pay attention to each referring domain, as you may find viable backlink opportunities for your brand (such as websites in your niche that accept guest posts).
Step #3: Create engaging and relevant content
Content creation is another core aspect of digital PR for beauty brands.
After all, you can’t build a loyal following without releasing top-tier content on a consistent basis.
However, you shouldn’t create content on a whim or because you think a topic is important. Instead, every topic you cover must be backed up by keyword research.
Keywords are search terms your audience looks up online, and they provide helpful clues into what type of content your audience wants to see.
Ahrefs comes in handy again, as their Keyword Generator tool will help you come up with relevant content ideas. Simply enter some keywords related to your brand, and the tool will spit out loads of related suggestions. Try to find keywords with high search volume and low difficulty scores.
For example, here’s what comes up when we search for ‘skin toner.’
The keyword ‘best skin toner’ is a viable option here because it has a decent search volume and an ‘easy’ keyword difficulty ranking.
Also, the keyword has commercial intent, meaning users searching for it are in the market for a skin toner, and they’re looking for the best one.
Therefore, the perfect content idea for this keyword is to create a blog post entitled ‘The Best Skin Toner Options for 2024’ and then highlight your offerings in the list.
Popular digital PR content for beauty brands includes:
- Guest posts
- Sponsored content
- Infographics
- Data-driven research
- Press releases
- Reviews
- Interviews with industry experts
Step #4: Perform media outreach
By now, you should have a list of media contacts, and an editorial calendar’s worth of content to release. The only missing piece of the puzzle is to reach out to your contacts to promote your new content.
When crafting outreach emails, do your best to personalize each message as much as possible.
In other words, don’t copy and paste the same generic template over and over. Mention the media contact’s first name, compliment their content (include details that prove you actually consumed it), and mention any relevant interests you share.
From there, mention that your beauty brand has a new product/piece of content that you want to promote, and include a value proposition (what’s in it for them? Will traffic from your audience benefit their brand as well?).
Here’s a quick example of an outreach email:
Hey (first name),
I’m writing to you with a unique opportunity for both our beauty brands. I’ve been a huge fan of your content for a while now, especially (specific example). I think your brand has a special style that competitor’s can’t touch, which is why I think we’re destined to be partners.
We’ve already partnered with (other fashion brands), and they’ve seen (impressive metrics).
I’d love to promote your products and services on my website and social media, and I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. I’m super excited about working together, and I’d love to discuss our partnership further over a phone call. Do you think we could schedule something this week?
Best
(Your name)
| Pro tip: To maximize open rates for your outreach emails, avoid sending them on weekends, holidays, or during major news events that may overshadow your request. |
Step #5: Use media monitoring tools to keep track of your progress
The only thing that’s left to do is to use media monitoring tools to ensure you’re getting closer to meeting your goals.
What’s media monitoring?
It involves using special tools to notify you whenever your brand gets mentioned in the media, either on a website, blog, or other online source.
Alerts by Ahrefs really come in handy in this regard.
By setting up the Mentions Alert, New & Lost Backlinks Alert, and Keywords Alert, you’ll receive an email notification every time that your brand:
- Gets mentioned online
- Acquires a new backlink (or loses one)
- Ranks for a new keyword
This will make it effortless to track your digital PR efforts for your beauty brand, and you’ll be able to pinpoint your most successful outreach efforts.
Use Digital PR to Improve Your Beauty Brand’s Online Visibility Today
That’s everything you need to develop a digital PR strategy for your beauty business. As long as you stay on top of your efforts through media monitoring, you’ll be able to tweak your strategy to ensure you’re seeing the results you want.
Better PR means boosted brand awareness, a better reputation, and more sales – so it’s definitely worth the effort.
Do you need help with the digital PR strategy for your beauty brand?
Authority Builders is here to help. Our team of PR and link-building experts will provide top-tier Guest Posts, Content Creation, and Link Insertion Outreach, so don’t wait to get in touch today.