Let’s Party: Indie Beauty Brand Founders Spill Secrets About Successful Launch Events

In this edition of Beauty Independent’s ongoing series posing questions to beauty entrepreneurs, we ask eight founders and executives: How did your launch party go?

Lynette Lovelace Founder and CEO, Lifetherapy

We held a very successful launch party in New York, unveiling brand new packaging and products to honor our 10 year anniversary. We transformed a top floor suite at a New York boutique hotel to offer a multi-sensory brand experience. Guests lathered on our hand and body creams while reading a self-empowering mantra related to each scent in the glow of our new 75-hour soy candles.

One of the things I love about being an indie brand is when people tell us we're surprising and different. That's exactly what emerging brands need to be. We put some surprise back in the fundamentals of beauty products and created an experience that can be evoked around their usage.

I try to think out of the box when hosting an event. Lifetherapy lives with an essence of self-love, self-awareness, and self-care with our message of #chooseyourmood. So, we offered our guests a complimentary aura reading and curated Lifetherapy playlists on Spotify so our guests could take the brand vibe home with them and the experience could continue past the launch event.  We had a great turnout and reaction from press, editors and influencers.

James La Founder, Niucoco

We did a launch party and relied heavily on our PR resource to organize the event, not knowing what to expect. There was an excellent turnout. However, we quickly realized afterward that she was there to get the basics done, which included some catering services and inviting guests from the media and influencers.

If we had the chance of doing it all over again, we’d make a few adjustments: find a theme and strategy where you have their undivided attention. Have a schedule for how the event will go down. Make sure folks have something to walk away with to remember your brand. Capture all of the attendees for a follow-up. Launch parties don't need to be long. They just need to be memorable and relevant to your brand.

Jessica Kizovski Founder and Lead Formulator, Veriphy

We had two different launch parties for our brand, both relatively local within Canada. I would highly recommend this experience. Not only do you get to see the first unbiased opinion of your brand and products, but invitees also get to know you.

The founder of a brand plays a role in the overall perception of your brand. Getting to show your personality and stories will lead to a better reception of your brand and products. Especially launching as a totally new brand with a new ingredient, we had to invest in the education aspect of the launch. The launch parties were a great platform to showcase all of that.

Alexandra Preston-Morley Co-Founder, Coco & Eve

We had our first launch party at Dry By Salon in London and offered free blow drys and treatments using our masque. Everyone was given a free goodie bag with a tropical Coco & Eve hair wrap, a branded indoor plant, leaf clips and anti-damage hair ties.

We made sure every crevice was Instagrammable, and myself and the team made sure we spoke to everyone who attended to get their genuine feedback on the masque. It was a great success. We got some good content and an editor from PopSugar wrote a dedicated article on her hair journey using our masque, which was very exciting for our team.

Lori Gildea Founder, ThePureBag

We had our first “intro” exhibit booth at Yoga Journal LIVE in NYC last spring. We had no idea what to expect and missed a few opportunities. We received many glowing compliments on our brand concept and comments that, "You have the best products at this event,” so the feedback provided beneficial validation.

If I did it over again, I would bump up our pre- and post promotion via social media (we did some), and employ other approaches to engage more attendees during and after the event.

Evelyne Nyairo Founder, Ellie Bianca

We celebrated our very first Customer Appreciation Day, and it was a great success. It was so rewarding to host both old and new clients. We treated them to wine, food, mini-facials and a refreshing detox bar.

The event exceeded our expectations. There was something so magical about our all natural, luxury skincare brand and products bringing the community together. The guests were talking about their favorite products, brand attributes and really sharing our brand experience with one another.

In the end, strangers became friends. Everyone connected on a personal level. This is what I envisioned when I started the brand, to inspire hope and build resilient communities.

Delane Mazaheri Co-Founder and CEO, STARE Cosmetics

Taking into consideration we are a full color cosmetic brand, we decided to launch boldly with a larger-than-life party. What could be bigger than the gifting suites in honor of the Emmys? It was amazing for several reasons. First, it provided a hard and fast deadline, so all those back-burner items became important and got done.

Second, we wanted to put our best foot forward, so we ended up looking like polished pros, which gave us an image to uphold and confidence in presenting our brand. Though it didn’t give us much in the way of sales, it gave us so much more. It provided contacts, connections, traction and, ultimately, friends in the business where we had few. In fact, we are still cultivating relationships from that event almost a year later.

Let’s not forget the celebrities and press. We had lots of celebrities stop by for photos to boost our social media, most of whom were very gracious and posted for us, too. We did interviews with the press, and STARE Cosmetics was written up in several noted digital and print media outlets.

I say go big. It takes almost the same amount of effort to have a small launch as it does a large one. We did it in a 10-by-20 booth serving Moet Chandon to celebrities and press, reciting our elevator pitch over and over. We got their attention, and we left an impression we can be proud of.

Kimba Williams CEO and Co-Founder, Kushae

Today's news is full of brands creating media buzz, and we thought that would be critical to our launch success. Specifically in our space of feminine hygiene care, how else do you get women excited enough to talk about vaginas? We chose a very feminine, glam, intimate space and invited women through our personal networks and Eventbrite.

As the co-founders of the brand, we are affectionately known as The Doctor and The (Natural) Diva and, while we wanted the launch party to center around the brand, we positioned it as an amazing way for women to network, local entrepreneurs to meet other entrepreneurs, and women to have a safe space to talk about aligning their natural and healthy lifestyles with more all-natural products.

Free food and cocktails also helped, too, as we got about 65 women to attend our first launch. It was the perfect, intimate start, and we sold out of products that night. We knew we were on to something after that and have done two more launch parties since then in different cities where we had networks.

At one of our launch parties, we even invited vendors to participate, which was an awesome way to defray costs. Moving forward into cities where we have no networks may be more challenging, but we're hoping to start in the cities where we've begun retailing to attract a consumer base there as well.

It is a huge planning effort, but, for us, it was worth it every single time as we would sell out of product and, more importantly, engage with our consumers face to face.

If you have a question you’d like Beauty Independent to ask beauty entrepreneurs, please send it to editor@beautyindependent.com.