How to Start Your Own Skincare Brand In Nigeria
Starting a new business requires a courageous decision. Any business you intend to start must have been grounded on strategic thinking and planning. So also is the skincare business. If you intend to start your own skincare brand in Nigeria, some business ideas will come to your mind, but if not properly articulated you may not end up successful. To get acquainted with how to start your own skincare brand in Nigeria, you should carefully read this article in full.
How To Start Your Own Skincare Brand In Nigeria
Below are the prerequisites to start your own skincare brand in Nigeria the right way
1. Be Informed
No business can thrive without you having the right kind of information. To start your own skincare brand in Nigeria, you need to be aware of the current market trends. Getting industry informed comes before manufacturing your skincare product, packaging, or even launching your brand online.
You need to perform research on the skincare brand market, understand the needs of your prospective customers, the challenges or problems you intend to solve in the skincare industry, and the price points of the various products in the skincare market, among others.
Reviewing your customers can also aid in preventing mistakes and bad investments in your skincare business.
2. Select A Skincare Niche And Your Target Audience
There are lots of products in the skincare industry in Nigeria. For you and your skincare brand to be successful, you need to target a particular audience and focus your brand on it. Picking a niche to start your own skincare brand in Nigeria may not be very easy as it seems. You may want to become a jack of all trades but end up becoming a master of none.
When you look at successful skincare brands in Nigeria, you will notice that they are quite diversified. Well, did they start their skincare business with all those products? No. So you have to select a niche or an issue you want to solve for society then you focus your brand on it. After you have achieved a substantial amount of success in the business, then you can add more skincare products to your skincare brand.
Some of the issues you may want to solve in the skincare industry are dark pigmentation, blackheads, whiteheads, acne, irritability, baby rashes, products for sensitive skin, and so on. Now, you can decide to focus on averting damaged skin caused by the use of poor bleaching creams and products or clearing damaged skin of people with sensitive skin.
As to knowing your target audience and USP, you can clearly define this by outlining their psychographic attributes and demographics. Some of the regularly occurring demographics in the skincare industry include:
- Gender and Age
- Income level
- Lifestyle
- Culture: Religion, Language
- Marital status
- Educational level
- Location
The psychographic attributes of your prospective customers are the reasons why they patronize your skincare brand and buy your products. Some of them are:
- Purpose of buying or why they buy
- What problems they intend to solve are
- How do they see their problems
- What are their dreams, aspirations, and fears
- What and who influences them the most
These essentials will help you know your customers better before you start your skincare brand. Your Unique Selling Point is your USP. This is the reason why your customers will buy from your skincare brand and not the other skincare brands in Nigeria. It is what sets you apart and above in the skincare market.
Whether you offer high-quality skincare products or cheap skincare products does not set you apart in the market; it does not even guarantee that your skincare business will be profitable business. Besides, that is what every marketer says. Your USP puts you in such conditions that your customers buy from you with full trust that your skincare products will work for them and regardless of the current economic conditions.
3. Identify The Skincare Products That You Want To Focus On For Your Skincare Brand.
You can select about 2 – 3 product types that you can begin your skincare brand. For instance; skincare products for even-tone skin, bleaching creams that do not damage the skin, and skin and care products for lightening the skin, among other product ranges.
You can pick these three products and start your skincare brand. In that way, you are solving the problem of How do I look beautiful? Which creams can I use to look younger? How do I repair damaged skin from bleaching creams? All these questions are interrelated and that is what your skincare brand intends to solve.
That is why you will see a skin damage repair brand that also sells skin toning creams to make all the skin parts have the same color, lightening creams that help to heal skin discoloration, creams that help remove dark knuckles, and yet a body wash for healing skin discoloration.
Asides from the ones we have mentioned above, you can select the other 3 products you can start your own skincare brand.
4. Product Packaging And Designs
To start your own skincare brand, you need to also be aware of the kind of packaging and branding designs you want to put out in the market. Your skincare package can even attract more customers to buy your products.
Apart from your branding, what about the skincare product itself? What kind of color and fragrance do you want your product to have? What will the texture of your product be like?
5. Manufacturing Your Skincare Brand Products
You can look up the manufacturers of skincare products in Nigeria to have an edge on the producers of similar skincare products. You must not manufacture your skincare products in Nigeria, alternatively, you can search for manufacturers of skincare products in China. That way you cut down your cost of production for skincare products.
For organic skincare brand products, you can contact labeling companies of skincare products so they can provide you with white labeling services. What this means is that they sell their skincare products to you in bulk then you rebrand and repackage them with your label.
6. Branding And Product Packaging
Websites like Alibaba sell packaging products in China. You can place an order for packaging materials at an even cheaper price than you would find in Nigeria. If you don’t want to import your skincare packaging materials, you can still check for the cost of branding skincare products in local stores and supermarkets.
It is your skincare packaging materials must be so that your prospective customers can easily demarcate your products from that of your competitors.
7. Launching Your Skincare Brand
After production, you need to create brand awareness for your products. If after production, you don’t do this, you may have very few customers who know about your skincare products, and talk less if patronizing your skincare brand.
You can focus on a social media platform that you are more conversant with for your brand and product launch, afterwards, you can promote your skincare products through other media. Added to this, you should build your email and contact list so you can have wider coverage.
8. Marketing Your Skincare Brand And Product
This will include how you sell. Do you have a shop or store where you can market your products? How can you deliver your products to your customers? Do you have logistics for your skincare product delivery? For the logistics, you can visit or contact delivery companies to understand their offers for the delivery of your product. Here you also decide on your delivery boxes or bags.
9. Market Plan
Marketing does not end after you have launched your skincare brand. You need to set out a plan for converting your audience into paying customers. You can do this through websites like Jumia, Konga, or Amazon; where you can sell your products under their marketing page.
10. Executing Your Marketing Plan and Strategies
Go through your market plan, and create a content calendar or a to-do list of the things you need to do for your marketing. You can check the list after you have completed any of your market plans. Hopefully, results will start streaming into your skincare brand after you have done this consecutively.
Products You Can Sell Under Your Skincare Brand
1. Makeup Accessories and Tools
Blush
Bronzer
Corrector
Contour
Glitter
Highlighter
Hydrating Mist
Makeup Remover or wipes
Setting Spray
Primer
2. Eyecare
Brow Powder
Eye Brow Pencil
Eye Liner
Eye Pencil
Eye Shadow
Eyebrow Mascara
Eye Shadow Palette
False Eyelashes and Nails
Mascara
3. Lip care
Lip Balm
Lip Colour
Lip Gloss
Lip Liner
Lip Stick
4. Hair and Nail Supplement
Nail Polish and Nail Polish Remover
Conditioner
Hair Accessories
Hair Butter
Hair Colour
Hair Mask
Hair Moisturiser
Hair Treatment
Shampoo
Wigs and Weaves
5. Bath and Body
After Shave creams
Body Butter
Body Moisturiser
Body Oil
Body Scrub and Body Soap
Shower gel
Deodorant
6. Facials
Face Mask
Face Moisturiser
Face Scrub & Exfoliator
Face Wash & Cleanser
Face Wipes
Serum
Sun Protection
Toner
Conclusion
This is all you need to do to start your own skincare brand in Nigeria. In case you wish to start a skincare business and set up a brand yet are not sure of how to go about it, then this article may be of help to you. We have detailed the steps to take to start your own skincare brand and business in Nigeria.
