Beauty is in our DNA at Jeneration PR. We work closely with brands ranging from indie startups to household names, using the power of beauty PR to increase their revenue, launch new products, reach target customers and gain credibility in the industry.
A love of beauty & cosmetics is what actually served as the catalyst for our founder, Jen Berson, to leave her role as a civil litigation attorney back in 2005, and pursue a full-time career in beauty public relations. Frustrated with the lack of creativity and slow pace of work in litigation, she began promoting a cosmetics line that she discovered on a trip to Europe. Jen enjoyed this “side hustle” so much that it felt like a no-brainer decision to leave the legal field after practicing for 4 years and establish Jeneration PR. 16 years later, we get to work with some of the most well-known, beloved brands in the industry.
To say we love beauty is an understatement. We’ve been honored to help our clients successfully navigate the COVID-19 pandemic to stay visible and relevant during this time.
As just one example, we pivoted one client’s entire product launch strategy at the height of the pandemic in March 2020, developing an award-winning campaign that resulted in the company’s most meaningful media coverage secured to date.
Looking ahead to help our clients succeed in what continues to be an uncertain consumer landscape, these are the beauty PR trends and best practices that will matter most for brands in 2021.
5 Most Important Beauty PR Trends To Expect This Year
The team at Jeneration PR has implemented all of these beauty PR trends for 2021, and they’ve been instrumental in achieving the best results for our clients while helping our overall approach stay timely and relevant.
If you’re looking to gain more press for your brand, it’s time to embrace these important beauty PR trends. In a time where we need to shift and adapt more than ever, these trends will help guide the way!
1. Working With Beauty Editors Instead of Against Them
In our beauty PR agency, we work closely with editors, freelancers, and industry influencers every day. We have a deep, nuanced understanding of what these writers want to see from brands. The best PR pros know what inspires writers to cover brands and their products.
Most importantly, we know how to make writers’ jobs easier.
When you work to make things seamless for the professionals you pitch, you can drive consistent top-tier coverage for your clients. For Jeneration PR, this has yielded deep-seated relationships with media contacts who proactively turn to us for features and opportunities.
Recently, the already difficult jobs of our press contacts became even more challenging. Many publications faced staff reductions and layoffs, transitioned to an entirely remote workforce and continued creating high-quality, relevant content for their audiences.
Driving consistent press coverage has required a continuous evolution of our beauty PR approach. These changes will continue to be relevant throughout 2021.
As just one example, media sample requests have drastically decreased as editors have limited space in their homes. In its place, we’re supporting our clients by making their brands and products relevant and exciting virtually through creative angles, timely trend-driven stories, and prioritizing outreach that is clear over cute.
2. Increasing Interest in Executive Thought Leadership
Consumers, industry professionals, and the media alike are looking for leaders who can shed light on current trends, and share insight into the future of the industry.
Further, the media are consistently seeking opportunities to highlight the interesting people behind a brand, in addition to their great products.
A skilled beauty PR agency will pitch a variety of people-focused features, including:
- • Expert quotes that can be integrated into larger articles
- • Contributed content
- • Professional interviews
- • Tip driven articles describing the journey, lessons learned, and inspiration for what is possible
These will continue to be effective strategies in 2021, allowing brands to act as helpful resources to the media.
3. Looking Beyond Traditional Media for Visibility Opportunities
To keep your brand visible to your target audiences, it’s important to seek PR opportunities beyond traditional beauty & cosmetics media features. This will continue to be a key strategy for any brand looking to stay relevant, launch products, or drive sales.
At Jeneration PR, we’ve seen great success for our clients using new visibility opportunities.
Some tactics that we’ve used include:
- • Instagram Story takeovers with top-tier outlets & influencers
- • Founder podcast interviews
- • Brand collaborations
- • Virtual events with an interactive component
4. Continued Focus on Virtual Events
Speaking of events — 2021 is a year that’s going to thrive on virtual events. The pandemic is still impacting people across the U.S., and the world.
Your beauty PR team should stay timely by avoiding in-person events until it is 100% safe. Instead, they should adapt to virtual events to promote your brand.
Brands that create fun, informative, and thoughtful virtual events are seeing huge success. Our team has noticed that turn-out is actually higher than in-person events, and they’re much more cost-effective and targeted.
Virtual experiences can still be incredibly engaging and impactful when done the right way. Your team should be strategic in creating an elevated experiential event that people will actually enjoy!
5. A Need for Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable Packaging
This year, your brand needs to acknowledge & adapt to the urgency of climate change. PR is changing, and the days of sending over-the-top, super wasteful, non-recyclable media packages are over! Media kits with unnecessary packaging, custom boxes, and extravagant add-ons that will just end up in the trash are actually not looked on favorably.
There are great options for packaging your PR samples sustainably. Consider working with a savvy beauty PR agency that can help you adapt your press kits and sampling program to reflect your core values (and those that are important to your media contacts) and help eliminate waste from our industry.
If you’re seeking an award-winning beauty PR team with a proven track record to help your brand launch a new product in the year ahead, stay relevant and visible to your target audiences or refresh and revise your media outreach strategy to reach your company’s goals in 2021, we’d love to support you!
Connect with us buzz (at) jenerationpr (dot) com or fill out this contact form.
