Building & Advertising my Cosmetic Business in 30 days

Hello! My name is Alyssa and for the past 30 days, I have been building my own cosmetic business as well as learning how to advertise it. You may be wondering, “wow what would make you want to start your own cosmetics business?” And the answer is simple- I’ve always had an interest and love for beauty, whether that was playing with makeup or watching my favorite beauty gurus on Youtube.

Anyways, for the past 30 days, I’ve accomplished and learned so much. The things I am about to share with you came with many tearful moments, aha moments, as well as learning and growth moments.

This month I learned how to make my own advertisements and A/B test them through Facebook ads manager. You can learn more about my experience and what I learned here:

Lessons Learned Through Advertising

This article covers some of the basic things that I learned and areas that I grew in.

Goals

At the beginning of this project, I made two main goals:

• Grow my cosmetic business brand, traffic, and engagement in 1 month by experimenting with A/B Testing and Instagram Ads
• A/B test story ads, photo ads, video ads, and carousel ads on Instagram to optimize conversions

T o accomplish those goals I first had to make my advertisements. The blog post below details how I went about that process!

A/B Testing Ads For My Cosmetic Business

After I went about making the two advertisements that I wanted to test, I had to learn how to navigate Facebook Ads Manager to get the results that I wanted.

My marketing objectives for this project were:

Brand awareness

I knew I needed to put myself out there and make myself known.

Traffic

I needed people to click on my ads and find out what my company was about.

Engagement

After I had the traffic I needed, I wanted people to engage by either clicking that follow button or liking my content.

This article details navigating Facebook Ads Manager and what everything means: Guide to Facebook Ads and All That Jazz

Skills I’ve Gained and Tools I’ve Used

Hard Skills

• Building a business

Building a business is nowhere near easy and it takes a lot of planning and thinking things through. In the 30 days that I started building my business, I developed a website, 3 cosmetic products that I love, and advertised it on Facebook and Instagram. I grew my Instagram page to 200 followers in 1 month and I intend to repliclate that growth each month!

• Copywriting

The key to good copywriting is experimentation, creativity, and speaking right to the right audience. Here is an article I wrote about writing exceptional copy: The Key to Catchy Advertisements is Audience Based Copy

• Building content

I learned how to build a social media content calendar and already have a month worth of content to post for August and going into my launching! Here is a glimpse of my content for context:

• A/B Testing

Facebook Ads Manager taught me how to set up my A/B ad campaign and I was able to compare my advertisements and see which one did best overall.

Impressions

Reach

Link Clicks

Soft Skills:

• Project Management

Planning is the key to any successful endeavor. I used Trello to organize my tasks for the week and get things done.

• Planning

This goes hand in hand with my above statement. There was a lot of planning involved in the creation process of making my lipgloss. It could not be too runny nor too thick, I had to stay true to what I was marketing- which was vegan and cruelty-free products. This meant doing research on the products that I put in my lipgloss. There will be another article about the chemistry of my cosmetic products coming soon!

• Creativity

To create innovation, it takes creativity and a fresh outlook. The creative process for making my glosses and advertisements was long and hard but so worth it! I have three starting products that I love and three advertisements that have gained my business engagement!

Technical Tools:

• Canva

Canva has been my ride or die. I use Canva for every creative endeavor that I have and it has not let me down. I am able to remix templates to make them my own and unleash my creative talent.

• Instagram ads

I learned that the best way to run Instagram ads is through Instagram itself!

• Editing tools

Tools like Pixler and GIMP have allowed me to be super creative with lighting and other photoshop needs!

My Website:

https://theglossencounter.com/

The Gloss Encounter Cosmetics

Conclusion

I am so pleased with all that I have accomplished this month! I just wish I had more time for all the grand ideas that I wanted to include in this project! The great thing about projects is that you can add to them and make them even better at a later date! Most of all this learning experience will allow me to grow and experience successful ads.