Getting high on your own supply

Getting high on your own supply – Why a bought social media following can give a false impression and why marketing / comms is critical to commercial success

I had a meeting yesterday with an awesome doctor who is launching their own skincare line (as an aside, this is a brilliant way to diversify and scale your brand and business) The opening line they started the meeting with (which they requested BTW!) was they didn’t believe in marketing and they’d fired ‘hundreds’ of rubbish marketers. If I had a thinner skin I might be a bit taken aback by that but I’m pretty proud of my commercial successes so I hung around to listen.

This doctor is going to launch their skincare line through their ‘fame’ with a very, very commercial driven retailer (I know just how commercial they are because I’ve worked with them) The ‘Fame’ that is going to turn this prestige brand into a commercial success in one of London’s leading retailers are 200K bought Instagram followers. I know they are bought because there is brilliant marketing software that tracks this stuff (but what’s marketing eh?) :)

So, because of this they don’t need marketing, their ambition is to be Augustinus Bader in two years.

Bader’s launch and meteoric rise was down to a few things, one, he had real, tangible Global legacy in stem cell research and skin and two he had an exceptional Marketing and PR strategy underpinning the launch and a budget you can imagine a £70m phenomenon needing!

The products are superb BUT you have to get them in people’s hands and for people to WANT Them in their hands, Carla Bruni, Courtney Cox et al need to try them in order to rave about them and that’s what a Marketing and PR strategy can do

So what does work?

In short, good marketing puts the customer at the absolute centre of activity, it makes reputations, it creates brands that mean something to the right people and most importantly it makes money. 200k bought Instagram followers and a big ego won’t. It’s as simple as that.

In a nutshell, marketing is about putting your customer at the centre of everything you do, not yourself. My top tip for you this week is review all of your clinic comms with that lens, the 'who is my customer and what do they need and want to hear from me?' This change of focus ensures that everything you do and say has the utmost relevance to your core consumer.