Michele Pritchard has been part of the beauty industry for 17 years, but now she is shaking things up with a new way of retailing.
Five months ago, she opened up my own boutique salon and I had an idea very different than that of what we’re used to in salons—she wouldn’t stock shelves with retail. Instead she would adopt an idea from consumer beauty and other industries to sell product: utilize affiliate marketing.
“My hope was to share products I was using on my clients and create a custom at home regimen but with a very different buying option: online,” Pritchard says.
According to Forbes: “When you sell anything for anyone else and you receive a commission for it, you're marketing as an affiliate. You're not just a salesperson working for that company. You're independent and on your own. There are no thresholds that need to be met. But the more you sell, the more you earn.”
In other words, a brand will issue a unique code for your clients to shop with, allowing you to sell products directly through them, but make part of the commission. That commission typically ranges anywhere from 10%-40%.
Right away, Pritchard was able to partner with two brands already doing affiliate marketing. She continued to message and reach out to brands asking them to follow suit and create an option for hairstylists for online sales direct from their own warehouses.
THE BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING
“I’m on a mission to enable any hairdresser to create codes with salon professional product companies to make money,” Pritchard says. “This benefits both the client and the stylist. By using codes, we (the hairstylist) get credit, the brand saves, and it’s easy as it ships straight from the company, which will help put a stop to diversion!”
Preventing diversion. Diversion is when beauty products are sold at non-verified vendors. The problem is that once it does finally show up on the shelves of such vendors, it’s either old or tampered with. This goes for online merchants as well; the only way you can guarantee your products are quality is by buying direct from your salon, the company website itself or a verified store.
Profit. “By the time you stock, sale then restock where is the actual profit?” Pritchard says. “With online sales that all gets simplified, and you have no overhead.”
GETTING STARTED
To get started with affiliate marketing, know who you are and what voice you want to have, which goes back to authentic selling. Focus in on what you love, your current demographic, and mediate on what you want to offer—what you want to sell and why.
Prichard recommends to first focus on one or two brands you already love and create content to support that.
“When choosing brands to work with it’s important to understand who you are, what you love and why you love it,” Pritchard says. “This is your moment to work with brands that you already are sharing with your clients. Authentic selling is when you simply share what’s best for your client, and their routine using products you LOVE!”
Once you’ve nailed that down, simply visit a brand’s website, click pro account or become an ambassador, and sign up and wait for an email to confirm you are approved.
Then, Pritchard recommends four secrets to success when utilizing affiliate marketing codes: creating a landing page, producing content with the products, creating a marketing plan, and cross promoting on various platforms (social media, email, website) to share your content.
This content creation, too, has helped get other brands on board, she says.
MOVING FORWARD
In the weeks since, the list of pro-brands utilizing affiliate codes now includes 15—and is growing. That list includes:
- Amika
- Virtue
- IGK
- Fanola
- Design Me
- Unite
- Olaplex
- Beachwaver
- incommon
- Pureology
- Art of Business
- Salon only: Aveda, Oribe, R+Co
Pritchard believes the growth is based of stylists and their guests being at home because of the COVID-19 crisis, and her persistence.
“People have great ideas all the time, but now we have the time to go forward and make those ideas happen,” she says. “We see this change that is going to create better lives for stylists who are already the experts. We have been saying we need more options, and this is going to make things that much more beneficial to our clients.
“I am a big believer in options, and I think if the model is working but it can always be better. We are seeing so many independents pop up and they want a bigger piece of the pie. And I think they deserve that. When we grow better, we can grow those brands better. I want to enable stylists to get better and to live our best lives.”
Find Pritchard’s complete guide to affiliate marketing for stylists here.
There are other ways you can get involved in affiliate sales. Click here to learn more.
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