Constructing Beauty education into their very own hands has benefited the industry at large, resulting in greater transparency, and sustainability in addition to a more engaged consumer who wants to grasp what they’re putting on and of their bodies.

But forging an authentic connection between a beauty brand and a consumer desire to be told is difficult. That is where Beauty Barrage will help.

Created in 2015 by beauty industry veteran Sonia Summers, Beauty Barrage, the total sales in-store management company that gives educated field team beauty advisors, has develop into essentially the most trusted customer engagement solution for a lot of brands and retailers as they navigate ongoing changes in consumer behaviors while facing increasingly discerning shoppers.

With over 300 trained beauty professionals servicing over 3,000 doors within the U.S. and Canada, Beauty Barrage helps brands minimize investment while maximizing sales by harnessing the facility of bringing brand knowledge to the patron – whether or not they are in-store or on social media. The total-time beauty advisors connect with consumers on a private level, answering the questions that matter to them most and leading them to make the appropriate purchase for them.

Here, Sonia Summers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Beauty Barrage, discusses the demand of today’s retail landscape, fostering stronger consumer connections, constructing an in-store strategy, and why it’s imperative to implement a sturdy field team.

Fairchild Studio: How would you describe the sweetness industry landscape today?

Sonia Summers: Repeatedly evolving. I don’t recall a time when there have been so many diverse customer behaviors amongst multiple generations.  It is extremely interesting, and possibly why there really is room for all these amazing brands at retail. The one common denominator between generations is the “human touch”.

This yr has been consistently profitable for our brand partners.  We’ve applied our tried-and-true principles in-store and are thrilled to see a robust ROI. Although the state of the economy and retail is in a mixed state, I believe retail is poised to finish the yr in a really strong position.

Consumers could also be anxious about inflation, but they’ve not stopped their spending. Brands are taking care to construct value promotions to appeal to those deal-driven consumers, some are literally lowering prices and retailers are also ensuring to make their stores inviting to their customers.

Fairchild Studio: What have been essentially the most notable changes in consumer behaviors?

Sonia Summers: Probably the most notable changes have been that customers became more educated on beauty – this is smart as that they had more time on their hands to eat information.

One in all the surprising changes was the indisputable fact that people weren’t afraid to return into stores.  They were searching for out human connections and searching forward to discovering recent beauty products.

Fairchild Studio: What do these changes mean for brands and the way in which they connect with consumers in-store?

Sonia Summers: It is mindless to spend a lot on digital to inform your story then not have the identical attention in-store. It is difficult enough to get into retail but what’s even harder is staying in retail.

Customers need to be engaged, especially after going through a pandemic.

To be effective, you wish a team to bring your brand to life in-store that’s providing education for associates, mining the merchandising, demoing products and answering questions for consumers.

Fairchild Studio: How does Beauty Barrage utilize consumer behavior and market intel to implement a method for brands to implement in-store?

Sonia Summers: We’re very methodical. I began my profession as a marketer so for me all the pieces is concerning the end-user and understanding them.

For Beauty Barrage, we have now two end-users: the retail associates and the consumers. Since we do collect data in-store after each shift, we do return and analyze what practices are working/not working and pivot accordingly. We also use market data and reporting to optimize our footprint and productivity. Our brand partners love this information and the dialogue afterward that results in refining strategies, etc.

Beauty Barrage has built the proprietary technology to administer our business processes and we collect data in a number of ways to mitigate the challenges that include constant change. To start out, our app controls all time and attendance complete with geo-fencing around each retail work site while our proprietary application has a client portal that houses a dynamic calendar for every brand partner. This includes the monthly schedule of booking, store location, brand ambassador/educator, brand and begin time and end.

One in all our biggest assets though is our customized post-shift survey that have to be filled out by all beauty educators and ambassadors. These surveys are all customized for every brand partner they usually include in-store images.  Lots of our brand partners use this chance to ask marketing questions or as a product fact-finding mission, inventory reports, etc. Our surveys are live as soon as our employees clock out.  We even aggregate the info on a dashboard that shows per week over week or month over month, etc. using pie charts, bar graphs and free responses.

Fairchild Studio: In your personal words, what makes Beauty Barrage a singular partner?

Sonia Summers: Beauty Barrage was never something I assumed I might start. To start with, it got here from a necessity from my clients that I used to be consulting for. I knew they needed the in-store support however the expense of a field team that on the time was well over $1M. Today it’s much more, not to say the price of overhead. That never made any sense to me.

The sector team strategy wasn’t just expensive, however it was layered and over-inflated.  The heads of sales spent their days tracking employees and signing off timecards.  They couldn’t even be strategic. It was beyond archaic.

I created a strategic resource that gives trained retail and education professionals that represent your brand in-store. These persons are all employees – no freelancers, ever! The good thing about staffing full-time employees is that the brand partner can’t be held liable.

California has the AB5 law they usually are very stringent. That is one in every of the explanation why we hire W2 employees versus freelancers.  Another excuse is that we’re accountable for our team, we schedule, we train, we coach, and we deliver results. With freelancers, you will need to do all of the work plus pray that they’ll actually show up for the shift.

Another excuse to work with Beauty Barrage is that you simply only pay for the hours that we’re in store or educating. No must pay full time employees plus advantages, etc.

Importantly, we even have strategic account management that optimizes and plans the execution of all activations.  We work very closely with our brand partners to yield success. And retailers also hire us or often refer us to their vendors.

We’re obsessive about success – That’s a core value and what drives our business.

Fairchild Studio: What should brands be considering as they wrap up the yr and strategize for Q1?

Sonia Summers: Brands need to begin planning how they’ll support their businesses in-store. For those who can create a budget for consistent support that’s amazing and your best bet but, when you only have a limited budget, then what I might recommend is to do can be in-store blitz surrounding your recent product launches. This may help construct sales. You possibly can’t expect success at retail brick and mortar when you don’t have a plan to attach with consumers and retail associates in-store.