A New Product for a Popular Skincare Brand: Part 3 of the Marketing Plan
The following is a marketing plan for a suggested new product for the popular skincare brand, Kate McLeod. This plan was developed as a marketing exercise for graduate school and is not affiliated with Kate McLeod. All information was gathered through online research. Part 3 of the marketing plan includes sections discussing the strategies around the product and brand, pricing, distribution, and marketing communications. Other sections include an analysis of other resources, legal and ethical issues, and how results will be measured, as well as the conclusion to the marketing plan.
Part 2 of the marketing plan includes sections outlining the current business climate, the SWOT analysis of the brand, critical issues faced by the brand, marketing and financial objectives, and identifying the target audience for the product.
Part 1 of the marketing plan includes sections outlining the suggested new product, the value proposition of this product, a summary of the company, as well as direct and indirect competitors to the company. To read part 1, click the button below, which is also linked at the bottom of this post.
How Do We Get There? Strategy Implementation
Product and Brand Strategy
The Crown Stone will ship in a Kate McLeod bamboo canister, wrapped in the green Kate McLeod label. Printed on the label will be the product name – The Crown Stone – and a product description. The product name and description will be in white. The Kate McLeod logo is in a bright orange. This logo can be left on the canister or removed. On top of the bamboo canister and printed on the stone itself is the Kate McLeod logo lockup. The stone is wrapped in a linen cloth. When purchased from a store, a price tag will be place on the bottom of the canister. When purchased online, the canister will be shipped in a recycled cardboard box. This packaging is sustainable and eco-friendly and matches the complete catalog of Kate McLeod products. Like the rest of our products, The Crown Stone will be manufactured in Hudson Valley, New York, and hand-poured by Kate McLeod operators and artisans using certified Made Safe ingredients that are vegan and gluten-free. The Crown Stone will be available where all Kate McLeod products are sold: directly through the brand’s website and online and in-stores through retail partners.
Pricing Strategy
The Crown Stone will be competitively priced at $68 for a full-size stone. The initial product launch will only include a full-size stone, with travel size and mini products available after the product launch. Travel and mini size products are not included in this strategy. Full-size Kate McLeod products retail at $38 for the Relief and Repair Lotion Bar stones, $45 for the Lotion Bar stones including the original Body Stone, and $68 for the new Solid Face Moisturizer Stones (Shop All, Kate McLeod, n.d.). The full-size Gisou Hair Oil Honey Infused competitor product retails for $87 for a 3.4-ounce glass bottle (Shop All, Gisou, n.d.). This positions The Crown Stone at pricing comparable to other Kate McLeod products while coming in under competitor pricing for a more sustainable while still luxurious product.
Distribution Strategy
The Crown Stone will be available where all Kate McLeod products are sold. This includes directly on the brand’s website and online and in-stores through retail partners. Retail partners include domestic and international online placements on Goop, Sephora, Urban Outfitters, Free People, Anthropologie, and QVC (Google, n.d.). Domestic retailers offer in-store placements. These are located in California including Goop Lab and Little Moon, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York including Butter Atelier and Goop Lab, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington (Stockists, n.d.).
Marketing Communications Strategy
The marketing and communications strategy will include a mix of organic and paid marketing placements both in print and online. The organic marketing mix will include placements in the Kate McLeod email marketing communications and the email newsletter. Additionally, there will be organic social media posts on Kate McLeod’s Facebook page and Instagram page – the current brand social media channels. There will also be promotional banners, marketing copy, and marketing communications on the Kate McLeod website.
The paid marketing mix will encompass a number of paid placements and opportunities. Influencer marketing will be a useful tool to educate consumers about The Crown Stone product, such as how @skincarestandard did with the Soothe Face Stone (Kate McLeod [@katemcleod], 2023). Other influencers will be identified and included as paid influencers. Another aspect of the paid marketing mix is paid partner advertising such as digital advertising including website banner ads, in-store advertising, print advertising, and sponsored email content. Traditional paid opportunities will encompass press releases and print advertising, such as magazines and newspapers. Digital paid advertising will cover social media advertising and search and display advertising. These digital paid advertising placements will put sponsored content on the digital platforms the target audience engages on and utilize techniques such as retargeting, audience segmentation, and behavioral audiences to feature responsive and relevant advertising content. These ads are shown on streaming platforms, smart TVs, gaming platforms, and websites, among others.
Retail partners are additional opportunities for organic marketing. Retail partners will be supplied with branded content from Kate McLeod to feature in-store and on digital platforms, depending on where the product will be displayed and promoted. These assets will include branded copy, branded images, branded videos, and branded deliverables that are ready for promotion. These assets will be able to be used by retail partners in: email marketing communications, email newsletters, in-store advertising, social media channels, and website pages. Specific assets for each retail partner will be provided as needed, particularly if retail partners have unique promotional requests.
Other Resources
Consumer education will be required for this product as there is not a product like this on the market. Additionally, a similar product – in that it has comparable benefits and a similar form – is offered by Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve Company. This product is positioned by Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve Company as a replacement for traditional, non-environmentally friendly hair styling products. This brand makes a Hair Balm for $12.95 for a 2-ounce jar. The balm states it is made of coconut oil and is a natural moisturizer for the scalp and hair (Hair Balm: Coconut Primrose, 2015). This product is not a competitor and the target audience for Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve Company is not the same as the target audience for Kate McLeod. It is worth noting that it will be important to position The Crown Stone as a hair oil in the haircare category and not a styling product in the beauty category so as to not further confuse consumers as to the use case when educating them on the application of the product.
Legal and Ethical Issue Analysis
Kate McLeod currently has a patent filed for the Pebble, the solid bath and shower oil (Alter, n.d.). It is recommended to file a patent for The Crown Stone once formulation is perfected. As for the name of the product, The Crown Stone, Trademarkia shows 530,336 results for trademarks on “The Crown” (n.d.). It is recommended to conduct additional research to ensure that the product name is available for use and for trademark.
The name itself captures the essence of the product. The etymology of the word “crown” comes the Old English word “corona,” which means “crowning honor or distinction” from 1400s (Etymonline, n.d.) and “top part of the skull or head” from the 1300s (Etymonline, n.d.). The Semrush Keyword Magic Tool pulls 145,426 broad match keywords relating to the search term “The Crown,” with the most volume relating to the popular Netflix show, “The Crown” (n.d.). For example, the top performing broad match keywords were: “the crown season 5” 165.0K volume (Semrush, The Crown, n.d.), “the crown cast season 1” 11.0K volume (Semrush, The Crown, n.d.), and “the crown cast” 60.5K volume (Semrush, The Crown, n.d.). This is not necessarily a negative for search engine optimization for the product as 90% of organic search terms on the website were branded (Semrush, katemcleod.com, n.d.).
Measurement of Results
Key performance indicators (KPIs) will center around the marketing objectives: sales, annual revenue, and organic traffic on the website. The first two marketing objectives are sales and annual revenue. These will be KPIs for the product launch to ensure the goals are met. Additional KPIs are website traffic and conversions from paid ads. These KPIs support sales and can be optimized monthly, so these KPIs will be measured more frequently. In March 2023, the monthly organic search traffic was 7,041 and the monthly paid search traffic was 290 (Semrush, Katemcleod.com, n.d.). The branded and non-branded organic search keywords in March 2023 include: kate mcleod body stone, sex stone, kate mcleod stone, body stone, kate mcleod daily stone, and face stone (Semrush, Katemcleod.com, n.d.). These keywords will be optimized to capture branded and non-branded high-performing long-tail keywords. For paid ads, the branded and non-branded search phrases in March 2023 included: kate mcleod, kate mcleod body stone, kate mcleod body stone review, kate mcleod stone, kate mcleod face stone, and what is a sex stone (Semrush, Katemcleod.com, n.d.). The bidding strategy will be optimized to prioritize conversions over brand awareness.
Conclusion
This product launch will earn Kate McLeod $1.5 million in sales the first year and bring the annual revenue from $10 million to $15 million. This will be done through strategic marketing and communications during the product launch, with the assistance of a $75,000 marketing budget and an additional employee added to the marketing team. Kate McLeod, as an organization, is experienced in educating consumers on the unique applications of product offerings and will leverage this knowledge and the brand’s current market share to launch The Crown Stone. This product fills a gap in the Kate McLeod product line, nourishing the skin over the entire body with this solid scalp and hair oil.
This product will also deepen Kate McLeod’s reach in the luxury skincare category. While there are several indirect and direct competitors in this space, Kate McLeod will use internal and external strengths and opportunities to the brand’s advantage to retain and grow market share. This includes thoughtfully scaling the business with an intentional marketing strategy to ensure the growth meets consumer demand. With all of this carefully researched to the brand’s benefit, The Crown Stone will be a regal addition to the Kate McLeod product line and a positive opportunity to grow the brand.
References
Alter. (n.d.). “PEBBLE Trademark of Kate McLeod Inc. – Serial Number 97767007.” Retrieved from https://alter.com/trademarks/pebble-97767007
Etymonline. (n.d.). “Crown.” Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com/word/crown
Google. (n.d.). “Kate Mcleod – Google Shopping.” Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?q=kate+mcleod&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS859US859&sxsrf=AJOqlzVGCKrzVaYI-gYRAKVa3DxEZ10Vfw:1679252261967&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw_L-U1uj9AhWUbzABHfH-DM0Q_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=851&bih=781&dpr=2.25
Hair Balm: Coconut Primrose. (2015, July). Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve. https://www.chagrinvalleysoapandsalve.com/products/hair-balm-coconut-primrose.
Kate McLeod [@katemcleod]. (2023, March). @skincarestandar’s favorite part of her morning routine: the Soothe Face Stone [hand emoji][star emoji] [Video]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp0LYymgaEB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Shop All. (n.d.). Gisou. Accessed from https://us.gisou.com/collections/shop-all
Shop All. (n.d.). Kate McLeod. Retrieved from https://www.katemcleod.com/collections/all
Semrush. (n.d.). “The Crown: Keyword Magic Tool.” Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/keywordmagic/
Semrush. (n.d.). “Katemcleod.com: Domain Overview.” Retrieved from https://www.semrush.com/analytics/overview/
Stockists. (n.d.). Kate McLeod. Retrieved from https://www.katemcleod.com/pages/stockists
Trademarkia. (n.d.). “The Crown’ Search.” LegalForce RAPC Worldwide P.C. Retrieved from https://file.trademarkia.com/search/trademarks?query=the+crown&reset_page=false
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