By probing about the competitor research, I was drawing on my experience however, as the presenter gave some of the answers, it made me think about how I need to go back to refresh my market research.
Shea Love London
Naomi
This ALS was presented by Naomi, who founded cosmetics company Shea Love London. A challenge she identified her company faced was overcoming barriers to attending masterclasses. She wants to increase awareness of her company by delivering masterclasses in cosmetics that would both promote her company, and increase her customers knowledge of skincare. Naomi had already carried out some research to understand the challenge, where she identified barriers including communication, time limitation and confidence.
The probing started to investigate the masterclasses in more detail, including what information would be delivered and why they would be needed, with Naomi sharing that she would like to teach people about skincare, the benefits of the ingredients she uses in her products and how people can make
their own products.
This then gave the members ideas for more investigative questioning around her purpose for wanting to deliver masterclasses and the benefits she believes it will have for her business. Naomi’s motivations are to form a closer connection with her customers and engage with them, so they have higher trust in her and are more likely to remain loyal to her brand.
Naomi was able to take a wide range of helpful actions away from this ALS and think about implementing them in her business. These included:
- Helping her to develop the content of her masterclasses in more detail.
- How to use her personal story as her USP on her website to show how she stands out from competitors.
- Establishing a YouTube presence to reach a wider audience.
- Using feedback to attract more customers.
- Displaying the before and after photos of the results of using the products to increase interest.
- Looking at competitors for more inspiration and ideas
The reflection was overwhelmingly positive, with members being able to evaluate their own marketing by being forced to ask such in-depth questions.
One member made the suggestion to the presenter to put her personal story on her webpage but realised they hadn’t done their own ‘about me’ page and so needed to review their website with the points made in this session.
Everyone was happy with the discussion and the useful actions that came out of it and could see how the ideas could be applied to their own business.
Business Skills Guides
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