Sustainable Marketing for Beauty - Assignment Example

Sustainable Marketing for Beauty (Insert (College) Table of Contents 0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..3 1.1 Background 1.2 Objectives 1.3 Limitations 2.0 The Need for Sustainability in Beauty Salons………………………………………………….4 3.0 Marketing Sustainability 3.1 Challenges 3.2 Response to Challenges 4.0 Sustainable Consumption………………………………………………………………………5 4.1 Consumer Behavior towards Consumption 4.2 Consumer Encouragement 4.3 Tactics to Reach Broad Consumer Base 5.0 The Pillars of Sustainability……………………………………………………………………9 5.1 Environmental Issues 5.2 Economic Issues 5.3 Social Issues 6.0 Impact of Sustainable Marketing………………………………………………………………10 7.0 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..13 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background According to the United States Census Bureau (2012), the world population had reached 6 billion by the 20th century. A further estimate of the population is 9 billion by 2050. This is an indeed remarkable growth suitable for continuous product consumption in the coming years. Besides the unprecedented population growth, technology has also been on the rise over the past few decades. The striving economic growth was driven by poverty, consumers are aware of this fact and get frightened by the issues involved (Reutlinger 2012, pp. 1). Most consumers prefer green cosmetics for beauty to the ones that are artificially synthesized and they are willing to pay more for them. Based on marketing regulations it is illegal to market the products different from the advertised ones (Mitsui 1997, pp. 303). Cosmetics are basically substances meant to enhance the human body. Cosmetics are categorized as skin care, hair care, mouth care, coloring cosmetics and others mostly preserved for feminine hygiene (Barel 2014, pp. 519). 1.2 Objectives This report seeks to explore some of the most pivotal issues that come with sustainable marketing. By being able to obtain necessary requirements in the sustainable marketing of cosmetics in the beauty industry, the supplies will be able to effectively respond to consumer demands. The issues to be addressed in this study are: the need for sustainability in beauty salons, how to overcome the identified sustainability challenges, marketing sustainability management, encouraging customers on sustainable consumption and the tactics to reach broad consumer base. Furthermore, this report will also critically analyze the sustainable marketing strategies set by the provider of cosmetics in beauty salons. 1.3 Limitations The limiting factor of this study lies on the author dwelling on one area of sustainable marketing which in this case is beauty in salons within the sector of cosmetics. Another complication results on regulations. Given that every government has its distinct set of regulations. This therefore complicates the consumer as well as the marketer assumptions on the general perspective of sustainability. The author will therefore strive to reveal what marketers and businesses can do towards realization of sustainable marketing. 2.0 The Need for Sustainability in Beauty Salons In attempts to find out the need for sustainability we are going to find out how it relates to the beauty in salon industry. Many salon owners glance at the products they use and get discouraged right away (Jercha 2012, pp. 5). They are ever pooled back by the feeling that they can never keep using the organic or non-natural cosmetics and still stay firm in the highly competitive beauty market. One thing these service distributors fail to take into account is the presence sustainable marketing. One thing they fail to realize is the sustainable advantages that come with the green salon. There is need for sustainability in this sector because the business future depend on it. Caution needs to be taken in order to prevent overexploitation of resource in while attempting to stick to provision of best quality synthesized cosmetic products. One thing the supplier may fail to notice is their inability to provide the cosmetic product in their salon for a long period of time. This is therefore an implication that the business is most likely to fail at some point soon. The need for sustainability marketing is meant to make us wake up upon noticing potential depletion of resources. Zarsky (2012) addresses this crucial matter based the sense of balancing consumer rights to whatever nature has presented to us. Directing this very matter to the beauty industry would make the industry realize how the increasing demand of beauty cosmetics would lead to depletion of resources. It is therefore advisable for beauty salons to opt for the biodegradable green cosmetics. Therefore, there is need to be aware of ideal requirements of sustainability. Furthermore, sustainable options such as the use green cosmetics in hairdressing beauty is for the good of customers health. 3.0 Marketing Sustainability As a marketer you need to use marketing expertise to help consumers get grips with sustainable consumption other that wasting much of time on confusing claims (Fisk 2010, pp. 106). Challenges really put a business at a better position to develop innovation. In this context, marketing sustainability management of cosmetics in the beauty industry can be viewed on long term basis. This is one thing that most marketers fail taking into account since they prefer quick short gains. Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and Business in the Community (2009) addresses business platforms. In this source it is made clear that “...groups help senior practitioners identify what needs to change within their sector or system , and take practical action to achieve this with their peers.” The international community need to address great number of issues that exist in the global scale. The author has chosen issues that are so closely linked together and have great effect on business at large. 3.1 Challenges At most times owning small business in an economy that is struggling proves to be a bit difficult. Within the cosmetic sector, various beauty salons experience almost similar challenges across the business platform. The most common type of challenge that presented by beauty salon owners lies in the fee incurred when maintain it as the days, weeks and months transform into years (Verghese et al, 2012). Maintaining of chairs can at times turn out to be the hardest role depending on the type of salon you own. Most customers prefer being serviced in deep comfort. The type of cosmetics customers will find in your salon will determine whether they will allow you to service them or not. Now in this case the problem does not seem to lie only in your ability to avail the preferred costly beauty cosmetics. The desired cosmetics might just be pollutants with minimal realization which is very nonsustaining. Another challenge presented by the sustainability marketing to beauty salons is the ability to stay competitive (McNall et al 2011). Service providers find it hard to keep using the sustaining ‘green’ cosmetics while seeing their competitors venture into expensive and attractive synthesized cosmetics. Therefore, holding onto sustainability while at the same time trying to compete for consumer demands proves hellish for suppliers a well as service deliverers. Irregular or inadequate supply of cosmetics to a beauty salon is yet another challenge experienced by salon investors. Customers may thus end up missing out their preferred cosmetic product due to irregular supply. Seemingly, some customers really like the so called green cosmetics and would therefore request for them, upon delivery they end up changing their minds and decide not to buy them. 3.2 Response to Challenges Fisk (2010) argues that “Applying the concept of business models to the challenges and opportunities of sustainability is an even more disruptive and innovative prospect.” The challenges can be overcome by adding sustainability goals into ones objectives. It lies within you as the boss to ensure that all your employees follow sustainable marketing strategies to the latter. In whatever you do always strive to keep the process simple especially if you have a standing relationship with other potential supplies. You might also consider supporting a team to be the positive instigator towards the drive of change. Most business find it hard to engage costs when it comes firm adjustments. This should not be the case with sustainable marketing, in-fact be at a position to see cost barrier as a short term view. With reference to the Sustainable Marketing Website we can further explore some of the most common measures taken by suppliers while responding to the challenges involved. It is believed that the elements are the key to better servicing. Sustainable Business Practices This involves incorporating sustainable business practices into beauty salon strategies. You should first set measurable goals and then list your key undertakings then finally account senior resource for the success the goals. Always ensure that your cosmetic business performance stays optimal. This is to mean that you must respond to consumer demands while at the same time taking sustainability into consideration so as to keep your business on the move at all times. Creating personal relationship with your customers as well as other businesses would serve a better role. Salons that keep on changing workers at all times rarely make reasonable amounts of profits. This is an implication that customers just like any other human you know needs to establish a direct relationship with their service providers. The direct interaction creates come sort of mutuality in the sense that the supplier or service provider is able to discuss with a customer some of the rumored demands or poor ways of service delivery. The discussion might also yield some ways towards sustainability. A better way to overcome financial challenge is by ensuring that your budget is balanced whatsoever. Impulsive ordering for unnecessary cosmetics may result when one sees their competitors with a product that customers seem to like. This is simply investing in blindness rather than weighing your own demands as a service provider or supplier and then responding to them depending on your capability. In addition to that, the prosperity of your business community should be your concern. Marketing Activities Always stand to deliver marketing activities that create a progressive growth. Financial, human and capital resources are limiting factors in businesses, your resources should therefore be focused at the top performing marketing activities. Your growth strategy ought to be aggressive and compatible with emergent issues in marketing field. Unscrupulous means of transactions should never be engaged at all costs, instead you should always strive to be an authentic dealer so as to secure the reputation of your work firm. Furthermore, interruption based marketing ought to be avoided. Support and Promotion of Sustainable Businesses This can be achieved through involvement of consumers in open forums where sustainability factors are discussed for the betterment of the entire community investment. Promotion of other sustainable businesses and their products is to the advantage of their growth. This is one of the aspects of sustainable marketing. Influencing of other Businesses Pullan & Archer (2013) talks about leadership qualities in business and how to become an influence of positive change. Business owners stand a chance to influence their workers to adopt sustainable marketing techniques. You should find a way to positively fight climate change and let your suppliers know how much you are willing to work with suppliers on sustainable grounds. It reaches a time when you have to weigh sides and just choose on sustainability even as much as you will be risking the progress of your salon. Minimal Resource utilization Altmann & Veit (2007) describes minimal resource and how resources can be conserved to a great extent. Caution must be taken so that the minimal beauty products in a salon are not just used proportionally just for the sake of impressing customers. Some areas may require the use of greenhouse to grow the green cosmetic raw materials. Always minimize the use of your day to day resources in the business operations such as the exposure of sample products for your customers to use whenever they visit the beauty salon. Emission of greenhouse gases can also be minimized to reduce pollution by using environmental friendly ink and other biodegradable in your business. This involves using biodegradable posters to advertise your beauty salon and having writings on them done with friendly ink. Packaging of cosmetics should be done on biodegradable cans which need not be burnt so that no toxic fumes are emitted into space. Embracing techniques can also help in the implementation of sustainability while attempting to minimize resource expenditure. For instance, on-line catalogs serve a better purpose in environmental conservation than the use paper catalogs. Besides it is quite costly to maintain the use of paper in the business offices as well as in product supply purposes. You might also want to substitute on-line communication with direct mail because it seems a lot much more economical. Also an extensive use of technology would mean the use of virtual communication system which involves the use of video conferencing and Skype for big beauty salon investments. 4.0 Sustainable Consumption 4.1 Consumer Behavior towards Consumption Consumer behavior and consumption pattern can be changed through business-to-consumer education. The beauty salon through marketing can help its consumers evolve to a more sustainable lifestyle. Discovering the consumer potential should be the salons point of concern. The salon can use its tools to inspire and orient positive attitude in consumer behavior. It could achieve this by determining profitable opportunities for sustainable cosmetics through anticipation of customer needs. Consumers might not know how to use and dispose the products. This therefore leaves the supplier with the responsibility to induce sustainable behavior into consumers through education. 4.2 Consumer Encouragement It is being recognized that consumer behavior is becoming a key issue in marketing (Trijp 2013, pp. 15) For instance, hairdressers have played a key role in spreading business information. In cosmetics production consumers can be lured into your channel when you make something presentable and appealing to the eye. Telling consumers acquire cosmetics to acquire locally made cosmetics other than going for the extremely expensive synthesized cosmetics is economical. Informing consumers to use a product till is exhausted acts as strategy for sustainable consumption. 4.3 Tactics to Reach Broad Consumer Base Everyone wants to get their business going and growing at the same time. In order to reach broad consumer base, there are factors that must be considered. Many a times, cosmetics are offered to consumers by attaching a sample of it on advertisement magazines (Percy 2014, pp. 108). Let us then go through the tactics used by suppliers and service providers in the beauty salon. There is hosting of social media events in order to build a loyal raving community. Through this you might discover new strategies or business and definitely get new fans. It is at this point that the suppliers reveal their newest products and state all the distinct advantages tied to it. Confidentiality of consumers can be won or doubted by the consumers based on the general opinion of the public. However, such social media event can sometimes fail to bring out the intended message or really tell the intentions of the supplier. Most suppliers in the field of business only reveal the better part of their products while hiding the rest from consumers. This is common with synthetic cosmetics. Most suppliers who really know the better way to do marketing strive to exhaust one area in detail before proceeding to the next part of their marketing strategy. You have to go deep instead of broad so as to establish your expertise and credibility. Also ensure you provide a method for feedback and discussion. The next thing you want to do is getting the attention of influencer. To achieve this you have to give away content gifts. Some people are actually good when it comes to luring customers. Surprisingly, most customers are ever ignorant to an extent of failing to tell whether they are being manipulated or whatever is offered is authentic. But what suppliers care about is the consumer positive response to their products. Focusing on the platforms where your customers are is a key aspect that you must not fail to take into consideration. Always strive to find out where your customers are and stick there. Let us take for instance setting up a beauty salon, a prudent investor will take into account all factors of production. The most important of all considerations in a business as such lies on the ability to acquire the cosmetics to run the business. Make real life connections to prove to your costumers how available you are to respond to their needs . Sometimes customers just like being associated with the real owners a beauty industry so they can feel important. Well as a business person it lies within you to decide when to shore up and impress your customers. 5.0 The Pillars of Sustainability In order to realize profits which is in fact the main objective a business the beauty salon must take into consideration the key pillars of sustainability which encompass social, economic and environmental issues (Fisk 2010). In this context the beauty salon will only get what it measures because it is the very thing that will be budgeted for. 5.1 Environmental Issues “Low entropy resources are taken from the environment (depletion) and then taken back to the environment as high entropy wastes (pollution).” (Daly 2008, pp. 157). The most discussed issue in the past decade was climate change and how it has influence lifestyle. Scientists nowadays hold the strong belief that human activities have greatly impacted climate change. The greatest influence is believed to have been caused by the Industrial Revolution which has contributed to global warming. Statistics from the Royal Society (2010) reveal that the temperature of the earth has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius ever since 1850. The environmental pillar can be accounted for by prevention of pollution and use of energy solar to run beauty machines as those used for hair dressing. 5.2 Economic Issues The beauty salon needs a sustainable economic model to ensure fair distribution of efficient allocation of resources. This economic pillar ensures that the economic growth of the business maintains a healthy balance with the ecosystem. In as much as the business acquires and supplies cosmetic products to consumers in various forms, it must strive to protect the planet from depletion. Economic growth is one very effective means to alleviate poverty and improve life quality worldwide (Daly 2008). This is something not yet achieved. Economic resources vary from one country to another making it difficult to evenly distribute the practice of sustainable marketing. An instance lies the supply of pyrethrum based cosmetic products. The marketing of the products will only have caused some noticeable economic impact in the countries that have invested in the growth of pyrethrum. The global economy has experienced a 50% growth increase within the last 25 years of the 20th century alone (Reutlinger 2012, pp. 6-8). 5.3 Social Issues Social objectives in sustainability marketing seeks to improve employee safety, see to it that wages are fairly paid, Reduce potential negative impacts on health and improve the product safety during product consumption or use (Belz 2010, pp. 15). Countries with rapidly growing economy create middle classes with millions of consumers. Such countries include China, Brazil and India. The big cosmetic producer companies and suppliers are thus found in these counties. With the social pillar the salon has a responsibility of protecting the global citizen against poverty, social injustice and violence as one of the sustainability measures. It is only through the fulfillment of these that will get the business going. 6.0 Impact of Sustainable Management By being sustainable the beauty salon is most likely to reduce operation costs by undertaking initiatives that reduce waste, water as well as energy consumption. They could also be distinctly outstanding now that it is sustainable. This way it could develop a competitive advantage. Furthermore it stands a chance to attract and retain valuable staff through development of policies that meet their concern. (Tourism Australia 2013). With sustainable management the beauty salon will be obliged to change its methods of service delivery and product supply. It is most likely to experience a setback during the transition but sustainability has greater profits over the short term losses. 7.0 Conclusion The degree of sustainability being incorporated into everyday activities vary depending on the investors and products. Some workers have fully embraced sustainable marketing and have made it part of their daily marketing. Others practice it but only when conditions are tolerable; in business producers will always way the most profitable areas especially if they are fast yielding. Sustainability however does not stand out as the main factor when it comes to positioning. In most cases sustainability never comes into play when is a matter of pricing. Let us now take a look at the analysis of trends present in global cosmetics market as presented to us by Lopasiuk & Loboda (2013). The results are based on the 21st century: The growth of cosmetics promises further growth and will mostly be fueled by Latin America and Asia. Another point to note is that global cosmetic manufacturers will differentiate their products so that they can get to market them based on wide range of customer difference based on culture and locality. In the beauty salon, skincare seem to be having the biggest growth potential. 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Zarsky, L 2012, International Investment for Sustainable Development: Balancing Rights and Rewards, Routledge. Read More