Beauty in China | US Brand Colourpop's success story

This American cosmetics brand had stayed popular for years in China even when the competition in China became more severe with the rise of local brands.

This is COLOURPOP

Key takeaways:

• They didn't invest in famous Chinese celebrities as brand ambassadors. Instead, they collaborates with all tiers of Chinese influencers on a regular basis.

• They didn't open e-commerce stores on TMall but on RED. Their own official website also supports worldwide shipping so Chinese customers have multiple channels to purchase.

• You can enter Chinese market without having an official e-commerce store on Chinese Social.

What is their secret to success?

They followed the path of all the local successful cosmetics brands in China:

Wide spread Influencer marketing + Multiple sales channels

How to define a wide spread influencer marketing?

Giving away free products to both KOC (Key opinion customers) and KOL (Key opinion leaders), aka micro-influencers and influencers.

Colourpop learned from the best——Perfect Diary, the best-selling and the first Chinese beauty brand that went IPO. It's like bitcoin that started the era of cryptocurrency, Perfect Diary started the era of Chinese beauty brands and their key to success was the above formula.

They invested most of their money on Influencer marketing, giving away free products to KOC (Key opinion customers) that are willing to produce content as long as they have a free product.

There are many WeChat/RED group chats that will give you access to all micro-influencers ranging from 300-5000 followers.

How many sales channels should you have? And how to operate them?

1. One official e-commerce store on Chinese social (TMall or RED)

2. Official website that supports worldwide shipping

3. Working with Resellers (Daigous)

The trick here is to not launch all your products on the official Chinese e-commerce store.

Instead, test a product's market through working with resellers that will help you promote your products with their social influencer, that's WeChat, Weibo, Taobao and RED that covers all the Chinese social channels with thousands of followers.

Same approach can also be adopted by working with Chinese influencers. Colourpop sent free products that are not yet launch on their Chinese e-commerce store but the ones that are available to purchase through the official website or resellers.

Once they confirmed it has high demands through their analytics, they will then launch it on their Official RED store.

What can you learn as an international brand considering entering China?

As a cosmetics brand that supports worldwide shipping and you start seeing orders from Chinese customers, you should take that as your opportunity to enter Chinese market.

There are few things you can do if you at this stage:

1. Contact customers that are making big orders, who are most likely to be resellers. Ask whether if they want to collaborate with you officially. So you can start your reseller channel.

2. Some resellers might provide influencer marketing if you asked, so you can also save the energy and time of doing so.

3. If you want to work with Chinese influencers by yourself, hiring a Chinese marketing student that is currently studying in your country as your PR will be the cheapest option. His or her main responsibility will be to locating Chinese influencers that has already purchased your brand's product online. See if they are willing to work with you officially.

4. Alternatively, there are also a lot of Chinese marketing agencies based in places outside China that can offer tailored influencer marketing service.

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