“Don’t be afraid of the trial-and-error approach,” wrote Lauder in her 1985 autobiography as a piece of advice to would-be entrepreneurs. “Trust your instincts…create your own style.”
From her products to her marketing techniques to her own charismatic sales persona, Lauder created a unique style with which to take her company to the top. She was not afraid of taking risks and often found that it was only in doing things that had never been done before that she was able to find success.
Lauder occupied her time even as a young girl experimenting with new formulas and ingredients for skin-care products. Taking after her chemist uncle, Lauder developed a taste for trying and testing new ideas that came into her mind. Before she even had a company office or a laboratory, Lauder would spend her days in her kitchen, creating beauty recipes over the burners of her own stove. It was the unique nature of her products and the high quality of ingredients that she used that contributed to her success.
But, it wasn’t just in the area of production that Lauder was willing to venture out with still untested strategies. Lauder became a marketing queen, whose unique tactics would later become standards not only in the beauty industry, but also in industries market-wide.
When she was first starting off, Lauder didn’t have a big operating budget, let alone a lot of money to set aside solely for advertising and promotions. “If you put the product into the customer’s hands, it will speak for itself if it’s something of quality,” she believed. With that, Lauder wanted to try new ways to get her product out to potential customers.
She started with the idea that giving free demonstrations and makeovers using her products might appeal to people. Thus, Lauder began spending much of her time at salons, hotels, in subway stations and even on the street, encouraging people to try her products and helping them figure out which was best for them. As her clientele expanded, she started visiting their homes and giving free makeovers to their friends, further enlarging her customer base.
In a similarly revolutionary move, Lauder began giving away free trial samples of her products. She decided to use her entire $50,000 advertising budget on samples, through such means as direct mail campaigns and free gifts with purchase. It proved to be a successful move, with Lauder quickly becoming one of the industry’s leaders, both in product and innovation.
Lauder’s initial decision to only target upscale department stores was also unique and, in the end, a lucrative one. The limited and exclusive nature of her products added to their appeal. When Saks Fifth Avenue first lined its shelves with her skin creams, they found the shelves bare within just two days. Lauder was soon thereafter a regular name in the stores of other prestigious stores, including Marshall Field’s and Nieman-Marcus.
“If you don’t sell, it’s not the product that’s wrong, it’s you,” said Lauder. By focusing on innovative marketing techniques and being willing to take risks, Lauder was able to become one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in history.
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