Competing in a Beauty TikTok World

'...For smaller brands like Cosy Cottage, with tight budgets; trying to copy the big players’ approach and chasing high profile endorsements, in an environment as competitive as ours, is hopeless. To gain customers’ attention, at Cosy Cottage, we need to work harder and give them something different; offering a more tailored, more personal, more caring and more authentic proposition. Instead of pursuing costly follows and likes, we prioritise growing a loyal, long term followership and a cadre of supportive micro-influencers, delighted to test out potential new products and provide exposure. 

Trust beats trends

Customers that buy into trends tend to be fickle, making this audience unreliable for sustainable growth. Retaining our existing Cosy Cottage customers is critical, so building trust is at the heart of small and medium beauty brands’ success. To do this, we focus on transparency. We are open about our science-led approach, our ingredients and the research behind them at Cosy Cottage. On the ‘phone from our Malton workshops and in our Malton, Market Place store, our team can confidently explain to customers what our products can do for their skin and health and importantly, what they can’t. We don’t make unsubstantiated claims – too many make product claims simply to align with trending hashtags - and we never ‘greenwash’. This is fundamental to building the long term, trusting relationships smaller brands need. Big brands may have the resilience to put a foot wrong occasionally but if a smaller company loses customers’ trust, it’s hard to recover.

Personality prevails

Smaller brands like Cosy Cottage can shine by showing customers the people behind the brand rather than ‘corporate goo’. Through newsletters, podcasts, website and social platforms, customers can get to know our founder’s story and the family, friends and colleagues involved. Virtual interactions are strengthened with in-person contact, achieved when customers visit the store or take part in workshops and events. We also head out countrywide to visit organisations, media, schools and groups who are interested in hearing about us. 

Listen

Listening to our customer community, rather than just telling them about ourselves, is critical. With fewer layers of management in a smaller organisation, customer voices can be heard, their reviews and comments are responded to and their ideas considered by the decision makers. As our time to market for new products and fragrances is a fraction of that of larger brands we can react to feedback quickly and that’s a real benefit we can and do utilise.    
The news is good and the future bright for small and medium-sized beauty brands. We don’t have the big budgets but we don’t need to try and beat the corporates at their own game. By prioritising authenticity to build customer loyalty and by leveraging our creativity and agility, there’s plenty of room in this growing industry...'

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A chemistry graduate from Imperial College, our CEO Clara became a corporate banking and IT consulting professional. After a breast cancer diagnosis in 2015 and becoming aware of the harmful ingredients in everyday bathing and skincare products, Clara sought to develop natural and environmentally friendly alternatives in the kitchen of her 350-year-old cottage. She left the corporate world and turned Cosy Cottage into a thriving online business, with a busy store and workshops in North Yorkshire that offer spa treatments, soap-making and candle making courses and yoga retreats. Cosy Cottage also develops and makes white label products for brands such as Navy Professional, which are sold across the UK and worldwide.