Show Season!

Fly into Salisbury, MD at midnight, take a cab to the hotel, meet the team at 8 AM.  OK, show season is upon us.

Kelly Kirby and her team were starting the show season in Birmingham, AL with the Premier Show.   They had a great show as well, introducing us for the first time to so many make up artists, stylists, and estheticians.

But this show season really started for me 18 months ago at Premier Orlando.  We had 3 booths.  Somehow our full tester unit didn't make it.  We had no signage and black draped tables.  We sold a few deals that we secured with a rubber band.  I walked around that show and saw 12 other color cosmetics lines that were far more beautiful than ours.

So we have come a long way!

Shows are designed to make a statement.  Our best statement is made when our team of Regional Managers and Make Up Artists invite woman to have do a quick touch up.  With 7 make up artists at the show, each of our 5 chairs were always filled educating woman on how to apply.  And each woman that tries our product buys our product!

So you can see we did a back wall, one that simply says "Mirabella" that we keep around permanently, then another wall that changes fall and spring related to our focus for the trade show.  So as you can see, we were all about red lip pencils and a red lip gloss.  All three are long wear beautiful formulas.

But besides the walls we made up the product feature boxes.  We put an acrylic top on them and highlight the special under the glass!

Or we just stock it with our specials.  Either way, it ties together with our branding.  We are very proud at how it highlights our products.

And finally, we knew that cosmetics need to be tried.  The trade show before included our full tester unit.  The client would see the unit and say, I like this product.  We would tell them, great, but we don't have that one.  We only have these products.



We turned away a lot of business and opportunities for people to try our products.  And we are big believers that if they try they will love the line!

So the big deal is our open sale unit.  It holds every product in our line.  It is lovely!  And it allows clients to shop!  Exactly what we want in the busy environments of the distributor stores.  The open sale concept is for the stores.  But we needed to test it.  What better way than a busy trade show, where thousands of people touch the unit all the time.

It has been a huge hit.  Many salons are excited to have us roll this out to them as well.  Perfect!

It is well lit, eye catching... and expensive!  But if we are going to help our salons compete with Sephora and Ulta, they need to retail as effectively as those amazing chains do.

So why do I write about this?  As you build a brand you need to look at everything that helps clients make decisions.  And for us, trade shows are an important way our clients interact with the brand. 

As the Ocean City show was going on, many of our existing clients walked into our booth.  They saw that it was the busiest booth at the show.  Therefore, they know what we have is in demand.  They saw the branding we are doing.  So much so, they wanted to buy that stuff from us!

The result for the existing salons was more loyalty to the brand.  Many told me that they were going to do a better job of marketing the product.  We suggested that the tester unit needs to be up front and clean!  But also, if you are in the cosmetics business, you need to have a make up chair next to the tester unit.  You may never have a make up artist in the salon, but it give the impression that you are in the business of color cosmetics.  Therefore, they will try our brand.

The results for new salons was just as great.  Many salons took on the line at the show.  And that was do to seeing in action how to sell cosmetics.  They saw how popular we are.  They felt the make up themselves.  And they got to see the branding we are doing.

Overall, if you invest the money, trade shows can have a return on your investment.  The return is long term!