1. Define Your Makeup Artist Brand

The first important step to growing your business is to define your business brand. That’s right! As a makeup artist, you are officially a business owner with a brand, and you and your makeup are the faces of that brand! It’s important to have a brand because your makeup clients will associate your artistry with your brand. But first, what is a brand? Take a look at the picture below. Are you able to identify 4 different brands?

A brand is a product or service that can be easily communicated and marketed to clients and is easily distinguishable from other similar or competing products or services. Now when it comes to makeup brands, think about the following makeup artists:

• Bobbi Brown
• Pat McGrath
• Charlotte Tilbury

Each of these fantastic makeup artists has a distinct “brand” and makeup look they’re known for. Bobbi Brown is synonymous with the effortless, easy, and everyday look, Pat McGrath is known for her bold, colorful, and high fashion looks, whereas Charlotte Tilbury and her glowing, glam goddess makeup looks are easily recognizable. All three brands are easily identified and different from each other. And that is what you’re going to define.

How to define your makeup artist brand

Defining your brand starts with answering the following few important questions about yourself and your makeup artistry:

• What makeup look are you good at? Your brand should be synonymous with the work that you do best, which is the makeup you will be selling to clients. Are you good at colorful, innovative, and cutting-edge makeup looks? Or do you specialize in bridal looks? Whatever makeup you want to do will become a part of your brand.
• Who is your ideal makeup client? Are you targeting high-fashion editorials or brides? Cool Instagram bloggers or corporate clients? Party looks or portraits? These customers are who your brand will target for sales. Identifying your ideal customers will give you an idea of how to shape your makeup brand visually according to your target audience and how to market it to them.
• Do you specialize in a unique makeup niche? If you’re a bridal makeup artist, are you specializing in all bridal looks or certain looks? Some makeup artists will specialize in Asian bridal looks, for example. Whether you choose to specialize or not, it will be an important part of your makeup brand.
• What is your ideal makeup brand look like visually? When you think of your dream website, Instagram account, or salon, what does it look like? Is it classic or is it trendy? Is it minimal or is it colorful? Your brand elements such as your website, colors, logo, etc. should not only showcase your ideal brand, but should also be visually appealing, and your ideal client should be able to relate to your brand.

Once you’ve completed this exercise, you now have an idea of the brand you want to build for your makeup business. Next, if you already have a digital presence i.e., social media accounts and/or a website, look at it from the eyes of your ideal client. Does it attract you? Do the visual elements align with your ideal brand image? Whatever doesn’t align with your brand, archive it. Do not delete anything! You never know when your content will come in handy later. And if you don’t have a digital presence, do not fear because we are covering that in our next point!

Pro-tip: Write everything down. Yes, you need to document all your great ideas about your ideal clients, your makeup brand, and what your final decision is because all these nuggets of insight and information will help you build your makeup artist brand. We also recommend creating a Pinterest board to brainstorm the visual elements of your brand (and keep things fun).

2. Build Your Makeup Artist Brand

Now that you have defined your makeup artist brand, start building it. How you may ask? While building a brand takes continuous time, effort, and tactics, the best way to build it is to build your portfolio by doing makeup, create your social media accounts and/or website, and showcase your makeup portfolio online. Let’s break this down into easy-to-follow strategies.

Strategies to build your makeup artist brand

• Build your makeup portfolio. You know what makeup you want to do and for which clients. Now you need to build a portfolio showcasing a variety of makeup looks that you can do. You can do makeup looks on yourself, recruit friends and family to be your models, or if you already have clients, simply take their photos to put in your portfolio (with their consent of course!). You might already have a portfolio too. Simply keep building it further.
• Build your digital makeup presence. These days, most businesses are online. It is important for you to build your makeup brand online because it makes it easy for your makeup clients to find you. Additionally, you will be marketing your business online. Your website and social media channels should all visually represent your brand. This includes your logo, your colors, your filters, and all other visual components.
• Showcase your makeup online. If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist anymore! Your entire makeup portfolio, your makeup brand, and details about your makeup services need to be on your website and/or your social media. According to research, 83% of Canada’s population uses social media (Canadians Internet, 2022), which makes it very important for businesses to have a social media presence. This leads us to our next point on how to market your makeup business online.

 Pro-tip: Take professional pictures for your makeup portfolio. Hire a photographer if you have the budget, or simply take some free online courses on how to shoot/edit great pictures on your phone. The better-quality pictures you have, the better your makeup will look to prospective makeup clients.

3. Market Your Makeup Artist Business

Marketing your makeup artistry is a whole article by itself. By now, you have a makeup brand and a decent makeup portfolio, and you’ve started building your online presence. The next step is to market your business. There are a few essential tactics you need to do to be successful.

Choose the right channels to market your business

The first step to marketing your makeup artist business is to choose the channels you’ll use to market your business. These might be the same channels you selected in the previous point to build your brand. Will you sell your makeup artistry on Instagram, Tik Tok, or your website? You can choose 1 channel or all of them. We recommend selecting all relevant channels, but you need to start somewhere – we recommend Instagram. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s relevant to your target audience. As an example, if your target clientele is Gen-Z Instagram bloggers then you should be marketing on Tik Tok and Instagram. They likely won’t be using Facebook much.

Create a content strategy

The second step to marketing your makeup artist business is to make sure you’re posting your content on a regular basis. Whichever channel you choose, decide the frequency of posting new content there, and be consistent. The best way to do this is to create a content strategy. Content strategy for makeup artists is also an article on its own, but to start your content strategy should consist of the following:

• Your goals. What’s your goal? Is it to create awareness of your makeup artist brand? Get more followers or get more clients? Your goal should guide your content.
• Content type. What type of content to post on which channels? Makeup tutorials on Youtube, Instagram, or both? Makeup pictures on Instagram, Facebook, or both? Your content type should speak to your brand and be relevant to your ideal makeup clients.
• Posting frequency. How frequently should I post on each channel? This depends on the channel itself and how much time you want to dedicate to each channel.
• Content calendar. Create a content calendar. This should include what you’re posting and when. Use social media calendar apps to help you

And above all, keep building out that fantastic portfolio! Your makeup artist portfolio is the content you’ll be posting to market your skills!

Pro-tip: We recommend listing your makeup artist business on Google and asking your customers and friends to rate your business on Google! When potential clients in your area search for makeup artists, the search engine will immediately show them your business on Google and Google Maps along with ratings and reviews! These days everyone checks business reviews on Google - make sure your makeup artist business is on there too!

4. Get More Booked & Paying Makeup Clients

So, you’ve been building your makeup artist brand and you’re consistently marketing it. Interested makeup clients are flooding your DMs. This is what you've been working towards, you are growing your makeup artist business. But how do you convert potential makeup clients to booked clients and truly showcase your growth? This is where customer relationship management comes in. Customer relationship management is the most important step you can take to solidify the growth of your makeup artist business. It has numerous benefits for both you and your customer. But what does it mean?

Managing makeup client relationships

In a nutshell, managing your customer relationships means managing all interactions with tentative and booked clients, and keeping them happy.  This includes steps such as having an initial conversation with tentative clients, providing them with a quote, booking them FAST, all while having professional and friendly conversations to build a relationship. This is the most important step to growing your makeup business and getting more makeup clients. After securing the makeup appointment, you have to maintain these relationships for further growth.

The reality is when a potential makeup client reaches out to you, you have to start managing that relationship. A potential makeup client is probably reaching out to ten other makeup artists for quotes while they're reaching out to you. The makeup artist that responds back the fastest, in the most polite manner with the most relevant information will likely book the client. Yes, that first interaction is probably your most important.

Now, most potential clients will strike up a conversation with you on social media DMs regarding makeup services, prices, and availability. The back-and-forth conversation can take forever; you have a business to run and grow, and the client takes their own time to respond. This results in lost time, energy, and clients. On top of that, clients want a nice, friendly, and informative conversation. Yes, you can lose clients if you don’t respond to them with the necessary information right away or if you don’t respond to them in a professional manner. One solution to this is to be excellent at multi-taking and time management. An even better solution is to invest in a digital platform that will automate these interactions and manage them for you, like SpeedyMUA.

SpeedyMUA helps you manage your client relationships

SpeedyMUA is a digital platform that helps makeup artists like you manage their client relationships, grow their business, and get more revenue by automating/providing the following features:



• Instant quotes for all your makeup services
• Personalized, professional, and automated follow-ups
• Instant booking feature for your personal website

This allows you to focus your time and energy on all the other points we covered above (and doing what you love doing. .makeup!). The best solution to client relationship management is automation. Automation makes sure your potential makeup clients get instant, professional, and relevant responses to their queries. A happy potential makeup client is likely an even happier paying makeup client - make it happen by automating your client response processes with us! Click here to request a demo now!

Pro-tip: We recommend collecting statistics on your client inquiries and bookings before and after you sign-up with the SpeedyMUA platform. This will help you measure your growing makeup artist business and quantify your success.

5. Stay in Touch with Clients & Industry Folks

Every successful business requires a network to grow. Your makeup artist business is no different! Networking is essentially word-of-mouth marketing, and it is an essential part of the beauty industry. Networking will not only get you more contacts, it will also get you more clients! But how do you network, you may ask? We have some ideas for you.

Ideas for networking with people in the beauty industry

• Stay in contact with ALL makeup clients. Referrals is one of the biggest sources of revenue for makeup artists. If your makeup clients are happy and love your services, ask them to refer you to friends and family. Follow up with them after their makeup appointment, ask them how their event went, and if they have any feedback or suggestions.  You can even send them a nice note on their birthday or on a holiday.
• Get to know other creatives in the beauty industry. These could be models, hair stylists, photographers, or editors. These creative contacts could result in a creative collaboration to enhance your makeup portfolio, or they might get you some clients! Simply reach out to them through social media, put your game face on, and get ready to make some contacts!
• Attend beauty industry events. These could be entrepreneur meetups, makeup courses, and content creator dinners.. Or you could host your own meetup! Not only might you brush up on your makeup skills, but you will also meet fantastic new people that can help you grow your makeup business even more.
  

Pro-tip: We recommend printing business cards with your makeup artist business information, logo, and QR code to your social media, and keeping them on you at all times. You never know when you run into a celebrity, influencer or even an old client - hand your card over and they’ll be sure to remember your business. You might be wondering but who even uses business cards now. You’d be surprised - old marketing tactics and old but still gold.



 And there you have it. 5 sure-fire ways grow your makeup business! Whether makeup artistry is your side hustle or your main job, these steps will help your business become a distinct, recognizable brand and unlock new levels of growth. We hope to be a part of your journey by helping you book makeup clients faster. Simply reach out to us for a demo! Otherwise, if you love this article be sure to leave some comments in the comments section below.