Emotional marketing to help your beauty brand shine
How can beauty brands stand out despite the overwhelming choice of products available online and in-store? Sometimes, it's not just about what you sell, but how you connect with your audience. As soon as you start considering how your brand makes people feel, then you’ve stepped into the world of ‘emotional marketing’.
Hera Beauty’s role, as a leading private label manufacturer in the UK, includes supporting our partners to grow and pinpointing their routes to success.
We know the cosmetics industry is fuelled by shoppers looking to connect on a personal level with their purchases. Not convinced? Let’s put it this way: beauty products are not merely functional, but confidence-boosting symbols and a means of self-expression.
Making emotional connections is a powerful strategy. In 2025 and beyond, the companies shouting the loudest aren’t necessarily those that are achieving success. Instead, leading beauty brands are finding ways to resonate more deeply with their customers. Emotional marketing is all about tapping into people’s deepest desires about who they want to be and how they want to be seen.
So, how do brands achieve this? Strong marketing strategies incorporate a blend of storytelling, personalisation, community building, authenticity (being genuine!), and values-driven messaging. Let’s take a closer look...
Telling your brand’s story
Let’s think about the power of first impressions. When it comes to your brand’s product packaging, it’s not simply a choice of colours and fonts. It’s also about demonstrating your ‘reasons why’. Remember, this is your very first conversation with customers, so don’t miss the opportunity to evoke an emotional reaction.
Storytelling can help form connections. Whether it’s about a founder’s journey, eco commitment, or a celebration of diversity and real people, stories transform a product from something merely functional into something to believe in. It’s about providing a reason to care. So, why not create compelling narratives that resonate with consumers’ experiences and emotions? It’s certainly more eye-catching than just listing product features.
If you personalise your products - perhaps by tailoring promotions and providing individual product recommendations - then you’re forming a relationship. You’re recognising and valuing your customers as unique individuals. This strengthens long-term brand loyalty and encourages repeat engagement.
What else can create an emotional response? In a world that often feels quite uncertain, nostalgia is serving beauty brands well. It’s a great way to create connections and remind consumers of meaningful moments in their past. Perhaps you might want to evoke the feeling of childhood summers? Referencing past eras or popular cultural moments, with recognisable scents or nostalgic packaging, can help trigger heartfelt reactions.
With an abundance of modern technologies, the world may seem more connected than ever before, but in reality, people can still feel socially isolated. Successful beauty brands aren’t just selling - they’re building communities. Emotional marketing invites customers to be part of a movement, whether that’s through user-generated content, platforms for social connection, or providing routes to advocate for causes your brand believes in.
In truth, today’s consumers are incredibly savvy and can spot inauthenticity at the drop of a hat. Emotional marketing only works when it’s genuine. Your brand needs to be transparent about ingredients, practices, and ethical supply chains. After all, establishing trust is the strongest form of emotional currency.
Top tips for how to use emotional marketing
● Design product packaging and visuals that evoke feelings and emotions, rather than just highlighting the usual formulation features.
● Leverage storytelling in campaigns to explain what your brand values are, including a focus on sustainability, inclusivity, and empowerment.
● Evoke a feeling of nostalgia to remind consumers of meaningful moments and memories and to create connections between your brand and its audience.
● Craft consumer experiences: from interactive social campaigns to personalised marketing, it’s your role to encourage brand loyalty.
● Consumers can help shape brands. Share user-generated content such as testimonials, reviews, unboxings, or highlight real-life transformations.
Benefits of emotional marketing
By using emotional marketing as a foundation for your business, you’re ultimately creating a competitive advantage in a crowded market of beauty products. Speaking directly to consumers’ values, experiences, and identities helps to forge a deeper, more long-term relationship between your business and its customers.
At Hera Beauty, we provide support on creating high-quality private label formulations, product development, ingredients, innovative technologies, scaling your brand, marketing and much more. If you want to discuss working together to create products that align with your customers’ values while driving your brand’s growth, get in touch today.
