Kylie Jenner turned her fame on the Kardashians’ reality TV show into e-merchandising opportunities. In the process, she arrived at wealth. Very few people within her age, and level of fame, could boost of that ingenuity. She was recently placed on Forbes list of young billionaires. As at March 2019, the 21-year old reality show star was worth $1 billion.
Curiously, her wealth didn’t come from merely appearing on the reality show, but from a strong line of personal beauty and fashion merchandise marketed heavily to 148 million instagram followers. Heck, that is a lot of followers (no, say market) isn’t it?
Kylie understood the true definition of market. A market isn’t about a particular place, but a set of people who posses buying capacity. It doesn’t matter if such people are far or near, so long they can be reached with a product through promotion, they present marketing opportunity. So today, the largest market is on the social media – not only the high streets and local stores.
When Jenner opened her Kylie Cosmetics line in 2016 she began promoting to her instagram followers. She used her fame on the screen to building an affordable make-up but quality products that many generation Zers were willing to pay for, own and rebuy.
The strong proposition of popular image,quality and affordability was an easy sell to the target market of vanity-driven young people who make up the bulk of Kylie’s followers on Instagram and Twitter especially.
By 2017, the kylie Cosmetics line had sold $330 million worth of make-up products; the next year, precisely 2018, that sales revenue rose by 100% to $630 million. That was ingenious.
Recently, the young mother put up a video post on Instagram where she sang to her child. The title of that song was ‘Rise and Shine’. That song went viral. It didn’t stop there though.
Do you know the ingenious thing Kylie and her marketing team did next? They printed ‘Rise and Shine’ on some affordable shirts, and began to market them via the thekylieshop on Instagram. That wasn’t all; they also pushed that merchandise heavily through e-mail channels. Orders are still pouring in.
Here are the 3 lessons to adopt from Kylie Jenners e-merchandising techniques:
a. She understood positioning is key- It is hard to ignore an affordable, quality product with a strong image. Kylie’s products are not just popular, and quality, but they are also affordable.
b. She understood fame is a currency- The 21 year old turned her famous name into merchandises. She didn’t wait to become an ambassador and influencer for another brand; she owned and milk her fame by placing her name on quality and affordable products.
c. The use of social media – The social media is the market of today, tomorrow, and the farthest future. Every 1000 follower on your social media account is a market. They are not there for you to ‘meet and greet’, you have to derive value from them. Kylie Jenner deploys strategic video contents and daily engagement to interact and sell to her 148 million followers (I said market earlier).
