How To Get In Contact With Celebrity Stylists To Build Your Brand
If you’re looking to build your brand, finding a celebrity to help promote your product is a great way to do it. You’ve probably heard that your best bet is to contact celebrity representatives: agents, managers, publicists, and so on. While that approach can absolutely be beneficial, if your brand is in the fashion and beauty field, then a celebrity stylist would be make more sense as they are responsible for the styling and look of the celebrity. In order to set yourself and your brand apart from the competition, you need to take a more creative approach. And a great way to do that is by skipping the agents, managers and publicists and trying another route: working with the celebrity’s stylists. Here’s what you need to know about the process.
Identify The Look
Rather than trying to figure out which celebrity best fits your brand, try looking at similar brands to yours. For example, let’s say your brand is more on the high-end or luxury side. You can look at celebrity promotions for similar brands, or even brands that aren’t an exact match that have done the kind of promotion you think would fit for your own brand. Doing this gives you two different options: first, it can help you narrow down the list of potential celebrities who might promote your product. And second, even if it doesn’t narrow things down, you’ll have a clearer idea of the type of celebrity you want to promote your brand. From there, it’s just a matter of finding out who the stylist is — that can either be the stylist for a specific celebrity or just a stylist who has a list of clients with the right “look” for your brand.
Reach Out
Once you’ve identified the look, the next step is to get in touch with the stylist you’re targeting. Figuring out a stylist’s contact information is usually a pretty simple process: if they have a social media account, some of them have an email listed in their bio. Others, you can find their information by using a celebrity stylist list. From there, it’s just a matter of drafting the email. When you email a stylist for the first time, your best bet is to keep it brief — the longer your email, the more time they’d have to spend on it, and the less likely they’ll be to read or reply to it. Once you’ve established a relationship with a stylist, you can tailor your message so they have a better idea of the celebrity you want to promote your brand; if you’re just starting out or they don’t know you, though, your product should be doing most of the talking. In your first email, you should include a very short pitch: who you are, the name of your brand, what kind of product you make, and a call to action (something like “Do you have any clients that might be interested in our products?”) Adding a call to action is always a smart idea — you’re more likely to get a response when there’s a task involved for the person receiving the email. Finally, attach a PDF with images of some of your products. Most stylists don’t have time to browse your entire catalogue, so the goal here should be to spotlight the products that best represent your brand. It might seem like a good idea to show as many products as you can, but in reality, the more products you show, the more of a chore it will be for the stylist to go through them all. Keep it brief, remember?
Things To Avoid
There’s no one surefire way to ensure a stylist reads and responds to your request. Fortunately for you, though, there are a few things you can do that will practically guarantee that the stylist ignores you. If you can avoid these mistakes, not only do you give yourself better odds of getting a response, but you’ll also communicate to the stylist that you’re professional and easy to work with.
Lookbooks
A lot of new brands send stylists a lookbook of their entire product line, figuring that the more options they can show to the stylist, the better their odds of the stylist finding the perfect fit for the brand. In reality, however, sending a lookbook is one of the worst things you can do. First off, depending on the size of your product line, lookbooks can be massive — stylists are way too busy to take an hour out of their day to sit down and open a giant lookbook for a brand they’ve never heard of. It’s simply asking too much. On top of that, stylists are used to communicating with brands via email. After all, email makes it a lot easier for them to hit “Reply” and let the brand know if they’re interested. By sending a lookbook, you take away that convenience, and that sends a subtle message to the stylist that helping your brand out is going to be a lot more work than they probably want to put in. Finally, lookbooks cost a lot of money to print; for a brand that’s trying to get its name out there, the last thing you need is to waste money you on printing costs that won’t even get results.
Phone Calls
You might also be tempted just to pick up the phone and call — it’s the most straightforward approach. But just like any other celebrity representative, stylists are busy, and they’re definitely not going to put their day on hold to take a cold call from a brand they don’t know. Email allows the stylist to have all the information they need in one place, which makes their lives that much easier.
Don’t Be Picky
Last but not least, don’t be picky or demanding. A lot of fledgling brands make this mistake: they send a great pitch and spotlight their best products, and the stylist comes back saying they have a client to whom they’d be willing to give free product on your behalf. Celebrity stylists can be more valuable in building your brand than an agent or a manager, because they know what their clients like. Plus, they’ll know how which of their clients is the best fit for your brand, which gives your product the greatest opportunity to shine. If you follow these steps (and avoid the most common mistakes), you’ll be able to build good relationships with stylists and set your brand up for tons of exposure.