Since its start, Beauty Barrage has delivered thoughtful, immersive in-store brand experiences that today’s research-smart consumers embrace.

A growing number of brands have looked to arm retail partners with insights into products entering the market, knowing that to break through the noise they have to “wow” the consumer with everything from science-backed formulations to tips and tricks for day-to-day wear. It’s a good strategy when done right — and no one does it better than the brands partnered with Beauty Barrage.

Created by Sonia Summers, a beauty maverick who has leveraged her unprecedented breadth of industry experience to transform burgeoning brands into market leaders, Beauty Barrage helps emerging and established brands in need of full—service sales management and field sales support. The Beauty Barrage team understands the challenge of limited resources and enlists its over 300 brand ambassadors, equipped with the latest brand intel, to educate both consumers and retail associates in-store.

A phrase that Summers often applies to her work is “evolve or die,” referencing the need to always be adding, detracting and turning the heat up on the recipe for success she shares with brands. Still, the main ingredient has always been education – teaching the consumer and the retailer about their products and their company.

“There are so many important facts about a product from what’s in it, like the ingredients, how it’s made, packaged,” explains Summers, founder and chief executive officer of Beauty Barrage. “Then there is the how do I apply properly? Why do I need it?”

And, put simply, it’s a brand’s responsibility to answer all those questions for the consumer.

“We all know how crowded the beauty space is so when a customer can lean on the education they receive from a brand – they feel a connection. Retailers depend on brands to educate their associates. How can they recommend the product and help sell for you if they don’t know all the details of the product?”

When Beauty Barrage partners with a brand, one of the first steps is to look at marketing calendars the brand has for each retailer to understand the company’s strategy. An education plan that touches on each focus is built monthly. This way the Beauty Barrage team knows what is happening at each retailer. Each program is customized to fit into the brand’s overall strategy – the plan can never be cookie-cutter as it is created to highlight the points of difference and stand out at retail.

Importantly, these nuances take into account scale of education from large audiences to one-on-one interaction and the retailers that the brand will be working with.

“Every program is different,” said Summers. “We have educated groups of hundreds for retailers that include sales associates and managers. Our brand training courses cover anywhere from 20 to over a hundred brand ambassadors. We do live training, video training and build content that we feed our team weekly. And we continuously add new ways for our team to learn and retain information, so we gamify some things, create videos and of course reading materials.”

Often, said Summers, even when a brand has its own internal education team that works with Beauty Barrage, they don’t educate each month. In these cases, she said, they “love that Beauty Barrage is helping to push the information and lead with education. We love when a brand has an education team and vice versa because we understand the importance of education and we work together to create the program.”

Moreover, to uniquely create experts to send into the field, Beauty Barrage has built a proprietary training program that level sets all beauty knowledge. Often the team will add someone to the team from a specific retailer or brand but still gets the “reset” treatment with training that educates on the science of skin, makeup of hair, sensorial effects of fragrance and application of makeup. This training spans from tools and appliances to products.

“Beauty Barrage covers all categories in beauty, so we want to prepare and set a base to then layer on the education from a specific brand,” said Summers. “Our team of brand ambassadors are educated every single month to keep them abreast on all brand info and selling tactics. Our teams have various touch points for each brand, and we can cover product information for a new launch to the focus on hydration for a lip product or a new ingredient being added to a formula. Sales training is always covered as that is always the end goal for every brand partner.”

Consistency of education is paramount for brand ambassadors and a large part of this is making sure that the field teams feel supported and enjoy connecting with their home office or management. Notably, Beauty Barrage’s team of brand ambassadors are W2 employees and never freelancers, which has created a sense of commitment and belonging.

What Does Medical-Grade Formulation Mean at Mainstream Beauty Retail?

Science-backed skin care brand SkinCeuticals shares its custom formulation for in-store education with Beauty Barrage.

At Beauty Barrage, education is the key component to ensuring brand ambassadors are not only knowledgeable but confident about the brands and products they represent when they are in-store. Their knowledge translates to store employees, customers and then of course sales.

For brands like SkinCeuticals, which leads with an ingredient-first approach as the beauty industry’s leading medical aesthetic skin care brand, translating knowledge to the end consumers is not only an outstanding task, but one that is often necessary in a retail setting. Underlining this importance, SkinCeuticals partnered with Beauty Barrage as its exclusive retail field team to support BlueMercury, its only brick-and-mortar retailer outside of physician’s offices.

The partnership between SkinCeuticals and Beauty Barrage is primarily led with education. SkinCeuticals has its own team that supports the medical professionals and by working with Beauty Barrage allows the ability to reach more people where the SkinCeuticals team can focus on the elevated nature and knowledge in the medical environment and Beauty Barrage can focus on how the products can be positioned and spoken to at the retail level.

Beauty Barrage’s team of brand ambassadors are knowledgeable about the skin and skin care (all of Beauty Barrage’s brand ambassadors begin with Beauty Barrage Bootcamp Skin Physiology 101 providing a base layer), but also able to speak to SkinCeuticals products in a digestible and relatable way when they are in-store.

“SkinCeuticals has found that Beauty Barrage as their exclusive retail field sales support team is the right choice as Beauty Barrage truly is the retail expert in in-store support,” said Angela Hildebrand, general manager of SkinCeuticals. “The Beauty Barrage corporate and field team’s experience specifically in the retail environment helps provide an added layer of knowledge to the doors they support.”

Key for the Beauty Barrage brand ambassadors to learn when working with SkinCeuticals are the signature three-step regimen that is part of the SkinCeuticals mission for every customer to follow: prevent, correct and protect. Whether a customer already uses one of the SkinCeuticals cult favorite antioxidant items, or they are new to the line, helping the customer learn or expand their SkinCeuticals knowledge and product usage is a win.

Beauty Barrage provides continual education to its SkinCeuticals brand ambassadors monthly, adding coaching, selling techniques and as needed, small group training sessions. This ongoing education, said Hildebrand, is imperative especially given the science-driven category of the brand, and checks for retention and accuracy of brand knowledge. The combined approach also supports an educational environment prime for SkinCeuticals as a backed-by science brand with products that have been proven effective with clinical testing.

“Many customers are very knowledgeable about ingredients, but being able to build the basket in a signature customized approach specific for the customers’ needs is where Beauty Barrage has excelled,” said Hildebrand. “Due to the signature approach to regimen building for SkinCeuticals, and the in-depth, consistent training the brand ambassadors have on a monthly at minimum basis, the brand ambassadors are armed with the training and knowledge to explore the customer’s needs and then build out the customer’s SkinCeuticals regimen.”

It’s the difference of giving customers in-store access to someone with insights into SkinCeuticals products and research. According to SkinCeuticals, 57 percent of the customers who interact with a Beauty Barrage brand ambassador purchase a full three-step full-size regimen during their visit. SkinCeuticals’ range of products have specific formulations and ingredients that Beauty Barrage’s field team has been trained to thoroughly recommend building a SkinCeuticals regimen.

“As a science-backed brand with the medical authority, it is crucial to have a knowledgeable team that can properly represent the brand confidently and specifically for the retail environment,” said Hildebrand. “Building trust and relationships with the customers and store team is key.”

Impressively, nearly 63 percent of the SkinCeuticals customers that brand ambassadors have worked with are their repeat customers.

“Further reinforcing the confidence base of brand knowledge, the brand ambassadors have been trained through our Beauty Barrage educators, and the trust they build during every customer interaction,” said Hildebrand. “The Beauty Barrage brand ambassadors are the product experts and when they are in-store they are also educating the BlueMercury store employees, providing brand and product knowledge to the store team during each visit and ensuring retention.”

From surveys taken by brand ambassadors at the end of every shift, SkinCeuticals and Beauty Barrage have learned that of the stores they support, three-quarters of the store team members have the same level of product and brand knowledge as the brand ambassador.

SkinCeuticals has been partners with Beauty Barrage since 2019 and together have continually met set goals, along with excelling in additional KPIs.

“We appreciate working with Beauty Barrage for their exceptional education expertise,” said Hildebrand. “Their corporate education team goes above and beyond to ensure our brand ambassadors are well-versed in the latest product launches, product by skin type, ingredients, or other basket building strategies on a regular basis. Their team is prepared when they go in-store. This not only boosts our confidence in our partnership, but also supports our performance goals.”

Education at the Root

Clean hair care brand  Innersense Organic Beauty discusses finding a partner in Beauty Barrage.

Hair care is on the rise as one of the fastest growing categories in beauty.

The increased interest in hair care has played out across social media with videos tagged #ScalpTreatment and #ScalpCare on TikTok seeing 225.1 million and 965.2 million views, respectively, as reported by WWD.

According to NPD Group, it’s a category that both retailers and salons are betting on, seeing scalp care products grow 47 percent in the prestige market alone in 2022 and the hair category overall increasing 22 percent.

It’s great news for hair care brands who have a captivated audience of consumers looking for new products and brands to try, but with so many launches entering stores today it also makes it challenging to stand out.

For brands like Innersense Organic Beauty, which checks all of the boxes for today’s consumer from being developed by two seasoned beauty professionals to providing salon performance formulas that are clean and sustainable, standing out for a consumer or stylist could be as simple as sharing its story with the consumer. But how do you get that message across from a spot on the shelf? Enter Beauty Barrage.

Beauty Barrage’s team of skilled, industry experts craft bespoke strategies built to educate consumers at every level and make elevated recommendations during product consideration. Strategies include training in beauty categories, retailers, making sales and finally unique brands, with consistent training that includes weekly and monthly updates and retention checks. What’s more, once Beauty Barrage’s educated brand ambassadors are in-store, they teach not only the consumer but the retailers’ permanent staff as well.

Here, Greg Starkman, founder and chief executive officer of Innersense talks to Fairchild Studio about standing out at retail, building its unique partnership with Beauty Barrage, the importance of educating the consumer on hair health.

Fairchild Studio: What is the key difference you have found in working with Beauty Barrage?

Greg Starkman: Beauty Barrage places a major emphasis on brand education. We partner monthly with the Beauty Barrage team to host live education training between the brand ambassadors and our in-house professional salon team. The BAs evangelize our brand message of clean, pure, beauty and deliver the best in-class education to our retail partners and customers. In turn this education builds confidence with consumers and generates brand loyalty.

Fairchild Studio: Why is it so important that consumers have access to someone in-store that knows insights into Innersense Organic Beauty?

G.S.: Having knowledgeable Beauty Barrage beauty ambassadors is critical to our in-store success. With new consumers seeking healthier beauty choices, beauty ambassadors can educate and direct the consumer to the right Innersense product and provide in-store hair diagnostics.

Fairchild Studio: Why is this particularly important for the hair category and the brand’s clean formulas?

G.S.: Clean Hair care is the fastest-growing segment in beauty. Consumers are looking for products that meet a higher standard and perform. There is simply not enough room on the bottle to tell the complete story. Having a brand ambassador to educate the brand point of difference brings authenticity to the brand.

Fairchild Studio: What are the obstacles you have faced as a brand to stand out at retail and how has Beauty Barrage’s retail strategy helped Innersense Organic Beauty overcome that?

G.S.: In a highly competitive retail environment with many brands communicating similar messages, Beauty Barrage’s education focused strategy encourages brand ambassadors to differentiate our products above competitors.’ We know our consumers are label readers. The beauty ambassadors’ knowledgeable interactions provide another level of support and education to consumers looking for clean beauty.

Beauty Barrage has been vital in bringing visibility to our brand, educating our retail partners, and building sales. The Beauty Barrage team understands the challenges brands face in retail and brings thoughtful strategic solutions to navigating this ever-evolving retail environment.

Fairchild Studio: When consumers are learning about Innersense Organic Beauty in-store, what is the key differentiator they need to learn about? 

G.S.: Innersense is a pioneer in clean hair care innovation. Our roots as salon stylists and commitment to organic chemistry are what set us apart from the competition in the market.

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