3 Best Online Natural Hair Care Business Tips

 

The hair business is among the most profitable businesses in the country, projecting an estimated annual total of $500 billion dollars.

With such a significant amount of black women returning to their natural roots, the door has opened for many small businesses to flourish and make some serious money. Some of the most popular brands started from home; Mixed Chicks, Shea Moisture and Miss Jessie’s just to name a few.

Whether you’re just looking to make some extra money on the side or you’re trying to start your own home-based business, here are a few tips on how you can get started making money in the natural hair industry.

Using Your Natural Hair Knowledge to Make Money

 

1. Join an Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs are a good way to earn some part-time money while having to do little-no work at all. Basically, you’re making money by promoting certain products to people and once they buy the product from your website, you earn commission. The pay rates differ for each affiliate program, but it seems to usually be about 20% of your sale. Most payout rates are about $50, meaning that your customer has to buy $50 worth of products in order for you to be paid, which would earn you $10 per sale. Perks to joining an affiliate program is that you’re usually given products at discounted prices, therefore you can try them for yourself and be able to give your customers an honest review about them. The best thing to do would be to research and compare natural hair affiliate programs to find the one that’s offers the best products and pay rates for you. Read the previous article for further details.

2. eCommerce: Your Personal Online Business

One thing that is great about working from home is that you won’t have to worry about renting out expensive business space. Selling your products/services online is not only one of the most efficient ways to do business, but it will cut down on your costs which will allow you to see more profit. The online natural hair community is always searching for new and better products to care for their hair, so why not see if your business is the answer they’ve been looking for? Here are a few basics to get you started:

• Research– Understanding the market you’re entering is vital when starting an online business. You will need to view the pricing, habits and practices of successful competitors in order to see where your business will fit. Research will always be constant in your business since the market is always changing, so it will be important to stay on top of trends if you want your business to stay relevant.

 

• Know Your Customer Base –You know you will be marketing to naturals (of course), but are you going the more specific route by targeting people with locs, or are you keeping your clientèle broad? You will also need to know what attracts your customer’s eye by understanding what they look for in a product/service. Knowing your customer base will not only set you up for success, but it will allow you to weed out any unnecessary factors of your business that may not profit as well.
• Pricing –The price of your product/service will be based around the market price, but assessing how much the cost is to provide it will play an important factor as well. For instance, if you come across a competitor who lists their Argan Oil product at $4, you may also find that the majority of their product is petroleum based with about 5% of actual Argan Oil in it. On the contrary, you may find another competitor who lists their Argan Oil product at $20 and see that is composed of a host of other high quality ingredients, as well as the Argan Oil.

• Marketing– No matter how great your products are, no one will know about them unless you market them well. Thankfully enough, we live in an age where the greatest marketing tool ever created is usually right in the palm of our hands: the internet. You can acquire ad space basically anywhere on the internet that’s selling it, but you want to make sure your ads are on a site that your target audience visits frequently. From social media to popular blog sites, the possibilities are pretty much endless. The cost of ad space differs depending on the site, so if you’re trying to keep your costs down you may want to start out by just creating social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) pages for your business to try to get your name out there. One tip I suggest is marketing before you launch your website so that you’ll see some immediate profit. You can use those testimonials to secure your reputation in order to appeal to new customers. Once you generate a steady income, you’ll be able to set a fixed budget for marketing and ad space.

• Time– Creating an online business will definitely take time, so if you’re a working business professional you may need to work on this during your down time. Once your website is up and running it may also take some time to generate a steady clientèle base, but try to be patient and stay positive. If you don’t have many hits, you may want to go back and review what you may need to change. You may find some mistakes that could be the difference between seeing no profit and seeing big profit.

3. Become a Blogger

Blogging is pretty easy for those who are gifted writers. With the natural hair care business (or any another niche), there’s plenty of opportunities for Black women as previously indicated in the past. The main thing about blogging is consistency; subscribers are more likely to stay with an active blog site that posts relevant content. Be sure not to overwhelm your audience with too many posts- posting about 3x a week should be good. A website with great in-depth instructions on how to start a profitable blog is Retireat21.com, but here are the main points on how the money is made:

• Google AdSense– With GoogleAdSense, you’re basically renting out space on your blog for advertisements from other companies. You have the say in what ad content you allow on your blog, and the process is very simple. Just sign up with Google AdSense to get started. If your site is new and doesn’t generate a lot of traffic, you initially won’t make that much money due to the fact that you get paid per page view. Once you get a constant stream of viewers and subscribers, you’ll begin to rack in a good amount of money.
• Affiliates– Refer back to “Joining an Affiliate Program,” above.

• Sponsored Reviews-Sponsored reviews probably generate the majority of the natural hair care blogger’s income. Companies send you products for free and ask you to use and review them, honestly, on your blog. How easy is that? What you need to focus on with these reviews is honesty because readers are usually very good at spotting a B.S. review. One negative thing about sponsored reviews is that you may wind up with more products than you have room for, unnecessary items that you may never use again, or things that you just don’t like.

[Black Owned Beauty Supply Association]

Things To Consider

Just like any business, in order for any of these processes to work you need to put in the time and effort, but you also need to be passionate about what you are doing.

If you’re a professional business woman, make sure to choose something that doesn’t need your constant attention and time. Also, don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to do too many things at once.

[SFBAY View: BOBSA Founder Sam Ennon Meets With Chinese Gov. & Hair Manufacturers]

If you find that you don’t have the time to manage a blog, shut it down and try something else. On the other hand, if you’re self-employed (freelancing, small business owner, etc.), try something that will generate a good amount of income during times when your personal business isn’t making much money. You may find that doing a part-time blog generates a lot more income than your freelancing work.

Working a home-based business can be a simple process, but it can also turn out to be very strenuous so don’t put more on your plate than you can chew.

Since you’re working from home, you have ample opportunity to take some time for yourself in between the madness. In the words of Janelle Monae, “Everything is about balance. You can’t work, work, work, work without any play.”