Kylie Jenner — A Marketing Genius To Look At?

Kylie Jenner is the 23-year-old founder of Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie Skin.

According to the recent Forbes article, Kylie’s estimated net worth is around $900 million. In March 2019, they said she was the youngest billionaire.

Billionaire or not, Kylie Jenner has some great marketing and branding skills to look at!

Her two brands are the greatest examples of her success

Let’s Talk About Her From The Beginning

Kylie Jenner belongs to Kardashians family. They are one of the most popular families in the USA. Kylie was first spotted in ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ show. When she was just 9 years old.

In the beginning, Kylie was famous because she was a part of the family which was popular on TV. Kylie was like every other teenager exciting and all. Soon she hosted a 3D show named ‘Glee’ along with her sister ‘Kendall Jenner’. This show gained a lot of eyeballs.

This show was the real bridge that started connecting Kylie towards the business.

Her Initial Footsteps Towards Business

Kylie Jenner was first exposed to business in her initial teenage days. Like her show, ‘Glee’ got popular among people and brands.Both Kylie and Kendall got into many brand endorsements.

In 2011, kylie and Kendall launched their first-ever nail polish line with Nicole by OPI dubbed “Kardashian Kolors”. This nail polish stuff became a sweet deal for both the sisters. Because they were earning 100,000$ each from it.

In 2013, Kylie and Kendall Jenner launched their fashion line and jewelry collection named ‘Kendall & Kylie’.

Besides promoting products and brands. In 2013, Kylie announced that she is being featured in a music video by ‘The Boy Band Project’. In the following years, Kylie managed herself to featured in multiple music videos. Due to this Kylie got attention of many people around the globe

Later Kylie hired a PR agency named ‘The Seed Beauty’ by Laura Thomas. They helped Kylie to grow as a brand.

2015, 2016, and Beyond….

In 2015 Kylie went through a plastic surgery and had lip fillers. A story that was a big hype in the media. Kylie shared that, she was always insecure about her lips and this let her have bad experiences with the guys.

She talked, how her first kiss went very awkward due to her small lips. Because of this all, Kylie spiked her attention on social media even more. At the end of the year. She grew her Instagram account to 50 million followers

Later in 2015, Kylie launched ‘Kylie lip kits’. Lipsticks where the only major product sold here. Kylie herself funded 250K for the collection of 15000 lip kits and the branding.

Thanks to her Instagram. She sold those 15k lip kits within seconds of the launch. Later kylie, launched her Shopify store. By February 2016, she had sold 500k lip kits. Within the first 18 months, they were estimated to have 4.2 Million Revenue Share.

Once the lip kits went viral than ever. Kylie didn’t want to stick with only lip kits. So she launched her brand ‘Kylie Cosmetics’

How Kylie Really Understands Her Consumers?

To successfully market any product. One has to satisfy their consumer and focus on their experience with the products.

Kylie certainly understood this. So far now, since the launch of ‘Kylie Cosmetics’. Kylie has been able to answer ‘Top Three Issues That Her Customers Faced!’

Addressing Fake Products:

Since ‘Kylie Cosmetics’ were growing immensely each day. Soon few fake websites started to sell the same product at a lower price. Many people started buying these and experienced the side effects of buying a cheaper option.

So Kylie went onto her Snapchat and addressed ‘How a real Kylie Cosmetics product looks like’. She had her original product compared with the fake one which was selling in the market. Later she stated, that her products where sold nowhere but only on her website

This built an awareness inside the people’s head and they started trusting Kylie even more than ever.

Fulfilling The Customer Needs

There were some customers who weren’t satisfied with the delivery of ‘Lip Kits’. Since most of deliveries were not protectively packed.

People started complaining regarding their lipsticks being spilled inside the package. So Kylie’s team came up with a more branded and protected packing option.

Kylie again announces this on her social media and made her customer feel ensure that they won’t be ever facing issues with the package.

Listening To The Consumers:

Every product that has been launched in the market isn’t the right fit for the market from the start. First companies and brands sell their products to the customers. Later they listen to their customer experiences and issues with the product. A product is always running in the market based on the buying audience responses.

Kylie launched expensive eyelashes and shadows. Soon after the launch, people were uncomfortable with its price and felt the products were too overpriced.

Soon Kylie worked on it and got the prices down. So that the customer can buy it. She announced this too on social media.

What To Learn From Kylie Jenner?

People may be thinking her life was easy. She had money and fame to work with.

Yes! I do agree that she had everything. But it’s important that even though you have everything. You become vulnerable to too much negativity.

From childhood, Kylie has been exposed to a lot of negative criticism, and handling such things from teenagers isn’t easy. Most of the critics really stood out when she hosted the show along with Kendall Jenner.

A lot of people addressed her that, ‘She became famous because of being famous’.

Capturing the Market

Our of the Blue ! In 2014, when Kylie and Kendall released their first science fiction novel.

Rebels: City of Indra

They were pounded with hatred for having a ghostwriter to do it and they aren’t smart enough to do it all by themselves. This meant very clear that Kylie’s image was just a girl with a beautiful face. She converted her image of a beauty queen into endorsing her products.

The Rightly Way To Market

For Kylie, it all took off from 2015. When she got that lip filling done and it went viral.She had rightly utilized the market value of her ‘beauty’. She doubled and tripled upon that market.

Used social media to sell her products. If you watch her promotions for her brand. Lipsticks that were sold are marked as cruelty-free and mentioned the various benefits. This attracted people to purchase her lip kits connecting with her story.

Expanding Your Market & Leverage it

Once Kylie was unstoppable with her lip kits. She utilized the space in cosmetics and built a global brand now for herself. Even in her early teens. Once Kylie’s and Kendall’s lipstick endorsement worked wonders. They got into the fashion lining and Jewellery pretty soon.

Kylie understands the importance of expanding her brand and products. Since her brand ‘Kylie Cosmetics’ started selling all cosmetic stuff. Her net worth grew rapidly.

In 2019, Kylie sold a 51% stake of Kylie Cosmetics to Coty for 600 million. Which brought her net worth close to 900$ Million.

To this date, Kylie owns approx 40% of ‘Kylie Cosmetics’. She is the brand face of both ‘Kylie Cosmetics’ and ‘Kylie Skin’.

There is always a lot to learn from Young Entrepreneurs and Kylie Jenner is definitely one of them