Branding – Grow Your Brand

Amanda Kezios, from Mojo Spa, recently shared her tips for how to brand you handmade business successfully with HandmadeMarketing.org.

“I have been making handmade beauty products and cosmetics for ten years,” Amanda told our team at HandmadeMarketing.org.  “I understand the power of branding.”

Mojo Spa began with Amanda’s quest for the perfect lip balm. Amanda began as a personal chef, and then turned into a beauty product innovator.  She quickly made use of her talents in the kitchen to create a unique and natural lip balm.

When she first started her business, Amanda said she wanted two things:

1. Make products that were natural
2. Make sure those products were fun to use for customers

“On one hand, I noticed that natural beauty companies had plain generic packaging,” Amanda told us.  “On the other hand, the fun and trendy beauty companies produced products that were based in artificiality.”

Amanda set out to combine natural with fun.  She created the slogan “Get Your Mojo On” for hear handmade beauty product line.

“I used “Get Your Mojo On” to spark interest in people whenever I was talking to customers, interviewing, and selling my products,” she said.  “I used it on labels and packaging. Soon people were remembering the slogan more than my name!”

For Amanda, branding was a simplification of what her company embodied and what the average consumer would remember about her products.

“I took a picture of myself mixing a batch of lotion and from this created a cartoon-like two-color image that was made into a stamp, t-shirts, and signs,” she said.  “I put this image on the sign outside of my store in Chicago, on my website, everywhere. When people thought we were a large franchise, this served as a visual reminder that all the beauty products were handmade.”

For those new to selling handmade both online and office, Amanda shares her valuable advice.

“Write down what you want to be known for and what you want people to know about your products,” she suggests. “Create everything around the intersection of these ideas. Also, keep adding to and improving these ideas.”

Amanda tells sellers to always remember that things change, and your shop’s branding should be able to accommodate and improve with changes.

“In the past 2 years my slogan changed from “Get your Mojo On” to “Where Beauty Meets Comfort”. I opened the comfort spa in at my store in Wicker Park and the products I was developing created a cohesive idea of comfort. It only made sense to modify our slogan to incorporate this,” she says.

Amanda’s business has grown over the years.  Today, Mojo Spa sells over 200 innovative bath and beauty products inspired by comfort foods and nostalgic treats. Each of her products utilize natural food ingredients, aromatherapy blends, positive affirmations, healing crystals and sound therapy.   Even after her success, all products continue to remain handcrafted in small batches.

You can learn more about Mojo Spa by following their Twitter feed @MojoSpa or by visiting Mojo Spa’s website.

Share your tips for expanding and growing your business!  Why share? Our team publishes ideas from handmade sellers, artisans, and crafters.  Don’t forget to include links to your social media sites or handmade shop site in your article.  Sellers receive free press for lending their knowledge, and both new and experienced sellers alike get new ideas.  Share with HandmadeMarketing.org here.