How Kulfi Beauty evolved its marketing strategy

After paying many years functioning in the natural beauty business at brand names like Estée Lauder and Ipsy, Priyanka Ganjoo made a decision to start off just one of her possess.

In 2021, she established Kulfi, a cosmetics firm motivated by her South Asian heritage—Kulfi is the identify of a South Asian dessert that is comparable to ice cream. “I discovered that there had been however not products and solutions that actually ended up created for my undertone, which is a small little bit olive and gold. A whole lot of South Asian people today have that undertone,” she instructed us.

Ganjoo said she also felt compelled to start out Kulfi because of the “emotional gap” she observed even though conducting market investigation, focus teams, and interviews. “I uncovered a very little gap, which I get in touch with the ‘emotional hole,’ which was that lots of of us didn’t truly feel gorgeous escalating up due to the fact we didn’t see magnificence consultant of us and celebrating us,” she claimed.

Kulfi sells staples like eyeliner, blush, and concealer, as perfectly as merch like a crewneck and headband. The model was element of Sephora’s Speed up method, a model incubator supporting founders of color, and is now bought at the retailer. Ganjoo instructed us that considering that partnering with Sephora, Kulfi has scaled generation 5x.

According to Ganjoo, she in the beginning commenced constructing the brand through a blog termed Kulfi Bites. “The weblog was seriously about showcasing underrepresented voices, conversing about elegance, wellness—all the matters that we could relate to culturally,” she stated.

Posts coated a array of subjects, which includes profession guidance and individual essays. Ganjoo herself contributed a submit about her shifting definition of elegance, while a publish from contributor Aleenah Ansari chronicled her knowledge likely to remedy as a queer lady of shade. In addition to the site, Ganjoo said the firm grew an audience for the brand organically by way of Instagram and TikTok.

She claimed Kulfi’s advertising and marketing tactic has transitioned around time from 1 “very focused on organic” manufacturer-constructing to its current strategy, which integrates a lot more compensated marketing the brand has recently been tests paid adverts on Instagram and TikTok.

The brand name has also shifted the tales it at the time advised on Kulfi Bites about to Instagram and TikTok as it seems to be to leverage movie. For instance, a recent “get all set with me” Instagram video clip featured a creator discussing psychological wellbeing, describing it as a subject matter that is “often relegated to taboo” across the South Asian diaspora.

Previous 12 months, the model utilized TikTok to assist it discover people today to product for a marketing campaign involving a products launch in Sephora: Kulfi posted a TikTok featuring Ganjoo spreading the term about its casting contact, encouraging “BIPOC, females, and LGBTQ+ individuals” to apply. 

“We got like 1,000 applications, which was incredible, and we ended up capable to attribute them. It turned a instant of group celebration, since they observed themselves on Sephora.com,” she stated. Products provided electronic creator Issah Malik and chemist Asia Charge.

Apart from social, Ganjoo explained the model employs SMS and e-mail as section of its advertising mix, where it sees “very higher engagement.” Whilst the manufacturer celebrates South Asian elegance, finally, Ganjoo is performing to position Kulfi as available to all customers, including all those who may perhaps not be South Asian.

“If you’re a man or woman of shade who commences a model, it instantly turns into what I simply call, estimate-unquote, the ethnic classification, that only folks who are South Asian are going to use,” Ganjoo mentioned. “[For] my model, which is not accurate. I use models that arrive from distinctive cultures, appear from various destinations, for the reason that I delight in them and I locate price in them.”