The sustainable Luxembourgish cosmetics company Amatera had placed its bets on crowdfunding for the launch of its new product in this pandemic. The Ulule campaign just ended with a bang -the first phase over attaining at 123%.
“The participatory financing made it possible to make the brand known during the confinement, because consumers bought more on the internet”, analyses Dominique Nemery, creator of Amatera, a new brand of cosmetic products designed in Luxembourg and manufactured in Belgium. She quickly understood how to seduce a community of confined internet users by hosting live Instagram twice a week on themes associated with beauty: well-being, food, sport… in a resolutely holistic approach.
Amatera’s communication plan is essentially based on Inbound marketing including an Instagram account where the tone is set: feminine (although the products are sold as unisex), natural, vegan, healthy, spiritual, and transparent! “The new ISO standard allows a minimum of 5% of natural products to be indicated on the packaging. With us, it’s 100%, with ingredients concentrated in active principles. What we can’t do in 100% natural, we don’t do. That’s why we don’t make sunscreen products. »
Pop-up funding for sustainable projects
The next step for the company is also to launch the marketing of “my Elixir”, the latest face care oil in the range. Before a possible fundraising in 2021… The objective would then be to expand the team, to develop the current range of products sold online, but also to open one or more pop-up stores in Luxembourg, Belgium and France to offer consumers the opportunity to test the products, among other brands by young designers.
The current range consists of six products, to which the new “Elixir” will soon be added. Dominique also wants to launch the production of a make-up remover, masks and a body range within the next two years. Amatera has its products manufactured by a Belgian laboratory, “because there is no equivalent in Luxembourg” under the supervision of a doctor of pharmacy.
Growing outside the comfort zone
At the age of 42, Dominique Nemery left a life of employment to become a consultant by founding the Luxembourg-based firm Excellia Consult. She recorded a TEDx on this occasion to talk about this first change in her life… At the age of 50, she launched into cosmetics by creating her own brand in 2019 and has been dedicated to this since then.
How does one go from financial consulting to selling natural beauty products? By listening to her convictions and her life desires… quite simply. Dominique used to make care products for herself with natural ingredients in much larger proportions than those sold in the shops. She had the idea to move to a larger scale manufacturing, which obviously implies precise rules regarding health tests, legally manufacturing and selling under European law, one of the strictest in the world.
“I started from the concept of positive beauty. If you feel good about your body and your skin, you have self-confidence, it’s a phenomenon of radiation that leads you to think about your life in a more positive way.
No bluster about the bottle, the logo or a useless slogan… The young Luxembourg brand is banking on direct sales in B to C, at least at the start. “This way, I avoid the distribution relays which can sometimes be as high as 2.5%, which allows me to sell my products at the right price. The target markets are France, Luxembourg and Belgium, which are short circuit, but Dominique Nemery has already received orders from Germany and Switzerland.
Photo: Amatera’s founder Dominique Nemery © Maria Mikulas
