The Handmade Beauty Box!!

HBN hears from members from all walks of life around the country (and even the globe with members in Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Canada and the UK!) and one of the things heard most is, "How can HBN help me get the word out about my products?"

November 2005 :: The Organic Handmade Beauty Box For Natural Health Magazine!!

Along with Bella PR, a standout PR firm in New York with valuable connections with beauty editors at the nation's most popular women's magazines, HBN is pleased to announce The Handmade Beauty Box! The Handmade Beauty Box is a special collection of products hand delivered to a beauty editor at a popular long lead (lead time of 6 months or more) women's magazine. The Handmade Beauty Box will be sent to a beauty editor and it will contain up to 15 HBN member products -- the cream of the handmade beauty crop! 

The Handmade Beauty Box is a beautiful white box into which member products are placed and they are then hand delivered to the beauty editor. The box also contains a professionally prepared press release listing each participating member and an overview of their enclosed product, and any marketing materials provided by the member.

Participation in the Handmade Beauty Box is perfect for members who are not quite ready to invest the thousands of dollars necessary to retain their own publicist on a full-time basis, yet they want to try to get the word out about their products to the largest possible audience, creating buzz, more customers and the all-important features needed on a "media" page at their websites. Each Handmade Beauty Box targets a different women's publication. For November 2005, the featured publication is Natural Health Magazine. With over 700,000 readers, Natural Health Magazine is a great tool to reach women interested in learning about the unique benefits of organic personal care products. To learn more about the magazine, visit their website. The July 2005 Handmade Beauty Box was delivered to the beauty editor at Self Magazine! The September 2005 Handmade Beauty Box was delivered to Shape Magazine!

Who Should Participate In The Handmade Beauty Box!!

Anyone who wants the next best thing to having their own publicist!

The Handmade Beauty Box is a great opportunity for anyone who wishes to expand brand awareness for their products, which often increases sales too! HBN offers different ways to help members do this. For those who want to do it themselves, there's the HBU class on how to be your own publicist. For those who are further along in the process, we offer more targeted one-on-one public relations services through Bella PR. We have also had periodic Media Blitzes where HBN members have opportunities to respond to requests from editors for specific types of products.

The Handmade Beauty Box offers a different opportunity for members who are ready to go to the "next level" with regard to their public relations efforts, but not prepared to invest the resources each month to retain a publicist of their own. It's perfect for people who wish to become featured in a particular magazine and the best part is that it's practically risk-free. If a product is not selected for inclusion in a Handmade Beauty Box, the check sent in by the member will be destroyed and product feedback and a brief explanation of why the product was not included will be provided to the member. In such a case, for the price of shipping the products, you get valuable feedback from a New York publicist and HBN, plus it's possible that the products you sent in, though not right for a particular Handmade Beauty Box, could be circulated in another way to benefit your business. Read more about this below.

How To Get Your Products Into The Handmade Beauty Box!!

All of these details will be announced with each Handmade Beauty Box Event, but an overview is here.

1. Periodically, the Handmade Beauty Connection will contain a department called Handmade Beauty Box. This department will announce appropriate deadlines for sending products and the magazine for that month. (This month -- November 2005, Natural Health Magazine is the chosen magazine and organic products and product containing a significant portion of organic ingredients are requested.)

2. The price to participate in each Handmade Beauty Box promotion is $250. Two of the same product are required to be submitted; one for HBN and one for Bella PR. Checks should be made payable to the Handmade Beauty Network. An individual product should weigh no more than approximately 16 oz. If you send a spa kit, it should be in a plastic zip or snap closure kit and weight no more than around 32 oz. Please do not send baskets -- they will not be sent. Also, shrink wrap seems to have a tendency to split in shipping so don't send products wrapped in shrink wrap. Products must be sent for each individual promotion -- HBN will not warehouse or store products for future Handmade Beauty Box promotions. Each Handmade Beauty Box submission must be paid for separately.

Please send the check and products to Handmade Beauty Network, 7613 Old Chapel Drive, Bowie, MD 20715. Products must be postmarked by November 20, 2005 in order to be considered.

3. Products are reviewed for appropriateness by HBN and Bella PR. If a product is not selected for inclusion in a Handmade Beauty Box, the check sent in by the member will be destroyed and a brief explanation of why the product was not included will be provided to the member. Non-selected products will not be returned but will be used by HBN for possible product reviews in the newsletter and kept by Bella PR for possible forwarding to a media representative if appropriate at a later date. Products that are selected for inclusion will be hand-delivered to the beauty editor in the Handmade Beauty Box and the included members will receive notification of when that occurs, and a copy of the press release that is included in the Handmade Beauty Box with their products. Products that are not postmarked by the deadline contained in the announcement will not be returned and will not receive the feedback, but their checks will be destroyed.

4. THE ARE NO GUARANTEES THAT ANY MEMBER OR PRODUCT THAT IS FEATURED IN THE HANDMADE BEAUTY BOX WILL BE FEATURED IN A PUBLICATION. Editors receive thousands of products regularly from thousands of companies across the globe. In this case, HBN member products will be beautifully displayed in a hand-delivered customized box, thus making the best impression possible. Still, we cannot guarantee any feature will result. If members are featured, sometimes the publication lets us know; sometimes they don't. Bella PR maintains relationships with the beauty editors and subscribes to all of the publications that will be included in the Handmade Beauty Box promotions so it is likely that features will be discovered, and when they are featured members will be notified immediately.

5. When members are featured in a publication as a result of participating in the Handmade Beauty Box, their features will be announced in the Handmade Beauty Connection. Participating members agree that photographs of their products displayed in the Handmade Beauty Box may be used at HBN's website.

6. Other details may apply for a particular publication and if so, these will be announced in the individual email announcements.

7. Remember that this feature is for ORGANIC PRODUCTS. Remember also that the magazine is a long lead publication, which means products sent in now will not likely be considered for inclusion in the publication until at least spring or summer 2006. We do not necessarily get any notice of members who are included so keep that in mind. If your product is featured, it might be with no notice and you may have to ramp production up considerably right after the magazine is published if readers are interested in buying! Again, there are no guarantees, but these are things to consider!