How Clarins Used Social Media To Increase Consumer Engagement During COVID-19
The in-store experience is of great importance for customers who are looking for beauty products. How do we know if the moisturizer is the right one without trying on our skin? How do we know if the serum fits well in our skincare routine without asking expert advisors for advice? Clarins, the French luxury skincare, cosmetics, and perfume company, is well-known for its highly crafted in-store experiences, where beauty specialists walk customers through the benefits of each product and help create the perfect skincare routine for their individual needs.
However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent lockdown changed everything. While Clarins traditionally relied on their numerous stores to deliver products and services to customers, they had to reinvent the way to communicate with customers. So they shifted their focus to e-commerce and moved on to social media. It turned out that they did do a good job in continue to offer a top-quality customer experience on digital platforms.
Now, let’s take a look at what they have done and see if they can give us some insights into digital marketing.
It Begins With Social Listening
Social listening has played an important role in Clarins’ marketing strategy. It basically consists of the process of tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your brand and then analyzing them for insights to adjust certain actions.
As Clarins decided to take everything online during the pandemic, they first took to a social listening platform. By collecting and analyzing data, they noticed a shift in consumer behavior. That is, people were more interested in skincare than makeup since they spend more time at home. Also, people have more time to take care of themselves.
Using this insight, Clarins changed its user-interaction messages. They shifted their focus and used social media campaigns to promote their new skincare products. They also added more Clarins Beauty Coaches to offer weekly live video content with topics like self-care tutorials. And they continued to evolve the content strategy based on results of social listening.
Then Comes The Social Media Campaign
Consumer insights drawn from social listening also led Clarins to find that their consumers loved the in-store client service. With a deeper understanding of the demography and what kind of content works best, Clarins interacted with customers online with the goal of replicating the experience that consumers had at the stores. So they sought help from Rebecca Jones, beauty coach at Clarins. She started sharing skincare rituals online via Instagram Stories.
Consumers liked these DIY skincare rituals and were eager to replicate the same at home. This is where consultations from Clarins came in. Unable to continue the physical sessions, Clarins started the online service called Clarins & Me, where their beauty specialists would advise, coach, and share their knowledge of skincare with consumers one to one via online appointment.
The video consultation service also achieved great success from the start. According to Deborah Holloway, digital media manager at Clarins, they were able to achieve click-through rates of 0.6%, with low cost-per-click compared to other media campaigns. Their wider paid media strategy also generated 30,000 website visits from social media whilst stores were closed in the first lockdown in March 2020.
Changing marketing strategy in response to the pandemic was a tough challenge for beauty brands during the pandemic. But that didn’t stop Clarins from reinventing itself. With social listening, the data enabled them to gain a better understanding of consumers and adjust their communication with customers online. And with the one-to-one online consultation sessions, they increased customer engagement. That’s why Clarins still kept customers satisfied and generated good revenue despite the closure of physical stores during the pandemic.
