Elements is an online beauty retailer. The brands carried are well-known, but there was a lack of awareness around Elements itself. Elements separates itself from competitors in the industry by carrying luxury, hard to find products and vetting all lines to ensure they’re cruelty-free.
We had great loyalty and awareness with their current customers, but needed exposure to a younger, more diverse group of people to expand their client base.
The Elements Beauty Bloggers campaign leveraged a diverse set of influential bloggers to reach a new audience for ElementsBeautyShop.com. From a frugal fashionista to a high-end beauty lover to a melanoma survivor and skin cancer prevention advocate, blogger partnerships exposed unique perspectives on the Elements brand. The results were increases in awareness, event sales, social media following and overall online sales.
While the sponsored content lived on each blogger’s site, their content was amplified across channels and integrated into the overall marketing strategy.
We leveraged social media, integrating ourselves into the blogging community. Some bloggers were drawn to our content and stood out immediately. Whitney of Worthy Style blog, for example, engaged with our Facebook content with enthusiasm.
We searched keywords and dove into social networks. We chose people in the beauty community that were looked to as experts -those already using and recommending the types of brands/products we carry.
We took a nimble approach and were also able to add new bloggers as they surfaced throughout the campaign.
Each blogger completed a survey on skincare needs/preferences. These answers were used to create a customized blogger kit full of samples, which the bloggers loved.
The first posts we collaborated with our bloggers on were about introducing them to our company and the brands we carry. We knew that the bloggers would respond well to our product because of both the secondary research we did on them and their survey results.
This first series of posts drove their readers to a Pinterest content that was part of our larger marketing strategy, and to an event we had planned for March.
Each blogger was given an exclusive discount code, which allowed us to directly track which bloggers were increasing sales most. Elements Beauty Bloggers business cards were also provided to bloggers for in-store discounts.
As soon as we saw that blogger partnerships were getting results, we increased posts for those bloggers. For bloggers with great results, we increased our investment and negotiated additional, customized content based on past performance.
Our goal with the Elements Beauty Bloggers campaign was to increase online sales. Our in-store events were part of our business-as-usual marketing campaign. We integrated the bloggers into as many aspects of our marketing as possible.
What we found was an unplanned huge impact on in-store sales with events that incorporated the bloggers. Each blogger had a loyal following and their readers were excited to see them in the “spotlight” at events.
The first in-store event that incprporated bloggers was “Treat Yourself: Girl’s Night Out With Elements of Carytown.” We saw a 60% increase in sales over the previous year’s average event sales.
The second blogger-integrated event was “Skin Is In: Spring Beauty Bash with Elements Beauty Shop.” Sales for this event increased 121% over the previous year’s average event sales.
