Sephora Squad 💄

“In the short term, the market is a voting machine, but in the long term, it's a weighing machine.” Benjamin Graham

Sephora is leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors, still building upon the strategy it launched in 2019.

In the short term, the market is a voting machine. 

UGC is 'in', quickly attracting attention, boosting short-term engagement and optimising for maximum reach.

It rewards affiliates for their conversions so, finally, marketers can accurately measure ROI of campaigns (exactly measuring the sales from unique links).

But, over the long term, the market is a weighing machine.

Building consistent relationships with customers that share your values builds trust.

And Sephora understands commerce is driven by community interactions and trust.

They do this by:

1. Assembling authentic brand ambassadors with the Sephora Squad initiative. 

2. centralizing everything in the beauty insider community and boosting engagement with gamification features.

3. Mix online with in-person brand activations.

Authentic brand ambassadors

34 million videos are posted on TikTok every day.

And everyone's telling you how powerful UGC is. 

Of course, it is a 'voting machine'.

It drives short-term, immediate attention and encourages the conversion of sales.

Not forgetting, UGC is much more trusting for consumers than traditionally branded content.

And then you remember that influencers were the most effective marketing campaign not too long ago.

Until everyone realised that these were people with loads of followers being paid to promote something they knew nothing about.

In short, it was very inauthentic, and there was no trust-building. 

If you're building an affiliate campaign with random people to just quickly, try and sell to as many customers as possible.

People are going to start to notice, and you won't differentiate yourself from your competitors running the same campaigns. 

So, to get UGC to work, you need to remember the ‘user' part.

Gymshark, someone who is truly a member of the community and is in it for the long haul, has the right idea here.

Bearing all of this in mind, in 2024, it's impressive how far ahead Sephora is, creating the 'Sephora Squad' in 2019.

This is a unique ambassador program that requires people to apply for a 'season’, which is a 12-month commitment.

They look for ambassadors regardless of looks or social media following.

Their aim is to create a roster of ambassadors that includes:

• Diverse

• Engaging with their audience 

• Willing to attend in-person events

• Enthusiastic to share engaging content 

• Keen to experiment with new products and looks

The outcome is an ambassador program of genuine community members who are authentically sharing their own tips and tricks, as well as products they actually use.

Which means their community has a diverse set of ambassadors, ensuring they can find those they truly relate to.

Engaging a community through status

I take it that most people would be happy with 6 million users in their own community area.

On top of that, the beauty insider community has 3,114,370 posts and counting.

The community is comparable to Reddit in some ways.

There is an overarching community. With different groups (like subreddits), each talking about their own topic, facilitating their members to meet and talk with others that share similar interests, styles, challenges, etc.

Allowing members to find products that resonate with their individual style.

There might be no better way to build a community than to have its own members be the guides.

Which is why Sephora has created a free resource in their community, encouraging members to work for them: Status

In these groups, members can post stories, questions, guides or anything they want.

Using gamification features, they reward people for their community contribution. 

Depending on how many likes, comments or replies people get from their contributions, they earn points.

Encouraging members to contribute in a way that the community enjoys.

These points unlock a community rank, which is a title that is displayed next to their name in the community and in their personal profile.

Which reminds me of the hours I used to grind on Call of Duty when I was a kid trying to unlock badges, titles, and banners to display on my profile. Even though absolutely nobody cared…

To encourage engagement and participation further, Sephora have created badges to reward people for how active they have been in the community.

And more titles for a level they achieve for spending money on Sephora purchases that year.

All of these accolades have been entirely made up.

But in this community, members have the opportunity to connect and share with like-minded people.

And instinctively, they want to have status within it.

Mixing online with in person

SEPHORiA is the biggest annual beauty event they host.

In 2024, it will take place in Atlanta, Paris, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, and Dubai.

Featuring:

• Masterclasses

• 50 brand activations 

• High achieving community members 

• Surprise appearances from industry experts.

Creating multiple opportunities for the brand.

Such as:

• Getting immediate feedback on products

• To build trust and meaningful connections

• Coaching customers on how to use new products

• Creating impressive moments that people will want to share on social media

Making your own squad

People trust people more than brands, and they trust community even more. I say that because a community is a group of people with shared goals, values and interests. Seeing a collective group of people that you resonate with promote a brand, is sure to build trust.

1. Find ambassadors who live and breathe your brand. They need to promote your brand/community for the long term to build trust.

2. Get the community engaging with each other. Whether this is through content trends/challenges on social media or a centralised community away from the platforms, get your members contributing. When you’re ready, find ways to gamify this participation and enable members to earn status.

3. Blend online with impactful in-person events. 

Thank you for reading.

We'll talk in the next one - stay curious.

Matt.