What marketing factors drive women in the U.S. and UK to engage directly with beauty brands? This was the question behind new research from integrated commerce marketing firm Yotpo, which has released its new Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Beauty Trends Report. Survey respondents are eCommerce shoppers who say they prefer to buy beauty products directly from brands instead of third-party retailers like Sephora or Amazon.
“We have a front row seat to the rise of digital-first beauty brands changing the face of beauty, with the type of products they’re creating and who they’re creating it for,” said Tomer Tagrin, CEO & co-founder of Yotpo, in a news release. “As these brands grow, we surveyed beauty consumers to provide brands with insight into the values and marketing strategies that can help deepen relationships with their customers.”
Key findings include:
Diversity dominates beauty buys
Just as inclusive sizing has become a rallying cry in fashion, the call for diversity now reverberates in the beauty industry. More than 7 in 10 women say it impacts their buying decision. Women prefer to buy from brands whose ads feature a variety of ethnicities (75.3 percent) and show women of different body types (84 percent).
When considering a brand, which factors most resonate with you?
Social proof provides the strongest purchase influence
When it comes to influencing women to shop from a specific beauty brand, 44.7 percent say customer reviews are most influential, with referrals from friends a close second at 44.5 percent. Both outpace TV commercials (17.7 percent), digital and social media ads (10.2 percent), and offline ads (6.8 percent), combined.
The brand Is more influential than influencers
A brand’s ‘direct’ marketing channels: email (17.4 percent), social media accounts (14 percent), and even product packaging (14.6 percent) each have more influence on a woman’s decision to buy than endorsements from influencers and celebrities (11.6 percent).
Most influential in generating purchase consideration:
UK Millennials are more price sensitive, eCommerce-friendly
More UK Millennials (52 percent) buy directly from a beauty brand than their U.S. counterparts (39 percent) because the prices are better. Sixty percent of Millennials in the UK prefer buying from a brand’s eCommerce site, while 61 percent of Americans prefer to buy from a physical location or pop-up shop.
How to turn products from nice-to-have to have-to-have
We’ve all done it—succumbed to buying that product we didn’t truly “need.” The #1 thing that convinces women of every generation to make a discretionary purchase are positive customer reviews (60.2 percent). After that brands need to get more specific if they want to appeal to a certain generation. For example, GenZ is most influenced by influencers/celebrities (34 percent) as well as Instagram popularity (32 percent); Millennials and GenX are influenced by customer photos (36 percent and 28 percent, respectively) and customer videos (31 percent and 19 percent, respectively).
Most influential in generating purchase consideration:
“The findings from our Beauty Trends survey prove that a brand’s ability to reflect consumers’ personal values can have a huge impact on marketing effectiveness,” commented Tagrin. “Brands should rethink how they reflect those values across every marketing touchpoint, from reviews and photos to social media, down to even their packaging.”
Download the full report here.
Yotpo’s D2C Beauty Trends Report presents findings from a survey of 1,875 U.S. and U.K. women (ages 14 – 73) administered via Pollfish between January 16 and February 4, 2019.
