Sephora Direct: Investing in Social Media, Video, and Mobile

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Sephora’s competitors include department stores, drugstores and Ulta. Ulta is the biggest competitor. It has 331 stores nationwide and offers different types of beauty items that are not so expensive. Their products can be found in supermarkets and are very easy to access. There are also hair salons in each Ulta store. They provide professional stylists to guide consumers through the store and help them to purchase hair products. Ulta offers unique experience, and Sephora is trying to gain customers’ interest through the Facebook by reading comments and gives feedback directly.

Twitter is also helping Sephora to find out about customers’ interest. Followers on Twitter, who are using hash tag of Sephora, give the company information about updated news and interests. “Beauty Talk” experts discuss about consumers’ wealth and give the advice, which helps Sephora to build brand loyalty.

Using social media Sephora can lead in marketing and learn about customers. Giving them what they like and grow from the feedbacks.

- What metrics do you propose Sephora Direct use to measure the success of its digital efforts going forward?

- Online traffic to Sephora.com.

- In-store sales linked to promotions.

- Sephora Beauty insider registrations.

- Conversion Rate. (# of audience comments)

- Amplification rate (# of shares per post)

- Applause rate (# of likes per post)

- Analyze where consumers spend their time while searching on the app

- Review quarterly sales to evaluate current market share for the target

These metrics provided some understandings about Sephora’s performance. Bornstein tried to find the best way to calculate return of investment (ROI). Both Suliteanu and Bornstein believed that ROI was not an adequate metric. They tried to create a balance between building the brand and driving sales.

- What should be the strategic goal of Sephora’s digital and social marketing programs? How can Bornstein satisfy the CEO’s desire to “win” in the digital space?

The strategic goal of Sephora’s digital and social marketing programs is to be everywhere. Sephora wants their advertisements show in every single website, social media platform that people will pay attention to that.

So far Sephora is doing very good, their advertisement works well the same as the social media. By answering consumers’ questions, their online presence from advertisement is very high. Therefore, improving conversion rates by making the web site fast, simple, and easy to use. Sephora should take an advantage of Web 2.0 technologies such as virtual environments.

I think for the consumers are very important when the company listen to them. Sephora does listen to them and even answer the questions. By interacting online with the customers let Sephora win the battle among its competitors. It helps customers to come back to the website and ask for question or look for some commercial deals.

Sephora’s strategic should also be enhancing ability to trace trends. New technologies always attract new customers and keep loyal customers.

Moreover, the strategic goal of Sephora's digital and social programs should be to increase sales though apps and the company's website. There are higher profit margins with digital sales platforms due to less retail overhead. Increasing brand awareness though this medium will also allow Sephora to terminate expensive and tradition marketing programs; for example, catalog mailings. Exhibiting incremental online sales gains will satisfy the CEO's desire to win in the digital space.

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