If you’ve stumbled across here wondering about Glossier Cosmetic’s secrets to making it to the top, brace yourself. You’re about to find out everything about their marketing strategy in this case study of Glossier Cosmetics!
Glossier, founded in 2014 by Emily Weiss, is all the rage among millennials today. It offers uncomplicated and highly effective skincare and makeup with clean and minimalistic packaging.
To take a step further, all Glossier products are dermatologist-tested and formulated for all skin types.
The brand promotes its approach to enhancing natural beauty and self-care. This is a concept that is highly valued in the beauty industry today.
Glossier is a digitally native beauty brand, meaning that it was born online and operated mainly through e-commerce sales channels.
Cosmetic marketing on social media provides brands with a large platform and a million brand-building opportunities. But this also means that they have the task of cutting through all the noise.
They do this by keeping up with the trend and creating compelling content that captures their audience immediately.
Glossier’s approach towards digital brand building and marketing is top-tier, considering they have the beauty industry in the palm of their hand.
If you’re looking for something specific, don’t worry, we got you. Here’s a TL:DR for you –
- Create strong connections with your audience
- Market your products uniquely
- Make the best of the DTC
- Use social media strategically
- Create an impactful brand image
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Where did it all start?
Emily Weiss, the founder of Glossier, started her journey as a beauty blogger when she launched a successful blog called “Into The Gloss”.
She engaged her readers and produced a loyal fan base which helped her kickstart the business she began in 2014.
Using her former fashion assistant skills and experience, Weiss focused Glossier on simplicity, self-care, and enhancement of natural beauty rather than focusing on changing aspects of one’s appearance.
She then partnered with a chemist in California to develop a batch of Glossier’s first-ever products. These included a moisturizer and face mist, balm, and a sheer skin tint.
Today, with 2.8 million Instagram followers and a $1.2 billion valuation, Glossier’s catalog consists of a carefully curated selection of cosmetics and skincare.
Although typically small, Glossier focuses more on quality than quantity. Glossier’s products range from the basics- moisturizers, cleansers, and serums, to the trending no-make-up makeup look, including lip tints, blushes, and concealers.
Some of Glossier’s most popular products include its Boy Brow eyebrow gel, Milky Jelly Cleanser, and Cloud Paint blush.
Glossier also offers fragrances, body care, and other beauty essentials designed to be easy to use and effective for all skin types.
Here are some of the popular and best-reviewed products:
- Boy Brow: A grooming pomade for eyebrows that adds volume, definition, and hold.
- Milky Jelly Cleanser: A pH-balanced daily face washes with a jelly-like texture that gently removes makeup, dirt, and oil.
- Balm Dotcom: A multipurpose skin and lip balm that hydrates and protects dry, chapped, or irritated skin.
- Futuredew: An oil-serum hybrid that gives skin a dewy glow and helps to hydrate and nourish.
- Cloud Paint: A gel-cream blush that blends seamlessly into the skin for a natural, flushed look.
- Stretch Concealer: A buildable, sheer-to-medium coverage concealer that brightens under-eye circles and hides blemishes.
- Generation G: A sheer, matte lipstick that gives lips a slight tint and blurs the edges for a natural look.
- Ultralip: A hydrating lip tint that gives a wash of color and shine.
- Super Pure Serum: A serum containing niacinamide and zinc that helps to soothe and calm irritated or blemish-prone skin.
- Body Hero Daily Perfecting Cream: A nourishing body lotion that helps to smooth and hydrate skin.
What can you learn from Glossier Instagram Strategy?
The success of Glossier can be attributed to its savvy marketing strategies, which have resulted in an engaged customer base of loyal followers.
Let’s explore what businesses can learn from Glossier’s Instagram marketing approach and how they use it to drive growth for their company.
1. Create strong connections with your audience
Of course, the very first step to take is to find out your target audience. Whether you’re a small or a large business, focus on building a strong community through social media and consumer feedback to develop and improve its products.
This helps create loyal audiences and a personal connection with the customers. Not only this, but customers feel valued and empowered when beauty brands consider their input and try to enhance their natural beauty rather than simply telling them what to buy to make themselves look good.
Weiss used her insights from her editorial assistant days at Vogue to create a transparent and real conversation between consumers and brands.
Glossier also engages with its audience, not only by replying to comments and messages and organizing giveaways or events but also by actively asking for its audience’s opinions and including them in the production process.
2. Market your products uniquely
Glossier’s signature product is its fragrance called “Glossier You,” which has been described as the ultimate personal fragrance.
They show which common beauty problems they solve and make it a selling point. This goes hand in hand with creating space for real consumer feedback and making the best of it.
As an example, when Glossier came up with one of their best-selling products- the Milky Jelly Cleanser, they made it a point to express their thanks to the customers who made the dream product turn into a reality.
Into the Gloss writes in their blog, “Today, we’re very happy to officially introduce you to the Glossier Milky Jelly Cleanser. The making of it’s been a collaborative effort, really (a year ago, we asked you to describe your dream face wash, and you very much delivered).”
3. Make the best of the DTC
One of the key elements that Glossier was praised for is its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model, meaning that they are able to offer competitive pricing and more control over the customer experience compared to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
They do this by selling their products directly to their customer base rather than going through wholesalers or retailers.
This helps them build strong relationships with their customers while being able to delve deep into their demographics and data, so they improve and customize their offerings.
The DTC model has become popular in recent years, with the rise of digital media for marketing, which benefits a wide range of industries, like fashion, beauty, food, and home goods.
They have a strong online presence and focus on providing a seamless, personalized shopping experience for their customers.
4. Use social media strategically
One of the greatest techniques that have helped Glossier rise to fame is word of mouth. And that is all thanks to having strong relationships with their consumers.
Their loyal fan base used branded hashtags like #GlossierGirls which got them noticed a lot quicker by the general population as well as other beauty brands and magazines. Recently, #GlossierIRL and #glossierinthewild are gathering some attention and engagement.
Another one of their biggest successful marketing strategies is that they don’t launch products with “social media influencers.”
In an interview with Kara Swisher for her Recode Decode podcast, Weiss said, “At Glossier, something we’ve always stayed very true to, since pre-launch, day one, is that every single person is an influencer.”
This is also one of the reasons why all of Glossier’s Instagram posts are playful and sound very humane, rather than the typical sales and marketing language.
Experiment with themes, but remain consistent with your posting
One noticeable thing that Glossier has been doing, is experimenting with the kind of content they upload- from giveaways, product information posts, and behind-the-scenes, to collaborations, posts about upcoming projects, and consumer reviews.
Over a year, Glossier included a number of themes in their posts, like Personal Care (cleaning, deodorants, fragrances, and self-care products), along with content relating to seasonal products, product designing, and gifting in Retail.
In the last 3 months, Glossier has made it a point to remain consistent as a result of posting daily, and including all three- single image posts, carousels, and video posts in their feed.
5. Create an impactful brand image
Glossier’s iconic pink color and minimalist packaging are other attention-grabbing features that they developed early on. The signature pink color makes it easy for anyone to recognize Glossier.
The minimalist and clean packaging gives customers and potential buyers alike a sense of aesthetic satisfaction.
Brand logos, icons, and the colors used go on to build the brand image. Use simple combinations of colors just right, and the everyday public will see the face of your brand in almost anything.
Keep a check on your competitors!
Using Predis.ai, you can gain an in-depth insight into your competitor’s patterns. Naturally, timing your posts will also determine engagement.
Try out Instagram analytics to get reports on when you can get the best engagement from your target audience.
However, a one-time competitor analysis is not good enough. As you know well, social media content strategies keep changing according to trends and themes.
Keep checking every month to understand how each month’s engagement compares to the previous month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on what changed!
Wrapping it up
Glossier’s Instagram marketing success can be attributed to a variety of factors, including its direct-to-consumer business model, strong focus on customer experience and personal connection, and strategic use of social media and influencer partnerships.
The brand’s founder, Emily Weiss, leveraged her experience in the beauty industry, including working as a fashion assistant and running a successful beauty blog called “Into The Gloss.”
This led to the creation of a brand that focused on simplicity, self-care, and enhancing natural beauty.
All things considered, plenty of businesses could learn from looking at Glossier’s successful marketing strategies!
From emphasizing storytelling over traditional advertising methods all the way up to investing heavily in user experience and engagement, there’s clearly much room to grow if you want your business to stand out amongst the competition!
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