Exhibiting how a product will present itself in the real world was important and a challenge for beauty brand Sigma Beauty. The brand is primarily fueled by ecommerce with only one brick-and-mortar location and is heavily reliant on its influential fan base to spread the word about its products.
Sigma Beauty partnered with Curalate to effectively leverage customers’ content into sales both in social media and on the company’s website, according to a case study.
“Our customers can’t go to Target or Macy’s and try things on, so seeing people wear our makeup is very beneficial,” said Amber Mulle, social media strategist at Sigma Beauty.
Mulle added that stock images and branded photos of beauty products simply won’t produce the same effect.
In addition to demonstrating what its cosmetics look like in action, Sigma Beauty also found that user-generated content makes its social media team more efficient and the overall content mix more effective.
On a daily basis, Sigma Beauty posts four to five user images on Instagram to complement its own branded content. This allows customers to become content creators and help the brand tell its story.
To drive 871,000 followers from images on Instagram to products on its website where consumers can shop the looks they find, the Sigma Beauty team used Curalate’s Like2Buy solution.
“Our fans are five times more likely to buy or click through when they see a product on a person vs. an image of the product in someone’s hands,” said Mulle.
Fans submit upwards of 16,000 photos a month, providing a multitude of images for the beauty team to choose from.
“Fans want to be appreciated, and they want to be part of your brand,” said Mulle. “In turn, they’re creating more fans and more buyers.”
Sigma Beauty has been able to attribute an average of 24,000 outbound clicks a month to Instagram.
Given the success Sigma Beauty had using social influencers to get the word out about its products, the next step was to bring them to the website. It implemented Curalate’s Fanreel solution to bring user-generated images to the forefront of the online shopping experience.
The brand also added galleries on product detail pages and on a dedicated landing page. Each image in the galleries links to the product, making it easy for consumers to buy them.
Motivating customers to post product photos on their own can be a challenge for any brand. Prior to launching a new product line, the beauty team sends makeup artists kits to try at home. In return, they ask influencers to create buzz by sharing content on their social profiles.
On Instagram, the content is tagged with #SigmaBeauty in addition to a unique hashtag specifically created for the new product line, and seeing featured makeup artists sparks tons of interest from other fans. Once the products are available to purchase, customers are eager to create content for the chance to be featured as well.
Sharing authentic fan imagery has proved to be beneficial for Sigma Beauty. Since bringing user-generated content onto its website, the company has seen significant increases in engagement metrics as well as conversions. Over a 30-day period, Sigma’s Fanreel generated 20,000 pageviews and consumers clicked on an average of 10.52 images per session.
Consumers who interacted with a Fanreel gallery were far more engaged on the website. While the average site visit is 3:19, those who interacted with a Fanreel gallery stuck around for an average of 12:25, a nearly 4x lift. Overall, Sigma Beauty reported a 16x ROI on Fanreel.