Creating Brand Ambassadors for Coty
Coty leads the way for recommendations by building closer relationships with their customers.
Coty Ireland asked Chilli Pepper to help them build direct, two-way relationships with one of their key sales channels; the objective was to drive increased referrals and sales. Customer insights and a robust commercial understanding of the business resulted in Ireland’s first B2B Cosmetic & Fragrance Relationship Marketing Programme.
Coty is a global cosmetic and fragrance brand that holds the #2 global position in Fragrances with brands such as Guess, Katy Perry, Marc Jacobs and the Beckham’s, and holds the #5 global position in Colour Cosmetics with brands such as Rimmel, Sally Hansen, New York Color and most recently Bourjois.
Coty has a strong regional presence in Ireland and as a result, their brands can be found in every pharmacy across the country.
In Ireland, these local pharmacies play an important role in every community and consumers build close relationships with the staff in the pharmacy. The pharmacy team are constantly asked for their opinion on the latest and greatest Cosmetics & Fragrances, but with so many competing brands, how do staff know which ones to recommend and how can a global brand like Coty influence this recommendation?
Coty approached Chilli Pepper to build a bespoke B2B Customer Relationship Marketing Strategy that would help them to connect with the Cosmetic & Fragrance staff, in a meaningful way, in order to build direct relationships with them, increase referrals of Coty products over competitors and as a result increase sales.
To gain a deeper understanding of these key customers, Chilli Pepper developed a bespoke customer valuation model to identify the value of each of them to the business and then conducted in-depth qualitative and quantitative research to identify what their loyalty triggers were, in other words – what made them recommend one product over another?
This research unearthed the key customer insight that drove the entire strategy: They wanted to be able to better advise their customers by sharing tips, trends and information that they had on the products, but, most importantly, they wanted to recommend products and brands that they had actually tried themselves!
Chilli Pepper developed the Coty Relationship Marketing Strategy and Business Case that tapped directly into this insight and worked closely with the entire Coty team to launch the Coty Ambassador Programme into the market.
A key element of the programme was direct customer engagement which encompasses highly tailored, relevant and timely communication that was sent out to members, giving them the opportunity to test new products before they went on the shelf. Members could then share their direct feedback with Coty, who used this information to better inform their launch campaigns.
The entire business got on board to support this innovative customer initiative, including the Senior Management Team who toured the country to personally meet with the members and welcome them to the programme.
By investing in building direct relationships with the members, Coty saw a significant impact on its business, including an increase of brand awareness of more than 40%; an increase in its customer satisfaction score by 25% and a dramatic increase in its Net-Promoter-Score, which was driven by more than half of the members recommending Coty products over any other competitor product. Result = Coty First!
The programme is now in its fourth year and continues to be a key driver for the business. And, with a constant appetite for learning and improving, Coty and Chilli Pepper work together each year to gain new customer insights, refine the programme and launch new initiatives. All of this drives genuine two-way relationships with these vital customers and helps them better serve their pharmacy customers.
Accolades
- Multiple award winner at the An Post Integrated Direct Marketing Awards.
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