Skincare Going Digital in 2020: Consumer needs vs. fears

Do you know what is the most typical skin type of your customers? Or their main skin concern? And do you have this data per consumer linked to their email or similar? ‍

This type of data can be valued highly and allows you to engage with your clients in really personalized manner but there are two key problems, which will be the key drives for 2020 digital & skincare.

‍First, as a skincare brand your dilemma might not even be how to treat customer data but actually how to collect it in the first place. Unless you’re a direct-to-consumer brand, your connection with your end-customers is typically via retailers and profiling your typical customers might be left to your imagination. Luckily, there are ways to tackle this problem both in your own channels and also within retailer channels. That’s worth of a completely own text that you can find here.‍

Second, we live in a world of misuse of personal data by Facebook and by bunch of other players but still that same personal data is what helps the brands, retailers and companies alike to provide us consumers what we desire; personalized and individualized recommendations. Your customers can be most likely divided into two when it comes to their data, those who are happy to give and receive personalized recommendations and those who fear misuse of their data and rather stay anonymous.

Luckily, the ones that give you their personal data are most likely the ones bringing significantly more money into your pockets but it still doesn’t mean you should forget about the rest - those are the ones who grow your business if treated well.

As a beautytech-provider we are always slightly biased, but one simple solution to serve both groups of customers - is a simple Digital Skincare Advisor. Allowing user to complete a guided selling / mobile skin diagnostics -type of an experience - with the possibility to give their data to you as a brand (and link it to an account/email) if they desire. Or get recommendations by staying anonymous.‍

How to convince the customer to give their data?‍

Too often we see clauses like this.. “I grant The Company, its subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, agents and representatives the right to use my age, race, skin type, image, likeness and/or pictures of me for internal research purposes.. - ”

…that define that you’re going to use the data for some business development purposes and providing better customer experiences or something way too high-level nonsense explained. This scares people (especially the hesitant ones) as they don’t have understanding what the data will be actually used for.

Why wouldn’t you go more practical? Give them examples of how the consumer can benefit from the data they are giving you. Are you using data from your customers to build new products that better serve their skin concerns? Or do you want to provide them info when new suitable products are launched that match their unique skin? Are you planning to build skin tracking -capabilities for your users to monitor their skin?

Be open and give examples of how the customer can benefit from giving their data to you and you’ll be surprised how many people want to be seen as an individual among the thousands of customers you have.‍

What can you do with the data?‍

There are hundreds of ways to leverage data from your consumers, but here are couple interesting ideas:

Personalize the whole webshop if you know the user

It might require some additional personalization software to be used, but once you have the users skin type, concerns, location etc. - you can always promote them matching products when logged in at your channels

Help you customer service

Imagine how much easier it’s for your customer service people to help the customers if they know the user as an individual. Not just their email but what product matches her well based on the individual data and what additional could be sold to complement her choices

Use data for product development

Take the guess-work out of product development by understanding your customers in more detail or even go deeper into custom personalized skincare

Do re-marketing/-targeting in an highly personalized way

No matter if you do simple email marketing or paid ads, provide highly targeted recommendations. Not just something others bought but something that fits the customer’s skin as an individual

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Who’s the writer and Revieve?Miikka is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at Revieve, working with the leading beauty brands and retailers, helping them to build new digital beauty experiences across different channels. At Revieve we build white label Digital Beauty Advisors (with market leading mobile skin diagnostics, AI-driven product recommendations and 3D live video makeup virtual try-on) for skincare and makeup.

Get in touch: miikka@revieve.com.

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