Clarins leverages sampling campaigns to increase sales of key products

Clarins leverages sampling campaigns to increase sales of key products

Clarins is a French luxury skincare, cosmetics, and perfume company, which manufactures and sells products through flagship boutiques, counters in high-end department stores, and selected pharmacies. The company recently choose to emphasize its anti-aging products and showcase these as a real differentiator between them and other brands in the sector. Anti-aging products are some of the company’s most important items, so Clarins recognized the value in validating them with the voice of satisfied customers.

Despite the high quality of the products, Clarins was struggling to collect fresh content from their customers, so the company set out to rejuvenate the user-generated content on its site by gathering a large influx of fresh reviews, knowing this would help increase conversion rates and drive SEO success.

Boosting review volume and conversion with Bazaarvoice Sampling

To increase review volume quickly and easily, Clarins launched a sampling campaign to get products into the hands of consumers in exchange for their feedback. The company accomplished this with Bazaarvoice Sampling, which gave Clarins access to a French community of consumers willing to try the anti-aging products and other items for the first time and share their perspective.

Clarins sent products to a select group of French members in the Bazaarvoice’s sampling community. The campaign required minimal investment of time and money, as it allowed easy collection of responses through an add-on to the Bazaarvoice system already integrated on its site. The reviews are displayed automatically on the site and in compliance with all necessary prerequisites, including GDPR, incentivized badging, and authenticity standards.

Clarins tracked the progress of the campaign using the Bazaarvoice solution, which provided data on the number of items shipped, reviews collected, average rating per product, and other key indicators of success. The response rate exceeded expectations. In fact, 91% of those who received a sample submitted a review, an 11% higher rate than the company’s initial response goal. This resulted in 138 reviews in just 36 days.

“We were very pleased with the results. The response rate was much better than we had hoped, and the results show deep engagement. The in-depth reviews that this campaign generated showed people really valued their experience with Clarins,” said Marie Renouard, Digital Director at Clarins France.

Not only did the company amass a high volume of reviews, the ones it received were rich and detailed. As a high-end brand, Clarins needs to communicate the benefits of its products and establish its position in a luxury market rich with competitors. The well-crafted and thoughtful reviews generated by participants in the campaign provided insights into what customers value, in addition to standing as testimonials for the product.

“When people care enough to spend that much time on a review, it’s a sign that you’ve exceeded their expectations and they want to share their excitement,” said Marie.

Setting the company up for future success

Giving customers access to so many reviews is paying off. According to data collected through the Bazaarvoice Conversion Impact report from October 2018 to March 2019, Clarins sees a 111% increase in conversion among visitors to the site who read reviews, which confirms the benefits of constantly collecting more and more reviews and provides the company with additional opportunities.

“We can use sampling initiatives like this during the launch phase for new products, giving us a real boost in generating the content customers are looking for online. It will also allow us to be proactive with products which haven’t been generating reviews or where the reviews may be lower than we expected,” said a member of the e-commerce team at Clarins.