Ep 24 - How To Grow DTC Beauty Brands with Proven, Curology, Glossier & Prose

Learn how these leading direct-to-consumer beauty brands are transforming the way that brands go-to-market, scale growth, and interact with their customers.

Our experts tackle how COVID has influenced the beauty industry as a whole, beauty brand awareness versus direct response, emerging channels to take advantage of, and their best retention strategies. All this and more!  

Here’s What We Discussed: 

• [04:58] Our experts share advice for starting your own beauty care line. “You don’t have to have all the answers to start, just get started.”  
• [09:27] Melissa advises establishing the kind of customer data you want to gather 
• [11:33] Tackling the balance between direct response and building awareness for your brand
• [19:57] Which emerging channels our panelists are looking into for this year and next: TikTok, Hulu, affiliate, podcasts, Pinterest   
• [25:05] How COVID has changed growth strategy, the customer journey, buying patterns, and the beauty industry as a whole 
• [31:03] Our experts share their company’s approach to new product development 
• [33:31] What’s your most effective strategy for retaining users?
• [38:46] How PROVEN has seen success with product bundling as part of their growth strategy
• [42:48] Approaching retail as D2C brands – Why it works and why it does not work for their brands 
• [47:28] Our panel shares what they view as the biggest upcoming challenges for the next 6-12 months

About Our Speakers 

Ming Zhao, CEO of PROVEN – Ming Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of PROVEN Skincare, the smart skincare company dedicated to creating personalized and adaptive skincare.

PROVEN uses award-winning data and machine learning technology to customize beauty and wellness products for individuals. Founded in 2017 by Ming and Dr. Amy Yuan, PROVEN creates personalized skincare solutions that adapt with you as you move through life. Using their proprietary Skin Genome Project, the largest beauty database on earth, they create personalized skincare solutions as unique as you.

Fabian Seelbach, CMO at Curology – Fabian Seelbach has more than 15 years of experience building and scaling businesses with P&L ownership. For five years, he led the industry-defining marketing team at Curology as CMO. Today, Fabian is President of the fully shoppable lifestyle and wellness brand, Goop.

Fabian grew up in Berlin, Germany, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Melissa Sova, Growth, Ex – Glossier – Melissa oversaw all performance channels for Glossier and managed a team scaling full-funnel growth across search, shopping, affiliate, paid social, partnerships, display, and more from 2017-2020. Melissa began her experience in the beauty industry agency-side, working with Coty while at Performics, followed by an in-house role at Clarins Group. She is currently the Director of Marketing for Tie Bar in Chicago.

Guilhaum Ceccaldi, Growth at Prose – Guilhaum is the Head of Growth Marketing at Prose, the direct-to-consumer beauty brand delivering custom hair care products that are made-to-order and address the specific needs and goals of each individual’s hair and scalp. In his capacity, Guilhaum is responsible for leading and implementing Prose’s marketing strategy, overseeing both acquisition and retention. Before joining Prose, Guilhaum served as Online Acquisition Director at Adore me. He has also held additional marketing positions at various companies in Paris, France.

About Our Host

Anish Shah is the CEO & Founder of executive search agency Bring Ruckus. Anish has worked in-house in Growth roles at Snapfish and Getable. He started Bring Ruckus as a Growth consultancy 11 years ago working with 40+ clients, then re-focused his firm on executive recruiting for Growth leaders.

Quotes

 

“The misconception that I feel is often out there is that the money you put into [direct response], it doesn't matter how you portray the brand or how it reflects on your brand. We've tried to make sure that DR means that we measure it based on conversions, but it still needs to accurately reflect who we are as a brand, speak to that brand and further that brand perception.” – Fabian Seelbach

 

“Using performance channels to inform brand messages is the key. You can be efficient with what you're learning creatively. You start with direct response, messages, and creative and then build that into a brand strategy. Make those performance channels work really hard for you to inform insights at the top.” – Melissa Sova

 

“I think that the change in behavior that COVID has caused in consumers, in that they're willing to trust some random brand they saw on the internet with taking care of their skin is going to stay.” – Ming Zhao

 

“So we have been constantly working on the products that we're offering the consumers… For the two years that I've been working at [Prose], we have seen the retention side of the business increase in parallel to product satisfaction. So we are trying to improve the quality of the product that we are making to ensure that people are coming back.” – Guilhaum Ceccaldi

 

“Customers want it to be easy. They want it to be simple. They're doing their research, but they want to know that a brand knows what they're talking about.” – Melissa Sova

 

“Bundling is really at the heart of what we are doing, in the sense that we are defining for every customer what their ideal routine will be. We are not trying to oversell by artificially bundling, we are just trying to get the customer to choose the best product for themselves.” – Guilhaum Ceccaldi

ABOUT RUCKUS

We are growth leaders who recruit your game changers. Visit https://bringruckus.com and connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe and listen to more episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Google Podcasts, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts!  

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