Why Glossier Owns Customer Relationship Building

What’s driven digital transformation in e-commerce over the past decade is being redefined. Traditional marketing and third party platforms, while parts of the equation, no longer direct brands to the catalyst of this evolution: the customer.

Now more than ever, digitally native brands are forming meaningful, business-driving customer relationships on their owned marketing channels. The notions of authenticity, trust, and loyalty have become real foundations for building brand equity at scale. Successful marketers in 2020 and beyond will not only have a firm understanding of their customers, but let them lead and shape the company’s digital direction.

Glossier is a prime example of an e-commerce brand that’s customer-centric by nature, leveraging its owned channels in ways that will continuously be well received.

How Glossier Started

Glossier has been digitally native since its start as an esteemed beauty blog called “Into the Gloss,” which served as a platform to launch the e-commerce beauty brand on Glossier.com. A company that creates “beauty products inspired by real life,” Glossier invests in building experiences that change the way people engage with beauty online.

What differentiates the company from traditional e-commerce is its ability to listen to and speak directly with its customers. The democratization of expertise has been Glossier’s foundation since day one, leveraging customer voices to co-create the company’s future, innovations in beauty, and digitally transformative shifts in e-commerce.

Glossier has grown by using customer feedback to continually innovate and develop relevant products — and is predicted to grow sales to $120B by 2020, according to Glossier SVP of Marketing, Ali Weiss. Their content-rich, digitally native environment provides an ongoing conversation that customers can engage with on a daily basis.

And there is major growth opportunity. While the top 20 cosmetic brands account for 90% of the dollars going to brick and mortar retailers, they only account for 14% of the dollars spent online. This means there’s a vast playing field to expand customer relationships across digital — which can be best utilized natively, organically.

Why Glossier’s Approach Gains Traction

Owned channels allow brands the freedom to create the experiences their customers are demanding — the unprecedented ability to deliver personalized, memorable experiences that reflect the brand’s personality. On Glossier’s channels, there is a direct connection to the customer’s voice, which enables incredible customer experiences at every touchpoint, and meaningful relationships at scale.

According to former Glossier President and COO Henry Davis, “At the moment YouTube or Instagram or Facebook owns the context, the environment and the format in which we talk with our own customer changes. If we really believe that having customers as a core part of the company is the way to build brands of the future, you have to start to own that relationship.”

Glossier markets to its customers through a number of owned channels, from Glossier.com to “Into the Gloss” to the customer experience (CX) team, or gTeam — constantly collecting feedback from their community of customers and assuming responsibility for creating the best experience possible with the brand. The sales attributed to these channels is the culmination of years of listening to and growing with the Glossier community.

How to Lead with Content and Co-create with Customers

Glossier Founder and CEO Emily Weiss stated, “I saw the need for a beauty brand that speaks to its consumers directly, offering them a chance to engage beyond the traditional touch points of purchase, use, and mass marketing. That’s what we’ve created with Glossier — a beauty brand that we want to be friends with.”

Content is the brand’s main driver of growth. Glossier-produced content combines editorial how-to’s with product-as-hero posts with answers to specific beauty issues. Yet, it’s the ample user-generated content (UCG) that gives Glossier channels legs, as it validates and authenticates the company’s products and posts, then generates conversations. The value proposition extends beyond an e-commerce platform; it’s moreso a communication channel.

What’s intriguing about the company’s native roots is its mantra of “experience first and business results second.” Glossier measures the impact of editorial initiatives on e-commerce revenue by comparing browsing behavior between visitors of Glossier.com and “Into the Gloss” in an effort to build products that fit the interests of the two groups. However, an even more important metric to Glossier is the number of conversations their gTeam editors and showroom editors engage in. If those metrics are strong, they know bottom-line results will follow.

A people-powered beauty ecosystem, Glossier’s success is credited to the 5Cs, according to Davis: Consumers, Content, Conversations, Co-Creation, Community. Glossier’s customer base is essentially a cult-like following because they’ve been given the feeling that the company was created just for them and, in a way, by them. They are co-creators of the brand.

For example, before a new product launch, Glossier creates hype by sending out free product samples to their loyal fans and influencers. Many customers will post videos and reviews on their own, simply because they love the brand and the products. This kind of user-generated content almost presells the product.

Another instance of customer co-creation was the development of the Glossier’s Milky Jelly cleanser. Customers shared how washing their face involved two steps and two different products: makeup remover then face wash. From that insight, Glossier simplified the process and put both functions into one product, something that a traditional beauty brand would likely reject, as it would take away potential sales of two products.

Much of Glossier’s marketing stems from user-generated content on social media. Glossier is tagged in 20K UGC posts per month on Instagram (not including Stories) and​ ​70% of customers come through person-to-person referrals,​ earned media, and owned channels. Not only does branding the “Glossier Girl” drive sales, but it exhibits what the company is centered on: that all women are beautiful, and that their products are for everyone.

A Forbes survey found that 62% of millennials would show more loyalty to a brand if that brand engaged with them on a personal level through social media. Posting is only half of the story; truly connecting is the other half.

Glossier also has a Slack channel with 100 of their top customers. Each week, they exchange thousands of messages with these customers, allowing the brand to leverage their customer feedback loop for research and development purposes.

This company has created fans, pinpointed customer needs, and cultivated a widely renowned brand personality by remaining truly native, leaving the future of e-commerce up to the customer. Glossier succeeds because they genuinely give the customer what they want.

The Difference of a Chosen Brand Experience

Glossier sets the example for other e-commerce companies working to better engage, connect, and grow. It’s a business where customers are stakeholders who are inspired to participate in the product and brand development.

Because Glossier engages with customers at every touchpoint, none of the experiences live in isolation. They’ve created a 360 journey, which enables the company to tailor experiences for customers based on how they choose to engage with Glossier.

What ultimately separates Glossier from traditional beauty brands is that they are not in any way confused about who their customer is. The Glossier customer is a psychographic, someone who understands the role beauty plays in their life, and someone who has the power to choose their own style. It’s empowering, it makes people feel heard, and it’s how people will be inspired to buy in the future.