Online sales campaign ignited by Markomi Revolution

L’Oréal S.A. is the world’s largest cosmetics company. Activities are focused on hair colour, skin care, sun protection, make-up, perfume and haircare. With a unique international portfolio of 36 diverse and complementary brands, the Group has devoted itself to beauty for over 110 years. Employing 88,000 people worldwide, L’Oréal’s sales was 29.87 billion euros in 2019. From its headquarters at Clichy, Paris, L’Oréal is present across all distribution networks. These include mass market, department stores, pharmacies and drugstores, hair salons, travel retail, branded retail and e commerce. In a world-first, L’Oréal Suisse generated unprecedented levels of new sales leads by using Markomi, the marketing automation platform from Konica Minolta.

Markomi deliveres creative rethink with multi-channel marketing

A marketing campaign achieved a 96% hit rate and generated thousands of new sales opportunities in Switzerland for L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company. The L’Oréal Family and Friends Sale became so successful that it has been rolled out internally as part of multi-channel communications to deliver new sales opportunities.

At the heart is the marketing automation platform Markomi from global technology giant Konica Minolta. Markomi is used for the development and management of cross-media marketing campaigns. The software enables the definition, segmentation, scheduling and tracking of multimedia marketing crusades, which might include printed as well as online elements like e-mails, landing pages or social media. All on the base of predefined easy-to-handle campaign workflows.

Looking for new ways of engaging customers

In uncertain times like those engendered by COVID-19, brands such as L’Oréal are looking for more innovative ways of engaging with their customers and finding new ones, especially when travel is limited and shops are closed. In 2020, L’Oréal wanted to launch a “Family and Friends” flash campaign in the summer. The remit stated it should be open for “non customers” – therefore must also include double opt-in elements – and enable users the opportunity to download vouchers. L’Oréal contacted IT and e-commerce specialist OMP-Service that used Markomi for the campaign where products were being sold in a special ‘online shop’ at up to 70% reduction. The advantages of Markomi over other marketing tools were ease of use and a fast setup time. From start to implementation, it took a week to create the campaign. It was also complementary to more complex solutions that involve significant extra time and cost. Personal access codes were provided for users who could then forward the information to up to 20 friends, family and fans of L’Oréal. Business customers were also an important target group.

Quick and easy solution with a simple-to use platform

 

It can easily take months to create a campaign similar to L’Oréal’s with “conventional” ways. Using Markomi meant it took just a week to set up. The success prompted a second ‘Family and Friends (Winter) Sale shortly before Christmas 2020, with many new customers being actively targeted from the sign-up success of the first campaign. Markomi was also used for a newsletter to a selected group of VIP customers (plus reminder newsletter), a “Go Live” (“Here we go”), mailing with information about shipping tracking and delivery, as well as a customer satisfaction survey. The mechanics of “VIP customers” and “limited offers” led to the high conversion rates. Frank Burkhardt, Head of Marketing for L’Oréal Suisse SA, said: “We had fantastic results and were able to expand our customer base with thousands of new leads generated through this internal campaign. The conversion rate for sales was 96% for the Employees / Family and Friends campaign and 85% for Business Partners. This has been an unprecedented success.” “This simple-to-use marketing automation platform enabled us to carry out the flash sale of selected products in a specially set-up online shop. We had little time for preparation, so needed a fast and efficient system to distribute access codes.”
“Markomi provided a quick and easy campaign creation, user-specific elements such as voucher codes or access codes that were easy to incorporate.”