It is rightly said ,”I abide by this, never be afraid and take the risk because living with regrets is the hardest.” by Vineeta Singh, vivacious CEO of Sugar Cosmetics.
Today, all strong, independent women who reject being pigeonholed into roles choose SUGAR as their beauty brand. In SUGAR, they value following your passions and being unstoppable. They enjoy making beauty fun and work hard to develop clutter-busting characters. Vibrant Sugar Cosmetics CEO Vineeta Singh rose to prominence as one of the judges on the well-known business reality series Shark Tank India.
From 2014 to 2019, the Indian cosmetics company SUGAR has made significant progress. SUGAR has established more than 1000 retail touchpoints nationwide, including more than 100 locations, over the preceding two years. Through channel partners including Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Health & Glow, Project Eve, and others, there are a variety of options accessible, including exclusive brand stores, self-operated kiosks, general trade stores, and shop-in-shops.
SUGAR cosmetics is a well-known brand in India. This is a success story about two people who achieved success rather than a brand. Over 700 offline shops of SUGAR cosmetics are now active throughout India. They have even begun to advertise the brand internationally. Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee did not create the company overnight. They faced their fair share of difficulties, but they overcame them and are now successful individuals.
Early History
In 2012, Vineeta Singh thought starting ‘Fab Bag’ was apt. It was a subscription business that offered women an assortment of beauty products. During this, she gleaned through the data of the foreign or local brands. She found that several companies didn’t cater to Indian skin tone or the Indian way of life. Armed with these insights, she started SUGAR in 2015 with her husband.
It wasn’t a straight road to walk for Vineeta and her team. When they tried raising the capital, people told them that digital-first beauty would be a small market. And that it would be impossible to compete with larger companies without raising hundreds of millions of dollars. They were even told that the product wouldn’t be a strong moat since it is a commodity. So many rejections, but they didn’t give up. They kept fighting back to the negative criticism and failure.
And finally, in 2017, India Quotient, an early backer, and Singapore-based RB Investments extended a helping hand in a disclosed Series A Financing. They got their first investors; they worked hard and earned it.
Influencer marketing has been essential in making SUGAR popular both online and offline. When we have used influencer marketing methods, not only have our engagement levels increased but also the direct customer response as measured by sales conversions has increased. We intend to advance our partnership in the near future by assembling a select group of these little brand ambassadors and launching a special initiative just for them. The role of Instagram influencers in the marketing of beauty brands is well-documented. SUGAR too rode the wave of ‘unboxing videos’ and ‘before and after’ transformations to create awareness.
The brand’s influencer strategy on Instagram is carefully nuanced. Their most popular videos include one with acid attack survivor, Anmol Rodrigues. You can spot influencers with large follower bases like Shubhangi Anand, but videos with micro-influencers are equally popular.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is becoming a widely used strategy for online promotion. For some time now, it has been a buzzword, and the mainstream media frequently makes use of it.
Influencer marketing combines both traditional and modern marketing strategies. Influencer marketing, at its core, is a form of social media promotion that relies on recommendations and mentions of products from influencers—people who have a sizable social following and are recognized as authorities in their field. Influencer marketing is effective because social influencers have established a high level of trust with their followers, and recommendations from them provide social evidence to potential customers for your business. Influencer marketing, at its core, is a form of social media promotion that relies on recommendations and mentions of products from influencers—people who have a sizable social following and are recognized as authorities in their field. Because social influencers have established such a high level of trust with their followers and through referrals, influencer marketing is effective and serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.
Standing out in 2014 on Instagram was easier than today. If you were lucky enough to be featured on Instagram’s featured page or your look was just distinctive enough, then your chances of being tapped as an influencer were high. After enough brand partnerships, some have turned social media influencer marketing into a full-time career.
What is an influencer?
Influencer is a person who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience
a following in a distinct niche, with whom he or she actively engages. The size of the following depends on the size of his/her topic of the niche.
Influencer marketing involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. Some influencer marketing collaborations are less tangible than that – brands simply work with influencers to improve brand recognition.
Digital advertising, social media marketing and influencer marketing will be an ongoing activity for the brand.
SUGAR Cosmetics Plans To Go Stronger On Its Omnichannel Play
SUGAR Cosmetics also built conversational & educative content using strong videos and infographics, exploring experiential retail marketing tactics and deploying stronger content even on the brand-owned app.
An omnichannel strategy is a method that helps you create a seamless experience for customers across all the channels through which you sell. It encompasses the online and offline touchpoints of your brand, from a point-of-sale system to an Instagram shoppable post, and it's not just for retailers anymore.
Our SUGAR x Taapsee campaign TV Commercial aired on prime TV channels in eight languages witnessed over 50 Million views.
But influencer marketing doesn't just involve celebrities. Instead, it revolves around influencers, many of whom would never consider themselves famous in an offline setting.
Influencer marketing isn't just about finding someone with an audience and offering them money or exposure so they can say good things about you.
That's what viral celebrities are for. Influencers are people who've spent time building their own brand and cultivating their audience; they will be naturally protective of their reputation and the people who trust them. They're people who have the patience and focus to succeed in social media, one organic follower at a time—people like this aren't interested in doing influencer marketing solely for the money.
Influencer Marketing is also not about quick results. It's the same kind of slow-and-steady approach as Social Media and Content Marketing, where your campaign. Influencer marketing has grown to $13.8 billion in 2021.
Businesses are making $5.78 ROI for every $1 spent on influencer marketing.
There has been a 465% increase in searches for the phrase "influencer marketing" on Google alone since 2016. 90% of survey respondents believe influencer marketing to be an effective form of marketing.
67% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing. 1360 Influencer marketing focused platforms and agencies entered the market in the last 5 years alone.
Retail Marketing and Visual Merchandising, along with building quirky and exciting merchandise is also a part of the plan. SUGAR Cosmetics launched 5 new brand owned retail outlets keeping hygiene and safety as a top priority for their retail customers. Going stronger on our D2C channels, we focus on building more to our mobile app that already garnered 800,000 app installs in just a year. content marketing, strong collaborations, and introducing trendy products, remain on the chart for 2021.
The retail industry has existed for centuries, but it continues to change and evolve in response to emerging trends and markets.
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing is the integration and cooperation of the various channels organizations use to interact with consumers, with the goal of creating a consistent brand experience. This includes physical (e.g. stores) and digital channels (e.g. websites). The goal of an omnichannel marketing strategy is to create a convenient, seamless user experience for consumers that offers many opportunities for fulfillment. An omnichannel strategy may give consumers the chance to find and purchase online, in-store, or a combination thereof - such as “buy online and pick up in-store”. Today, organizations across industries are leveraging omnichannel strategies, including healthcare, retail, finance, technology, and more.
Thanks to online channels, modern consumers have more options than ever and expect information in real-time. Omnichannel marketing enables them to engage with brands on their own terms, leading to a better customer experience overall.
Omnichannel marketing is the seamless integration of branding, messaging, and online and offline touchpoints as consumers move down the sales funnel, enabling a more impactful customer experience. Omnichannel marketing takes a consumer-centric view of marketing tactics. Consumers can now interact with brands on innumerable channels, from social media to customer service hotlines. An omnichannel approach ensures that the consumer has a positive, consistent experience on each channel, by offering a few key elements:
Consistent, identifiable brand tone and vision
Personalized messaging based on specific interests
Content that is informed by past interactions and current stage of the buyer’s journey
An identifiable brand simplifies brand recognition, while personalization based on interests and shopping history makes consumers more likely to interact with branded content across channels.
Omnichannel also makes brands accessible across online and offline channels, however, it goes a step further to ensure an integrated, seamless experience across each one. As consumers move across devices and online and offline platforms, transitions are seamless and messages are informed by prior encounters. An omnichannel approach enables organizations to truly take a consumer-centric approach that keeps the comprehensive customer journey top of mind.
The Benefits of Using an Omnichannel Approach
Today, most brands will agree that an omnichannel approach can yield the best results. While implementing an omnichannel approach is far from simple, when done properly it offers a host of benefits. Today’s consumers are accustomed to being bombarded with messaging from various brands, and as a result, they have become increasingly selective of which brands they choose to engage with. Creating omnichannel customer engagements can act as a brand differentiator, bringing the following benefits:
A Better User Experience - Since omnichannel focuses on the individual experience across devices instead of the channel, the customer experience (CX) is better. By focusing on the customer instead of the platform, companies can drive more sales and better retention rates.
Cohesive Brand Strategy & Identity - Creating a seamless strategy across channels means building an easily identifiable brand image and tone. Organizations should base this image on core audience needs and values. By focusing on the overall experience and working within your brand guidelines to target each channel, you will have a more comprehensive brand strategy that will translate into increased loyalty and more targeted messaging.
Increased Revenue - An omnichannel approach encourages customers to engage with a brand across multiple touchpoints and channels. These increased, diverse engagements at each stage of the buyer’s journey can help increase revenue, as research shows that customers that engage with multiple touchpoints tend to be 30 percent more valuable. This more targeted messaging also builds loyalty, making it more likely a customer will purchase from your brand again. Repeat customers on average contribute to 40 percent of revenue, despite being a smaller portion of your consumer base.
Better Attribution Data - Going truly omnichannel should not just extend to a user’s experience with your brand, but with your data analytics as well. By tracking engagements across channels, brands get a better understanding of what the customer journey looks like, when and where consumers prefer to engage, and which campaigns have created the most value. All of this data can be put back into your strategy to build more targeted campaigns and optimize media spend.
Conclusion
If the two IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, had chosen the corporate office. There would be no SUGAR Cosmetics in existence. Also, in that case, the market still would have been dominated by brands like Lakme, L'Oréal, MAC, etc. This bold step taken by the two IIM-A alumni brought SUGAR Cosmetics into the market. Their creative idea of collaborating with the social media influencers gave incredible brand growth.
The out of the box approaches have always been the main reason behind the success of SUGAR Cosmetics. It can also be seen when big and small businesses faced some trouble during pandemic. The SUGAR Cosmetics was already trained, the strong team put some extra effort into using eCommerce platforms. The cost-cutting on the social media expenses to manage the prices, product, and availability for the customers have played an essential role in the success of SUGAR Cosmetics even during the pandemic.