Longtime direct-to-consumer beauty brand Glossier has launched its first ever partnership with a retailer – Sephora.
The move was announced in July, with the partnership set to get underway in early 2023. And while consumers are no doubt excited to be able to find their favorite Glossier products in any of the 2,700 Sephora stores worldwide – and its online store – Glossier still has some work to do in order to maximize this partnership.
Before we get into it, it’s important to understand the impact digital assets have in the world of online retail stores. Consumers make decisions based on the products they see – in images, in ads, through influencer content – meaning how your products are represented in this online environments is one of the most important factors in how well they sell.
The same is true for physical stores. Although the product is there and you can see it in person, its displays, the surrounding posters and images, and other branded assets in the store, all play a vital role in selling those products.
For the first time ever, Glossier is not going to be in full control of the point of sale, therefore how they provide Sephora with content will be an important consideration as this partnership moves forward.
With that said, here are three DAM-related thoughts on Glossier selling its products through Sephora.
Glossier Needs to Stand Out Through Its Content
Glossier has a powerful brand and a healthy community of consumers who enjoy their product. But while the benefits of selling on Sephora.com and in Sephora stores includes widespread exposure to new buyers, it also means increased competition with other brands and products for sale at those locations.
Sephora partners with 250 brands, selling more than 78,000 products on its website. If Glossier wants to make an impact, they’re going to have to make sure Sephora has immediate access to all their latest and greatest content, showcasing their products in a way that is impactful to the target buyer.
This new partnership is no doubt complex, so the last thing Glossier needs is another convoluted process to get assets to external partners like Sephora. Fortunately, modern digital asset management platforms like Tenovos offer easy solutions – allowing external partners to have secure, immediate access to content without any IT involvement or complicated platform customizations.
These asset portals – at Tenovos we call them Storyboards – can be populated with content automatically, and shared directly with external partners. This helps ensure there is zero delay in getting new content where it needs to go.
In the case of this Sephora partnership, that will increase speed to market for any new Glossier products as they launch, while also letting Glossier update existing content and resharing those assets easily.
Governance Will Be Crucial
Glossier is known for its community-led content strategy, but recently it’s gone a different direction by engaging with influencers to help promote their products.
Whichever type of content the brand goes forward with, ensuring Sephora is only using approved content that is licensed appropriately and targeted for the right buyers is going to be important.
Influencer contracts expire, and when they do, existing content may need to be pulled down or changed. Or, it could be Glossier has assets to promote its products most effectively in specific regions – like altering an image for a North American buyer versus a European one.
Digital asset management plays a big role here, as it will allow Glossier to control who has access to what content, where and how they use it, and directly pull in licensing and rights details to ensure compliance with any influencer or other licensing agreements to do with the assets.
Tracking Content to Augment Performance
As mentioned above, this will be the first time Glossier does not control the point of sale. It also means they’re reliant on Sephora sharing data with them to understand not just what products are selling, but what content is contributing to those transactions.
However, DAM offers a better solution. Tenovos, for example, can publish content and track it across digital channels. We allow companies like Glossier to have their content published to channels they don’t own (in this case Sephora’s e-comm and social sites) while still tracking where it lives and how it’s performing.
With insights from their DAM, Glossier would be able to see where their content lives, and how it’s performing there, all without relying on Sephora.
Why is that important? Speed, mostly. Relying on data from third parties means you’re slower to react. Understanding where content is being used and how it’s performing in real-time will let Glossier make on-the-spot decisions about what assets it should make next to maximize sales through Sephora.
Driving Sales with Digital Assets
As Glossier embarks on this new journey, it’s going to require a shift in how they think about their digital assets. From a fully internal approach to sales enablement to now leaning heavily on a third-party – in this case Sephora – it means making content available to a whole new group of users who are external.
That changes a lot, but it’s something that modern DAM platforms can solve for. And if Glossier can leverage their DAM successfully in this way, they will have the content insights they’ll need to arm Sephora with content that resonates with buyers, in order to maximize the value of this new partnership.
