Buyer Behavior Determine the purchase decision process for the buyer of your company's product. What comes to your mind when purchasing something online - the product or the platform? Say you want to buy a flight ticket; will you go to the Airline's website? If the answer is an obvious no, it is worth noting that answers to such questions aren't always so obvious. The consumer decision-making journey for a specialized beauty product purchase is often more complicated. According to recent research by Google, there is a 'messy middle' zone where customers experience multiple cycles of exploration and evaluation before zeroing in on a purchase. In this context, Indian D2C brands have been at the forefront of product discovery in recent years. What strategies make L'Oreal the unbeatable beauty company? MyGlamm Business Model: Journey of becoming a large D2C Conglomerate MyGlamm is one such case study in D2C business model that created a solid product and platform recall, evident from the fact that 98% of its online sales occur through its website and app. The brand started as an on-demand beauty service in 2015 through which customers could book a home spa or beauty service. In Oct 2017, Myglamm pivoted its business model to introduce beauty products under the same brand with a new logo. MyGlamm went through four distinct phases in its growth journey to become a digital powerhouse, as explained in detail below. The Launch (Oct 2017 to Nov 2018) It started with a niche TG - Busy, independent, confident women. MyGlamm's first ad campaign presents six women with six different beauty needs and usage occasions, be it on the move in a cab or lift or quick touchups before a party or leaving the workplace after a long day. It had a tagline - Makeup that multitasks for you. Extensive product education was imparted by the brand through social media, particularly the video content format. Globally, there was a 62% increase in beauty video views in 2018 from the previous year. However, videos of big beauty brands accounted for only 3% of total Youtube views on beauty while individual bloggers controlled the rest. MyGlamm leveraged these changing beauty discovery trends by creating Youtube content through Celebrity makeup artist Namrata Soni, beauty vloggers & micro-influencers. Other reasons for the early success of MyGlamm can be attributed to the following: Country of Origin: European beauty (created in Germany & Italy) Product innovation & novelty: Claimed to reduce women's makeup routine by half Premium & convenient Packaging: Compact, Stylish, and multi-functional kits Brand equity: On-demand beauty service imparted credibility Association with L'Occitane: First global beauty company to invest in any Indian beauty startup The Touch of Celebrities (Dec 2018 to Mar 2020) MyGlamm created ad campaigns with celebrities using clutter-breaking storylines. The campaign #TurnOnYourEyes with Lisa Haydon talked about women's empowerment. Popular Bollywood star Sidharth Malhotra was roped in to launch LIT, its vegan cruelty-free makeup range. The campaign #TestedOnSID gave a funny spin to the context where Sidharth says the products are tested on him instead of animals. For the first time in India, a male celebrity was used to promote a cosmetic brand MyGlamm did another first in the industry by co-branding its premium new launch with fashion designer Manish Malhotra in Dec 2018. Then came the launch of POSE, a range of camera-ready makeup promoted by Bollywood star Sonakshi Sinha. To create buzz, the brand released a teaser on social media where Sonakshi was shown to be handcuffed and taken into police custody. The actor then revealed the new launch on her Instagram page. According to a Facebook India & BCG report, Lockdown led to a 1.35x increase in online beauty buyers in India. MyGlamm saw this surge as an opportunity to increase its user base aggressively. While the brand grew by 400% in the past 12 months to hit an annualized revenue of 140 cr, high CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and low LTV (Lifetime Value) were the cause of concern. What marketing strategy makes Nykaa so unique? New customer acquisition is usually six to seven times more expensive than customer retention. Multiple D2C brands jostling for the attention of the same online audience pushed CACs higher. Hence, MyGlamm came up with a plan to reduce CAC by focusing on three things: Boosting conversion - Focused on performance marketing. For instance, one of its early conversion campaigns increased new user conversion from 12% to 19% and 166% increase in users with abandoned carts. Marketing Automation - Deeper engagement with the agency WebEngage helped the brand target user cohorts on different stages of the purchase journey efficiently. Developing relationship with customers - Acquired content platform POPxo, a community with nearly 50 mn women and 75k influencers through Plixxo (its influencer marketing wing). Within a month of the acquisition, new users for MyGlamm products shot up from 30k to 60k. According to the founder, onboarding POPxo alone would lead to $4-5 mn cost saving in marketing. With this solid top-of-the-funnel marketing and reduced CACs, MyGlamm clocked 50% higher revenues than pre-COVID levels with a retention rate of 45%. The gains are also evident from the consumer interest generated by the brand since Aug 2020, as shown by Google Trends below. What is the purchase process for your company's product? Is it B2C or B2B? What stages of the buying process are most critical for the buyers of your product and why? What are the strongest buying influences on the purchasers of your company's product, and how can you use an understanding of those influences on your buyers to a strategic advantage? Where does your company's product fall on the diffusion of innovation curve, and what are the strategic implications of this on the marketing of your company's products