Customer relationship management (CRM) platform Cohora has a unique focus on the ‘relationship’ aspect of consumer engagement. According to market research firm Statista, “global sales through social media platforms are estimated to be USD 992 billion in 2022” and continue to grow. For beauty brands to make the most of marketing opportunities through social commerce channels, it is essential to understand how to invest in fostering consumer-brand relationships.
Learn more about Cohora and how the brand is revolutionizing consumer engagement for beauty and personal care companies, including how consumer demand influences product formulation, development processes, and ingredient formulation. For this, we interviewed Manu Mathew, CEO of Cohora. his insight.
CDU: Ms. Cohora, can you give us a brief background about yourself and your relationship with the cosmetics and personal beauty care products industry?
Manu Matthew (MM): I have spent my entire career driving digital efficiency and effectiveness in marketing. Prior to joining Cohora, he served as President of the Americas for Ad-lib.io, where he led the company’s successful entry into the U.S. market.
Before that, I founded Visual IQ in 2006. We are launching the industry’s first MTA attribution solution that leverages data to help marketers gain an accurate and holistic view of performance, better allocate marketing dollars, and prove their effectiveness. We took a pioneering approach to raising the number. of investment. Visual IQ was acquired by Nielsen in 2017.
I co-founded Cohora in November 2022. Cohora is a platform that allows beauty and cosmetics companies to build brand-owned social customer networks that connect directly to advertisers’ existing CRM or CDP platforms.
Upon deployment, the Cohora platform is branded to match the look and feel of your company. The platform allows consumers to share tips, provide reviews, and interact with other customers.
These organic, authentic interactions drive business impact and increase conversions by spreading the word about your products to targeted new audiences. In the process, users accumulate loyalty points based on engagement, measured value, and meaningful interactions with brands, while contributing to growing organic brand reach.
CDU: How does consumer demand impact the formulation and development of cosmetics and personal care products?
Hmm: Consumer demand influences everything from product development to ordering and sourcing. In fact, there has never been a moment like this in the history of consumerism when shoppers are demanding that brands be sustainable, fair, and diverse. For cosmetics brands, this can be about everything from “Do the foundations we sell have enough color variation to represent all skin tones?” “Are these products packaged in recyclable materials?”
However, the problem most brands face is that there is currently no two-way dialogue between brands and consumers. Instead, brands are shouting for caution on social media, using review sites where consumers leave reviews that give hints about which ingredients and products they like and would like to see improved. , the opinions remain different. Never mind that you can add color to traditional things. Your company may already have sales data.
But if brands can better collect and analyze this user feedback, they can use it to develop and tailor products to consumer preferences.
CDU: What are some ways that manufacturers and suppliers in the cosmetics and personal care products industry can leverage consumer demand in the product development process, particularly in ingredient formulation?
Hmm: Data is the key to gaining insight into consumer demand. Many cosmetics and beauty brands have sales data that can be analyzed to predict demand, as well as third-party data collected from online advertising efforts. However, adding zero-party and first-party data to your arsenal can provide a whole new level of insight into the types of products shoppers want to see.
Zero-party data yields solid insights about your customers, from demographics and interests to product usage metrics. First-party data, such as purchase history and interactions on his website, has value in being transparent, with customer consent, and focusing on preferences and intent beyond purchase history.
In addition to traditional sales data, cosmetics and personal care brands will be able to better understand preferences at an individual level. That means more insight into what will sell when and which formulations and features will resonate most with buyers.
CDU: How will consumer engagement impact future product development processes?
Hmm: Consumer engagement is key to fostering long-term loyalty, brand advocacy, and gaining visibility into behaviors that can influence product design and development. But the problem at hand is that the best insights for cosmetics and beauty brands are limited to clicks and purchase history, and in some cases, that critical data is owned by intermediaries.
Tutorials on TikTok and Instagram are also done by regular people (not mega-influencers) and can share important insights, as can reviews left by people on websites, social media, and other forums. This type of data, which can provide a clear picture of what consumers want, is all too often not considered when making future decisions about product design, development, or demand. In some cases, there may be too much data to process.
But when cosmetics companies bring consumers into the same space, ideally through brand-owned channels, they can not only get reviews and content to help inform future decisions, but also reward customers for sharing. You will also be able to give. Earning loyalty points and perks as a result of engagement opens the door to feedback loops for brands, giving them a clearer view of tastes and trends than they ever dreamed possible.
Because the environment is now owned, brands can also be creative with when and how they engage with shoppers. For example, personal care brands can directly ask consumers in a survey if they want shampoo bottles made from recycled materials. If an entire community of people says yes, brands know this is something to consider for future and current products.
CDU: What are some other ways, other than social media, for cosmetics and personal care product companies to aggregate and analyze consumer demand for new product formulations?
Hmm: Cosmetics and personal care companies should consider launching a social network owned by their brand. That’s where all this interaction, engagement, and data collection happens. This type of channel allows customers to not only engage with your brand, but also to gain countless insights as they interact with each other on a dedicated social network.
From the most talked about and trending products on the website, to reviews that can be easily tracked in your own environment, to surveys that allow you to ask consumers questions about the product and value, and the feedback that can be generated along the way. Space is almost limitless.
The best part is, the feedback itself is data, which can be used to power predictive analytics that identify patterns and trends that might not be obvious otherwise. Similarly, because the network is owned, its data is updated in real time, allowing brands to better predict preferences and pivot accordingly.
When brands pay attention to what’s happening in their communities, they have the tools to better formulate, design, and stock the products shoppers want to buy, leading to increased conversions and revenue over time. .
CDU: Does Cohora plan to further explore consumer demand and engagement in the cosmetics and personal care products space with regard to product development and design?
Hmm: Cohora is constantly striving to improve our platform and better serve our customers in the beauty and personal care industry. From automation to more APIs, we’re exploring more ways to connect our platform to systems, improve insights, and drive marketing and business decisions.
