Luxury haircare brand Kérastase historically built its distribution through a select network of 40,000 hair salons in 75 countries but while the brand was deploying e-commerce directly to the consumer, how could it drive customers to its independent professional‘s salons and promote stylists‘ expertise too? The question was asked in 2012, and before long, communications company Solocal Group provided an answer.
Solocal Group implemented a section into Kérastase‘s website which would allow consumers to locate salons and learn more about the stylists‘ capabilities. Initially launched in France, its web-to-store platform was deployed in 2012, generating 3.9 times more traffic to the local store pages within the space of a year, as well as creating an enhanced user experience and improving the sales conversion rate. The section was gradually rolled out on a worldwide basis and launched in the UK last month.
Kérastase, which is owned and distributed under the L‘Oréal umbrella, saw a geolocater seamlessly built in to its website, enabling customers to use their location settings to find a nearby salon, or search for a salon in their city. This lead to four times as much web-to-store visits and improved Kérastase‘s SEO rankings. To help build a personal connection between customers and their local Kérastase salon, Solocal Group included photographs of individual salons, as well as information about each salon‘s in-store services, allowing customers to choose which best suited their need. The result is a personalised online experience. Solocal Group further enhanced the user experience by including Kérastase‘s sites on Google Maps, making it easier for users to choose the best salon for them, and boosting SEO rankings even further.
To generate leads for Kérastase, Solocal Group encouraged visitors to the site to subscribe to a newsletter. As an incentive, Solocal Group suggested offering new subscribers a free shampoo when they signed up. This proved to be a highly successful means of sourcing leads for Kérastase, with 15% of web visitors opting to sign up to the newsletter. As Kérastase‘s E-commerce and Digital Marketing Manager Benoit Delporte commented, “We have benefited enormously from the integration of Solocal‘s solutions into our digital strategy.”
Solocal Group realise that in today‘s connected world, more and more people are accessing the internet using smartphones, tablets and computers, and therefore its solutions must be optimised for these devices, to make them as accessible as possible for the customer. 2013‘s IAB UK Mobile Retail Audit found that 46% of tablet owners say they are much more likely to use a site if it has been enhanced for a tablet, highlighting the direct impact an optimised site has on retailers‘ web traffic. To maximise the effectiveness of campaigns for clients such as Kérastase, Solocal Group ensure that its solutions can be implemented across all three devices, making them as user-friendly as possible for the consumer.
To date, Kérastase has successfully used Solocal Group‘s dynamic platform across 40,000 salons, in 75 countries and overseas territories, in 11 languages and is currently implementing the solution in the UK and Ireland.
Solocal Group‘s multichannel approach to marketing supports retailers in converting online researchers into in-store sales, thanks to its exceptional understanding of what consumers want and need. Through this knowledge, Solocal Group is able to connect brands to customers, leading to substantial improvements in sales and customer retention.
