The beauty and skincare industries are quickly evolving — and the pace isn’t about to slow down in 2023. If anything, this year will mark some of the industry’s most significant changes. Spurred by advanced technologies that feel like science fiction, upcoming trends will make personalization an integral part of interacting with top beauty brands.
To illustrate the growing importance of personalization and technology in the beauty industry, we’ve highlighted a few of the most relevant trends to look forward to in 2023.
Personalizing Customers’ Products Discovery and Maximizing Performance
Personalizing the shopping experience helps beauty brands and retailers support consumers in cutting through the noise and finding the products each customer needs based on their unique concerns and preferences.
The process of finding a skincare routine can seem a little daunting, especially when there are numerous options for customers with the same skin type and simply not enough information concerning their skin health. To tackle this problem brands must embrace consumers’ special characteristics, such as age, skin type, gender, and various external factors.
By leveraging intelligent algorithms, brands can now analyze purchase patterns and consumer behavior to deliver safe and personalized experiences that are – most importantly – in demand. This enables beauty companies to unpack exactly what their customers’ intentions and needs are – uplifting their beauty journey by recommending the right products. In particular, product recommendations are an effective tool to deliver a memorable omnichannel product discovery experience and increase its average order value (AOV). For instance, product recommendations allow consumers to explore different suitable categories simultaneously, thus boosting the average purchase value.
Data-powered personalization also ensures that no matter which category they find themselves in, customers enjoy a more personalized experience than the one-size-fits-all eCommerce approach of yesteryear.
Building New Roads to Loyalty in Beauty
Today, brands must provide a truly personalized experience and tap into customers’ mindsets in exchange for some value. Collecting zero- and first-party data enables brands to enhance their retargeting and customer communications strategy, leading to a more personalized conversation with each customer. When a brand consistently makes a shopping experience both convenient and accurate, the chances that the customer will return are high — and loyalty programs that collect first- and zero-party data ensure that they do.
For instance, once a shopper becomes a customer, brands can continue to receive relevant zero-party data through loyalty, discounts, and rewards programs. In each case, these represent the next steps in the evolution of zero-party relationships, generating compelling, immediate incentives — discounts for loyalty program membership, exclusive invitations to events, and the like — that further drive zero-party data collection opportunities.
The journey continues, the data enriches, and the customer experience deepens.
Engaging With Repeat Shoppers
It’s no secret that marketing budgets can be stretched further when courting previous shoppers, rather than focusing primarily on gaining new customers. This is becoming far easier to accomplish as personalization takes hold.
Once brands can engage with shoppers more intimately, customers are more likely to resonate with the business’s message and purchase from the brand again. Tech-powered experiences are also a great way to augment your brand values. For example, with AI and AR technologies, you’re essentially helping customers make more informed shopping decisions and even offering a carbon-emission-free method for product sampling – such as virtually trying on makeup.
Delivering a suite of tech-powered experiences helps create valuable and meaningful experiences to make consumers’ sharing of their preferences more rewarding. It enables brands to earn customer trust, making the customer care for the brand even more purchase after purchase.
Meaningful Products
These days, beauty isn’t just about obscuring unwanted blemishes or undesirable features. Instead, the best products provide the ultimate opportunity to celebrate what makes us unique in terms of outward aesthetics and inner beauty.
To that end, meaningful products are in high demand. These take many forms and can be enhanced by the personalization opportunities mentioned previously. Remember: customers love when their beauty purchases support causes they hold dear. Many prefer to purchase products from purpose-driven businesses, which may emphasize clean products or beauty diversity. These preferences can be built into personalization efforts, with beauty recommendations curated based not only on skin quality, but also on personal convictions.
As exciting new technologies enter the beauty industry, opportunities for personalized experiences abound. In 2023, advanced solutions will bring a curated feel to online shopping, making the process of finding and trying the best products a lot more exciting and a lot less overwhelming.
