Email Strategy Teardown: Living Proof vs. Kérastase
The size of the hair care market is estimated to be about $90 billion U.S. dollars. That’s billion with a “b”. And it’s continuing to climb. By 2024, it’s expected to be $102.28 billion. This growing market caught our eye, so we decided to break down the email strategy of two top hair care brands: Living Proof and Kérastase.
Why Living Proof vs Kérastase?
They’re both established brands that are known for their hair care products, developed with a science-first mentality – just like Klaviyo’s features.
Living Proof is a hair care brand based in Cambridge, MA, not far from our own offices. Their award-winning products use science and patented technology to change the way they and their devoted customers approach hair care.
Kérastase is a hair care brand owned by L’Oreal. Their products are also scientific and innovative, and go through rigorous testing. According to their website, “Kérastase technology is distinguished by a unique formulation charter: prototype formulas with powerful active ingredients, high-tech molecular complexes and sensational textures.”
What I did vs. what they did
What I did
To find out if these brands were doing everything that they could to provide the best first impressions, I subscribed to their email newsletters, abandoned a cart, made a purchase, and signed up for an account.
Their hair care products have been touted by many, and I highly recommend trying them out if you’re looking for something new.
Here’s what I purchased:
Living Proof’s fullness + volume mini transformation kit – the name says it all. Make your hair go from limp and flat to full and voluminous.
Kérastase’s Resistance masque therapiste travel-size hair mask. Repair your weak, over-processed, and damaged hair.
What they did
There was a big difference in the communications each company provided. Between the two of them, I received a mix of subscription confirmations, account confirmations, promotions, surveys, holiday-inspired emails, and emails looking to up-sell and cross-sell. Which was better?
See the complete teardown
Learn more about the email strategies of Living Proof and Kérastase in our complete email strategy teardown – including timeline and content comparisons – and see which company’s strategy won.
Stuart Wooster
March 29, 2019
As much as Kerastase won that round, it was still a poor show from both company’s digital marketing teams.
I work for a company that has direct relationship with Kerastase UK as we are an online hair and beauty retailer, and I am admittedly very surprised that the US website does not have a welcome series or an abandoned cart campaign. Money just left on the table.
On the other hand, when I see hair and beauty companies not push their digital marketing to its full potential I can only guess that they don’t care so much because they are very salon-centric – it’s an internal culture problem that online sales have no priority. I think this teardown proves that, or someone is very much in trouble if this is seen by upper management/stakeholders!
Also, part of the possible problem is they don’t want salon’s to feel unsupported by the brand when their customers say “Oh, I order that online from Kerastase so I won’t buy from you today.”