Sephora’s Beauty Insider: A Masterclass in Customer Loyalty

In this article, we’ll explore Sephora’s renowned loyalty program, its latest innovations, and why it continues to set the gold standard for customer engagement. More importantly, we’ll uncover valuable lessons you can apply to your own loyalty strategy. 

The Beauty Insider: Evolution of Excellence 

Since its 2007 inception, The Beauty Insider has continuously evolved to meet changing customer expectations. Key recent milestones include: 

• 2020: Introduction of Beauty Insider Cash, enabling members to convert 500 points into a $10 discount on purchases, both in-store and online. 

• September 2023: Implementation of a gamified rewards system, introducing point-earning challenges. One notable challenge encouraged members to experience Sephora’s in-store Color iQ tool, an innovative shade-matching technology. 

• August 2024: Launch of the inaugural Rouge Celebration Event, a four-day extravaganza for top-tier members. This exclusive event featured special rewards from premium brands, online masterclasses, and early access to new product launches from select companies. 

These updates demonstrate Sephora’s commitment to enhancing member experiences through innovative rewards, exclusive events, and interactive technologies. By continually refreshing its program, Sephora ensures The Beauty Insider remains relevant and engaging for its diverse customer base.  

Key Takeaway: Regular program updates, incorporating gamification, exclusive events, and new redemption options keep your loyalty strategy fresh and aligned with customer values. 

How It Works: Tiered Rewards for Every Beauty Enthusiast 

It’s a free loyalty program for customers in the U.S. and Canada that allows customers to earn points on every purchase. As of 2021, Sephora’s loyalty program had three tiers—Insiders, VIB and Rouge. 

Every tier has a distinct set of perks and incentives, along with a generic rule that on every dollar a customer spends, they earn one beauty insider point. Anyone can sign up to be an Insider member. To become a VIB member, one must spend more than $350 a year in Sephora. 

For a Rouge membership, one must spend over $1,000 a year. Members enjoy special perks, exclusive benefits and rewards, gifts on birthdays, free makeovers, free beauty and makeup classes, and early shipping on their online orders. VIB Rouge card also gives access to exclusive events. The program offers exclusivity to its customers at each tier, giving them a sense of inclusion in the elite Sephora community. 

Key Takeaway: A tiered structure can motivate customers to increase their spending and engagement with your brand. 

Mobile-First Approach: Seamless Omnichannel Experience 

Sephora recognized that 80% of all shoppers use their phones while inside a physical store to supplement their shopping experience. Hence, enhancing the online and in-store experience through a sophisticated app was the next step. 

Sephora’s app isn’t just a digital loyalty card – it’s a powerful tool for product discovery, reviews, and personalized recommendations. By bridging the online and in-store experience, Sephora creates a truly omnichannel journey. 

The app has also simplified the buying process by showing customer reviews and a ‘Love’ feature that enables customers to save products they like for future reference. Sephora also offers free Wi-Fi at all its brick-and-mortar stores to enhance its customers’ browsing and shopping experience. 

Key Takeaway: Invest in mobile technology to enhance your customers’ shopping experience across all touchpoints. 

Beyond Points: Emotional Connections and Shared Values 

The Beauty Insider program goes beyond transactional rewards. It offers experiences, education, and even opportunities for charitable giving. This approach builds deeper emotional connections with customers. 

“We were really inspired to think about, ‘How do we truly celebrate these members and give them something that only Sephora could provide?’ This group of folks is generally early adopters. They know a lot about beauty. They love the brands that we sell. So giving them opportunities to learn more about those brands or get special perks from those brands was something that we were really excited about.” 

Emmy Brown Berlind, Sephora’s SVP and General Manager of Loyalty 

Sephora’s success lies in creating an aspirational community, delivering hyper-personalized experiences, and offering a sense of exclusivity. With over 25 million members driving significant sales, the results speak for themselves. 
 

Key Takeaway: Incorporate experiential rewards, community engagement, and personalized rewards to show you know your customers and align with their values to create lasting emotional connections.  

Why does it work?

Sephora’s loyalty program is focused more on building an exclusive community. According to studies, emotional perks drive three-quarters of customer engagement.

Sephora understands this and works on emotional drivers. Incentive-driven loyalty works on need and greed, whereas emotionally driven loyalty has a deeper and stronger impact, which offers long-term benefits.

Sephora offers a sense of inclusivity to an elite community. It also personalizes its perks and rewards, building a strong one-on-one relationship with its members.

Free samples or birthday gifts are specially curated and shortlisted after careful analysis of consumers’ purchase behavior and product preference.

The success of Sephora’s loyalty program can be determined by the vast size of the community itself. It has more than 17 million members in North America alone, and the numbers are growing rapidly. The loyalty program members drive 80% of sales while also providing strong, organic publicity to the brand.

Key Takeaway: Sephora’s loyalty program works because it focuses on building an exclusive community through emotional drivers rather than solely relying on transactional incentives.

Applying Sephora’s Lessons to Your Business 

1. Regularly update your program to stand out and keep up with changing customer expectations.  

2. Use tiers with exclusive benefits to motivate increased spending and engagement.  

3. Leverage mobile technology for seamless omnichannel experiences that enrich the buying journey in and out of stores.  

4. Offer gamified experiences, experiential rewards, and community engagement to create different ways for members to engage with your brand.  

Ready to take your customer relationships beyond transactions? Contact us to explore how you can leverage loyalty to stand out and deliver unique value, then see our modern loyalty solution in action.