"We were pleased with the results of these tests. We plan to continue to use email and social media together to maximize engagement and increase the 'share-ability' of our messaging." Sarah Wilcox Online Marketing Manager Bare Escentuals

Challenge:
How to Empower Brand Enthusiasts to Spread the Word about a New Product Launch
Bare Escentuals customers are every marketer's dream—brand enthusiasts. So when the time came to launch their new and highly anticipated bareMinerals MATTE SPF 15 Foundation, Bare Escentuals was challenged to use existing channels—and to find new ways—to encourage and direct their customers' enthusiasm in the most effective manner.

Need:
Easy "Share-ability," Extended Program Reach, and Effective Tracking
Bare Escentuals needed to give customers engaging ways to spread the word to friends and family about their new bareMinerals MATTE SPF 15 Foundation. A social media campaign was part of the solution. However, with customers across multiple demographics who were already using a variety of social networking tools, Bare Escentuals needed a way to manage the widest outreach using existing resources. Finding an integrated interface to allow the Bare Escentuals online marketing team to broadly launch, easily maintain, and systematically track their social media campaigns became critical.

Solution:
An Integrated Email Marketing and Social Media Campaign
Strategic partners BlueHornet and social media communications platform Shoutlet worked together with Bare Escentuals to develop a test plan around the bareMinerals MATTE SPF 15 Foundation product launch that was designed to answer three key questions:

1. To what level could they engage their email subscribers through social content?
2. Would subscribers who already redeemed a coupon be likely to share the same offer with their friends?
3. Could social network exclusive offers drive revenue the same way email does?

To answer these questions and determine if a larger scale social media plan was in line with Bare Escentuals' overall online marketing strategy, they conducted the following tests.

Tests and Results:
Test #1: Polling Current Email Subscribers to Drive Engagement
Bare Escentuals sent an email to subscribers, asking them to complete a fun poll about Bare Escentuals' new bareMinerals MATTE SPF 15 Foundation. Participants who clicked through the email landed on a Bare Escentuals-branded Shoutlet share-to-social page, where they could complete the poll and view other Bare Escentuals customers' responses. The customer then could easily share the poll via email or through up to ten different social networking sites. How many people could they reach?

Results: 33% CTR and 75% Engagement from Unique Users
Using a Shoutlet polling widget, Bare Escentuals tested the level of interest or engagement of their email subscribers. The results greatly exceeded expectations. The email offered a 33% click-through rate and they saw more than 75% of the poll/widget views were unique users - driven from the email. Bare Escentuals also identified a substantial number of users who shared the poll with their social networks. This test indicated that Bare Escentuals' email subscribers comfortably made the leap from email to the social arena.

Test #2: Targeting Coupon Redeemers and Getting Them to Share
Encouraging coupon redeemers to forward an email offer to a friend or family member can be a successful tactic in email. Bare Escentuals wanted to find out what would happen if they asked this important customer segment to forward an offer to their social networks. Could they drive a notable amount of revenue this way when customers posted the offer to potentially hundreds of social network contacts?

Results: 21% Reaction Rate
Asking customers to share an offer with their social networks proved valuable. Bare Escentuals found a high reaction rate from the targeted group; 21% of those who viewed the offer widget then socially bookmarked or forwarded the offer via email.

Test #3: Offering a Social Network-Exclusive Coupon
Bare Escentuals offered an attractive coupon to its Facebook and Twitter followers to determine if marketing an offer exclusively through social channels could drive revenue. Would it work?

Results: Conversion Rates Similar to Other Marketing Channels
The final test and question came down to whether or not Bare Escentuals could drive revenue directly by posting an offer on Facebook and Twitter. They quickly discovered the answer was YES! With this test, Bare Escentuals saw conversation rates similar to those of other marketing channels.

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