last week, Priceline held it’s annual Beauty Prescription (Live) event – where all the beauty trends for 2018 were revealed. But we wanted to know what Priceline’s plans were for 2018. So B&T sat down with Priceline’s General Manager Tamalin Morton and Marketing Manager Allana May.
In 2018, Morton said Priceline has the opportunity to make Priceline “a destination” for shoppers. But how?
“I think it’s continuing to build on the model that we are – so really leveraging customer data and understanding our customers – really leveraging those insights to further advance our position and make sure we absolutely have the right product and the right value,” she said.
The Priceline Sisters Club is currently at over seven million members – giving the company a ton of customer data to go off.
“Obviously we have a huge amount of insight into what our customers are purchasing, when they’re purchasing it, their shopping frequency – and that really helps us to make better customer decisions,” Morton added.
“Not only in terms of how we market to them, but in terms of the offers we provide, the ranges that we put in store and the service that they might need. So it’s really using that information as much as we can to enhance our customer offer.”
From a marketing perspective, Priceline “have a lot of toys in the toy box that we get to play with” according to May.
“It’s so dynamic,” she said. “Being able to use different mediums to target different customers and making sure that the messaging and content coming out is [a result of] understanding what you’re looking for and responding to that.
“So I think we’ve continued to evolve with what we know women, and our customers, are looking for,” May added.
The messaging and content Priceline uses to market itself to consumers can include everything from how-to videos on Youtube, to the offers they show in store, to working with social media influencers – but it all comes down to the brands they work with, and whether their customers are interested in those brands.
“We’ll always work with brands. it’s a really important, fantastic relationship for us,” said Morton. “We really actively work together and promote them.”
“For us its about continuing to foster those relationships and just continuing to grow that space. We certainly want to keep pushing new and exclusive products – and that’s the reason [customers] have to come, because they’re only at Priceline,” she added.
Morton also talked about Priceline’s points of differences – including having in-store pharmacists and make-up artists on standby to provide customers with advice.
“We have fantastic ranges, we have new and exclusive products, we offer excellent value and we provide great advice,” she said.
“Our marketing strategy takes into account all of those elements and we’ll continue to build on it.”
In 2018, Priceline will continue to focus on their exclusive brands – brands that are different to those in Sephora or Mecca Maxima, so that “Priceline pharmacy is a destination” rather than merely a stop along the way.
Priceline’s other competitors come from far and wide – because stores like Chemist Warehouse, Sephora and Target all stock health and beauty products. And Priceline needs to stand out.
And May said that social media has been one way to do just that.
“Social media has been an incredible enghagement tool. From when we first launched [on] Facebook, we had such an engaged community of women that had just fostered such a strong relationship with the brands.”
“We can see what they’re liking and what they’re not liking,” she said. “We actually take that information and we use it [in our marketing].
“We understand exactly what they’re looking for and we make sure our marketing campaigns are matching that.”
In terms of social media marketing, Priceline also works with a skew of models and Instagram influencers, including Samantha Harris and Ita Buttrose (pictured with Morton below).
May said that the company loves working with influencers, with some even approaching Priceline themselves.
“You’ve got a lot of influencers who are passionate about health and beauty as well – they have really great engagement with their own audiences that have such an affinity for our brand anyway,” she said.
And Priceline is only growing – Morton said the company will continue to look back at their customer data base to determine what marketing strategies may work best.
“In terms of how we’re evolving, that’s absolutely what we’re doing. We’re really focused on enahcened customer understanding, building that capability,” she said.
“We want to keep building the brand – that’s a real focus for us, and continuing the build on those points of difference.”
