Developing Its Brand Community in Two Countries Through the Trustt Ambassador Program

Natura, THE Brazilian Cosmetics Brand

A renowned company that today employs over 35,000 people worldwide, Natura is a Brazilian cosmetics brand.

The company sells all types of body, face, and hair care products with plant-based ingredients sourced from Brazilian biodiversity, harvested in partnership with local communities. The brand is committed to sustainable development and has received B Corp certification, a label for companies with a positive societal and environmental impact. It is, to date, the largest certified company in the world!

Providing pleasure and well-being while awakening consumers’ senses is Natura’s leitmotif! The brand targets men and women, between 25 and 45 years old, who are conscious of the composition of products they use daily.

After establishing itself on the American continent, in countries like Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and the United States, Natura wants to go even further. The group aims to conquer a whole new continent: Europe.

Natura first establishes itself in France, before opening up and conquering a brand new country: Germany.

Creating and Developing a Community in France

To establish itself in the French market, Natura understands: it must build a targeted community around its brand and products, relying on a well-defined “customer-centric” strategy.

The Trustt Ambassador Program as a Solution

To achieve this, Natura equips itself with Trustt and implements its first ambassador program on its website: the SaaS solution allows placing consumers at the heart of the product creation process.

With more than “twenty campaigns set up, the brand offers internet users the opportunity to discover products and provide feedback on their experiences. The consumer panel consists of people selected by SophIA®, a smart matching technology that identifies the right ambassadors for the right products. A complete analysis of each profile is carried out according to their number of” followers, interactions and engagements per post, hashtags used, “audience analysis”… But also for their affinities with the brand, its values, and the specificity of its products. These ambassadors then have the responsibility to leave complete and enriched reviews on different aspects of the product: its sensoriality, packaging, or effectiveness. These reassuring elements will then be published on various media – digital and print – which helps boost brand awareness and product sales!

Even More Relevant and Fresh Data!

Thanks to the Trustt software, Natura was able to collect a maximum of data and insights. These highly segmented proprietary data then allowed the brand to:

• Know what are the most important criteria for consumers to make a purchase of cosmetic products,
• Anticipate the needs of its target audience and enter into a product co-creation approach with consumers,
• Create products that are aligned with the requirements of prospects, clients, and customers and thus launch future bestselling products,
• Make better decisions regarding packaging, formulations, or product ingredients.

Ultimately, to have a head start on its competitors.

The French Market: 21 Ambassador Campaigns

After implementing ambassador campaigns (also known as “product campaigns”), the Brazilian company sees the number of UGC (user-generated content) increase considerably on French social networks: dozens of publications on Facebook, hundreds of stories on Instagram, blog articles, etc.

All this authentic content is created by French ambassadors, unconditional fans of the brand’s products. And to win new customers, Natura publishes the most qualitative UGC from its community on its various communication channels: product pages, websites, landing pages, emails, social media posts, print communication… A new form of more targeted, modern, and relevant communication.

While establishing itself in the highly competitive French cosmetics market is not an easy task, it has been a more than successful bet for the brand. By trusting Trustt, Natura activates all digital marketing levers and collects proprietary data, consumer insights, and segmented opt-ins to improve its understanding of the market and its target audience.

All these actions allow the brand to address its initial challenges: boosting sales from its e-shop, promoting conversions, and increasing its awareness in the French market.

Expanding into the German Market

The Current Situation

The German market is entirely new for Natura. New market means new strategy! But why aim to establish itself in the country with the world’s most demanding consumers? Simply because Germany currently represents the largest online market in Europe!

For the German market, everything remains to be built since Natura was still unknown there, both on social networks and in retail. As Germans are particularly sensitive to a brand’s reputation before even considering it, Natura had to thoroughly understand its target audience, their needs, and values to offer perfectly adapted products and communicate relevantly… And thus optimize its reputation.

Thanks to the implementation of 28 product campaigns, Natura has collected numerous proprietary data and insights that have confronted it with other socio-cultural issues:

• Significant cultural differences in the use of certain cosmetic products,
• The language difference,
• New consumption habits,

The Magic Recipe: The Trustt Solution

Natura equips itself with Trustt to take on this challenge, which includes 3 major challenges:

• Building a first foundation for Natura in Germany,
• Developing the Instagram account,
• Gain access to German distributors and brands.

28 campaigns are therefore launched on the brand’s website. To do this, Natura selects hundreds of German ambassadors who share the same sustainable development values as the brand, and who agree to discover and use the products before giving their feedback. A real boon for the Brazilian company, which is gradually establishing itself.

Focusing on UGC

Although initially, influencers were reluctant to discover a new brand and new products, they gradually became actors in developing the brand’s awareness thanks to all their authentic and quality feedback.

Finally, +300 social posts were published by ambassadors on the Natura DE Instagram account with an engagement rate of around 17%! These hundreds of community contents and their virality allowed the brand to win new customers and thus promoted conversions.

Not to Forget Reviews!

Nearly 90% of consumers who consulted online customer reviews before making a purchase state that these influenced their decision. With this in mind, the brand places customer feedback at the heart of its strategy.

Consumer panels leave their complete experience feedback on the product and its effectiveness, in its entirety. Thanks to these authentic and detailed reviews, Natura’s future customers can project themselves before making a good purchase.

Moreover, this consumer feedback is a key resource for the brand, which collects important information to improve its customer knowledge and guide its communication and marketing strategy.

Conclusion

The collection of proprietary data and insights allowed Natura to realize that each country had its consumption habits and a certain way of adopting a product; but even beyond that, one cannot communicate in France as one communicates in Germany.

Ex: The triple-phase oil that worked in Brazil had not won the hearts of German consumers. Indeed, this product requires pedagogy and advice from the salesperson, which is more difficult to transpose in e-commerce.

Thus, certain insights and data reported to the parent company in Brazil allowed Natura to make relevant decisions, such as modifying the formulation of certain products according to the specificities of the country.

Natura successfully addressed its business challenges in both countries through the power of its community. With an effective ambassador program and targeted product campaigns, the brand strengthened its visibility and created two foundations of engaged communities while modernizing its communications. This initial success and the building of an engaged community serve as solid foundations to support Natura’s future developments in other European countries…