Molly Dufner from e.l.f. Beauty explains how the company went 100% digital during COVID and used Salesforce to stay ahead. Her three moves: meet shoppers where they are, grow loyalty through connected experiences, and build on a scalable platform.
When I explain my job to people, they really don't understand what I do. For example, my daughter, she's 12 years old. The way I like to explain e commerce is it's math. And I know you love math. Not this year. It's like an equation. Traffic times conversion times average order value. So it's math. So simply put, you sell makeup, I sell makeup. Yeah. Yeah.
Any kids watching? Here's proof you will use math later in life. Hi, I'm Emmanuel Acho. The name of the show, simply put, where your beastliest business challenges get simple solves. Now, my goal here is to keep things short and to the point for you. I. I've got a jargon free explanation for everything. Plus, keep an eye out for these. In this episode, we're headed to the future and we'll be in great hands with Molly Dufner, Elf Beauty's VP of E commerce and customer experience. Molly's gonna tell us how ELF went 100% digital. You'll also hear a few takes from John Feldman, a senior product marketing manager at Salesforce. John's gonna walk us through a demo on Molly's three tips to future proof your business make sense. All right, great. Here's Molly again.
The online shopping experience has been transforming for the past few years. But with COVID we transformed five years worth of development into a matter of months. And now we have analytics like we've never seen before. For me, data is like being in a candy store. We can see what the add to cart rate is, what the conversion rates are, what the traffic sources are. I've been in e Commerce for 20 years and this was like landing on the moon. Data allows us to invest in our future because data allows us to more accurately forecast what the future is going to look like. Everything is changing in the digital marketing world so quickly. The brands that have that connection to their customers and have that customer data are the ones that are really set up for future success. What this year has taught us is that being future proof means being ready for the unexpected. For me, that means making sure that your foundation for digital commerce and CRM is solid and is prepared to change at any moment. Having a single source of truth is the holy grail of CRM. Digital360 has transformed, transformed Elf's business by allowing us to be agile and scale in a way that we were not able to before. The most important thing to me is knowing that customer. And that's where customer360 really makes a big difference. To have that one on one communication with our customer, no matter where they buy.
Now grab your pen and paper because your future self will never forgive you. If you miss Molly's free tips, John Feldman from Salesforce will help put her advice into action.
Simply put, these are my top three tips on how to future proof your business. Number one Meet shoppers where they are.
I couldn't agree more, Molly. Customers have moved way beyond brick and mortar, and they aren't just browsing your website. They're finding you on social media partner sites all over the digital world. We call this shopping at the edge, and it's a huge growth area. Transactions that start on Social are up 104% year over year. So how do you get started? Find the social channels your audience spends the most time on and activate social selling there. For instance, Elf's platform seamlessly feeds their catalog directly into Instagram. They tag those products in their posts so shoppers can see the items they're interested in and purchase without leaving the app. Once you've shown up where your digital customers are, what should you do next?
Number two Grow loyalty with connected experiences.
This is key. About half of US consumers switched to new brands last year. Experiences are driving these shifts in loyalty. So what do you need? A complete single view of your customer is essential to connect every step in the shopping experience. Once you have that, you can build a unified view to your inventory across stores, distribution centers, the whole network. Look how easy it is to see ELF's fulfillment options. Shoppers can choose curbside pickup, shop by store, next day, shipping, even check inventory by location. Connected experiences like these delight customers and build the trust and loyalty that translate into repeat shoppers. And now you're growing. Which leads us to Molly's next tip.
Number three Build on a scalable and flexible platform.
Our simplest but most important point? Build your business on a platform that can scale with you. This will help your teams innovate faster and implement big ideas with fewer roadblocks. That's how ELF can activate new experiences like live shopping. While customers view tutorials by their favorite influencers, you can guide them in real time with AI driven recommendations, live inventory, displays by location, and even virtual try ons. Whether exploring innovations like live shopping, expanding into new regions, or starting new product lines, you won't be slowed down if you're built on a flexible platform.
Now that does it for this episode of Simply Put. But get Ready, A new one starts right now.
