12.19.16
Following the release of its second annual Reviewers' Choice Awards: Best in Beauty, Happi caught up with Influenster co-founder and president Elizabeth Scherle, who shared insight about the winners and what her growing product discovery and reviews platform has planned for 2017 and beyond.
Happi: Tell us the results of the Reviewers’ Choice Awards: Best in Beauty—what surprised you the most this second time around?
Scherle: First and foremost, there was a big surge in voters. We were excited to receive 200K+ votes locked in by 84K+ beauty mavens — more than double the amount of votes compared to last year. This is a huge indication of just how hungry consumers are for peer-to-peer recommendations. With Influenster as the go-to place for beauty reviews and user-generated content (UGC), our awards program is an extension of our reviews platform with this people’s choice-style celebration of the best in beauty.
We think a few things contributed to this increase in interest from our community. We started by adding more categories, taking the total from 60 to 99, and in so doing, gave our members a chance to vote for even more of their favorite products. Since there are top products for different budgets, and women are always on the hunt for steals and splurge-worthy items, we wanted to give our members the opportunity to weigh in on their top picks and recommendations in both drugstore and luxury categories this year.
With beauty trends coming and going so quickly, especially shaped by the rise of social media and beauty influencers, we made sure to add the hottest product categories that our members were raging about in this year’s awards to keep it fresh: Best Highlighter, Best Color Corrector, Best Best Makeup Collaboration, Best Cult Classic and more. Interestingly, even though the dewy look was hugely popular this year, we saw a surge in matte product conversations from our members as well. Hence, some matte category additions included Best Liquid Lipstick, Best Matte Lipstick, Best Foundation Stick and Best Foundation for Oily Skin.
A few products that stood the test of time and proved to be classics with strong staying power include: CoverGirl LashBlast Volume Mascara as Best (Drugstore) Mascara, Dove Deep Moisture Body Wash as Best Body Wash, Batiste Dry Shampoo as Best Dry Shampoo, and The Wet Brush as Best Hairbrush. On the flip side, a fresh crop of newcomers proved that they were able to outshine the strong competition: ColourPop Highlighter won Best Drugstore Highlighter and L'Oréal Paris Detox & Brighten Pure-Clay Mask won Best Drugstore Facial Mask. These were products that gained a lot of reviews with high ratings in a short period of time following their debuts in the marketplace.
For the categories we chose not to split up into drugstore and luxury, we noticed that pricier doesn’t always mean better. For example, Best Curling Iron went to Conair You Curl Infiniti even though there were other strong luxury contenders in that category.
Another surprise was the increase in enthusiasm from nominated brands. Unlike many other awards programs where the winners are determined by editors and experts, brands were particularly thrilled because winners for this awards program are chosen by the people, for the people. That places a whole new level of value on these products — brands could showcase their nominations and their fans could cast their votes to show their support and approval.
HAPPI: Give us the "state of the union,” so to speak, about Influenster as it stands right now. How far has it come since 2010?
Scherle: We’ve come a long way since the founding of Influenster back in 2010. What started out as a way to modernize market research by sending samples to targeted consumers in order to collect feedback has evolved into a full product discovery and integration experience — a go-to reviews destination for consumers. We keep innovating and evolving to stay relevant and competitive.
Today, much like a TripAdvisor for products, Influenster helps more than 2.5 million product junkies and beauty mavens find and test new products as well as get advice to make better shopping decisions. With over 11 million reviews on our platform (99% of them not generated from product trials), consumers use Influenster to explore the latest products, gain fresh insight, pick up new tips, and share their opinions with others.
HAPPI: What do you see as Influenster’s critical role in the beauty and personal care space?
Scherle: While Influenster is known for its marketing programs, we are growing into a product reviews resource for consumers to discover beauty and personal care products and for brands to be a part of that conversation. Influenster is the ultimate destination for consumers to get advice and learn about what’s new and trending, curated from our community of socially-savvy beauty mavens. Through our peer-to-peer network of product discovery, over 2.5 million+ product junkies get to discover, review, and share their mutual love for products. Members come to influenster to find out the latest scoop on millions of products aggregated from millions of reviews from real people, not ads, not magazine editors. It’s a fun, social outlet for members to tell their friends and followers about the products that they like.
Influenster has a one-of-a-kind business model. With over 11 million reviews on Influenster’s reviews platform, and over 880K new reviews generated each month, Influenster is uniquely positioned to know the ins and outs of our member behavior — from what they purchase regularly to what they are considering purchasing. From this data, we give our users personalized experiences through the content that we curate and feed them with on our platform as well as the possibility of free products that they get to test and review. The entire product discovery experience is customized and designed to match their lifestyles. From a brand perspective, they can get in front of hyper-targeted consumer groups that we know a whole lot about (e.g. where they shop, the brands they use, the products they purchase, etc.) to drive product trials, generate social buzz and gather insights.
HAPPI: What can we expect from Influenster in 2017?
Scherle: We’re rolling out many new initiatives in 2017 based on the helpful feedback we’ve received from our members and brand partners.
Since video is the now and future of product reviews, we’re looking to integrate video reviews into our platform in 2017 to give members the opportunity to take their reviews to the next level with visual storytelling.
In addition, one of our key launches will be the Review Management System aimed at giving brands full control over UGC on Influenster.com and the Influenster app. On top of being able to directly answer user questions and respond to user reviews, brands will also be able to track product performance and sentiment, assess reviewer demographics, compare against competitor pages and much more.
We will also be adding a photo feature to the Influenster Widget to harness the power of the UGC to drive sales conversions. With the Widget, brands can now integrate community content from Influenster into their own websites by embedding a custom widget to display reviews, Q&As and user-uploaded photos. Influenster works with each retailer to tailor the colors, fonts and aesthetic to match the brand site, and offers full-service consultation and A/B testing to optimize the widget implementation, maximize traffic, decrease visitor bounce rates, increase time spent on site and increase conversions.
The next version of the Influenster App that harnesses the power of mobile reviews will be updated with a photo tagging feature that allows users to upload a photo of a product and tag the associated product page associated with it—making product discovery an even more seamless experience for other members. Other new capabilities include: a photo editing feature for users to upload photos alongside reviews with fun filters, badges and texts, a Q&A feature for users to ask questions about products they are considering in stores and get answers back from the member community in a matter of minutes, a discovery feature for users to find new products tailored to their interests on the go as well as a geo-targeting feature to send push notifications about discounts and offers on products that users are following in stores nearby. The Influenster App is a draw for brands seeking to activate consumers in stores and drive them to making purchasing decisions.
On top of opening offices in Chicago and Toronto, we’re looking into new areas for market expansion internationally. Next up in 2017? We plan to launch Influenster UK.
With regards to our 3rd Annual Reviewers’ Choice Awards: Best in Beauty, we plan on rolling out a winners awards ceremony to add a human touch to our celebration of wins with brands.
Want to see the winners? Check out all 99 of them here.
Happi: Tell us the results of the Reviewers’ Choice Awards: Best in Beauty—what surprised you the most this second time around?
Scherle: First and foremost, there was a big surge in voters. We were excited to receive 200K+ votes locked in by 84K+ beauty mavens — more than double the amount of votes compared to last year. This is a huge indication of just how hungry consumers are for peer-to-peer recommendations. With Influenster as the go-to place for beauty reviews and user-generated content (UGC), our awards program is an extension of our reviews platform with this people’s choice-style celebration of the best in beauty.
We think a few things contributed to this increase in interest from our community. We started by adding more categories, taking the total from 60 to 99, and in so doing, gave our members a chance to vote for even more of their favorite products. Since there are top products for different budgets, and women are always on the hunt for steals and splurge-worthy items, we wanted to give our members the opportunity to weigh in on their top picks and recommendations in both drugstore and luxury categories this year.
With beauty trends coming and going so quickly, especially shaped by the rise of social media and beauty influencers, we made sure to add the hottest product categories that our members were raging about in this year’s awards to keep it fresh: Best Highlighter, Best Color Corrector, Best Best Makeup Collaboration, Best Cult Classic and more. Interestingly, even though the dewy look was hugely popular this year, we saw a surge in matte product conversations from our members as well. Hence, some matte category additions included Best Liquid Lipstick, Best Matte Lipstick, Best Foundation Stick and Best Foundation for Oily Skin.
A few products that stood the test of time and proved to be classics with strong staying power include: CoverGirl LashBlast Volume Mascara as Best (Drugstore) Mascara, Dove Deep Moisture Body Wash as Best Body Wash, Batiste Dry Shampoo as Best Dry Shampoo, and The Wet Brush as Best Hairbrush. On the flip side, a fresh crop of newcomers proved that they were able to outshine the strong competition: ColourPop Highlighter won Best Drugstore Highlighter and L'Oréal Paris Detox & Brighten Pure-Clay Mask won Best Drugstore Facial Mask. These were products that gained a lot of reviews with high ratings in a short period of time following their debuts in the marketplace.
For the categories we chose not to split up into drugstore and luxury, we noticed that pricier doesn’t always mean better. For example, Best Curling Iron went to Conair You Curl Infiniti even though there were other strong luxury contenders in that category.
Another surprise was the increase in enthusiasm from nominated brands. Unlike many other awards programs where the winners are determined by editors and experts, brands were particularly thrilled because winners for this awards program are chosen by the people, for the people. That places a whole new level of value on these products — brands could showcase their nominations and their fans could cast their votes to show their support and approval.
HAPPI: Give us the "state of the union,” so to speak, about Influenster as it stands right now. How far has it come since 2010?
Scherle: We’ve come a long way since the founding of Influenster back in 2010. What started out as a way to modernize market research by sending samples to targeted consumers in order to collect feedback has evolved into a full product discovery and integration experience — a go-to reviews destination for consumers. We keep innovating and evolving to stay relevant and competitive.
Today, much like a TripAdvisor for products, Influenster helps more than 2.5 million product junkies and beauty mavens find and test new products as well as get advice to make better shopping decisions. With over 11 million reviews on our platform (99% of them not generated from product trials), consumers use Influenster to explore the latest products, gain fresh insight, pick up new tips, and share their opinions with others.
HAPPI: What do you see as Influenster’s critical role in the beauty and personal care space?
Scherle: While Influenster is known for its marketing programs, we are growing into a product reviews resource for consumers to discover beauty and personal care products and for brands to be a part of that conversation. Influenster is the ultimate destination for consumers to get advice and learn about what’s new and trending, curated from our community of socially-savvy beauty mavens. Through our peer-to-peer network of product discovery, over 2.5 million+ product junkies get to discover, review, and share their mutual love for products. Members come to influenster to find out the latest scoop on millions of products aggregated from millions of reviews from real people, not ads, not magazine editors. It’s a fun, social outlet for members to tell their friends and followers about the products that they like.
Influenster has a one-of-a-kind business model. With over 11 million reviews on Influenster’s reviews platform, and over 880K new reviews generated each month, Influenster is uniquely positioned to know the ins and outs of our member behavior — from what they purchase regularly to what they are considering purchasing. From this data, we give our users personalized experiences through the content that we curate and feed them with on our platform as well as the possibility of free products that they get to test and review. The entire product discovery experience is customized and designed to match their lifestyles. From a brand perspective, they can get in front of hyper-targeted consumer groups that we know a whole lot about (e.g. where they shop, the brands they use, the products they purchase, etc.) to drive product trials, generate social buzz and gather insights.
HAPPI: What can we expect from Influenster in 2017?
Scherle: We’re rolling out many new initiatives in 2017 based on the helpful feedback we’ve received from our members and brand partners.
Since video is the now and future of product reviews, we’re looking to integrate video reviews into our platform in 2017 to give members the opportunity to take their reviews to the next level with visual storytelling.
In addition, one of our key launches will be the Review Management System aimed at giving brands full control over UGC on Influenster.com and the Influenster app. On top of being able to directly answer user questions and respond to user reviews, brands will also be able to track product performance and sentiment, assess reviewer demographics, compare against competitor pages and much more.
We will also be adding a photo feature to the Influenster Widget to harness the power of the UGC to drive sales conversions. With the Widget, brands can now integrate community content from Influenster into their own websites by embedding a custom widget to display reviews, Q&As and user-uploaded photos. Influenster works with each retailer to tailor the colors, fonts and aesthetic to match the brand site, and offers full-service consultation and A/B testing to optimize the widget implementation, maximize traffic, decrease visitor bounce rates, increase time spent on site and increase conversions.
The next version of the Influenster App that harnesses the power of mobile reviews will be updated with a photo tagging feature that allows users to upload a photo of a product and tag the associated product page associated with it—making product discovery an even more seamless experience for other members. Other new capabilities include: a photo editing feature for users to upload photos alongside reviews with fun filters, badges and texts, a Q&A feature for users to ask questions about products they are considering in stores and get answers back from the member community in a matter of minutes, a discovery feature for users to find new products tailored to their interests on the go as well as a geo-targeting feature to send push notifications about discounts and offers on products that users are following in stores nearby. The Influenster App is a draw for brands seeking to activate consumers in stores and drive them to making purchasing decisions.
On top of opening offices in Chicago and Toronto, we’re looking into new areas for market expansion internationally. Next up in 2017? We plan to launch Influenster UK.
With regards to our 3rd Annual Reviewers’ Choice Awards: Best in Beauty, we plan on rolling out a winners awards ceremony to add a human touch to our celebration of wins with brands.
Want to see the winners? Check out all 99 of them here.