In-Depth Marketing Strategy of Clinique with Company Overview & STP Analysis

Updated on: Jul 29, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Featured Image

  Hey there!

My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations from Harvard Business Review helped the students from this course present this analysis.

Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience.

If you find this case study helpful, consider leaving a comment below.

In a previous article, we learned about the SWOT analysis of Clinique. In this blog, we are going to elaborate on the marketing strategy of Clinique which is another extremely successful company in this sector. 

You’ll be surprised to know that the idea for a brand like Clinique had come from a vogue article that was released in the year 1967. This brand makes people want to appreciate and take care of their skin because of their product quality. 

Clinique’s digital marketing has always been strong and it has played an important role in getting its brand the recognition and success it has achieved over the years. It is extremely important to have digital skills and be up to date about them so that they can be applied at the right time to provide you success. To get such skills and knowledge on digital marketing take IIDE’s Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and Founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

We will learn the entire marketing strategy of Clinique by the end of this blog. Before diving deep into it, let’s begin with the company’s story, target audience, and digital presence.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

About Clinique

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Evelyn Lauder - The Founder of Clinique
(Evelyn Lauder – The Founder of Clinique, Source: Pinterest)

Amongst the trusted beauty brands in the world – Clinique is a brand that gave skincare a new angle, by creating scientifically sound skin care. They are one of the first brands to make products for sensitive skin and create their products accordingly. It gave people the skin care they needed and not just the skincare they wanted. 

Clinique is a brand which was founded in the year 1968 by Evelyn Lauder who was also the daughter-in-law of Estée Lauder. Both companies share origins. It now has stores in almost 135 separate countries. 

Evelyn Lauder had collaborated with a dermatologist called Dr Norman Orentreich to come up with this brand which created skincare that was a game-changer. They are one of the first skincare brands to provide allergy-tested products and 100% fragrance-free as well. It believes in and encourages people to follow a three-step basic skincare routine which is to cleanse, exfoliate and finally moisturise.

Quick Stats on Clinique
CEO Michelle Freyre
CMO Carolyn Dawkins
Area Served Worldwide
Industry Beauty & Wellness products
Market Share/ Revenue Over US$252 Million
Vision To provide the safest, most effective formulas in simple routines that bring remarkable results.
Tagline “No parabens. No phthalates. No fragrance. Just happy skin.”

 

Marketing Strategy of Clinique

Clinique’s reward programs, influencer marketing strategies, campaigns, etc have benefitted them immensely. They strive to connect with their customers!

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

The target audience of Clinique is mainly women, in their pre-teen to middle-age years. This is the group that cares most about lifestyle and status symbols, they care about themselves a lot. 

Clinique focuses on individual needs, skin types, and age, and then segments the market according to those factors.

Clinique primarily targets young women, but a lot of older women use Clinique’s products due to customer loyalty that has been established thanks to Clinique’s quality after sales service.

Clinique has positioned itself as one of the most attractive cosmetic brands for young women, due to its emphasis on technology, dermatologist recommendations, and slightly lower prices than other high-end brands.


Marketing Campaigns
 

#StartBetter

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Campaign 1

#StartBetter was the first global digital equity program and social media-centric campaign which was launched by Clinique on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The concept of this marketing campaign was to empower female consumers with the confidence to change themselves for the better in all aspects of life.

Through this campaign, women equate feeling beautiful and start their life as they want in a better way. The posts on social media platforms encouraged fans to share what they would #startbetter.

The campaign got nearly 10 million impressions and 284,000 total engagements.

#ZitHappens

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Campaign 2

The brand tapped TikTok to get a sense of what consumers want and noticed that Gen Zers prefer to feel empowered, not put down, by their flaws. With that in mind, Clinique mixed the beauty norm for a campaign that concentrates on one of the most normal, yet personally embarrassing skin occurrences: zits – the skin positivity movement of consumers, and more specifically, Gen Z

In #ZitHappens, Clinique encourages consumers to post their most intimate details and how they solve them using the brand’s three-step acne solution. In true TikTok fashion, the campaign comes fully loaded with a catchy original song and a hashtag challenge to bring people together on social media. So far, the video has racked up more than 2 billion views on the platform and is already starting to drive sales.

Clinique #POPLip Launch Experiential Campaign

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Campaign 3

Clinique conducted a experiential campaign 6 years ago named Clinique #POPLip in which Clinique placed their counter in a mall where the makeup artists by Clinique were influencing walking females to try POPLip by Clinique. Makeup artists were applying lipstick shades on women’s lips according to the applicant’s choice.

Clinique’s artists then told applicants to click the image of lips through the system installed at the counter. The system was generating a photo which you can see in the image above. The campaign motive was to make the applicants share their #lippic with the new shade on Instagram or Twitter so that the brand can increase its awareness on social media platforms. 

Also, the walking females who applied the shades were previously unaware of the brand Clinique and weren’t customers of Clinique are now regular and loyal customers of the brand.


Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is really important when it comes to gathering the audience at large and no wonder a brand like Clinique uses it to its full advantage.

Clinique can be found on four social media platforms namely Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. They have two accounts on Instagram one is the worldwide account and another Indian account. You can visit and check their content on all the platforms. 

The posts posted by Clinique on Facebook & Instagram are the same except on Linkedin where the posts are more towards the corporate side. The posts on Facebook & Instagram are related to the promotion of new launches of beauty and cosmetic products, marketing collaborations with influences & celebrities, discounts & offers, beauty-related tips and guidance, makeup tutorials, health & hygiene, etc and more.

  1. Instagram: Clinique on Instagram has 3.5M followers and Clinique_in has 163k followers.
  2. LinkedIn: Clinique’s profile on LinkedIn has a total of 141k followers.
  3. Facebook: Clinique on Facebook has a total of 11M followers.
  4. Twitter: Clinique’s profile on Twitter has a total of 397.5k followers.

As we can see from the above stats, the brand is most followed on Facebook and they keep their followers. Clinique keeps its customers hooked up on all the platforms and they are super active in all the channels. The type of content that the brand utilises is; informational, and promotional, and as well as they do product launches too.

Hey, If you want your business to get success on social media platforms or have a curiosity about how marketing works on these channels, then you must check out the short-term SEM course offered by IIDE in which you will get everything you are looking for to know-how marketing works on social media.


SEO Strategies

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - SEO

As SEO ranking suggests, the Number of organic keywords – below 500 is poor, above 1000 is characterised as good and 10,000+ is characterised as stunning.

As we can see https://www.Clinique.in/ has 5,021 organic keywords, and it is considered good in SEO terms. Hence, the digital marketing of Clinique is gaining an unexpected number of insights.

Further, the organic traffic per month is 42,419 which is again very astonishing. As a result, Clinique is putting total effort into its SEO strategies for better promotion of the brand. While the brand is working hard to strengthen its position in Google SERP results.

SEO helps in achieving your long-term goals for your brand. A good ranking and a favourable placement help in raising the profile of your brand. In short, SEO strategies are crucial for the development of the website and to provide more visibility to the relevant audience.

If you are someone who doesn’t want to miss any step in implementing the right SEO for your new website, then you must have a thorough go-through of our in-depth blog on Step-by-Step Guide on SEO for New Websites in 2022 – IIDE where you will explore a new website SEO checklist, all the SEO requirements for a new website, how long does SEO takes to work for a new website, and more. 


Influencer Marketing

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - Influencers

Clinique India’s We Hear You ft Instagram influencers in which TV presenters and Youtuber Leeza Mangaldas, Stand up comedian and makeup enthusiast Supriya Joshi along with Teena Singh and Lisa Mishra featured in Clinique India digital campaign conducted in 2019.

The influencers were playing their part and the four influencers were seen candidly talking about what beauty means to them simultaneously describing the role that Clinique’s Even Better products play in their lives. On social media platforms they put together a series of films that offer viewers a glimpse into each influencer’s personality.

Clinique India and internationally frequently partner with such leading micro and macro influencers to increase brand awareness and beheld a surge in sales.


E-Commerce Strategies

Marketing Strategy Of Clinique - e-com

Clinique has a very well optimised e-commerce platform on which you can find various beauty, health and make-up products sold by Clinique. Users can have in-depth information about the products and can also purchase it through Clinique’s e-commerce platform. 

The product pics uploaded on websites are big, appealing and eye catching for a user to easily get influencer and purchase their products. Also, the brand has well stated the benefits and advantages of purchasing products manufactured by Clinique in every product description. 

Clinique products can also be purchased on Amazon, Myntra and many other such third-party e-commerce sites. 


Mobile App

Clinique has a mobile application called Clinique Store through which customers can on the go purchase skincare, makeup and beauty products. On the app, the customer can also access inspiration, exclusive offers and more.

The application provides a feature of live chat support where users can ask questions and recommendations of products from expert beauty advisors. Customers of Clinique can easily reserve products online to pick them up in-store or order them and get same-day delivery by using the app.

Another application by Clinique named Clinique eLearning is a cross-platform education tool for internal training of consultants and general staff. The application has more than 50k+ downloads and a star rating of 4.2.


Content Marketing Strategies

Luxury brands are not known for allowing consumers to dictate trends and brand initiatives. They’ve had long-standing policies of disseminating their editorial point of view through traditional channels and using aspirational imagery to create irrational demand.

Clinique does not want to give its customers that untouchable impression. Instead, it has adopted a strategy of an honest and open two-way conversation. The meaning and commitment behind Clinique’s tagline, “Just happy skin,” permeates across its marketing and pays off big in customer loyalty.

Clinique believes each social media serves a different communal purpose. On Instagram, they use live stories and posts, focusing on the quick eye candy. On Youtube, they post long-form educational content. Facebook and Snapchat are used for event coverage.

They never tried to sell their brand directly, but rather they followed the path of indirectly promoting it through engaging and informative content. 

The users on social media platforms and visitors on the website enjoy the content related to the industry and associate Clinique with the content that they love to consume. This is also the reason why Clinique is successful in obtaining relevant traffic on its website.

We know you also want to attract and engage your desired target audience without forcing them to make purchases. Well, for that, you’ll need to muster a basic understanding of how to create a holistic content marketing strategy to ultimately convert them into paying customers without insisting they pay.

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Clinique. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Clinique.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

What’s Unique in Clinique Marketing?

To conclude, Clinique has a huge customer base and is rightly positioned in the minds of its target market, audience and customers. All thanks to the amazing marketing strategies that Clinique used be it SEO, SMM, content marketing, mobile app, e-commerce etc.

The company has outperformed its competitors, and the main reason for this is the company’s outstanding marketing efforts in highlighting the brand to its customers. 

Digital marketing is the new “normal” in the marketing world. It is how you may reach out to potential customers and keep connected with existing ones, and it is one of the most effective and distinguished ways to build brand awareness.

If you want to learn about digital marketing, check our Online Digital Marketing Course if you want to learn more and improve your marketing skills. Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Clinique has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Clinique check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Clinique, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Clinique in the comments section below.

Share post via

Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts