Dominique Grillon

Sephora sends 228 emails this year and you're worried about "email fatigue"? I just checked my inbox. Sephora sent me 228 emails this year. And guess what? I'm still subscribed. Still buying. Still engaged. Meanwhile, DTC brands are sending 2 emails per week worried about "annoying" their customers. Here's What Sephora Understands (And You Don't) Volume ≠ Spam Value = Permission to Send More Every single email has a purpose: • Product launches • Exclusive offers • Educational content • Seasonal campaigns • Urgency-driven sales • Personalized recommendations They're building a relationship. Sephora: ~4 emails/week = Billion-dollar revenue Your brand: 1 emails/week = Complaining about low email revenue See the problem? "But won't people unsubscribe?" Good. Let them. The people who unsubscribe from valuable, relevant content were never going to be your best customers anyway. Sephora's strategy: Keep the engaged, lose the dead weight. Your strategy: Keep everyone happy, make no money. If Sephora can send 228 emails and build a beauty empire, you can send more than 4 emails per month. Your customers want to hear from brands they love.

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If I ran a TikTok Shop brand that was stuck at $10–15K/month, here’s what I’d stop doing in the next 7 days: 1. Honoring every sample request. My team reviews every request because I’m not sending lip gloss to a construction guy whose audience will never buy it. Interest alone doesn’t mean alignment. And misaligned samples never convert. 2. Sending overbuilt briefs. We ship product fast with simple Canva briefs. If a creator skips briefs altogether, I’ll send a Loom walking them through the product instead. 3. Disqualifying content just because it looks “rough.” One of the highest-revenue videos I’ve ever seen had lint on the creator’s shirt, and it drove over $500K. 4. Using creators who don’t post or sell. If a creator hasn’t posted, missed guidelines badly, or got views with zero revenue, they don’t get another sample. 5. Broad targeting. I launched a laundry detergent thinking we’d test multiple demos. Then moms started outperforming everyone else, so now 80% of samples go to moms. I see so many brands overcomplicate this. Control sampling, drop what isn’t selling, and concentrate on the creators that work.

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After working with over 180 brands- Here's the playbook to get to 9-figures: Phase 1: Shopify + Meta ads Phase 2: Amazon expansion Phase 3: TikTok Shop Phase 4: Big box retail (or Sephora / Ulta if beauty brand) Every new channel unlocks millions. But phase 4 is where you get to a 9-figure status.

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2025 Beauty Consumers Don’t Trust Hype. They Trust Expertise and Real Experiences. There’s a quiet shift happening in the beauty world. *Not loud. *Not viral. *But deep. Consumers aren’t just watching beauty content anymore — they’re studying it. They’re asking: “Does this suit my skin type?” “Has anyone with my concerns actually tried this?” “Is this real or just another paid narrative?” Influence is no longer about being admired. It’s about being understood. Beauty has moved from recommendation-led to reason-led. People don’t just want to know what to buy — they want to know why it works. And across multiple 2024–2025 studies, one pattern is clear: expertise drives trust far more than popularity. A 2025 academic study found expertise is the strongest driver of trust and purchase intent, while follower count barely moves the needle. Another India-focused study showed people accept beauty advice only when the creator’s expertise matches the category — especially skincare. Newer surveys reinforce this: 40% of consumers prefer niche expertise over generic influence. This isn’t a marketing shift. It’s a psychology shift. When someone spends money on their skin, the decision becomes personal. They want to hear from people with similar concerns, similar skin types, real experiences, and honest outcomes. *Clarity over charisma. *Wisdom over aesthetics. That’s why community voices have become the new “truth filter.” *Influencers spark interest. *Communities create belief. *And behaviour reflects this: 81% of Indian consumers read reviews before making beauty purchases. Marketers report rising influencer fatigue, especially when content feels repetitive or irrelevant. Expert-style, experience-driven reviews have become the most persuasive format. Here’s how beauty decisions really happen today: A creator introduces the product → Healthy skepticism kicks in → Consumers cross-verify through real reviews → They check if it works for someone like them → Only then do they purchase. This thoughtful, intelligent journey is now the norm — and it’s reshaping how people make beauty decisions. This is the thinking that shaped GlamGuider’s Community Page — a smarter layer of beauty decision-making where real user experiences become the intelligence consumers rely on. To deepen this, we’ve strengthened a simple yet powerful feature: ✨ Reviews that read like mini case studies. Not hype. Not reactions. But structured insights: • Real skin types • Real concerns • Ingredient compatibility • Usage duration • What changed, what didn’t • Expectations vs. reality This is the honesty today’s beauty consumer is craving. If you believe beauty decisions shouldn’t be guesswork… If you believe expertise matters more than popularity… If you believe real experiences help real people— Join the GlamGuider community. Read real stories. Share your journey. Help someone choose better. GlamGuider Kausalya B #ConsumerInsights #CommunityDriven #InfluencerMarketing

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how to stop being price-shopped as a branded merch company (this works across any outbound channel > email, calling, LinkedIn) the reason you're being price-shopped is because you're selling blank products that customers customize themselves but e-commerce brands rarely face this problem because they sell finished products designed for specific use cases they're not selling blank items waiting to be customized they're selling complete solutions tailored to solve a specific problem and that's why they avoid commoditization promotional product companies are different you and your competitors all sell the same blank mugs, t-shirts, and water bottles customers see no difference between you price becomes the only deciding factor because there's no meaningful difference in quality or selection but here's the good news :) the issue isn't your products, you don't need a different inventory you just need to package what you already have into specific offers for specific use cases stop offering catalogs start creating actual offers most of you will say "i can't do that because i customize products based on what each customer wants" but here's what you can do instead > 1 ] identify a common use case your ideal customers buy promotional products for 2 ] create a packaged solution around that use case 3 ] reach out with it here's an example: let's say you target B2B SaaS companies the top reason they buy promotional products is probably corporate gifting for current clients the outcome they want is more revenue, renewals, and referrals they use gifts to achieve that outcome knowing this, you can create a corporate gifting package tailored to SaaS companies you would then tie your offer to the outcome they care about (revenue and referrals) and use it in your outbound messaging when you do this, you won't get commoditized because you're presenting a complete solution you're positioning yourself as a strategist, not a vendor they'll value your expertise in product selection, distribution, and strategy they won't price shop you because they'll see you differently they won't group you with other promotional products companies they'll accept your pricing this lets you escape price wars, protect your margins, and take pressure off your sales team you can finally win while being creative and having fun the best part, this works across any industry because every industry has use cases where promotional products drive business outcomes ---- want us to build out your offer and outbound sales system? book here (marketing & branded merch companies only): https://lnkd.in/drfXatR3

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Everyone is talking about AI and automation in marketing right now. But the real question is how brands stay human while everything around us becomes more artificial. Excited to dig into this at Shoptalk with Pinterest and an incredible group of leaders. We will be talking about visual discovery, incremental growth, and what is actually working for brands right now. See you in Vegas, PJ Andersen!

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The most underrated skill in DTC marketing leadership isn't strategy. It's composure. I've watched talented teams fall apart — not because the strategy was wrong, not because the creative was bad — but because every bad sales day turned into a realignment meeting. The leader carries the anxiety of the organization. If it flows downward unchecked, it becomes noise. And noise is the enemy of the work. Your team can't make good decisions in a constant state of alarm. Your job, especially in the hard weeks, is to be the person in the room who has seen this before. Who knows that a bad Tuesday is not a broken strategy. Who can look at the 30-day trend and hold the line. That doesn't mean ignoring problems. It means knowing the difference between a signal and a spike. The founder is allowed to panic. That's part of the job. Your job is to translate the panic into a question, and the question into a plan. Be the calm in the room.

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Brands - PLEASE stop using AI automation for your influencer marketing campaigns. It's genuinely annoying. Every single day, a new AI influencer marketing manager that reaches out to every single creator on our roster. What is the point? It's destroying relationship building. It's just creating a transactional relationship between you and the creator. As a creator - I hate it. As an agency owner, I hate it. Relationships are such an important role within the creator industry. As much as it might save you time, you definitely won't build long-term relationships with creators. And also, stop low-balling!!! #education #talent #student #entrepreneur

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Propaganda I'm Not Falling For: Influencer Marketing Edition 🤝 - One person can run a full influencer program alone - Influencer relationships should stay 'professional' only - More Followers = Sales - IRL moments aren’t worth the budget - Influencer marketing is easy because it's just DMing people - ROI should be immediate after one post - Brands don’t need to pay creators if they get free product #campaignmanagement #talentrelations #contentstrategy #creatoreconomy #influencermanager #brandpartnerships #marketingleadership #socialmediastrategy #contentspecialist

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If Sephora jumped off a cliff, would you? Let’s be real - probably. Because when Sephora moves, it’s usually toward something big. If you’ve been ignoring community, now’s the time to lean in. Owning your community means owning the full pipeline of data—from consumers to advocates to conversions. This is the power of ambassador programs: turning meaningful connection of everyday customers into measurable impact. At SocialLadder, we’ve seen firsthand how brands win when they stop renting audiences and start building their own.

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