Just Herbs: The Bespoke Ayurvedic Beauty Brand & Their Influencer Marketing Journey
By Rachit Juneja
June 6, 2021
“From seeding ideas to product development and iterations, we co-create Just Herbs' products with customers, content creators, and everyone who is involved with Just Herbs.” - Abhilasha Daga, Marketing & PR Head, Just Herbs.
Just Herbs is a line of pure, bespoke, and Ayurvedic results-driven skin and hair care made from certified organic and wildcrafted ingredients collected from across India. The name "Just Herbs" signifies what the brand stands for - simplicity and purity. It was started in 2013, with the vision to create a brand that stands not only for luxury but also contributes towards building a world where beauty is more inclusive, transparent, and wholesome. Just Herbs offers an Official Indian e-store for herbal, organic & ayurvedic cosmetic & beauty products for skincare, hair, bath & body.
We got in touch with Ms. Abhilasha Daga, Marketing & PR Head at Just Herbs to find out more about their influencer marketing journey. She is an MBA in Marketing & Communications with over 9 years of experience in Branding, PR, Events, and Influencer marketing.
Tell us about your product category, and why have you chosen this messaging for the brand? How does your brand stand out?
“Just Herbs is a line of clean and Ayurvedic products for makeup, skin, hair, and body. It is India's first direct-to-consumer beauty brand that co-creates products with consumers - a process it calls ‘crowdsourcing’. This fresh approach towards product development is what makes the brand stand out.”
What makes your brand unique, in terms of your influencer marketing initiatives?
“All our influencer marketing initiatives are based on product experience. In fact, when it comes to skincare products, we ask the influencers to use them for over 2 weeks and share their experience - if and only - when they start noticing the effects of the same. We also did a series ‘Honest Reviews’ in which we interviewed our customers face-to-face to get their feedback on the brand in real-time.”
For a particular campaign, how do you decide on influencer marketing for it?
“Once we have decided the goal and messaging for a campaign, we start with shortlisting the influencers who are working within that realm. The next step is to find out the influencer's demographic data and determine if it supports our campaign. Then at the final stage the association is planned out in terms of visuals and the timeline is set.”
How do you decide on the budget allocation basis of the marketing objective?
“We believe in multi-channel marketing and therefore diversify our budget across channels such as:
Search Ads like Google Ads
Social Ads, including Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and many more
Content marketing
Influencer marketing
Social media marketing, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more
SEO and on-site marketing
Referral programs or affiliate programs
Email & SMS marketing”
How do you measure the RoI?
“Giving out affiliate codes or tracking/UTM links is an easy way of seeing how much is being generated from influencers whom we are doing paid business with.”
Tell us about the process of shortlisting influencers?
“We use multiple tools and modes for shortlisting influencers including an in-house data tool that produces key metrics for an influencer which we then benchmark against the more qualitative aspects of the influencer’s content.”
How do you leverage the uniqueness of each influencer?
“As an inclusive brand, it is important for us to engage with influencers across all categories. We admire individuality and give them the artistic freedom to incorporate their uniqueness along with the brand messaging.”
Do you have any long-term associations with influencers? What are the pros/cons of it?
“Yes, we believe in building long-lasting relationships.
Pros: A stronger relationship means that the influencer is more committed to the brand and that genuine sentiment comes across in their videos. Also, they push the products repeatedly making them a credible voice for the brand.
Con: I would say that this market is extremely volatile and consumer preferences can change overnight.”
Besides influencer marketing, what are the other 3 most rewarding activities in your marketing campaigns?
“Crowdsourcing: From seeding ideas to product development and iterations, we co-create Just Herbs' products with customers, content creators and everyone who is involved with Just Herbs. Our crowdsourcing initiatives have resulted in 4 products so far - Ayurvedic Lipsticks, Skin Tints, Ayurvedic Micellar Water and Shirolepam Hair Mask
Honest Reviews: This is an activity where we interview our customers face-to-face and get their genuine feedback on the brand and the products they have used.
Try, Love & Buy: We offer lipstick sampler kits consisting of all sixteen shades of our Ayurvedic lipsticks, skin tint sampler kits to allow our customers to find their perfect shade, and several other trial kits for skin and hair. This has worked well for us especially at a time when people can’t visit the store to experience the product before purchasing.”
How has Covid 19 impacted your market?
“I feel that people have become more cautious about what they put onto their skin as they realize that it might eventually make its way into their body. There has been a fundamental shift in consumer preferences towards using clean beauty products. Also, we have experienced a surge in online shopping as well as digital consultations with our Ayurvedic experts as people continue to take precautions during these uncertain times.”
What is one thing you’ve learned from influencer marketing by other brands?
“I believe that there is no set formula, each brand has a different voice and values. So, what works for them would not necessarily work for us.”
What is the most common challenge faced during influencer campaigns?
“Like I mentioned earlier, we believe that influencer marketing should be based on the product experience. So, sometimes it is difficult to make the influencers understand that we actually want them to use the product over a period of time and then share genuine results.”
If you were to re-do any campaign, how would you do it differently?
“Well, we launched our Herb Enriched Ayurvedic Lipsticks last year during the pandemic. Each shade of these lipsticks is named after the real women who co-created and endorsed it. However, I do feel that under normal circumstances we could have connected with our audience on a more intimate level, maybe in a meet and greet session with all the influencers involved.”
What is a recent trend in influencer marketing that you think is here to stay?
“As consumers are becoming more cautious of the products they use, so are the influencers. I have noticed the shift towards clean beauty and ingredient-consciousness among influencers. I hope that they continue in this direction and that this trend builds up!”
Do you see any innovation coming up in the space of influencer marketing?
“I feel that multiple channels of marketing such as content marketing, influencer marketing, and social media marketing will merge into one in the future. As a result of this micro-influencers will emerge in huge numbers.
Also, video and audio-based content will start playing a bigger role with the emergence of platforms like Clubhouse.”
If you were to summarize your influencer marketing strategy in 1 word, what would it be?
“Experience-based”
Recent Articles
