CLEF is a Malaysian skincare brand that focuses on clean and effective ingredients. It has been a fruitful 10 months since CLEF Skincare reached out to us to fuel their brand growth. We tapped on CLEF team’s biggest strength - content creation to consistently unlock growth in the ecommerce space. Despite still seeing month-on-month improvement in the charts, there has always been a struggle to maintain a consistent and healthy influx of new customers vs returning customers. 

To set a benchmark for a healthy proportion of new customers vs returning customers, we usually stick to a 70:30 rule where our KPI is to maintain 70% new customers % monthly. It really differs from industry to industry but the rule stems from the knowledge that returning customers are always much easier to convert as compared to new customers that have not heard about your brand. We have seen so many brands spending way too much on retargeting/remarketing campaigns which, yes, generates beautiful numbers in ROAS, but there are a lot more cost effective ways to convert these loyal customers. 

We will probably cover more on ways to improve your existing customers’ lifetime value aka how to make your existing customers come back to make another purchase soon, but let’s explore further on the methods we use to effectively attract new customers. Some strategies that we have tested (and worked!) to bring in new customers include:

1.   Fixing your funnel inclusion and exclusion

2.   Adjusting ad budget based on customer or product segments

3.   Testing out new ad creatives weekly

4.   Testing out bundling mechanisms

5.   Testing out new channels such as Live

While continuously testing and optimising our ad strategies, we scored big when the team tried out Facebook (now Meta) Live and Key Opinion Leader (KOL) marketing. Out come was way better than expected on our first attempt where we landed at 2x sales as compared to past 3 months, hence CLEF team has been putting in big efforts to work on this channel since then.

Our biggest learning is that all these engagements with KOLs and influencers bring way more value than just a one day spike in traffic and sales, allowing us to tap into a new market/demographics of customers depending on the strength of the KOL, for instance Malay KOL for Malay market, younger KOLs for younger market etc. Even when these traffic generated on sales day did not end up converting, we can always rely on the pixel installed on our website to retarget these visitors with the upcoming campaigns and new product launches. 

In essence, to cope with the ever-changing ecommerce industry and customer behaviour trends, continuous testing and adaptation is the key to stay ahead of your competitors and grow! 

“Z21 is very results-driven— exactly what we’re looking for in an agency. We’ve had accelerated growth since engaging with Z21 for our ads, email marketing and website revamp, and it’s all thanks to the Z21 team being effective communicators throughout. They’re quick to adapt, overflowing with ideas, and super helpful even on the rare occasion when we face emergencies at midnight and on public holidays. Furthermore, they always create an easy going atmosphere in our weekly meetings. We’d recommend Z21 to any startups seeking significant growth.”
- Kaii Lim, Co-Founder of CLEF Skincare

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