MAKE UP FOR EVER and heyday.ai have recently partnered to develop a virtual makeup artist that assists customers on their online purchasing journey.

Lindsey Haywood is the Director of Public Relations & Communications at MAKE UP FOR EVER Canada, a French cosmetics brand owned by LVMH and created in 1984 by make-up artist Dany Sanz.

Etienne Mérineau is the CMO of Heyday, an AI-powered conversational commerce platform that empowers sales and support teams to deliver highly-personalized shopping experiences.

“OUR CHATBOT, POWERED BY HEYDAY.AI, IS ALLOWING US TO NOT ONLY ENGAGE WITH OUR INFLUENCERS, BUT WITH THEIR FOLLOWERS AS WELL.”

Our influencers are able to give back to their loyal followers through a “virtual/experiential” platform. Not only are the influencer’s community of followers happy for their influencers to be partnering with such big brands, but finally there’s something in it for them as well.

“…I’m loving this new foundation and now you can get shade matched as well! Click on my link in bio to learn more…” 

We are still in the beginning phase of these virtual conversations with influencers and their followers, however there is so much potential for growth and development.

“THE TONE, PERSONALITY, AND SCRIPT OF OUR VIRTUAL MAKEUP ARTIST CALLED “MUA” NEEDED TO BE A DIRECT REFLECTION OF OUR BRAND.”

That’s something we really stressed when working with the conversation design and customer success team at Heyday.ai. Mua — which stands for Make-Up Artist — has a unique identity we can all relate to.

We refer to her by name at the office and speak about her as though she was part of our internal tribe! She needed to feel as real and authentic as possible so when our clients are chatting with her, even if it’s for just a split second we need them to question whether or not they are talking to one of our pro artistry experts or a man-made chatbot.

Another big takeaway was the flow of the conversation and making sure it made sense with the direction we wanted to bring our clients towards while aligning it with the goals we are hoping to achieve. The more knowledgeable Mua is, the richer her conversation, the more engaged our clients will be.

Users are notified that they are interacting with a chatbot as they enter the chat. We are also leveraging the idea of “chatting with a virtual make-up artist” as an experiential offering, perhaps something other beauty brands are not yet doing. We have received great response thus far with the program and our completion rates from the conversation are above 90%, meaning clients will finish their full conversation with Mua before leaving it.

“SO FAR, 19% OF CUSTOMERS HAVE CLICKED ON PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS (IN-CHAT PRODUCT CARDS) TO EVENTUALLY MAKE THEIR PURCHASE ON SEPHORA.COM.”

The program is still live on Facebook Messenger but early indicators show that ROAS exceeds our traditional digital campaigns. We are working with chatbot experts at Heyday.ai to refine our strategy and optimize these conversion metrics even more.

Conversational commerce is the new frontier for brands like MAKE UP FOR EVER (LVMH) as consumers increasingly expect the same level of immediacy and convenience when chatting with brands as they do when chatting with their friends. In fact, we like to say at Heyday.ai that we help “turn brands into virtual friends”. 

Heyday’s partnership with Raphaël Abescat, Lindsey Haywood and Valery Doyle at MAKE UP FOR EVER Canada has been a great learning experience for us given their strong legacy of working with influencers to spark engaging conversations. When you combine chatbots (which could be seen as a new breed of digital influencers) and real-life human influencers on Instagram, you get a powerful combination that is sure to boost engagement and conversion.

VIDEO OF CHATBOT CONVERSATION LAUNCHED FROM INSTAGRAM BIO LINK  

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Want to learn more about how AI and conversational commerce are being used with influencer marketing? Join us at influenceTHIS: The Commerce & Conversions Edition on November 13th.