collage || beauty
Digital Divas Social media helps launch Sigma Beauty to star status. | BY MARGUERITE HAPPE
I
f you haven’t updated your Facebook page or checked Twitter lately, it might be time to rethink your digital strategy. Just ask Simone Xavier and Rene Xavier Filho, founders of Sigma Beauty — a company “launched by social media.” Sigma’s growth into an international makeup and brush empire expanded at the pace of the social media used to promote it: freaky fast. Prior to founding the company five years ago, Simone was a veterinarian and Rene a civil engineer. After switching gears to develop their own brand of high-quality makeup brushes for friends in Brazil, the duo sent samples to a few makeup-friendly YouTube users to help with product reviews. To their surprise, the users posted videos of them using the brush kits — and almost instantly the beauty company completely sold out of stock. “We had to close the website for two months and open a waiting list with more than 2,000 clients,” says Simone. Almost inadvertently, the duo stumbled upon the key to their marketing strategy. With rapidly growing new collections, innovative products and digital buzz, Sigma has become one of the most widely known beauty companies in the world. Sigma utilizes affiliates as its main sales drivers; the
64 Artful Living
| Spring 2014
10,000-plus affiliates receive a 10-percent commission on purchases made by referred first clients. The company has a social media following of more than half a million people, and its newsletter reaches 600,000 recipients. Most recently, Sigma took its digital presence to a brick-andmortar store in the Mall of America. For Minnesotans, Simone says, no YouTube testimonials are needed once they experience Sigma brushes and makeup: “Our quality is unmatched; we produce the highest quality brushes available on the market as we control the production of every single part of the process.” Now that’s something worth tweeting about.