Sephora shines a light on influencer strategy

The Future. Sephora’s annual influencer program, Sephora Squad, helps the company craft long-term branding campaigns on social platforms, while also working with influencers of all sizes and types. The program may be representative of a shift towards more organized influencer strategies, where brands put creators on exclusive retainers in exchange for consistent income.

Sephora Squad

Beauty brand Sephora doesn’t just hire influencers… it has a whole bootcamp dedicated to creating them.

• The company has a year-long influencer program called Sephora Squad, which launched in 2019.
• It focuses mostly on recruiting and training dozens of micro influencers and even employees to push the brand on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
• It provides mentorship courses and gives away products to participants.
• It recruits a new batch of influencers every summer, and anyone is free to apply as long as they’re active on socials.

This year’s batch includes 48 influencers and 25 employees, and 79% of those 73 members are BIPOC.

Brand playbook

Sephora’s SVP of integrated brand marketing said that the idea behind Sephora Squad was to “establish a group of influencers that we work with on a more of an annual basis to really build partnerships with.” The program clearly works: Influencer-marketing platform HypeAuditor reported that Sephora is the second most talked-about brand on YouTube.

And that longer-term outlook could help the company attract new customers. This year, the company focused on Spanish speakers who made Spanish-language content and on creators with diverse hair types.