Founded in 2012, Nykaa is India’s foremost e-commerce company in the beauty and cosmetics sector. I had joined Nykaa in September of 2020, with the primary responsibility of handling the design of their email marketing channel. One of my early projects was revamping the visual style of Nykaa’s emailers. The desired outcome was to align them more closely with the company's values and target audience expectations by modernizing design elements, ultimately fostering greater engagement, trust, and loyalty among consumers.
Visual Audit of Old Designs
What Needed To Change?
The design language. It did not align with Nykaa’s intended brand image. Additionally, the designs were not in tune with international standards and trends in design.
New Design Direction
Clean | Aspirational | Contemporary
Header imagery needs to reflect key communications and categories, while reflecting the brand’s personality.
Imagery needs to be editorial, sophisticated, yet contemporary, and sometimes fun.
Real life model imagery, or realistic product representations to be preferred as the header, to increase relatability and boost engagement.
Designs need to appeal to Indian women in the age group of 20-45.
Challenges and Solutions
Teams were working in silos.
Regular catch-ups with the CRM and content teams helped boost collaboration and improved output.
There was no product photoshoot available.
Designers had to be trained internally to make the most of catalogue images to create editorial imagery.
Lack of process led to friction in the workflow.
To solve for this, an SOP deck was created leading to a smoother workflow and faster turnaround times.
New Emailer Designs
Results
The new designs were released slowly, and we saw a substantial CTR spike by the end of 2021, and the streak was maintained through to 2022.
In 2022, Nykaa won in the category ‘Best Email Strategy’ in the Netcore x Asia Inc 500 Email Excellence Awards. At the same event, Nykaa was the first runner up in the category ‘Best Email Journey’