IL Makiage earned a middle-of-the-road 5 out of 10 on UnDigital’s Unboxing Guidelines. While there is certainly room to improve, IL Makiage excelled at branding and delivering product information.
Just by making a few tweaks to the personalization aspects of its unboxing marketing strategy, the brand can optimize its consumer engagement and drive repeat business.
We scored IL Makiage using UnDigital’s ten-point Unboxing Experience Guidelines for Brands, an unweighted system designed using data gathered from millions of direct-to-consumer (DTC) packages.
The guidelines’ scoring rubric includes two categories, Personalization and Presentation, which both have five subcategories of their own. IL Makiage could earn either 0 or 1 point in each of the five Personalization subcategories and 0, 0.5, or 1 point in each of the five Presentation subcategories, hence the potential ten-point total.
With that said, below is a detailed breakdown of how IL Makiage scored across each subcategory:
As is true for any brand, IL Makiage had a chance to start the unboxing experience off on a high note by including a personalized note with my name, but they missed out on it, which is why they lost a point here.
Always strive to use the customer’s name somewhere other than the shipping label or receipt. A simple thank-you card will suffice, but you could go beyond by adding the customer’s name to other internal assets, like the product use guide or a branded flier.
IL Makiage hit a home run with its branded, double-sided use instructions. The top of the front page reads “Flex a Plumped and Lifted Look, Stat.” The card then outlines what the product does and how it works. The back of the card provides some simple use instructions and even encourages customers to apply the product both in the morning and at night, which will lead to more frequent reorders.
Get clever with the way you provide product information like IL Makiage did. Subtly encourage them to consume more of your product and help them use it right away with easy-to-ready instructions.
The product information insert that IL Makiage included was packed with relevant content. It cites a study that the brand conducted to reinforce the efficacy of its product, then goes on to reiterate that it is cruelty-free and vegan before briefly mentioning some of its other available products.
Always provide your unboxing customers with some form of complementary content that makes the unboxing experience more relevant. Take a page out of IL Makiage’s playbook or use a different approach, like providing a few free samples; whatever you do, make the experience feel personal and customized.
Though IL Makiage started off strong, it faltered a bit here, failing to deliver even a single call-to-action (CTA). Every unboxing experience needs a proper CTA, as customers are generally excited to receive their packages and are in the prime mindset to re-engage with your brand.
Here's a shameless example of how UnDigital applies CTA to their articles. We know our audience is looking into Unboxing Marketing, so we provide free (helpful) content, and an explicit "do this" button to guide them on their journey. You should be doing something similar in your packages and measuring the results.
Thankfully, IL Makiage quickly regained its footing by sharing its brand story throughout the unboxing experience. The brand demonstrated a balanced approach, not providing a total origin story or overwhelming us with content. Instead, they included subtle glimpses into the brand and its values on the product information insert and on the bottom side of the packaging itself.
Make sure you share some of what makes your brand unique in every unboxing experience but don’t overdo it. Simply include a few lines of copy throughout that capture your values and mission.
IL Makiage has positioned itself as an elegant yet untraditional beauty brand, and its packaging is consistent with that brand image. The box itself was a sleek black, and the brand’s name was in big, bold letters along the front side of the package. The inside of the lid and the bottom of the box featured additional branding, including IL Makiage’s slogan, “Makeup for maximalists,” along with the phrase “High Standards Only.”
The product and insert were clean and free from blemishes, but the branded box had some minor scuffs on the inside and outside, indicating that the materials were likely left sitting on a warehouse shelf for quite a while.
Make sure your fulfillment partners are taking steps to preserve the quality of your packaging materials, especially if you are investing in branded packaging (as you should be). Also, avoid overordering, as leaving packing supplies in a warehouse for too long can lead to mold or other damage.
The product only took up about 30% of the box. The insert was set on top of the product at an angle, and there was absolutely no internal packaging material.
While I despise messy or wasteful unboxing experiences, I would have liked to see some recyclable packing materials being used to protect my order. Using some black paper-based filler would have maintained the elegant look of the package while doing so.
IL Makiage includes return and exchange information on the interior bottom of the box, as well as the returns page URL, which helps remove friction from the return process. Still, the brand could have made things easier by providing a QR code to its returns page or a pre-printed return shipping label altogether. Returns are never pleasant, but making them as pain-free as possible can salvage customer relationships.
At UnDigital, we end every unboxing experience by asking ourselves, “Would this delight customers?” and in the case of IL Makiage, the answer is “not quite.” They did a lot of things well, but the overall experience fell short of truly delightful due to the poor space utilization, lack of a CTA, and the failure to use the customer’s name anywhere on the interior of the box.
UnDigital’s Unboxing Guidelines are designed to help brands engage, intrigue, and mobilize customers, and even though IL Makiage’s unboxing experience may not be one of the best, it is certainly one that is pointed in the right direction. Explore our unboxing guidelines to learn more about what IL Makiage could have done differently so that you can apply these lessons to your own unboxing marketing strategy.
