Glossier’s Genius Marketing Strategy

Malin Phelan
Jan 15, 2022
3 min read

Author: Ashley Lee '23

Emily Weiss founded the beauty brand Glossier in 2014, and it has since flourished. Its motto, "Beauty products inspired by real life," has taken the world by storm. Glossier has had immense sale success since its debut, thanks to a unique marketing technique that other well-known beauty brands have since adopted as well.

Henry Davis, Glossier’s president and CFO, describes Glossier as a "people-powered beauty ecosystem." This is embodied in part by the company’s beginnings in 2012. Glossier was built on the foundation of Into the Gloss, a blog website where individuals shared their favorite beauty products, inspirations, and more. Glossier is a cosmetics brand centered around customer feedback, taking into account consumer ideas on products, designs, and other significant features. The blog encouraged consumers to interact directly with their team by using social media to converse and provide suggestions. Into the Gloss not only drew a wide audience, but it also drew prospective customers: people eager to articulate what specific kinds of items they wanted. Glossier, unlike other enterprises, did not need to work to develop ideas for products that they hoped customers would like. They knew precisely what their clients were looking for - the formula was already posted in the comment section. With the support of its readers, the blogs began two years before Glossier officially launched, with the “Soothing Face Mist” as its first product.

Glossier’s primary target audience is 16-25-year-olds on a limited budget. After one of their most popular products, the “Boy Brow,” was released in 2016, there was a 10,000 person waiting list after the product initially sold out. The brow gel was an incredibly popular product, as indicated on blogs, and it cost just $16. In 2016, the app Tiktok debuted for the first time, where Glossier capitalized on the highly popular (and in-demand) minimalist aesthetic style. The “Boy Brow,” which captured the minimalist effect with high quality and low prices, drew young adults from all over. In 2018, the “Boy Brow” generated $100 million in sales due to the attention generated by social media and reviews.

Glossier has firmly engaged itself in the realm of social media. They have sponsored well-known YouTubers such as Haley Kim to market their products in order to reach as many people as possible. Kim, who currently boasts 843,000 followers on YouTube, is widely recognized for her natural and glowy look videos, particularly popular among Asian viewers. Glossier has also sponsored Hyram, a notorious honest skincare reviewer with over 4.5 million followers who, according to Forbes, “makes or breaks skincare companies” in his appraisal of their skincare products. Glossier also collaborated with Vogue on their “Beauty Secrets” series in April 2020, where highly popular singer Olivia Rodrigo was featured, as her debut album, “Sour,” was being publicized. Rodrigo is 19 years old, which perfectly fits Glossier's 16-25 demographic with millions of fans and supporters to whom they could advertise their products.

Furthermore, Glossier’s own social media presence is impressive, with 100,000 followers on Facebook, over 200,000 on Twitter, 130,000 on Youtube, a Pinterest with 1 million monthly visitors and 76,000 followers, as well as nearly 1 million followers for their @intothegloss Instagram account. Glossier is unique in that instead of posting solely models or influencers with massive followings, they actively employ their real customers, especially some who are nano-influencers with followings ranging from 1000 to 10,000 followers, to post their makeup look using the items on their Instagram page. This reinforces their message of being a customer-driven company. Because they have a smaller following and are true customers, the authenticity and excellent quality of the items shine through.

Glossier opened a flagship store at 123 Lafayette Street in New York City in 2019, where the company was developed 5 years before. A permanent retail presence of about 3,000 square feet is located in a two-story ground level retail area. The Glossier flagship, according to Weiss, is designed to be “the ultimate physical expression of the brand.” The pink structure has minimalist faucets and mirrors all around with skincare items ready for clients to use beneath the flowering ceilings and walls. Since the building's creation, it has been featured on tourist attraction lists for New York City, as well as on many influencers' Instagram feeds and stories, with lines so long that some have had to stand up to an hour to enter the building. The pink structure attracts people from all walks of life in the busy metropolis. Glossier, which began with a beauty blog just seven years ago, has become one of the most popular beauty lines to date.