What Media Operators Can Learn from Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Newsletter

Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty cosmetics brand started a newsletter.

It was originally planned out months in advance with a traditional editorial calendar. That was more or less tossed out the window as soon as it launched.

MacKenzie Kassab, writer of Rare Beauty Secrets and director of creative strategy at the beauty company, expected to push out trend pieces, like multiple ways to apply blush. But when the newsletter started on Substack on April 1, Kassab found herself spending more time responding to reader questions than writing the editorial calendar.

When people asked about product inspiration or team backgrounds, she would actively investigate, noting: “I’m going off and trying to find the answers for those questions.”

It’s at this point we imagine you’re asking yourself some questions, like “Why the heck is AMO writing about Selena Gomez’s cosmetics brand?”

Simple question, with a simple answer: When I spoke to Kassab, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Are retail brands going to become media operators, too?”

Ok, that felt a little like Carrie Bradshaw there, but anyway…

Is Rare Beauty’s weekly newsletter a sign of things to come? Rare Beauty isn’t the only brand operating on Substack. Recently, luxury goods marketplace The RealReal, youth clothing brand American Eagle and Madewell, another clothing brand, have all launched newsletters on the platform. 

It’ll be interesting to see how these brands fare when it comes to newsletter writing. For one, Substack’s rules lay out that it “is intended for high quality editorial content, not conventional email marketing. We don’t permit publications whose primary purpose is to advertise external products or services, drive traffic to third party sites, distribute offers and promotions, enhance search engine optimization or similar activities.”

Some recent posts include one from StillHere, a denim brand, that starts out by saying, “A pillar of Still Here jeans is ensuring a perky butt.” A RealReal post from March had a section labeled: “The search for the perfect trench is never-ending,” with links to different trench coats for sale on the website. A Madewell post (to be fair, there are only three so far) featured the author styling pieces from the company’s latest denim collection.

It seems like these brands may not be on Substack for much longer if they keep that behavior up, but who knows if Substack will actually enforce its requirement for high quality editorial and not marketing content. I guess the answer as to whether brands will become media operators is not really (for most of them).

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn.

Compelling Content

Let’s get back to Rare Beauty Secrets. One thing Kassab already has is user engagement and an already active community. It didn’t take long for the questions to start pouring in. One reader, for example, asked about Bouncy Blush and how it came to be—Kassab was also curious, having heard around the office that the formula is like baking cookies, so she dug in.

Kassab is in constant contact with readers via the Notes section of Substack, and since that blush newsletter, has written about her team members and their childhood dreams; about being on set for a photo shoot with the director of global artistry; and about spending four days at The Makeup Show in New York.

It seems like Kassab started out with the idea of creating a beauty magazine in newsletter format, the kind with headlines blasting: “8 Spring Nail Trends You’re Gonna Screenshot” and “Body Glitter Is So Back for Spring.”

Instead, she’s doing something that fans of Selena Gomez and Rare Beauty are eating up—after all, who doesn’t want to know what Selena’s role is in product development, or how someone got their job doing photography for a massively popular makeup brand? It’s aspirational, behind the scenes, long-form storytelling that once belonged to the shiniest magazines out there.

So basically you have a brand that’s telling interesting stories from the inside and providing far more compelling content than traditional legacy media are printing as they fade into irrelevance. Rare Beauty Secrets isn’t doing investigative journalism, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s serving its readers by listening and reacting. And it’s got that weekly cadence going.

“People really want to know the people behind the brand, the stories behind the products. And they’re not necessarily looking for things that you would get from a traditional beauty source,” Kassab told AMO. The key is providing in-depth, insider information that goes beyond typical marketing content and gives readers a deeper understanding of the brand, its people and its creative process. “As readers and consumers, we’re on a million platforms. You need a reason to want to come here, and being sold something is not a reason… Even as a reader, I’m turned off by that.”

What can media operators learn from what they’re doing? For one, maybe quit the generic stories that don’t move the needle and can be found anywhere and everywhere. It goes back to the more recent (and eyeroll inducing) revelation that media companies are having: They have to provide quality content and keep readers engaged and loyal as the death of search eats away at the easy traffic of yesteryear. And, consistency. 

As Kassab sees it, brands also need to do something unique when it comes to newslettering.

“The thing that makes me cringe the most is, from a brand perspective, when I see brands regurgitating things that are on their product pages or on their DTC emails,” Kassab said.

It’s All About Community

The Rare Beauty newsletter came about from a desire to be able to provide longer-form written storytelling and a general appreciation for Substack.

Kassab wouldn’t say how many subscribers they have. She keeps her Substack open, regularly looking at comments, questions and interacting with the community.

Community is a key word for the company and is taken into consideration with every step they take. Kassab said:

We consider that community piece for every event, for all of our posts, for everything; it’s making sure that it serves our community in some way, either through that sense of belonging or education or whatever it is. [The newsletter is a] two way line of communication with our community, and it was the whole point anyway, for doing this was just another way to keep that conversation going and allow it to get a little deeper than it, necessarily, can get on other platforms.

The newsletter has a bit of the look of a 90s blog, not at all polished, a scrappy outfit adorned by Kassab’s iPhone pictures. And that’s part of the appeal.

“The big lesson we’re learning is making sure that your content is truly authentic to you and gives people a reason to come to your page, because if you’re providing content that they can get somewhere else.”