A deep dive into the Email Marketing Strategies of Kylie Cosmetics, Rhode, and Rare Beauty (with a focus on Automation & Tools)

Marketing Automation is more than just sending messages; it’s about crafting impactful content that cultivates community and loyalty and drives repeat sales. Leading beauty brands like Kylie Cosmetics, Rhode, and Rare Beauty demonstrate how distinct marketing automation strategies, deeply intertwined with their brand identities and business objectives, secure lasting success.

Brand identity woven into email

The email strategies of these brands are direct reflections of their core identity and business approach, deeply intertwined with market positioning and even acquisition deals.

• Kylie Cosmetics: Their fast-paced, trend-focused identity is mirrored in high-frequency email campaigns, creating dynamic brand energy.
• Rhode: The minimalist luxury and “skin-first” philosophy dictate their content-driven email strategy, reinforcing authenticity.
• Rare Beauty: Dedication to self-acceptance and mental health advocacy influences every email, integrating purpose into customer interactions.

Kylie Cosmetics: hype and speed

Kylie Cosmetics fuels rapid demand with a high-frequency, high-impact email strategy mirroring social media’s fast pace. Sending weekly emails, they focus on product launches, restocks, and limited editions as well as flash sales and complementary products. Messaging is direct, visually rich, and uses emojis to create urgency and excitement. They win by constantly delivering “newness” and leveraging fear of missing out (FOMO), converting hype into consistent sales through robust automation (welcome series, cart abandonment, post-purchase flows) via Klaviyo.

Rhode: anticipation and curated connection

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Skin embodies minimalist luxury and a “skin-first” philosophy. Their email strategy avoids traditional promotions (e.g., “10% off,” “free shipping”). Instead, it centers on community-building and high-value content.

Rhode’s Key Tactics:

• No Promotional Emails: They build anticipation through content, not discounts.
• Elevated Content Angles: Emails prioritize valuable content like back-in-stock updates, FAQs (sourced from customer reviews), and social proof (customer spotlights, user-generated content).
• Community Building: They emphasize brand values and engagement, including charity initiatives (Black Maternal Health Week).
• Simple Yet Effective Design: Templates are simpler, focusing on text and images, prioritizing engagement over elaborate visuals.
• Retail Partnerships & Pop-ups: Emails actively promote physical presence.

Rhode wins by fostering exclusivity and trust, with aesthetically pleasing, informative emails that make customers feel part of a curated community. This strategy cultivates sustainable growth and deep loyalty. Their partnership with e.l.f. Beauty emphasizes founder involvement, preserving the brand’s core message of curated, simple luxury.

Rare Beauty: Mental health advocacy and product focus 

Rare Beauty, founded by Selena Gomez, authentically champions self-acceptance, inclusivity, and mental health advocacy. Their email strategy is effectively weaving in storytelling and community engagement to reflect this mission. However, their frequent inclusion of product-heavy promotional emails (e.g., “30% off” or “20% off all lip products”) runs a high risk of overshadowing their core message and alienating customers who may feel overwhelmed by the volume of commercial content.

Unlocking Your Brand’s Potential

The success of Kylie Cosmetics, Rhode, and Rare Beauty, whether through high-frequency campaigns, curated content, or mission-driven storytelling, underscores the immense power of a well-executed email marketing strategy. It’s about understanding your audience, effective segmentation, personalized automation, and seamless integration with your overall brand narrative and business goals.

A couple of best practices:

• If every email is a hard sell or a discount, subscribers quickly learn to ignore or delete them. They stop trusting that your emails offer genuine value. 
• A purely commercial tone positions your brand as merely a vendor. A more balanced, helpful, or inspiring tone elevates your brand to a trusted resource or a community, just like Rhode.
• Build brand affinity: when subscribers feel valued and understood, they develop a positive affinity for your brand. This leads to them opening your emails more consistently, engaging with your content, and ultimately becoming advocates. 
• Train customers to wait for sales: If discounts are the only compelling reason to open an email, subscribers will hold off on purchasing at full price. This erodes your profit margins and conditions customers to expect constant sales. 
• Post-purchase engagement: after a sale, a commercial tone is particularly off-putting. Instead, emails should focus on product usage tips, support, complementary items (subtly), or community invitations.

For brands aiming to build similar loyalty and achieve remarkable sales, navigating these complex strategies and leveraging the right automation tools can be challenging. This is where a marketing automation consultant provides crucial value, helping brands analyse their unique position, implement tailored email strategies, optimize automation flows, and integrate with platforms like Klaviyo. The future belongs to brands that master this strategic, impactful approach to customer engagement.