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8 Celebrity Email Newsletters: Dos and Don'ts

Beefree team
Beefree team
Aug 8, 2016
8 Celebrity Email Newsletters: Dos and Don'ts
8 Celebrity Email Newsletters: Dos and Don'ts

Curious about the lifestyle emails of the rich and famous? Today we're assessing celebrity email newsletters, including ones from Gwyneth Paltrow, Lena Dunham, and even, yes, Oprah. Thoughyou might consider some emails as "glorified shopping portals," there's still plenty to learn when it comes todesign dos and don'ts.

Goop (Gwyneth Paltrow)

One of the first celebrity brands was started byactress Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008. Called "Goop," Paltrow started sending a weekly series of celebrity email newslettersto serve as "a place to organize her unbiased travel recommendations, health-centric recipes, and shopping discoveries for friends." Eight years later, the newsletter has expanded significantly to include a shop section, a skincare line, and tons more content about maintaining a holistic, natural, yet glamorous life. Check out a partial view of a recent newsletter:

gwyneth paltrow goop celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: Goop uses a hybrid layout, shifting from one column to two. The one-column setup at the topfocuses the readers' attention on the two most importantcalls to action: shop the collection and read the feature story. High-res photographyis prominent in the email, though the brand also incorporates plain text (the web-safe font Arial)—along with a bulletproof "Read More" CTA button—to improveits image-to-text ratio and avoid spam filters. The Container Store advertisement in the middle of the email almost isn't noticeable at first glance because the content fits with the topics of the email and, presumably, the interests of its readers.Design Don'ts: Despite being well-organized and mobile optimized, Goop newsletters are usually pretty long! And Gmail can "cut" extra-long newsletters, though there are ways toprevent emails from getting clipped.Also, while it's great to highlight a robust amount of content, there's a lot going on in each newsletter, which canoverwhelm readers. Short(er) newsletters that spotlight just a few focused and curated items may be best...but, as long as readers are willing to keep scrolling, long newsletters may not be so bad after all.

TYRA Beauty (Tyra Banks)

Get ready to "smize." TYRA Beauty is a "cosmetics experience" business started by former Top Model host Tyra Banks. To prepare for the debut of her self-funded startup, Banks even attendeda three-year Harvard Business School program. The company's own celebrity email newsletters, called Tyra Mail, are a great reflection of the brand's energy, which is obvious in the welcome message:

tyra beauty celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: The introduction letter from Tyra reelsreaders in with a compelling message. It'spersonal and engaging, and the e-signature enforces that intimacy with the reader. And like most emails in the beauty and fashion industries, the message is full of bold, bright, and beautiful product photos. While the visual elements certainly make the email attractive and highly clickable, readers with image-viewing turned off will miss out.Design Don'ts:TYRA Mail could work on incorporating bold HTML background colors and sections of plain text for headers and descriptions. The header navigation is simple and elegant, but it could also be recreated easily with bulletproof CTA buttons. The addition of more plain text and colors can also help break up all the imagery.

Draper James (Reese Witherspoon)

Reese Witherspoon channeled Elle Woods' love for clothes by promoting her own clothing line, named Draper James after her grandparents, Dorothea Draper and William James. The line drawsinspiration fromWitherspoon's own Southern roots to create colorful, easy-breezy everyday wear. To show that Witherspoon doesn't take herself too seriously, her daily celebrity email newsletters draw upon the light blue brand color and often use illustrations. This recent message even incorporated a playful animated GIF of a mason jar with lemonade, to add some fun motion:

reese witherspoon draper james celebrity email newsletters
reese witherspoon draper james celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos:Background colorsreally make this email pop, and selecting only a few colors (pink, shades of blue, white) allows them to work well together without being too overwhelming. Also, like Tyra's message, we love the simple navigation menu and the personalized sign-off!Design Don'ts: The email's entire middle section of the email is an image, which is a problem for readers with image viewing turned off. Isolating the animated GIF (which will make it quicker to download on mobile) and using email-safe text for headers on top of the bold background color can go a long way. Using a matching HTML background coloralongside photos or illustrations would allow designersto create the illusion of a single image while optimizing the message for all inboxes.

Lenny Letter (Lena Dunham)

Amidst all the lifestyle, beauty, and fashion tips, theLenny Letter, created by actor/director Lena Dunham and her best friend/director Jenni Konner, is a different type of send in a sea of celebrity email newsletters. Lenny focuses primarily on long-formcontent,like thoughtful letters and thought-provoking essays, and provides that content within the email itself, instead of sending readers to the Lenny website. Eachemail features five stories per week. Here's a recent one (which we also trimmed):

lena dunham lenny letter celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: Each email begins with a notefrom an editor (usually Lena or Jenni) introducing the week's five featured stories. Since the emails are so text-heavy, a number of design tactics improve navigation and legibility.The navigation menu at the top takes readers to anchor links for each story,making it easy to skip ahead to astory without having to scroll too much. The text is also constrained to 640px wide, so it's easy for readers to keep their placein the text. Plus, the web-safe Arial font is easy to read. The streamlined design approach is effective at allowingthe focus to fall on the content itself.Design Don'ts: Design-wise, this email looks great! But it's worth noting that, similar to Goop, long emails can still get clipped by Gmail. So long email senders, like Lenny, should adhere to best practices to prevent clipping.

The Honest Company (Jessica Alba)

When Jessica Alba founded The Honest Company in 2011, she had one goal: to providesafe products for your family and home. "I created The Honest Company to help moms and to give all children a better, safer start," Alba writes. As part of the brand, the company sends daily emails that directreaders to its blog (as well as some promotional product messages), like this one:

jessica alba honest company celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: The single-column modular designis a great content organizer.The email flows well and iseasy to skim. Positioning the header, descriptive text, and CTA buttons outside of the image alsoensurethat the bulk of the message will appear even if images are blocked. And, the inverted pyramid design for each module is an email design best practice to improveorganization and readability. The playful text overlay on some images is a nice touch!Design Don'ts: The Honest Company cancreate more compelling calls to action. A CTA button that reads "Learn more" doesn't really get readers excited to click. "Get the gummy goods" mightbe more playful and fun. CTAs that include personal pronouns (get my discount, reserve my seat), active verbs, and just a few words are usually the most effective.

Oprah's Book Club (Oprah)

Oprah has over a dozen newsletters, each covering separate topics from money to relationships to food and more. For this post, we focused on the newsletter for her popular book club, which announces her latest readingselection along with other content that would interest readers. Here's her latest:

oprah book club celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: Using a neutral beige background color makes the white content blocks pop in this email, and including email-safe font makes the text display reliably and easy to read.Design Don'ts: Readers have short attention spans, so brief, easy-to-scan emails are more effective. But the Oprah Book Club email feels too much like a cluttered website, with multiple columns, font sizes, and colors. There's also a distracting "Hot Topics" bar at the top and a jam-packed footer at the bottom. The spacing between elements is also inconsistent. Switching to a single-column design, simplifying the header, and incorporating bulletproof CTA buttons can improve readability and mobile-friendliness, Read more tips in our tutorial:How to avoid making your email look like a website.

The Tig (Meghan Markle)

Suits actress Meghan Markle launched The Tig as "a hub for the discerning palate," a place to explore topics liketravel, food, fashion, and beauty. The site includes city guides, trend posts, and recipes, and its weekly newsletter points readers' attention to the latest content:

meghan markle celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: The white-and-gray color scheme of the site is reflected well in the brand's simple newsletters. Plus, the splash of color in the links is a nice way to reinforce the brand and add a subtle customization.Design Don'ts:Even though a photo grid is included in each message as a single image, but the brand could try creating a responsive photo gallery to better suit mobile screens. Even though the email isshort and sweet, it could be even more skim-friendly with shorter headlines that immediately catch readers' eyes.

Hello Giggles (Zooey Deschanel)

Co-founded by New Girl's Zooey Deschanel in 2011,Hello Giggleswas developed as a positive community for women. When compared to other celebrity email newsletters, this particular daily newsletter provides a playful mix of motivational and inspirational stories and quotes:

zooey deschanel hello giggles celebrity email newsletters

Design Dos: Hello Giggles really strives to use brand colors to organize and unify its message. The all-caps headers in red guidereaders' eyesthrough the emailand the turquoisecontent separatorsalso organize the content. The structure of the message feels cohesive and balanced. Starting each email with a quote box is also a great way to warm up readers and get them interested in the content.Design Don'ts:Although the use of a two-column layout keeps the newsletter well-organized, there's no intuitive reading order because the content is divided vertically into different sections. Some readers might skip content, especially in the more narrow right column. A single-column layout might be more effective and make it easier for readers to digest information all in ordered sequence.

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Let’s get into it.  

#1. Unique, tailored experiences 

Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder and growth marketer of PetLab Co., says, “We faced the challenge of connecting meaningfully with an audience that expects more than one-size-fits-all communication.” 

When we speak about crafting tailored emails we mean going beyond the recipient's first name in the subject line. We’re talking about optimizing your entire email strategy to design multi-stage touchpoints to nurture leads across the customer lifecycle. As well as, leveraging data to send hyper-personalized, relevant, and engaging emails that feel less like a broadcast message and more like a conversation. 

Many are using AI machine learning algorithms and AI automation to analyze customer interactions, past purchases, browsing habits, website visits, and even social media behavior to curate engaging email content that resonates deeply with the real-time needs of recipients.

For PetLab Co this looked like including content such as an individual’s pet health history or product usage timelines. Damian Grabarzyk expands, “This approach transformed the conversion rate and strengthened customer loyalty. As we look ahead, I see brands in 2025 moving beyond generic personalization to adopt strategies that make customers feel truly understood and valued.”

On the other hand, many are leaning into user-generated content (UGC) for crafting tailored experiences. Customers today are more likely to trust the opinions of peers over branded messages. UGC like customer reviews, testimonials, videos, and photos are the best form of social proof depicting real people using and benefitting from your products or services. 

We see the benefits of using both AI and UGC to get the most out of your email conversions ;). 

#2. AI tools as an addition, not a substitution

Experts at NordPass state, "AI-powered content generation tools are not here to replace email copywriters and marketers. These tools make us more efficient. The smarter the tool is, the better equipped we are to create high-performing email content that drives results." 

AI tools can support us by significantly enhancing the speed, precision, and effectiveness of your emails. For instance while traditionally A/B testing has required a lot of time to analyze small variations with AI you quickly implement and test multiple email elements and make adjustments based on real-time engagement data. There are AI algorithms that can even predict which variations are most likely to resonate with different audience segments, leading to more accurate targeting and faster optimization.

In short, AI tools are revolutionizing the way we craft and optimize our email’s deliverability. There are many different types of AI solutions so we suggest finding the right one for your needs. 

#3. Even more transparency around data

With AI continuing to rise, folks are more and more concerned about where their data is going. That’s where zero-party data collection becomes a key strategy in email marketing, allowing you to gather data directly from customers rather than relying on third-party sources. 

Zero-party data includes information that consumers willingly share, such as preferences, interests, and purchase intentions. This data is often collected through surveys, preference centers, quizzes, or interactive content and is highly valuable because it is shared explicitly, ensuring accuracy and deeper personalization without privacy concerns associated with third-party tracking.

As privacy regulations tighten, zero-party data will empower you to deliver hyper-personalized email experiences while respecting user privacy. This approach will help you build trust, as customers feel more in control of their data, and you gain insights that lead to more relevant and engaging email content.

#4. The death of static emails

With attention span getting shorter day after day, digest-format emails are expected to rise in popularity in 2025. Presenting email content in an easy-to-scan, organized, and minimalistic layout will surely help deliver the most relevant information in a fraction of the time. 

Additionally, interactive emails will allow recipients to directly engage within the email without having to visit a landing page or website. Interactive elements like product carousels, polls, and quizzes create a dynamic experience that keeps subscribers engaged, especially in visually driven industries like fashion brands

So what now? 

You’ve heard these strategies before, but now it’s time to actually put them into action. The brands that win at email marketing in 2025 won’t just be sending emails—they’ll be creating experiences. Whether it’s hyper-personalized content, AI-driven efficiency, zero-party data collection, or interactive emails that break the mold, the key is to stay ahead of the curve.

So, what’s the first strategy you’ll finally implement? Your inbox (and your audience) are waiting.

How to Leverage Email Campaigns to Gather Sincere Product Reviews

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What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns.

Email makes gathering authentic product reviews quick and easy. By collecting sincere feedback, you can build trust, increase sales, boost loyalty, and innovate product improvements. 

That said, requesting reviews via email requires precise timing, personalized messaging, and lots of engagement optimizations. But don’t worry—we’ll walk you through some key steps to create email campaigns that deliver the valuable feedback you need.

Why product reviews matter

Product reviews do more than confirm that you're meeting customers’ needs. Sincere feedback drives loyalty and sales, offers valuable customer insights, and helps you develop a strategic product development roadmap.

  • Fosters customer loyalty: Requesting and listening to feedback makes your customers feel valued and heard. It demonstrates that you prioritize customer satisfaction, which helps you build stronger, long-term relationships. Review requests also act as re-engagement emails by starting new conversations with customers.
  • Increases sales: Social proof drives sales. According to a recent survey by Power Reviews, 90% of potential customers use online reviews to make purchasing decisions. In fact, reviews have more influence over purchasing decisions than product prices. Turning product reviews into customer testimonials and encouraging reviews on third-party sites can significantly boost sales.
Image sourced from powerreviews.com
  • Builds Customer 360 insights: Customer feedback delivers insights into customer needs and sentiments, enriching Customer 360. Exactly what is Customer 360? It’s a unified, 360-degree view of customer data. It empowers you to tailor products and customer experiences to meet individual needs and preferences. 
  • Drives product improvements: Sincere customer feedback reveals what target customers like/dislike about your products. It provides key insight into their value, functionality, and usability, unlocking large-scale development opportunities.

How to create an email campaign to collect product reviews

Want to unlock the power of product reviews? Let’s explore how to create email campaigns that encourage customers to share their feedback.

Segment your audience

Like promotional emails, product review requests shouldn’t be sent to every subscriber.

If subscribers haven’t had the chance to try your product, product review requests will feel irrelevant and may trigger unsubscriptions. So, only send review email requests to customers recently trying your product.

You can do this by segmenting your email list based on where customers are in the buying cycle. Target loyal customers, recent purchasers, and first-time buyers with tailored email campaigns. This ensures that you’re sending emails to customers most likely to respond with insightful feedback.

Write a compelling email subject line

According to Superoffice, 33% of people open an email based on the subject line. 

Image sourced from superoffice.com

To get the click-through rates you want, your email subject lines should be personalized, relevant, and engaging. Here are some examples:

  • Did you love [product]? Or hate it? Let us know!
  • We value your opinion — help us improve!
  • We want YOU to help us make our product better!
  • Up for a discount? Share your feedback for 10% off! 

Learn more > Tips for writing open worthy subject lines.

Optimize for customer engagement

A successful email marketing strategy relies on customer engagement. Here are some key email elements you need to encourage interactions.

  • An attractive email design: With the right layout, color scheme, typography, and images, you ensure easy readability and promote interaction. Use these engagement-boosting email design best practices to help you create a design that boosts conversion rates.
  • Gratitude and value: Thank customers for reading the email and explaining why their feedback is so important. Also, consider including a personalized Gmail email signature with your content details to build trust and encourage customers to engage with your review request. 
  • Personalized, relevant content: Personalized email content motivates engagement. Use customer data platform (CDP) data to tailor messages to individual customers. What is a CDP? It’s a centralized platform that collects and unifies customer information, building comprehensive customer profiles. 
  • Incentives: Offering a small discount can motivate customers to leave reviews, especially first-time buyers. That said, incentives can (sometimes) generate insincere reviews, so stress the importance of honesty. 
  • A strong call-to-action (CTA): Your CTA should direct readers straight to the reviews submission page. Use clear CTAs with bold buttons and typography to make it stand out.
  • Mobile responsiveness: If your emails are slow to load or don’t display correctly on mobile devices, your bounce rate will spike. Leverage solutions that offer advanced mobile optimization features — such as Beefree— to create responsive emails every single time.

Ask specific, concise questions

Complex, drawn-out questions that are too open-ended can disengage customers. So, get straight to the point with concise, direct questions. Here are some examples:

  • What did you think of [specific product feature]?
  • How often do you use our product?
  • What are your favorite/least favorite features?
  • How likely are you to recommend this product?
  • What could we do to improve our product?

Use a mixture of closed and open-ended questions to increase your chances of receiving meaningful responses.

Make it easy to respond

The easier it is for customers to leave a review, the more responses you’ll receive. So, make the process as seamless and convenient as possible. One way to do this is with survey emails.

Email surveys have high response rates. They can be completed within the email with minimal effort, which is a big plus for busy customers. And, they can generate a wealth of quantitative data and metrics that are quick to analyze, leading to faster improvements. BeeFree has an extensive collection of email survey templates to suit every need.

For longer review requests, include a CTA that directly links to the review submission page. Review forms should use simple, clear language, be optimized for mobile, and have a progress bar. 

You could even provide your telephone contact details to allow customers to leave a review via telephone. It’s the preferred communication method for 55% of Baby Boomers according to Hubspot, so it’s worth considering. 

Leverage small business telephone services from Vonage to access call center capabilities like virtual receptionists and CRM integrations, streamlining processes.

Also consider directing customers to leave reviews on popular review sites, such as Google and Amazon.

Optimize email timings

If you send product review requests too early, there’s a chance your customers won’t have tried your product yet. But if you send them too late, your customer might have forgotten their experience. 

So, when’s the best time to request reviews? 

Aim to send review requests within 7-14 days post-purchase. This gives customers a chance to try the product a few times, leading to more sincere, meaningful reviews. Plan for seasonal surges such as Black Friday and incorporate them into your schedules.

Key takeaways

Do email campaigns work for gathering valuable product reviews that drive improvements, boost trust, and increase sales and loyalty? 

Absolutely — but they need to be strategic.

To generate sincere reviews and valuable data, ensure your marketing emails are personalized, engaging, and optimized for convenience. And, use email list segmentation and marketing automation to ensure they’re sent to the right customers at the right time.

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