Ready your inbox: The brands are coming to Substack

That tech bro with the inspirational quotes, your old English lit professor, and that girl from your hometown trying to make it as an influencer — they’re all on Substack. 

In fact, it feels like everyone has a newsletter these days (we were here first!). 

And the latest adopters aren’t individuals at all, but brands, per Digiday:

• Fashion retailer American Eagle recently launched its free Substack newsletter, Off the Cuff, in order to engage with Gen Z customers.
• The newsletter will include internet trends — the first edition included a section on the popularity of jorts — and will be guest edited by Casey Lewis, the writer of the After School newsletter (meaning cross-promotion with her 74k subscribers).

American Eagle joins fashion brands The RealReal and Tory Burch as well as beauty brands Saie and Rare Beauty on the newsletter platform.

So far, some are finding success: Saie saw 20% month-over-month growth in Substack subscribers this year. 

Why newsletters?

Because brands will do anything to cozy up to customers. And for many beauty and fashion brands, their customers are on Substack. 

• On Substack, 24% of the audience falls into the 25-34 demographic — the highest audience share by age, according to Similarweb.
• Readers ages 18-24 account for 11.4% of the platform’s audience. 

And while brands have already been present on the platform in the form of sponsored posts and founder accounts, this new wave of launches is mixing media with marketing. 

Newsletters aren’t the only way…

… that brands are getting experimental. They’re doing just about anything to reach new customers.

• Roblox is opening its Commerce APIs to creators and brands with Shopify as its first partner. The new initiative will allow Shopify merchants to sell physical products inside of gaming experiences.

And, of course, we can’t forget all the metaverse fuss. While it feels like we’re still waiting for the trend to pan out, the global metaverse market in fashion is estimated to grow by $19.5B between 2025-2029.

So keep a lookout in your inboxes for more communication from your favorite brands — just promise to never replace us.