If you’re in the beauty marketing space—or even in the cosmetics market—generative AI can enhance your content and craft your most effective email subject lines. As the global beauty industry market size is estimated to be worth $646.2 billion in 2024, it’s expected to grow to 736.8B by 2028. Of course you want a piece of that pie . . . And AI will help you get it.

One of the most effective ways to do this is by tailoring interesting subject lines and offers toward the exact people who make up your target customer demographic. Both the beauty market and cosmetic market have quite a few key consumer targets though, and this group is constantly growing and evolving. Only real-time analysis, and AI-powered models trained on the latest cosmetic market content, can truly show beauty industry marketing professionals what will resonate with their potential customers. 

To illustrate this point, we’ll show examples of generative AI’s ability to craft great email subject lines for three key market demographics for the beauty and cosmetics industries:

• Gen Z skincare shoppers who are all-in their generation’s biggest cosmetics trends
• Millennial women buying beauty products—aka the group that buys them the most
• Men who are proactive about their cosmetic health and hygiene

We’ll dive into how to generate effective email subject lines for each group, detailing preferred emotional sentiment, subject line slang, emoji use, and more. Many of the email programs within Backstroke’s 10k+ brand email marketing dataset are within the beauty and cosmetics industries. Therefore, we have a granular understanding of exactly what these shoppers want to see in their emails, across ages, genders, interests, and by-brand. 

With this in mind, let’s break down how to craft the very best email marketing subject lines for these three core groups. 

The Best Subject Lines for Gen Z Skincare Shoppers

Oft accredited with changing each and every industry, Gen Z certainly has a unique approach to cosmetics. We see this, in particular, with their affinity for skincare products. Vogue states that this love of skin-focused products—and their desire to connect with the brands as if those brands are their personal friends —are transforming the cosmetics market.

Backstroke’s email subject line generator can pin-point the most effective email subject lines for your brand, when marketing cosmetics with Gen Z in mind. To do this, visit the subject line generator and use its Audience and Attributes filters. Select the following: 

• Age: 18-29
• Gender: Keep all genders selected! Gen Z men are increasingly buying skincare products. And if you need further proof of Gen Z’s cross-gender interest in the cosmetics market, the hashtag #menskincareroutine on TikTok has received 69 million views in the past year, with 89% of its viewers aged 18-24.
• Emojis: Set to 👍
• Slang: Set to Yep! 
• All Caps: Set to Nope, as our data tells us that Gen Z prefers sentence case.
• Risk and Brand Voice filters: Toggle them to the right. This will make the email subject line creator’s outputs more fun and friendly, which resonates with Gen Z shoppers. 

And don’t forget to select Cosmetics at the top of the subject line generator, before you customize your campaign settings and generate content! 

The Best Subject Lines for Millennial Beauty Market Shoppers

With millennial women buying 38% of all beauty products, they are the biggest consumer demographic within the beauty market. Coming of age during social media’s initial boom, experiencing the takeover of Instagram influencers throughout their 20s and 30s, and now keeping up with trends on TikTok, social media is a huge influence on millennial womens’ beauty purchasing habits. In fact, 67% of millennials agree that social media contributes to them spending more on beauty products than they would otherwise.

If you’re sending beauty marketing emails and messaging to target this core consumer group, we suggest making the following selections in Backstroke’s email subject line generator: 

• Gender: Women
• Age: 30-44
• All Caps: You can experiment some here, if you want! Millennial women aren’t totally turned off by all caps, like Gen Z is, but we advise you to use them sparingly.
• Seasonal: Select Yep! Why not? Millennial humor is known for its love of puns and seasonal themes. 

Save your selections, but before you click the Generate button, be sure to select Beauty as your industry, while you customize your campaign. 

The Best Subject Lines for Men In the Cosmetic Market

While women have traditionally been the primary focus of the cosmetic market, the men's grooming, hygiene, and beauty markets are an emerging area of interest. We see this, in particular, in the world of men's skincare products, but in beauty too! 

The men’s skincare market is expected to reach $19.278 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 4.5%. CNN says that men’s “grooming is booming,” citing a 389% year-on-year increase in TikTok video views around male skincare. And in the UK, male beauty sales surged 77% as well, driven by celebrity launches and Gen Z interest.

With that in mind, if you’re hoping to capture part of this lucrative cosmetic market, we suggest making the following selections when generating email content for them: 

• Gender: Men
• Age: You could select any age range, but with Gen Z men’s interest in cosmetics, we’ll select 18-29 for this example. 
• All Caps: Select Nope if you’re marketing toward a younger audience.
• Risk and Brand Voice: We suggest toggling these Personality filters a bit to the left of what you’d select for an all-gender Gen Z audience. This will make your AI-generated subject lines a bit more buttoned-up, as men tend to prefer more direct language in their marketing content.

Save your selections, then finally, select that you’re creating content for the cosmetics market at the top of the email subject line generator. Customize your campaign type, promotional messaging, and timing, then click Generate to receive the most effective email subject lines for this particular audience. 

No matter what industry you’re in, you can generate the best email subjects for your subscribers, thanks to Backstroke’s vertical-specific messaging platform. In fact, you can play in the brand new Backstroke’s Sandbox to start guiding your content direction with the power of AI and data. Explore its three free tools to craft the most effective messaging for your brand, whether you’re in beauty, cosmetics, or any other industry.

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