Latest / The Marketing Funnel Podcast with Fexingo: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action Stages / How Glossier Built a Marketing Funnel on Community Feedback
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this idea in marketing that the funnel is a one-way street — you get people aware, interested, deciding, acting — and then maybe you try to retain them. But Glossier basically said, what if the funnel is a circle? What if the people at the bottom loop back and become the people at the top? Luna: And they did that with a blog. Not with ads, not with a big agency — a blog called Into The Gloss. Lucas: Exactly. Emily Weiss started Into The Gloss in 2010, and it was essentially a beauty publication where she interviewed women about their routines. No product, no brand — just conversations. And she built up a huge audience of people who trusted her taste. By 2014, when she launched Glossier, she had a list of thousands of potential customers who'd already told her what they wanted. Luna: Right, so the awareness stage wasn't about cold traffic. It was warm. Those blog readers already knew the voice, the aesthetic — they were pre-sold on the sensibility. Lucas: And that's the key. Most brands spend heavily on awareness to fill the top of the funnel. Glossier spent zero on ads for the first few years. Their entire top of funnel was the blog, which generated interest organically. But then the twist: they used the comments section on Into The Gloss as a de facto focus group. People were saying, 'I wish there was a moisturizer that did X,' or 'Why doesn't anyone make a brow gel that does Y?' Glossier listened, and their first products were direct responses to those requests. Luna: So the interest stage and the decision stage actually got compressed. Because if you're the one who suggested the product, your interest is already high, and your decision to buy it is almost automatic. Lucas: Exactly. Take Boy Brow, their brow gel. The community had been complaining for years that brow products were either too stiff or too wet. Glossier formulated the exact middle ground. When Boy Brow launched in 2015, it sold out within days — largely to the same people who'd asked for it. That's the decision stage happening within a week for thousands of customers. Normally, getting someone from first awareness to purchase can take months. Luna: And the action stage — the purchase — that's just the beginning, right? Because then they post on Instagram about it, they tag their friends, they become part of the community that's generating interest for the next person. Lucas: Right. Glossier famously used customer photos on their product pages instead of professional shots. That's a way of saying, 'You are the model, you are the marketer.' Every purchase becomes a potential awareness moment for someone else. So the traditional funnel — which separates awareness, interest, decision, action — starts to overlap. Awareness comes from action. Interest comes from decision. Luna: There's a risk though, right? If you build the whole funnel on community input, you can become insular. You might only hear from your superfans, not the broader market. Lucas: That's exactly what happened with Glossier Play, their 2019 sub-brand for more colorful, experimental makeup. The core community loved the minimal, 'no-makeup makeup' aesthetic — but Glossier assumed that same audience wanted bold colors. They didn't test enough outside the echo chamber. Glossier Play launched to lukewarm reception and was discontinued within a year. So the community feedback loop can also blind you. Luna: It's a classic data bias problem. You're listening to the loudest voices, not necessarily the representative ones. Lucas: But when it works, it's incredibly efficient. Glossier's customer acquisition cost is famously low compared to other direct to consumer brands. They don't need to spend on Facebook ads to retarget people who've already bought — their customers bring in new customers for free. And the retention is strong because people feel ownership. They helped create the products. Luna: I want to talk about Glossier You, the fragrance. That's a good example of the loop working at scale. They launched it in 2017, and instead of a traditional perfume campaign, they sent samples to top commenters on Into The Gloss and asked them to review it. Those reviews became the marketing copy. The fragrance became one of their bestsellers. Lucas: And that's a $60-plus product in a category where people usually need to smell it first. Glossier bypassed that entire sensory barrier by relying on social proof from people the audience already trusted. It's a decision-stage hack. Normally, perfume marketing is about aspiration — celebrity endorsements, glossy ads. Glossier made it about community validation. Luna: So if I'm a marketer listening, what's the takeaway? Can any brand build a community feedback loop like Glossier? Lucas: Not every brand has the luxury of starting from a blog with a built-in audience. But the principle translates: find where your potential customers are already talking about your category, and engage there before you launch. Don't just broadcast — listen. And then let them see that you listened. That's the loop. When customers see their feedback in a product, they become your most effective marketers. Luna: I think that's why Glossier has such high brand loyalty. People feel like they're part of something, not just buying a lip balm. Lucas: And that feeling is what makes the funnel work in reverse. The action stage feeds back into awareness. It's a virtuous cycle — if you can avoid the echo chamber trap. And that's the balancing act: stay open to the community without being captive to it. Luna: Quick honest thing — this kind of in-depth marketing conversation is exactly why a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It keeps the show ad-free and lets us dig into cases like this without worrying about sponsors. Lucas: Yeah, and we really appreciate that. It's a small group, but it makes a huge difference. It means we can spend time on stories that might not have a brand behind them. Like this Glossier episode — we're not being paid by them, we're just fascinated by the strategy. Luna: Exactly. So back to the loop — one thing that strikes me is how Glossier handled the launch of their sunscreen, Invisible Shield. They actually reformulated it after community feedback about a white cast. That's expensive, but it deepened trust. Lucas: Right. And that reformulation became a story — they told customers, 'You spoke, we fixed it.' That's marketing gold. It turns a product flaw into a loyalty moment. The cost of reformulation was probably high, but the PR value and the reinforcement of the community loop were enormous. Luna: So the takeaway: the marketing funnel isn't just about moving people through stages. It's about creating a system where each stage feeds the others, and the customer is a participant, not a passive target. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a lesson that goes well beyond beauty.