At the beginning of the year, Mara’s eight-product lineup priced from $26 to $120 went live on Sephora‘s website. On March 10, the algae-infused skincare brand is due to arrive at 252 of the retailer’s doors. The in-store offering will include its five hero products: Universal Face Oil, Algae Enzyme Cleansing Oil, Sea Vitamin C Serum, Algae Retinol Face Oil and Flower Acid Algae Serum.
“Sephora was always my dream retailer for the brand,” says Mara founder Allison McNamara. “As I was ideating and creating the brand, I really saw it being on its shelves in terms of price point, luxury and aesthetic. It was always a pipe dream in a way that we really worked so hard to make a reality.”
Sephora isn’t Mara’s first retail partner. It landed at Credo, Revolve, The Detox Market, Bluemercury, Heyday, Free People, Goop, Verishop, Anthropologie and many boutiques in the United States prior to entering Sephora. Outside of the U.S., the brand is available at Cult Beauty, Project BYouty, Omgirl Beauty and more. Last year, retail accounted for 72% of Mara’s sales.
McNamara has a running checklist of criteria for bringing on a new retail partner. She says, “The amount of actual physical stores is important to us, the locations in which they are in, and just the core values of each and every retail partner.”
When McNamara spoke to Beauty Independent in 2021, she figured she’d have to raise money to meet the production requirements of a large retailer such as Sephora. However, she avoided going that route following Mara’s stout performance in 2022. Industry sources provided the publication Women’s Wear Daily with an estimate last year that the brand could reach $10 million in 2022 sales.
McNamara says, “We felt strongly as a brand internally that we wanted to take the brand as far as we can go and get a great valuation before we even try to take on some sort of VC funding. It’s definitely something we’re having active conversations about, but, and I’m going to give myself a kudos for once, I’m really impressed we were able to do it this way.”
Ahead, McNamara discusses Mara’s approach to growing its retail network and nailing down Sephora.
1. Be Strategic About Retail Launches
A few months after Mara’s launch in 2018, Credo picked up the brand. With Mara new on the beauty scene, Credo could lend it credibility. “I wanted to use the retailer to establish our principles of clean and showcase our standards,” explains McNamara.
Plus, she adds Sephora scouts indie brands that have prominent placement at stores like Credo and The Detox Market, where Mara is stocked as well. Not long into Mara’s tenure at Credo, McNamara began talks with Sephora in 2019, although she determined at that time that the brand wasn’t quite ready.
Mara has received plenty of yeses from retailers, but McNamara advises brands to be OK with hearing no and stresses rejection today doesn’t mean rejection tomorrow. “If they tell you no right now, and it’s your dream retailer, don’t let that shut you out forever,” she says. “Just keep working really hard, keep inventing amazing products…We spend so much time chasing the things that we want. So, if we’re getting the answer that we’re not happy with, we continue to pursue and chase harder.”
McNamara points out it’s sometimes necessary to be the one doing the rejecting. “I do believe that timing is everything, but also law of attraction and the universe. It’ll give you what you’re ready for,” she says. “So, if you keep working toward that ultimate goal, you’re visualizing it, and you’re making small improvements every day, you’ll realize it at some point.”
2. Think About the Right timing
Reflecting on Mara’s path to Sephora, McNamara says the brand ended up launching at the retailer at precisely the right moment. The brand and retailer resumed talks in February 2022, a week before McNamara’s wedding. By then, Mara had registered 200% year-over-year growth in 2020 and 2021, increased its team and assortment, established a healthy inventory cycle and had resources to support robust marketing.
McNamara says, “Sometimes, as brand founders, we think we’re ready at the time, but you don’t really know until you continue to scale and you see the amount of resources both financially and team-wise that it takes to make something like this possible and successful.”
Mara’s original Sephora rollout plan was to launch online and in stores simultaneously, but Sephora kept moving around the dates, prompting the online launch to precede the in-store launch. McNamara feels the separate online and store launches are actually the better move.
“From an inventory perspective, this really helped us as a brand to make sure we’re able to continue to have enough inventory to do all the things that we want to do,” she says, noting the staggered launch is beneficial for cash flow, too, given net-30 purchase orders.
3. Build Buzz
Celebrity endorsements have spiked Mara’s sales. Algae Enzyme Cleansing Oil, its bestseller, became popular after Hailey Bieber used it in 2021. Chrissy Teigen got a hold of Mara’s inaugural product, Universal Face Oil, and mentioned it on Instagram Stories in 2020. Olivia Munn and Jen Atkin have also posted about Mara. McNamara was previously editorial director at Mane Addicts, the hair content destination started by Atkin in 2014.
Speaking of Universal Face Oil, McNamara says, “It’s had the longest amount of time on the shelves, and it’s the one product that, when people discover us, they’ve kind of seen that touchpoint like six or seven times before.”
The goal is for influencers or celebrities to organically tout a brand. “Once people are talking about it and retailers are hearing about it from multiple people, I think that’s when you really have so much more clout on your side,” says McNamara. “If you have people from all walks of life coming to these buyers telling them how amazing your brand is, it’s so much more important than if you’re just sending that pitch.”
Endorsements aren’t only important if they come from celebrities or influencers, though. McNamara underscores that features on talk shows or in publications as a result of beauty awards are incredibly advantageous for a brand’s standing. She says, “Having an amalgamation of great organic placements, exciting new product launches, awards like the Beacon Award last year that we won for the sunscreen, I think all those things are so important for a brand.”
4. Invest In PartnershipS
Mara was in Sephora’s marketing emails and on its Instagram account to herald its launch at the retailer. The brand sent out mailers to influencers in the Los Angeles area and has invested in influencer reviews to do its part to promote the Sephora partnership. Mara’s cleansing oil has already accumulated hundreds of five-star reviews, and the brand’s ambition is to make it the bestselling cleansing oil at Sephora. It taps influencer marketing platform Octoly to assist with influencer reviews.
“This is something that Sephora really stresses, and I think it does help because they’re honest reviews, even though they’re through a platform,” says McNamara. “It really allows people to understand what the product’s like on different skin types and tones beforehand.”
On top of the influencer push, Mara is sampling its face oil leading up to its brick-and-mortar premiere at Sephora in March. Advertising via wild posting and billboards is in the works as are product launches exclusive to Sephora. Mara is hiring to ramp up its education at stores. McNamara emphasizes education is crucial “to ensure that the beauty advisors, cast mates and all your other stores are properly selling the brand.”
The aim is to expand Mara at Sephora both nationally and internationally in Canada, Europe and the Middle East, but McNamara doesn’t want the brand to get ahead of itself. She says, “One of the mistakes I’ve heard from my founder friends is that you get this excitement of you want to keep going, but we really want to focus on doing whatever it takes to be successful where we’re at right now.”
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