Melissa Meyers, founder and creative director of The Glow Girl, isn’t afraid to do things many people would find embarrassing. She’s an ardent networker and has no problem reaching out cold to a person or brand. Prior to launching her lifestyle content hub in 2017, the 55-year-old longtime media personality hobnobbed with influencers much younger than her to learn tricks of the digital trade. Meyers has had to push her comfort zone to blaze a path for gen X women to play a role in the blogosphere in a manner that was mostly unheard of before. Today, others are increasingly joining her on the journey toward age inclusivity. “We are entering a new chapter,” says Meyers, who has a following of roughly 100,000 and engagement rate of 3%. “Even in the world of influencers, it’s changing leaps and bounds, and I’m very happy to see that because we’ve been working so hard at having a voice. It’s not where I want it to be, but it’s getting there.” Beauty Independent spoke with her about the evolution in sponsors’ attitude toward The Glow Girl, pieces that are successful for it, how she keeps it relevant and where it’s heading.
What were you doing before The Glow Girl?
I had a business called AskMelissa. It was a small business that I started as a result of all my friends and family asking me where do I get my hair highlighted, and what lipstick or skincare product was I using. I love to share. One night, my husband made a joke and said call your business AskMelissa because everybody was asking Melissa. So, I did. I put out a newsletter to 25 people. That turned into 700 subscribers and, then, 10,000 subscribers. I worked with preferred providers on the newsletter. I would go to a hair colorist and say, “Can you offer a 10% commission on everybody I recommend to you?” What didn’t work about it was that it was on the honor system. I wasn’t able to track it. I was a step ahead of the technology curve.
To make it into more of a business, I put an ad on Craig’s List to get someone to help with a business plan, and the guy I got was doing a deck for NBC, and he recommended me to NBC. WNBC had me come in for a casting call, and they asked me to do regular segments as a lifestyle expert for their new station New York Live. We had a formal partnership, and I also did regular segments for “Weekend Today” in New York and a few for LXTV. I would go on talking about favorite holiday gifts, fall fashion or beauty products.
From there, I launched a company called PageDaily. It was a page a day of your favorite magazine. It covered celebrity, travel, lifestyle, beauty and fashion, and was all clickable. I had a segment on NBC and PageDaily was profitable for a few months, but then it leveled off. It was very, very expensive to run. I had 12 employees and 28 interns at the time. I raised about $500,000 to help grow and build out the business, and also invested a large amount of my own money, but, unfortunately, I ended up losing it. You have to fail a bunch of times before you succeed.
Why did you start The Glow Girl?
After many years of talking about it with my husband, we decided to leave New York and move to LA in 2012. My husband had been in the hedge fund business and wanted to do something else. I didn’t want to be CEO of an online magazine. I’m a creative and very much a journalist. I was interviewing people, and did the red carpet and Fashion Week. When I moved to LA, I didn’t want to not work. I wanted to find something, and I noticed all of the bloggers here. I would see these young girls photographing themselves. They were getting brands to pay attention to them. I was like, “This could be a real business.” I was 47 at the time, and I said, “Wait, there’s nobody in their 40s doing this well with a beautiful aesthetic.”
I had PR contacts from New York, and they all had offices in LA. I went to events, even though everyone was half my age, but I was learning from all these girls, and I really took it in. I started to create my brand. My tagline is, “Tips and tricks on how to feel 10 years younger to be best version of yourself and age gracefully.” I wanted to teach people how to age with grace and style, not to look younger from plastic surgery. I had achieved that by moving from New York to LA and totally turning my life upside down by incorporating integrative medicine along with Western medicine and changing my diet completely. I have 10 times more energy than I had in my 30s in New York. I am a much happier and more centered person now. I appreciate and have so much gratitude for all the small things in life.
I called my new platform The Glow Girl because everyone wants to be a glow girl no matter what age or stage you are at. Pretty much every piece of my content gives you a trick or tip on how to achieve that goal. I’m giving tips and tricks that millennials weren’t. They were running around at night. For someone over 40, that’s not going to resonate with them. I’m giving them a place to go and a resource that’s helpful and cuts through the noise. I have a very loyal following. I get about 300 emails a day, tons of DMs and a lot of user engagement. It took a couple of years, though. I pitched brands early on, and they weren’t using me because I was out of their demographic. Today, it’s different. I worked with Kopari, and I just posted for Clinique. I’m starting on a six-month contract with Clairol, and I just finished a project with Blue Shield of California promoting healthy living apps.
What is the audience like?
The audience is female, and my largest demographic is between 35 and 45. My second largest is between 45 and 55, and 25 to 35 is the third largest. Over 55 is after that. They are educated women, and I would say the bulk of them make six figures. They are interested in improving their lives and their families’ lives. I talk about products that are luxurious, but I’m also going to talk about products that you can get at Target. I cross all price ranges because I want people in all walks of life to look and feel their best.
How have you evolved The Glow Girl’s content?
Initially, my content didn’t have focus. It was all over the place. There was no flow to the content. I was just like, “Oh, this week I’m going to write about my favorite beauty products or a beach getaway.” Now, I pay attention to what’s going on in the world much more than I used to. I’m writing my second post about face masks because the first face masks post I wrote when COVID broke did well and, now, there are so many more brands with face masks. I know that’s important to people because COVID numbers are rising. I don’t just post content to post content. I’m very aware of what’s valuable to my community.
How much content are you posting?
I post one blog post a week, and I try to post one sponsored post a week. It can be in the form of a blog, Instagram, Stories, IGTV, video, etc., post. I am also hired to do testimonial videos, content for brand websites and ads on a regular basis. There are generally four sponsored posts a month. I like it to be weighted 50/50 between sponsored and not, and I definitely don’t want there to be more sponsored than editorial. I post on my Instagram seven days a week, but I’m going to switch that to six because I don’t think seven is necessary.
What content has been working well for you lately?
I have been doing mom-and-me posts with my daughter Rachel. They have been very, very successful. The posts will show how she wears something and how I wear it. We are both featured in Who What Wear, too, and have already done three mother-daughter articles with them this year. Other content that has been really successful is on cozy fashion and how to look great for Zoom calls. People are going on Zoom and wanting to know what makeup to wear.
How has your relationships with sponsors changed?
It’s so different from the beginning. At first, it was like pulling teeth to get sponsors to work with me. I would have to post 10 times organically before a brand would respond to my DMs. Most brands at the time would say, “We don’t have a budget for influencers.” Then, I would see them working with someone 20 years younger, and these are skincare brands for aging women. It’s changed so much because now everyone wants things to be organic and authentic rather than staged and fake. Two years ago, I got my first big Instagram campaign with Peepers. Then, others started to trickle in. I worked with Rachel Zoe’s Box of Style and Ritual vitamins.
Now, I get 10 companies a week pitching me. People are staying younger longer. So, now, a woman in her 40s or 60s is very youthful, and these women have incredible purchasing power. The brands have done their research, and they are going after that. I am turning down sponsorships because I have to figure out where I can put my time and energy. So, I focus on bigger brands and the ones that fit my brand 100%. I never do 100% affiliate because I work hard at making my videos and Stories, and the content with professional photography.
What’s your rate?
For an Instagram post, my rate is $1,500. My Glow Getter package deal, which includes a blog post, newsletter, Instagram Stories post, and shares on Pinterest and Facebook is $5,000, and that’s very popular. I have a brand ambassadorship, which is a three-month minimum, and $5,000 for each month. One of the things I’ve been doing a lot lately is producing content for ads that I’m not posting on my feeds. Brands will pay me $5,000 to do a video for them or $600 to $800 for professional photos.
What recommendations do you have for brands entering partnerships with you?
I like it when a brand is buttoned-up with their contracts, and when they have indemnification for both them and me. The influencer shouldn’t indemnify a huge company. It should be dual. I also think they should have certain best practices in place in a creative brief. I like it when a brand gives me guidance, examples of what has worked well for them and bullet points that should be included. That helps there be a lot less back and forth between me and the brand.
You had a partnership with the brand Olie Biologique on the product Rose Glow Drops. What happened with the partnership?
As editor in chief while running PageDaily, I was sent face oils to road test back in 2012 by Olie Biologique and loved them very much! I reached out to the Founder, Linda Thompson and mentioned that I thought her face oils were special and stood out from the rest. This is before face oils were a big thing, and I tried everything. They were truly incredible and unique in the clean beauty space. I wanted to create a partnership with a special beauty brand and thought that Olie would be a good fit for a co-branded product so I set up a call to chat about this with Linda. Soon after, she flew to LA to meet with me and we discussed the different ways we could partner together. We immediately hit it off and decided to create a co-branded face oil like no other. Our Olie X Melissa Meyers Rose Glow Drops were born, and it was an amazing product with a heavenly scent.
We ended up reformulating these because, when it was time to make more, we wanted to create a very stable product since we were working with several organic ingredients. In doing so, we created another face oil called Olie X Melissa Meyers Golden Ray Glow Drops with French marine algae as the active ingredient. The new scent was more woodsy than I expected, but the product itself was top notch. I did marketing and influencer outreach and worked diligently in support of our newest product. A VC company helped with the entire relaunch of this new product and also helped Olie transition to their new line Biography. The Olie X Melissa Meyers Golden Ray Glow Drops ran its course, and our formal partnership ended amicably this past August. I am not affiliated with the new Biography face oil brand, but think their concept is super cool and wish them well. I am currently working on exploring some new co-branded product partnerships with some other brands and hoping that I will be able to launch my own clean beauty brand someday. Stay tuned!
We’ve seen several beauty influencers become Beautycounter reps. You did that as well. What was that like?
So many of the reps contacted me over the years and said, “You have to get on board with Beautycounter.” I always politely said no because I just like to talk about specific products that I love within a brand and not really the brand as a whole. But there was one very successful Beautycounter rep who has been following me for a long time and mentioned to me that there are other influencers that sell it well, and they incorporate it into their existing content. I said, “OK, I will try it. If they’re successful at doing it, maybe this is something I should explore.” So, she started by sending me a variety of the products to test, and I really liked many of them and promoted those to my audience.
In terms of sales, I have not done as well as I would have thought maybe because this, like any other business, is one that needs to be nurtured. It was the first time I ever experimented with MLM, which can be very lucrative. At this time, it makes more sense for me to focus on creating purely editorial content and continuing to work on my brand partnerships. Beautycounter puts out some of the best clean products and is a leader in the space, and I am excited to see what’s next for them. I also commend them for providing business opportunities to many women who want to spread the clean beauty word and also make some extra money doing it. Maybe I will try exploring this as an opportunity again in the future when the timing is better.
How do you keep The Glow Girl relevant?
You have to move with the trends, and they change all the time. Right now, I’m asked to do testimonials and how-to videos. A year ago, I was asked mostly to do static Instagram posts. At the moment, I’m not on TikTok, and there are few influencers my age on TikTok, although they are starting. If a brand says to me, “We would like you to produce at TikTok video,” I’m going to get on TikTok and do it. I adopted Snapchat when it was hot. I do test runs to see what happens if I’m consistently on something for two months or so. If nothing happens, I’m going to leave it because my time is valuable, and I have to be where the audience is.
Where do you envision your business in five years?
In five years, I’m going to be 60. I don’t know what the influencer space is going to morph into by then. I have no idea what the new Instagram or TikTok will be. I want to continue spreading the word about looking, feeling and being the best version of yourself on the platforms that will be relevant. It’s about spreading my message even more. I think 60 will be the new 40, not even the new 50. I’m hoping by then I will have published a book. Publishing a book has been a goal of mine for a while, but you have to build credibility before you can do it. A product line and a book are good goals for five years out.
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