Women’s health essentials brand Stix is on a mission to provide a convenient, discreet, and judgment-free way for customers to get the products they need, combined with resources, education, and support.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Maya Juchtman, Stix’s Brand Marketing Director, to talk about what it’s like to work for a mission-driven brand, the initiatives she’s spearheading, and how inclusive marketing can make the world a better place.
So tell me a little bit about your role.
Stix actually brought me on this past summer. It’s definitely a dream job — I’m very excited to be here. I get to educate non-cis-men about their vaginas, if they have them. Everything from their urinary tract, to sex-ed — overall just providing resources to people that we all should have had from the get-go, but didn’t.
I came on as a consultant to help them launch Restart and The Donation Bank, which provides free emergency contractives to people, no questions asked. Mostly, these days, we’re working with a lot of abortion clinics, and we ship emergency contraceptives to them to provide to people specifically in red states where it’s still legal, hopefully it will be forever.
I was born a diplomat’s child, and moved around a lot — around fourteen times. That’s really what prepared me for marketing. It’s now so easy for me to put myself in different people’s shoes, to accommodate and adapt, all of which I’m incredibly grateful for.
On your LinkedIn you say, “I believe we can make marketing an inclusive community experience.” Can you talk about what that means?
I think if we start marketing in a way that we show all aspects of humanity within our demographic, it exposes people to it sooner and normalizes it for them, so when they do see that person in the street, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I see you in my ads all the time. That makes sense to me.” So then it’s not such a shock.
We can sway the world in like these little nuances, and these little moments, by making it every day. Not making it just an LGBTQ+ campaign, not making it just like a BLM campaign, but something that you do every day.
How has the response been so far to Restart and The Donation Bank?
If anyone needs anything other than being a good person to do social good, especially with the rising costs of customer acquisition, it is honestly a cheaper way to get people in the door. Now that might sound a little like sleazy marketing, but it’s a win-win. You’re actually providing things to people. So while you’re bringing in customers, you’re also supporting them, so they say, “Wow! This feels good. This company cares about me.”
While we did experience a little bit of backlash, we saw just an incredible outpouring of support. Surprisingly, this then turned into a social being way more impactful than say, our billboards. Gen Z on social, and really everyone else, rallied and started promoting, “Here’s this free resource. Share this. Move the needle. Make an impact.” It truly was a beautiful thing to stand back and really watch this community rally around.
What are some strategies Stix is using to mitigate the current challenges most eCommerce brands are facing right now?
It’s a pretty tough time to be an eCommerce brand right now. Just, overall, rising acquisition costs, consumers spending less, all that stuff.
So I feel like a mad scientist at all times, because it’s definitely changing the algorithm on a near-constant basis. Just because it worked last month, the new update means it won’t work anymore, and now I have to completely change my strategy — let’s just throw everything we learned out the window!
What advice do you have for other eCommerce marketers?
Adjust quickly, be adaptable, be on top of change — just stop trying to fit triangles into circles. What was a triangle last month, is a circle now, and will be a fully functioning hexagon creature flying through space next month. We just can’t get complacent.
Stay on top of trends. Be testing constantly. Continue to monitor outcomes and reactions. Be excited about what you do — if you’re not excited about it, how can you expect anyone else to be?
Retention has been a big topic for us at Yotpo lately, and in eCommerce in general. What are some of Stix’s retention strategies?
We have a pretty robust lifecycle strategy, where we send out articles and build different interest-based segments. So if anyone has shown interest in say, our yeast category, we really build out that segment and lifecycle.
We’re planning to build out more accessible resources and partnering with Geneva, so subscribers to SMS or email get access to that community as an extra perk.
We’re building out our subscription experience. Down the line, we’ll provide exclusive events, and workshops, and giveaways — and since we’re with Yotpo Loyalty, we give people rewards for continuing to stay with us. Something we’re excited to implement soon is the Punch Card Campaign — specifically to support our subscriptions efforts.
A lot of it is seeing fun brands we love doing awesome initiatives and trying to adapt that for us — but also being critical in a way that says, “What do I like? Why do I still go back to this dog brand? Why do I like it? Is it just because my dog eats it? No, my dog gets everything — it’s because I really like that they did this specific gift with purchase. I really like that. They send me articles once a month. I really like their email experience. Their social media is really cute.” Things like that. Those things are important.
What are your big priorities as Marketer for 2023?
- Youtube. It’s great for SEO, and I’d really love to build that out. It also supports education really well, and it’s such a no-brainer for the education work we’ve been doing — it just makes sense in the long term.
- Now that we have a bit more of a budget, we’d really love to build out a truly robust product line — it’ll be easier to understand now what does and doesn’t work than it was three years ago, and it’ll be easier to do that same thing three years from now than it will be today.
- Doing more brand partnerships. We’re doing one currently with Abortion Access that comes out in November. It’ll be interesting to see as we continue to really build out that space for ourselves.
Final Question: What do you do when you’re not being an amazing marketer?
Oh! I have a dog, a cat, and a snake. So I’m slowly building out my zoo. I want a donkey and a tortoise next, but I’ve been told that’s apparently a no-no in New York — which I guess is fair. I have three pets already, which is a lot.
I go to a lot of Burning Man events, I go dancing with my friends. I have a lot of performer friends, so I try to support them with their different things. I love to spend time with loved ones and travel whenever possible, but mostly I love spending time with my pets.
