For the past 50 years or so, the pleasure industry has worked tirelessly to increase public acceptance of sex toys. We’ve done an incredible job, and that progress has only accelerated since I first started out working the sales floor at Babeland nearly 20 years ago. Today, sex toy roundups have become a mainstay of mainstream publications, user-generated threads about pleasure products crop up weekly, and I just saw mention of the Magic Wand in a new episode of “The Bachelor.”
As a result, the profile of sex toy shoppers has become more diverse and more challenging to pin down. That requires us to perform a bit of a juggling act: simultaneously creating general awareness about pleasure products, building brand awareness and catering to longtime brand connoisseurs. Meeting the competing needs of these diverse sex toy shoppers and curious explorers is ultimately a good problem to have — but to solve it, we need to truly understand our target customers. Here are some helpful guidelines and strategies for doing that.
Once you are equipped with information about your target customers, you can narrow down your digital playing field and make smart choices.
Don’t Forget the Newbies
As the sex toy market gains more visibility, it is imperative that our brands speak to consumers from all walks of life and all experience levels. One tendency I have observed over the years is how we, as sex toy marketers, manufacturers and sales teams, can become so accustomed to certain information, attitudes and products that we take them for granted and forget that they may still seem novel or taboo for the average customer. Even when a new hire joins the industry, they are quickly integrated into the fold. This can lead to messaging that mirrors our understanding of and comfort with the products, rather than reflecting likely customers’ perspectives or what attracts them to the products.
For example, it has become commonplace to talk about sexual wellness. In the industry, “sexual wellness” has become an umbrella term that encapsulates all the pleasure and health benefits that toys, lubricants and the like have to offer. Unfortunately, that term can seem quite vague and hard to connect to for customers who are not regularly immersed in conversations about sex and pleasure. Yes, people are coming to us to solve sexual wellness problems, but that doesn’t mean they have absorbed all the lingo and discourse around those issues, so it’s important that we aim our message toward their specific needs rather than sexual wellness as a concept or lifestyle.
Back to Basics: Know Your Customer
Reminding ourselves of exactly why people add sex toys to their routines is a helpful exercise that can reinvigorate our marketing and sales strategies. How do we go about that? Market research can be timely and expensive. However, every company, regardless of size and budget, already has a wealth of information at their fingertips in the form of feedback and reviews from their own customers as well as general sex toy users who frequently share their experiences in online forums.
Too often, however, this customer feedback gets siloed and does not make its way to the personnel who can take direct action on the information. Creating a funnel for this information to flow from the folks in your organization working directly with customers to decision-makers can be a game changer.
Similarly, periodically reviewing the wealth of customer reviews in community forums and elsewhere online can yield helpful insights into the market. When you dive into this information, you find curious couples who want to feel more connected to their partners, young singles looking to improve their hookups, older women discovering they can feel empowered in their body through the changes of menopause, and existing sex toy users guiding newbies through the best toys.
Meet Customers Where They Are
These conversations are happening organically online, and prospective customers curious about pleasure products are tapping into this wealth of information, especially on user-generated forums. In a recent survey we conducted at Magic Wand, out of 930 respondents, 76% reported doing research before shopping for a sex toy, 84% said they research online before going into a physical store and 83% said they go to customer support sites for this information. Only 52% ask a friend or family member, 39% turn to mainstream publications and less than 4% talk to their doctor, therapist, counselor or other professional resources.
This is the 21st-century version of “word of mouth,” and it’s incredibly important. To make it work for us, we must meet customers in the digital spaces they inhabit: forums, trusted content creator feeds and mainstream marketplaces. Gone are the days when a Google search about sex, kink or sex toys would yield a variety of sex toy-focused blogs hosted on ecommerce sites and content-rich product pages. Now, when folks turn to the internet for answers about sexual wellness, they are directed to forums like Quora or Reddit and articles by mainstream publications. Companies should establish their presence in these forums and monitor them to offer customer support.
Navigating the wilds of the various digital channels where prospective customers can find you is nearly impossible if you aim to reach them everywhere. Fortunately, once you are equipped with information about your target customers, you can narrow down your digital playing field and make smart choices about which marketplaces, content partners and platforms you can leverage most effectively in order to connect with the right audience. This market listening will also inform your brand storytelling, ultimately driving sales by attracting experienced shoppers while introducing new audiences to the joys of pleasure products.
Sarah Tomchesson (she/her) has spent much of her career as a brand strategist shaping legendary pleasure brands, including her current role as the marketing director for Magic Wand. She is a certified sexuality educator and intimacy coach and co-hosts a weekly podcast, “F*ck Yeah.” Tomchesson also serves as vice chair of the board of directors of SIECUS — Sex Ed for Social Change, the nation’s leading organization advocating for sex education policy reform.
