AJ Davis  

In today's episode, I had the chance to talk with Jennifer Staley of Meemzy Magic. I love talking with her. We've done great work together, and I'm very excited to have her on today to share what it is that they do, what drives them and their amazing products that they've developed. I'm really inspired by the work they've done to create products that are playful, eco friendly and sensory friendly for people of all ages. In today's episode, we go through their mission, their goals, and how to bring that into their site so people can learn about them more quickly and ultimately, purchase these products when they're a good fit. Let's jump right into it. This is AJ Davis, I'm here with Jennifer on the Experiment Zone Podcast. Super excited to feature you and your store here today. Jennifer, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about what your business does?

Hi, AJ, it's so great to be on the podcast. I'm a huge fan, as you guys have already helped us so much, but it's great to touch base again. My company is called Meemzy Magic, and we are making sustainable sensory play toys for children, and really, anyone who would enjoy this at any age. We definitely started with an eco-friendly approach to our toys, because my husband and I have always been very big fans of the world. We love nature. He grew up near the ocean. I grew up in the mountains. We live in the Santa Cruz Mountains now, because we just want to be near beautiful natural scenery, and then my daughter actually had a speech delay that came up in the pandemic, and that's when my eyes were open to the entire world of sensory play and how important it is and how beneficial it is for children. Not only does it reduce anxiety and stress in children, it also deepens the learning that happens during play, because it engages all the parts of their brain and we know how closely tied scent is to our memory. If you smell your mother's or your grandmother's cookies, it transports you back to that kitchen immediately. So the same principle applies with sensory play in children. I bought a lot of kits that were premade out there, because I'm a working mom and I don't have time to put these things together. But I quickly had to stop because there was just so much plastic out there, and it was killing me to have it in my house.

I totally remember jumping into like those smells from my grandma's kitchen. She used to send me cookies when I was a kid in college, and it just brought me so much home comfort. So I can totally understand that connection. I bet a lot of our audience understands that too.

AJ Davis

 Can you tell us a little bit about how that connects to play? What does that mean to engage all your senses with play?

Jennifer Stalley

Yeah, so our senses are really closely tied to memory, and the idea with sensory play is that you're engaging more parts of the brain by engaging more of your senses. So it's not just what are we doing with the little characters and how are they interacting with one another, but how does the dough or the slime feel? It feels really cold. Well, why would that make sense to go with penguins there in the Arctic, the Arctic's really cold. The slime is also really cold. It also helps people with sensory processing disorders get more comfortable with lots of different sensory inputs. I think any new mom understands how overwhelming new parenthood can be to your senses. Imagine if that was your life every day, right? And so this is just helping people get more and more comfortable, so that their baseline of what they can tolerate in a day without being overloaded continues to increase. So every kit is designed with sustainable natural materials, because that's really important to me, that these toys that last for a moment in time, right, that they're not outliving our children and ourselves. And also it's designed to engage as many of the senses as possible. So we have rough texture in addition to soft texture, we've got Play Doh and slime and kinetic sand. So you get lots of different tactile inputs. There's scent included with the dough, so that you're still engaging the scent sensory at the same time. So there's a lot that's gone into it. We've worked with a lot of experts. We've consulted, actually, with one of my friends from college. She's now a PhD in child psychology from Harvard, and she was looking at this going, This is amazing. It's so open ended, and it meets children at their current developmental stage. So if you've got a really little one and they're just really into making messes, this is right up their alley. But also, as they. Grow and move through the developmental stages. There's a lot you could get from social emotional learning, including the emotions that are on the faces of the pig dolls, and when they're doing more complex storytelling and imaginary play, there's so many elements to build out their entire world. So that was one of the things she loved about it was that it really adapts to you for all kinds of ages and stages.

AJ Davis  

And I love that you're really trying to solve a real problem out there. It's like you found sensory things, you found toys that were stable, but you couldn't find things that really hit that interaction and that segment of the market. So it seems like you're really trying to provide things for parents and for families that they don't didn't have access to before. One of the things that often comes to play when we're thinking about, you know, telling people what we do is kind of the conversion piece, right? So how do we take all this great work you're doing and make sure that people understand it and ultimately convert so can you tell us a little bit about who you're selling to and how you think about that moment of education and persuasion to help them understand all the thought you've put into this

Jennifer Stalley

absolutely so I think it's a pretty complicated story that we're trying to convey. There's a lot of benefits to it. There's a big education piece. I would say that my target are parents of children three to maybe 10 years old. But I hate throwing out age numbers, because it really is about where in your own development process, and when you think about neurodivergent communities, in particular, there are adults who would love these sensory kits. I don't want to throw out a number and then have one more mile marker of how far behind someone is. That's not, that's not in the spirit of the company, right? We're trying to support busy families. We're trying to support families who want to connect meaningfully, families who expect more from their purchases and the time spent with toys. And we're also trying to talk to parents who are not specifically in the neurodivergent community, because once you understand all of the social, mental, emotional benefits of these toys, I think it has a benefit for everybody out there, not just neurodivergent families, but absolutely, that's where sensory play has started, and neurodivergent families have, generally speaking, more understanding of the benefit of sensory play, because they've come to it through an occupational therapist or a speech language pathologist, and so they've been in regular appointments understanding all of the benefits that come From this play. But once you know about it, how would you pass this up when you're evaluating toys forevermore, even if your child is not in the neurodivergent community?

AJ Davis  

Yeah, so it's almost like you have two audiences to speak to, folks who already know it and embrace it, and folks who will really understand it once they can really dive in a little bit deeper to it. You know, as you were describing that it reminds me of something that comes up in our work a lot, which is around ADA compliance for websites and for E commerce stores. And one of the things I always like to tell people, which sounds pretty similar here, is that, yes, those guidelines exist for specific audiences and specific needs, but ultimately, those same guidelines serve everybody. So having high contrast on your text versus the background mean things are readable and legible for everybody. And so I think that's the same kind of idea you're working with is, yeah, there's some people who really know the details of why this sensory play is important, and want to know maybe some other parts of why your sensory play is different or better than other options in the market, versus other people who are just learning. So I'm excited to look at your site together and see how you're balancing that challenging message. There anything else our audience should know about what you're offering and who you're helping before we dive into taking a look at the site?

Jennifer Stalley

I was a learning study signature, so one thing that has always been top of mind for me is to not put people into a box prematurely, and when I was just a customer looking at sensory play kits that were out there, they were so gendered, and the Early Childhood Education classwork that I had to do to be a Women's Studies major was just ringing alarm bells in my head. So something we've really thought about is how to stick with themes and content that is interesting to all children, and to not have a boy subscription and a girl subscription, but just to have a subscription option where you can automate your parenting. And every month, a sensor kit comes in the mail, and then you are automatically making that meaningful time to sit down and engage with your children. That means it could feel a little chaotic when we get more and more and more SKUs filled out so as to understand how to help people navigate so that they're finding the theme. That is the most helpful for them, right off the bat, would be a great consideration for our site as we move forward.

AJ Davis 

Fantastic, thanks for sharing that. I'm going to go ahead and start sharing my screen and look at the desktop and jump right in and I love to share first impressions. So like, what are the things I'm noticing right away? Hey, you've got sensory kits created with love and purpose. So we've got the what right away. One of the things to the point of the ADA comment I made earlier, your interest is a little bit low with the colors here. I think that's a challenge you may have with your brand style guide here, where some of this light, the lighter green and the white may not be high enough contrast. So something to think about is to just kind of make sure that that really jumps off the page with that text in the top section, but overall, you've got a clear call to action at the top of the page. I see you're making that split between like jumping in and starting shopping versus learning more. Here, it's always hard to have two CTAs, but I understand why you're considering that approach. One of the things you might consider is styling them differently. So one might be the one that you want to draw people into. First could maybe be the solid button, and then you could use a secondary styling, like an underline or just an outline to kind of illustrate for the person visiting the site, kind of which they should prioritize, and then still offering that second option, so something you could consider. There, scrolling through the page, I'm seeing some introductions to your sensory kits. Here we've got the titles which seem to be about the theme of what would be in the kit itself, which I like, and then I see the subscription option. I actually really like your choice here to have the standalone kit side by side, because it kind of is pointing to, subtly, the benefit that you get in the discount of being a subscriber. I might consider including a title over this section, like favorite kits or bestsellers or new and trending, something, just to kind of set the stage of what it is that this section is going to be about. But I love seeing products right away. That's a good win. We've got a few sensory kits to enter a world of imagination and entertainment, holiday kits, everyday magic, special occasions. So just kind of looking through here, I think there's an opportunity to make it clear and kind of guide people when there's something that they can click on. So just an underline would be wanting to do it, or an outline, like we talked about for that secondary CTA would help me understand, can I click on this? As you can tell, I can click on it. I can get some hints. On desktop, it's a harder thing to see on mobile when you don't always have that guidance. So I like that we can see some of these categories of play. We've got the psychology quote here, fun tip, and I'd actually be really curious to hear from you, what stands out in this for you. So sometimes we have these very lengthy testimonials, which for someone really sitting and learning, they'll spend the time through it. But are there maybe like three or four words in here that you would really want someone to take away from this testimonial?

Jennifer Stalley

Yeah, the enhanced development from pretend play during childhood. That's the benefit right up front this

AJ Davis 

one right here, or the Yeah, yeah. So as simple as, like, bolding that text or making it another brighter, like a heavier font weight, that will really help people scan and see what is this all about, about enhanced development, maybe that even pulls them in to sit and read through the full thing. Sometimes I'll see it done where you'll have one part of the sentence and larger text that you want to stand out and then sort of a follow up on the right side or underneath. So a couple of styling options there. But really, to draw someone into a lengthier piece of text, we want to draw attention to a subset of it. Shop all sensory play. I've got our nice button there. I'm seeing some more kits down here and some definitions. So I'm feeling kind of like there's some good repeated things to potentially draw me in. I'm seeing a couple different kits as I go. It is pretty text heavy, and I'm wondering if part of the motivation there is to help from an SEO perspective, is that part of what that's fulfilling? Yeah,

Jennifer Stalley

 It's also just the result of how business is always a little messy. When we first started, we only had a few so we spent a little more time explaining all of the thoughts that went into the kits and really leaning into the educational piece of all of the benefits. But we keep introducing new kits all the time, and so the product is taking over more and more of the site, and we can probably reduce some of the text as we build out our customer base, and they're more familiar with us. They want to get there and just. See what the latest update is and convert, yeah,

AJ Davis 

It's going to be a balancing act, right, because to the earlier part of our conversation, some of it's going to be you will need to provide education. I think this section in particular, the top five benefits of sensory play. I see five bullet points, but I do have to read the bullet points to understand what each bullet point is about, and so just a shortcut to it could be to really pick one or two words that summarize that bullet point. And maybe it's open. You can open it to read more. Maybe you can. Maybe it is side by side, so it's like a title and then the text below it. But what you might start doing is creating, like this, repeated information across the site to remind people of these five benefits. So for the first one it's building connections in your brain. Maybe there's a picture, like a little icon of a brain that is promoting brain health or brain connection, and then you see that same representation of the five benefits on the homepage, and then again, throughout other content. So thinking about text and pairing that with some sort of visual indicator could be a nice way to simplify. How much is there right now? Perfect. All right, I'm going to jump into one of these. I'm talking about the Arctic adventure sensory kit. You hooked me earlier when you said that part of the touch would remind you of the cold sensation of the cold. So we've got, let it snow. Let it snow. This kit includes all the fun of a snow day without the wet and cold, and then engages the senses with fluffy dough, smooth things, perfect. Again, very text heavy, but there's actually some really good information in this. And so oftentimes I'll have people move this out of the top, but I'm thinking there may be some other ways to kind of orient people to what each kit has, because on the surface, like the image, product images have some variety, but they're not giving all the information that you do get from the text here, I see we've got a lot of thumbnails. I'm going to come back to that top part. I'm not going to leave that hanging. But looking through your product images here, I'm seeing a lot of the nice, like specific elements in the kit.

Jennifer Stalley

Now from the babies, we had to show they're always huge Babies love other babies.

AJ Davis  

So sweet, so are they all moms and babies? Then, I see the pink ones are mom and babies. Oh, great,

Jennifer Stalley

Yes, well,  maybe that's a dad, because pink might be a dad. 

AJ Davis  

Could be a parent, and it could be the uncle or aunt. It could be anybody, exactly, and I kind of to your point, like, I actually love you calling that out, that like people like that, we connect humans, connect with other species babies as a way of having play, wanting to care for something else. And I wonder if there's a way to kind of layer over these images, some sort of like key call out of why those elements included, it may be, you know, there's definitely some like, is there something about touch, about this element? If there's something about the relationship? And maybe there's some ways of coding across the product line, what each kit has in it. So if the penguins represent, like, some social dynamics and interaction, maybe there's some sort of shortcut of an icon or a little badge that you put over the images to say why you've included it in the kit. Because when we talk about it, you've put in so much thought to this, and I'd love to help illustrate that for your customers as well. And it looks like there's some touch in some of these that we could call out Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm having a little trouble interacting with the images. So I do want to mention that as I scroll up and down, I do have a smaller MacBook screen, so I'm on the small end. Some people may see these on their screen when they go. But one of the things we want to do is give people an option to navigate different ways if they either can't see it or have a preference. So you could include little arrows on the side, or you could stack the images along one of the sides, just to make it super clear. There's a lot of information here, and for folks who want to read it, it's on the right. For folks who want to see it, it's on the left. And I think that kind of speaks to your brand as well. Right this we provide lots of ways to get to things, and I could imagine some of the icons over the images I talked about being reflected as we're talking about the description right, which senses are engaged? What are the things that are doing? It? Actually, I'd almost love to see a section on each page that talks about the senses, so perhaps, like you have right now, additional information and reviews. Maybe there's a tab or a section that says, like each of the senses are spelled out and under each sense. It says, why that kit or how that kit works with each of those senses? What do you think about something like that?

Jennifer Stalley

I think it's a great idea. We have included each kit, which I just put together, that Lee didn't really include on the website, so I will take that as a homework assignment. But with each kit, on the underside of the lid, we actually have a QR code that opens up to a digital experience that enhances what you have in the kit. So our Santa kit, for instance, has Jingle Bells included. So there is a fun sound element, but we really thought hard about how to include more sound with each of the kits if people desired that. And so in that digital experience is a guide that was written up by an early childhood education expert, giving you a lot of that information about what your child may be observing these things from your child, and here's what's happening in their mind as they're learning these skills. She also has some tips for how caregivers can lead in the play. If things start to slow down, the child's not as interested. How to keep it fresh, right and engaging. And then we also have the ambient sounds that go with each kit. So with this Arctic kit, there's the sound of footsteps in the snow, the little crunch, crunch, none of it's meant to be loud and assaulting to your ears, right? It's all supposed to be really quiet and peaceful and serene, but it goes along with the theme of each kit, which crossed my mind once that I needed to put that on the site. And then, you know, your to-do list just grows. As a business owner,

AJ Davis  21:40

It is just having these discussions, right? It highlights like, Oh yeah, that is the thing that's such a huge value add. And I think I would challenge you to also think about the inverse relationship too. So, hey, we're having a playdate. Maybe the parents are there together and they're hearing the soundtrack. What if there's some way to kind of nudge them back to the site, and maybe it's not as explicit as like saying the brand name, but maybe within the kit there's something that's like a this goes with such and such kit, or get the soundtrack, share, share the soundtrack with someone else. That's great I could imagine, like having a blog post for each of the soundtracks, if that's available publicly anyway, talking about the soundtrack and then pointing people to the products that are nicely paired intentionally with it. And that could be just a nice way to connect people who are looking for maybe they're just looking for nice, peaceful sounds to have on when their kids are playing. And then they might come in and go, oh, there's a whole bunch of other things that go hand in hand with this. So sometimes it's those soft introductions that can help educate and help expose people to the brand. Every single episode goes by so fast I hate to stop our conversation, but I am going to ask you my favorite question, which is, what are the three things you're going to take away from this conversation about conversion today,

Jennifer Stalley

the high low contrast that you brought up of the text, it is part of our brand guideline. We're trying to convey that it's serene and sustainable and green, but the cream text on that Mint is just difficult to read for everyone. So we do need to go back and revisit our brain guidelines and figure out what the third high contrast color should be, and then we could go back and update those buttons with your advice about including more of the details in the product pages. I think it's a great idea. And then updating the photos so we have more visual cues of what senses and what considerations went into each of the products. I think it's brilliant.

AJ Davis  

Well, thank you so much for being there. There are folks listening today who are wondering, not only, where can they get this, where can they connect with you? Can you tell us a little bit about how to be in touch with you? Absolutely,

Jennifer Stalley

We're on Instagram. It's just at MeemzyMagic, or you can visit our website, meemzymagic.com The name came from my daughter's name for my mom and when we started the company. I was thinking, what is that feeling I want every customer to have when they open the box? And I just kept thinking my best days were when my mom would visit, because my daughter lived her best life and I got to take a hot shower without being interrupted. And I want that feeling for all of my customers. So meemzymagic.com is  where you can buy our product.

AJ Davis 

Wonderful. Jennifer, thanks for being on and thanks for sharing. Thanks, Jay, thank you for tuning in to the experiment zone podcast. You can check out more episodes on YouTube, Apple Spotify and your favorite podcast apps. Check out the show notes for any websites Linked In this episode, including where to connect with us on social media. We appreciate you tuning in. Remember to Like, subscribe and turn on your notifications so you'll be updated of each episode release and visit us at experimentzone.com for all podcast updates as well. Appreciate you dropping by.