Marketing Lessons From The Other Side

Tips, tricks, and Meta secrets from my year at Asset.

Friday, December 12, 2025
Time to read: About 12 minutes. Contains 3,239 words.

It’s a real business-y one today, folks! As promised: a deeeeeep dive into my biggest learnings cosplaying as a normie skincare marketer. Founders, this one’s for you. Back with the usual botanical programming next week.

---

Making a living as a writer typically involves less writerly supplementary work. Most recently, I’ve been moonlighting as a sort of marketing-manager-swiss-army-knife at the butt-centric wellness company, Asset—the culmination of skills honed via other side gigs writing brand copy, using Klaviyo for email marketing, working alongside designers, and moving in with a long-term boyfriend who happens to be the founder and CEO of said butt brand. Turns out my cannabis experience dovetails nicely with the compliance challenges of a business navigating Meta’s community guidelines on nudity and medical language. I’ve had a front row seat as Asset went from Order #1 to a $3 million business in year two, learning quite a lot about the DTC game and surviving common obstacles for regulated/highly censored businesses along the way.

That’s why I’m talking about a butt brand in today’s weed newsletter. Sticky Bits aims to support cannabis entrepreneurs and small business owners with insights to help them thrive, be that news roundups, cultural analysis, or helpful insider insights from fellow entrepreneurs. Today, I’m breaking down the five biggest lessons I’ve learned this past year—one of which actually has a lot to do with weed.

#1: Take Advantage Of Email (& Get Weird)
#2: Agencies Are Experiments, Not Panaceas
#3: Nobody De-Risks Like Weed Does (Or: How Asset Got Unbanned)
#4: Ignore The Copycats
#5: No One Will Care Like You Do

Some of today’s insights will be more relevant to your business than others. But whether you’re in the licensed market or a Farm Bill biz, you’re dealing with email marketing (if not, you should be! More on that in a moment). You’ve likely debated whether PR support is worth it and how to approach user-generated content/gifting influencers on social media, and you can definitely learn from the agencies and approaches that got Asset’s Meta ban lifted.

[If you are not currently a paying subscriber but were at some point in 2025, just reply to this email, and I’ll grant you access. Thank you for your support. 💚

One of the few images that didn’t get flagged on Asset’s IG.