In the competitive world of health and wellness, marketing your vitamin and supplement company can be challenging. With countless brands vying for consumers’ attention, it’s vital to uncover the secrets that will set your company apart from the rest. In this article, we’ll explore actionable strategies to effectively market your vitamin and supplement business and maximize your success in this thriving industry. From understanding your target audience to leveraging digital marketing channels, we’ll delve into the essential elements that will help you create a compelling brand presence and drive customer engagement.
Whether you are a well-established company or just starting out, implementing these marketing secrets will give your business the competitive edge it needs to thrive in today’s crowded vitamin and supplements marketplace. Get ready to elevate your brand and propel your success to new heights.
Why do you need to market in the first place?
According to Reports and Data analysis, the global dietary supplements market is expected to reach $210.3 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 6.4%, with North America playing a significant role.
This astounding growth can be attributed to rising consumer awareness of dietary supplements and preventive healthcare, chronic illnesses, new market entrants, and improved marketing strategies by brand owners.
Brands risk losing valuable time, money, and trust in today’s world if their supplement marketing strategies fail to hit the mark. After all, a solid marketing strategy can lead to increased visibility and more customers and revenue.
In order to succeed in today’s business world, you must have robust online and offline brand strategies in place.
Why do you need a unique marketing strategy for your vitamin and supplement company?
In a sea of attention-grabbing marketers, your supplement must stand out. In order to ensure that your products stand out, you must do something truly unique.
Buyers respond favorably to strong messages and visuals. When these messages are combined with genuine experiences, your supplement marketing will be a success!
Look for strengths that you can highlight to help your consumers tell your supplement brand apart from the competition. For example, you can focus on your products’ flavors and components or how each ingredient can help your buyers’ pre-and post-workout regimes. Alternatively, you can highlight previous customers who have experienced benefits from using your products.
How to market your vitamin and supplement company in 2023
1) Get new customers with traffic & conversion
There are no sales unless there is traffic, and there are no backend profits unless there are front-end sales. This is why it is critical to begin by acquiring as many new customers as possible. The trick is to do so while remaining profitable and diversifying your traffic sources, allowing your business to weather any storm that may arise.
To capture new customers, you can use one or more of the following approaches:
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Social media advertising
Unsurprisingly, paid traffic is the lifeblood of most supplement companies. Supplements have some of the highest margins and AOVs in consumer packaged goods, and this is the best combination you can get if you’re running paid ads. They’re also very social media friendly, owing to the fact that fitness and nutrition are very visual industries.
The first step in running social media ads is to nail your offer.
You want to advertise a product that people want to buy while also reaching the best customers on a large scale. As a result, we recommend that you begin by testing your best-selling supplement, your highest-margin supplement, and a high AOV bundle.
Elements to include for an outstanding offer
Keep in mind that the best offers go beyond highlighting the product in question. You also need to include price, guarantees, free bonuses, and payment terms. From there, you can determine which one generates the highest LTV and triple down on that offer to scale.
Along with your offer, you’ll need eye-catching, high-converting ad copy.
Since the dietary supplement market contains some of the most sophisticated buyers, you need to have a well-positioned supplement with a strong USP. Your ad creative would then promote that USP and other angles in a variety of ways using fast-paced and exciting visuals. We also recommend that you prioritize “proof ads,” including product demonstrations, such as logos, customer reviews, scientific data, influencer endorsements, and comparisons.
Finally, we must not overlook the structure of your ad accounts.
Facebook requires at least 50 conversions per week to optimize your ads accurately. This means you should “consolidate” or combine your prospecting and retargeting campaigns so that a sufficient portion of your ad budget is allocated to each of your ads. From there, by segmenting your campaigns based on SKUs, angles, and audiences, you’ll be able to consistently find winning ads that can propel your brand to new heights.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In an ideal world, organic traffic would account for 50% of all sales, with SEO accounting for a sizable portion of that. Why? Because these hypothetical statistics would increase the profitability, sustainability, and crisis resistance of your supplement brand (think about what happened with iOS14!). Fortunately, while supplement keywords are competitive and subject to Google Updates, they are trendy and form the subject of many searches.
As a result, it’s best to start with branded search.
Branded search occurs when customers enter your brand name into a Google search. Branded search is primarily influenced by what you do outside of SEO. You can also ensure that you have backlinks and internal links pointing to your homepage and that your metadata is optimized for your name. While low in volume compared to other keywords, your brand name is also the most effective and least competitive keyword to rank for because many customers will specifically be looking for your brand. This is especially the case if you’ve taken the time to build a strong brand identity.
Ecommerce SEO
Ecommerce SEO, on the other hand, is concerned with optimizing BOFU pages.
BOFU is an abbreviation for “bottom of the funnel.” In eCommerce, this means that you should base your SEO strategy on ranking your collection and product pages. If you rank with these pages, you will see a significant increase in organic sales because customers will be searching for your exact product on Google. It’s always useful to get backlinks and internal links pointing to these pages. You’ll also want to ensure that your keyword research is thorough so that you optimize these pages properly.
After you’ve set up your pages, you can concentrate on ranking articles.
It would be best if you worked your way up the content funnel to round out your SEO strategy, starting with the middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) articles and ending with the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) articles. Focus on high intent, commercial keywords for MOFU articles, such as “best supplement for X” and “X vs. Y.” Focus on problem-solution articles like “how much protein should you eat if you’re skinny” and use case articles like “how to make protein pancakes” for TOFU articles.
How Pressfarm can help
Do you need help creating and distributing quality content for your brand? Partnering with a PR agency like Pressfarm might be just the thing you need.
With a team of skilled writers and designers, Pressfarm can create winning press releases, design creative media kits, and craft engaging feature stories, all of which will help make a positive impression on your brand. In addition to creating this content, Pressfarm’s PR experts can help you develop a strategy to push it out to the right outlets.
In addition to building curated media lists that include contacts across niches, Pressfarm also gives every client access to a media database of over 1 million journalists from different industries. Combined with your personalized media lists, this database is designed to help you make the right connections with influential media professionals. With Pressfarm, you can develop a PR strategy that will put your brand in the limelight where it belongs.
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Product page optimization
Website traffic and conversion both result in sales. So, if you want to lower your cost per acquisition (CPA) with paid ads while driving the most revenue from organic traffic, you must optimize the page where customers land to buy your products. This is especially important in oversaturated markets, where most supplement brands operate. Since all of your supplement marketing efforts will eventually impact your product pages, this should be a top priority for you.
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The first step is to determine your position.
Determine your unique selling point (USP) and design your landing page around it. You can’t just tell people you’re the “best” and expect them to buy from you. Instead, to stand out, your landing page should answer the question, “Why should I buy your supplement over the one from your competitors?” Perhaps you sell the best-tasting greens in the world or your company is the first to sell pea protein powder, or use the cleanest manufacturing process. Whatever you do, you should avoid competition by carving out your own space in the industry.
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The second step is to respond to all significant objections
The primary purpose of a landing page is to respond to objections. The “OCP” framework, which stands for “Objection, Claim, Proof,” is the best way to accomplish this. In order to use this approach, begin by gathering the most common objections your customers may have to your product. Sort them in order of importance. Then, without further ado, directly respond to those objections with a claim (no Q&A!). Make sure you back up your claims with plenty of evidence. If you follow these steps, your product pages will be highly persuasive.
Finally, for paid ads, use dedicated landing pages.
Online stores can become disorganized. There are many buttons, and the product pages are usually set up in a certain way that you may not want to change all the time. However, redirecting visitors to a dedicated landing page eliminates all of the fluff. You will have the opportunity to increase your conversion rate, lowering your customer acquisition cost. So, if you want to test a unique value proposition, create a landing page for it and direct a portion of your paid traffic to it.
2) Utilize conversion rate optimization to boost average order value
Trying to scale a supplement brand without optimizing your average order value is the best way to waste money. Ecommerce is a math game, and we’ve discovered that unless you optimize that math as much as possible in your favor, you’ll lose at scale.
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Raise your prices
There are numerous ways to increase your average order value, but raising your prices is the simplest, quickest, and most “foolproof” way to get all of your customers to spend more money on your products every time they buy something from you.
As a result, experts believe that all supplement brands should raise their prices by 5%.
Let’s assume you’re offering a $40 tub of protein powder. You decide to raise the price by 5%, bringing your tub to $42. A price increase would probably have little effect on your conversion rate. At the same time, that extra $2 would provide a significant boost to both your revenue and profit margins without requiring you to do anything.
If you want to go a step further, price your supplements according to your target margin.
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Boost your margin
One of the most critical indicators of success in the supplement industry is the margin. The higher your margin, the more likely you are to succeed, especially if you plan to scale with paid advertising. It would be best to aim for a 75% or higher gross margin. Although not every SKU will reach 75%, the closer you get to that tier, the better. So, if you aren’t there yet, I’d consider raising your prices until you are.
You can also price your supplements according to their positioning.
In general, the only two price points that provide supplement brands with useful marketing hooks are the lowest or highest-priced brands. While being the cheapest usually implies that you own your supplement manufacturer, being the most expensive is more about positioning. So, if you want to become a premium supplement brand, you should also consider becoming the highest-priced brand to back up your premium claim.
3) Sell bundles
Selling more bundles is another simple, quick, and foolproof way to get customers to pay more for each purchase. These bundles can be made up of the same product or a variety of products. If you’re a supplement company, this is one of the most natural ways to boost average order value because it works even if you only have one product.
What is the best way to get started? Consider selling multi-month packages.
Multi-month supplies are when you choose one supplement and sell multiple orders of that supplement to cover a specific period of time. You can also offer timelines such as a one-month, three-month, and six-month supply (1/3/6 bundle). For example, weight loss programs are always associated with 90-day timelines. So, if you’re selling a plant-based protein powder, selling three-in-one packages makes sense. You can then sell it as a “90-day supply.
Develop sample bundles
Additionally, it would be best if you considered sample bundles.
Sample bundles are when you sell a variety of supplements and combine a few of them into one order so customers can try them out before deciding which one they want. This makes the most sense when only minor differences exist between different supplements that you sell, such as flavors or texture. Having said that, as long as the samples make sense to position as a sample bundle, you can give it a shot.
Try a routine-based bundle
Finally, every supplement company requires a routine-based bundle.
As with sample bundles, routine-based bundles are created by assembling various supplements to provide customers with everything they need to follow your recommended routine. For example, you may have supplements that should be taken before and after a workout. It makes sense to combine them into a single package because a customer needs both for the best results.
Since they can contain so many products, these will usually be your highest AOV bundles.
4) Develop upsells/cross-sells/bump offers
The purchasing phase is one of the best times to sell more products to a customer. This means that you should capitalize on the time right at the point of sale or immediately following it. Why? Because their intent is exceptionally high, and they have already taken out their wallets. All a customer needs is to be presented with the right offer, and they will gladly add another product to their order.
An upsell is the most effective way to accomplish this
Upsells are when you sell more of what a customer has just purchased. For example, if your customer purchased one tub of greens, your upsell would be to sell them three more at a discount. This may seem counterintuitive given that they just bought the same product a few seconds ago. Nevertheless, upsells convert exceptionally well because your customers have already stated that they like the product enough to purchase it.
How to use cross-sells
Cross-sells occur when you sell a product that complements the one they just purchased. For example, if your customer purchased a pre-workout supplement, it would make sense to immediately follow up with protein powder. After all, someone who buys pre-workout supplements is likely to need protein powder. The important thing here is to be as relevant as possible. Don’t try to sell melatonin to someone who has purchased an energy drink. The goal is to supplement the first product they’ve chosen.
How to use bump offers
When you offer additional products directly on the product page, you are essentially making a bump offer. You’ll see this right under the buy button on most Shopify supplement stores. Bump offers can also take the form of “people who bought X also bought Y” or “if you liked A, you’ll also like B” statements. Bump offers work because they are usually highly relevant add-ons to what the customer is already looking to purchase. You can sell individual products with bump offers while also profiting from bundle sales.
Conclusion
In the saturated market of vitamin and supplement companies, the key to success lies in implementing innovative go-to-market strategies. Without these strategies, your brand is likely to fail. By adopting innovative techniques, your brand can expand its reach, effectively engage with customers, foster strong brand loyalty, and increase awareness among potential customers. Investing in these strategies is crucial for the overall success of your company in this competitive industry.