Looking back on the year of 2016 and 2015 content marketing has been a consistent buzzword.
The natural health supplement business has known quite well that content marketing is the way the business works.
It seems other businesses are just catching up and learning that content and commerce has merged.
The ugly truth is that it’s difficult to profitably manage content as all businesses become media properties.
Putting out content to support sales and leads costs a lot of money, that often doesn’t have an immediate return.
Despite what all the Internet Marketing guru’s tell you about self liquidating offers, it reality isn’t easy to breakeven on the front end on day one. It honestly takes a bankroll to keep it going until you get to the point of profitability and that point is different for each business. For some it’s 6 months for others it could be more or less than that. For the rare unicorns it’s day one.
Which is why I’m predicting that next year in 2017 the focus will be to correct that content marketing trend and also reset it towards a slightly skewed trajectory.
That of branding…
Branding is a dirty word for direct marketers.
And I predict it’s another shift we’ll see in the online health supplement marketing space in the next 5 years.
But…
Not For Me, Who Knows, Maybe Not For You Too
When it comes to advice both the giving and the taking I like to think in terms of levels.
If you’ve grown your business to a 20 person company, you’re at a different level than the business that has grown to 100 people and the business that’s at 300 people is at a different level than that.
What works at one level won’t work at another.
There are some principals that translate across all levels, others that need to be greatly adapted in the way they are executed and even ones that don’t translate at all from one level to the next.
Some things make sense for one level but not for another.
These levels can be traps if you don’t understand the concept of different levels for different stages.
The shift towards branding for health supplement businesses at the appropriate level is the right one if you’re at that stage of business. But for the lower level business, it may be best to concentrate more on direct marketing than it is to focus on branding.
What level are you at right now?
And where will you be going in the next five years?
Discover the 3 funnels that can help your health supplement business succeed.
Listen to the Health Supplement Business Mastery Podcast for for dietary supplement entrepreneurs and marketers.
