Conversion Rate Optimization 
For Health Marketing Is Broken

Everyone is doing conversion rate optimization (CRO) for health products and natural supplements wrong. Without addressing the issues of trust and belief you’re going to get zero traction.

People don’t buy health products the same way they buy other products. So the standard marketing and CRO best practices won’t work to amplify your business.

Selling more supplement and natural health products online is not simply a matter of increasing clarity and reducing friction. Nor is it simply a matter of improving the user experience.

It’s less about tactics or technology, and more about enabling our clients to connect with their audience and grow their businesses.

Health marketers must rise above

Health marketers need to be more sophisticated, more accountable and more intelligent about growing their business…

The successful health marketer will use data to make better decisions…

They will split-test different versions of their marketing to learn which gets better results…

They will move beyond opinion…

They will optimize and iterate their way to more sales and bigger impact…

And, they will gain insight and a deeper understanding of their customers with every split-test…

Conversion optimization is about revenue not conversion

Conversion optimization that stops at conversion rate is not fully leveraging growth. It’s more than conversion rate, it’s about revenue, average order value, life time value and making a bigger impact on society but providing quality health solutions to those who need it.

Conversions won’t grow your business.

More money in the bank will.

Conversion rate optimization is just a way to get more growth.

Smart marketers know that their customers think and act differently than they do. Just because someone thinks something is great or likes a webpage or a bit of sales copy does not mean it will sell the most that it possibly can. There is always a better version that can maximize sales to get more quality products to the people who need them.

That is why we split-test.

Sadly many health marketers are not split-testing at all, and the ones who are, are stopping at conversions.

Standard conversion rate optimization is broken

The standard conversion rate optimization process is failing to adequately address the issues of trust and belief in order to get maximum traction in the health sector.
If you don’t deal with the issues of trust and customer beliefs, then no amount of split-testing is going to help and you’ll struggle to amplify your business.

To exponentially grow, you must fundamentally understand the health marketplace and address both trust and belief issues, in the mind of your prospect, in order to optimize your health business.

There are a unique set of challenges in growing a health business, even beyond regulations and legal requirements, the difficulties are within the category itself. This is why at our core, we conduct research and split-test specifically around both trust and belief for all of our health clients.

Without the research into how trust works, what people think and what buying decisions are supporting their inner beliefs, you’re just guessing.

Split-testing tactics are just how we optimize health businesses, the reason why we do what we do is because we have to attack those fundamental issues that are within the psychology of the health buyer’s mind. Without knowing what’s underneath you can’t optimize it.

The growth of the health industry is straining buyers trust

The natural health buyer is overwhelmed by choice and stalled at the crossroad of decision and purchase. In the last 15 years the availability of natural supplements and other health options have exponentially increased. According to Partnership Capital Global, a leading industry expert since 2000, “The industry has gone mainstream” and consumers now have access to hundreds of supplement and health products online.

This explosion of options in the market place not only adds more clutter, making it ever-more confusing for consumers to sift through all the me-too products and mis-information out there. But also raises doubt in the mind of the health prospect. Trust is further strained by the constant scrutiny of the health industry from main stream media. Including everything from recalls, bans, class-action lawsuits, negative research studies and over-hyped TV news segments.

The exponential growth of options in the marketplace is making it more confusing for consumers to choose what’s best for them. This creates more clutter and noise and the constant need to break through, pushing the boundaries of hype in some cases. Thus creating more noise and adding to the mistrust. While putting health marketers on a ferris wheel of the next new big idea or the next product launch that’s going to be the one to stand out above the din, each sometimes more outrageous that the next. This in combination to the me-too copycat of offers and in a lot of cases modeling entire sales funnel rip offs with a different supplement bottle, it’s no wonder that the online customer is losing trust in the industry and health products in general. Exacerbated by outside forces continuing to attack the credibility of the supplement industry from the latest TV celebrity doctor and all of the information available at a moments notice from “Doctor Google” and you have a recipe for overwhelm and in-action on the customers buying decision process. Making it harder to convert traffic into buyers, especially on a new prospects, i.e. cold traffic.

Buying health products and supplements is an issue of trust

According to research conducted by New Hope’s Nutrition Business Journal and NEXT data and insights team in May of 2015, nearly 12% of consumers say they trust supplements less than they did a year ago.

Plus the uncertainty of Medicare is only adding to the collective feeling of uncertainty and fear among the U.S. population around the possibility of a healthy future.

As a result, consumers are turning to the Internet to research and educate themselves in order to stay healthy, as their solution to the failing healthcare system.

In the future it will only get harder to convert cold traffic as trust decreases and more me-too copycats jump on board while acquisition costs continue to rise.

Additionally, Google SEO & PPC Traffic is getting harder to get and more expensive. Changes in Google’s search algorithm are pushing advertisers to buy more traffic just to get the same results they got as little as a year ago.

Better search means less choice and less thinking for your customers that are not going to go beyond the first page of search results. Adding to the need for paid search results just to be on the first page, which drives the price of PPC even higher.

Plus, the explosion of content marketing adds fuel to the fire. More content means more choice and research for your prospect to do before they make a decision. This pushes out those out that can’t afford to pay to continuously produce more and more content, and the need to produce content is not letting up any time soon. In fact the search algorithm changes are only increasing that pressure.

We choose what we choose because we believe it

The other main difference that separates how people buy and thus how you must optimize for supplement and health products is the factor of belief. Not simply the belief that the product will work, but from a deeper perspective. The buyers are holding themselves back due to their own personal belief and mindset. It’s not about the product in this case. Yes you have to get over the trust and belief in the product hurdle but in addition to that you have to get around the inner voice of the customer’s self story in order for them to buy. With a pair of shoes it’s as simple as does she look good in these. But with a health product, especially a supplement bottle, it’s a question of what they believe before they can even consider if it will work for them.

Health marketers are failing at addressing the buyers beliefs

Our personal beliefs define our decisions and shape our lives. They determine how we feel, what we think, the goals we pursue and even what we buy. This link between belief and purchase decision is unique and strongest in the health market. People that buy natural supplements online are not not so much buying a solution as much as reassuring their inner belief. This is a key distinctive piece of the buying decision that does not exist when buying any other product.

Desire drives belief

We choose what we choose because we believe it and our beliefs are driven by our desires. So in order to optimize the buying decision of a health supplement or a health product, to treat a condition or improve oneself, we must fully understand our prospects beliefs. Because belief shapes all actions we take. We make all decisions according to the assumptions we believe. Our desire for that healthy outcome is as much a part of our individual personal narrative as our belief in the product itself.

If you believe you’re a healthy person, you’ll act in accord with the inner healthy person that you believe you are. This ties into the principal of commitment and consistency from Robert Cialdini, the world renown expert on persuasion. Loosely translated the concept states, that our inner desire needs to be consistent with our commitment, or our desire is consistent with our belief. So if we believe something to be true about ourselves in our evolving story of who we believe we are and how we believe we should behave and our reason why is not consistent with that belief, then the decision will be to not-buy. But Since our personal belief defines our choices, they literally define our decision to buy. The key to optimization in the natural health supplement market is to tap into that belief system.

What makes us different?

These two factors, trust and belief make selling health products online uniquely different than any other product and therefore how they are sold is also different. Every marketing optimization firm out there attacks the problem the same way. We see it from a different perspective that accounts for the underling factors that are unique to buying health products. Split-testing tactics are just how we do what we do, but the reason why we do what we do is because we have to attack these fundamental issues that underly all this A/B testing stuff on the surface, you really need to know what’s underneath to attack that.

We need better health marketers and entrepreneurs

Healthcare is in crisis as conventional medicine falls short and the demand for better health has never been greater. Doctors’ hands are tied and patients are desperate for better solutions.

Providing natural health products, direct to consumers online puts the power of choice in the hands of the people and democratizes wellness care. For the first time in history individuals can choose the right course of personal health solutions that is best for them.

The world desperately needs health entrepreneurs to make a bigger impact and get more specialized health products into the hands of more people.

We are on a mission to help health marketers/entrepreneurs grow their businesses through conversion rate optimization and split-testing. So that health entrepreneur’s can put the power of choice in the hands of the people. Allowing individuals to choose the right course of personal health and lifestyle solutions that’s best for them.

We believe in a future where people can optimize their own health and educate themselves online to make the best choice for their wellbeing and the wellness of their family, friends and loved ones.

Will you be a part of that future?

Discover the 3 funnels that can help your health supplement business succeed.