Growing A Health Business Is Different

When it comes to health, education and choice has never been more important or more abundant.

The amount of natural health supplements and health products and devices available online has exponentially increased in the last 10 years and is projected to continue to grow.

Couple that growth with the liberation and empowerment of consumers to choose the right course of personal health solutions that is best for them and you have a recipe for massive competition.

That competition is taking place online and the growing number of options is making it more confusing for consumers to choose which is best for them.

Optimization Is Simply A Requirement Today

With the proliferation of choice, it’s no longer enough to simply launch your health sales page or funnel and hope for the best. The job of selling is not done, it’s only just beginning at that point.

There is no doubt that a better headline or hook or lead in copy leads to more sales. Yet when we examine the writing process itself we see that it is iterative. The first draft leads into a round of editing, which leads into the second draft and more edits after that until the piece is finally honed into a final piece.

Or is it final?

The process of improvement does not end because the sales copy has gone through a filters of editing. Selling is a constant iterative improvement process.

Just because a “final” version from the perspective of the writer is launched into the market does not mean it is finished.

We so often fail to see the perspective of the buyer. Thinking we know what’s best without ever trying different options in the field with real traffic and real buying decisions to scientifically examine what’s going to beat the original version.

To assume we as marketers hit the optimal, right out of the gate is very unlikely. You never know how much untapped potential you’re leaving on the table by not trying alternative options that could resonate even more with your prospects, getting more of them to buy compared to your first attempt.

That is why we split-test.

It’s a simple concept but difficult to execute correctly.

Create two or more different versions of a web page, split the traffic to each version and measure which performs best.

The Iterative Approach Is Key To Maximizing Growth

One and done is never the solution when your target is better. Building one step at a time adds up to big improvements. This is true not only for copywriting but also for tweaks to design, layout and the psychology of the webpage itself.

By measuring which version gets more revenue and then implementing the superior version, your business will grow.

In fact you’re wasting traffic if you’re not converting that traffic into sales.

It’s tempting to jump right into A/B split-testing after reading a blog post or a book, but knowing were to start, what to test and how to measure success, it’s not conversion rate, is a huge challenge.

Add to that the unique challenges of the health market and you’ll soon realize that…

Optimizing For The Health Market Is Different

The typical conversion rate optimization (CRO) process looks at usability and psychological factors holding back sales like friction, anxiety, continuity in the offer, risk reversal, etc. And all of those things is important to increasing conversion rate, but the health market requires more.

It does not matter if you’re selling natural health supplements, information health products or physical health products. optimizing for revenue and conversion in the health market requires a focus on trust and belief in addition to the standard conversion rate optimization techniques.

The reason for this is simple, the health industry is over saturated and thus marketing pushes the boundaries in order to break through the clutter. This exacerbates the noise and adds an opportunity for doubt and mistrust to enter into the mind of the prospect.

It’s just the nature of the industry, health solutions are constantly under scrutiny from media and outside forces like big pharmaceutical companies continue to attack the credibility of the smaller health businesses. Consumers are constantly hearing news about recalls, bans, class-action lawsuits and negative research studies. Each of which erode trust, adding a hurdle the traditional conversion rate optimizer doe not have to deal with.

For a product like a pair of shoes the hurdle of buying is more or less based on price, and personal taste. For a shoe to work it just has to fit.

But for a health product a buyer must extend his or her trust further to trust that it will actually work.

Health buyers are uniquely different from other markets, because in addition to solving for trust, you also have to account for what the prospect believes before they can buy.

People that buy health products are not so much buying a solution as much as they are reassuring their inner belief of health. This is a key distinctive piece of the health buying decision that does not exist when buying any other product.

When buying a product that you ingest like organic, non-GMO food or a natural health supplement or a diet or exercise product or health device where a customer must take action on in order to get the benefit, both trust and belief is vital.

The average conversion rate optimizer does not build split-testing strategy around trust and belief when approaching growth, because no other CRO expert specializes in the health industry.

Optimizing Revenue For A Health Business

Optimization in general is not just improving conversion rate, it’s really all about increasing revenue.

Because conversions won’t grow your business, more money in the bank will.

Optimization is just a way to get more growth by increasing revenue, average order value and life time value so you can make a bigger impact on society delivering quality health solutions to those who are in need of it.
And to truly optimize the business you have to approach optimization from the business model level. Which for many online health companies is different than the traditional model.

An online health company has many different factors to account for, including recurring continuity on supplement bottles, dealing with retention and compliance of programs and supplements by consumers, the separation of marketing and selling to stay compliant with FDA and other regulations and non-regulations like Google an Facebook limitations and rules. Not to mention the differences between a digital product and a physical product as well as perhaps the most important piece and that is optimizing for both the front end and the back end of the business.

A health business is just a completely different animal when you break it down.

The Uniqueness Of Selling Health Online

Weather you’re selling natural health supplements, health information products or even health devices, growing and optimizing a health business online is different than any other e-commerce business.

A normal online e-commerce business does not have to address trust and consumers self- beliefs the same way a health business does in order for them to buy. The core fundamentals of selling a health solution is totally different and therefor the way to grow an e-commerce health business is also different.

Growing a health business online requires optimizing and split-testing for things such as trust and belief but also demands an understanding of the marketplace sophistication and where your solution or health product fits in the competitive landscape. Only then can you truly position your natural health supplements or health product in the mind of your prospects and split-test your way to growing revenue.