Selling health supplements online, like any product, is greatly effected by market forces. These forces influence not only how people buy, but also how health businesses will break into new markets and sell health supplements online in the future.
But more importantly, these forces are causing a shift in how selling health supplements online is happening today. In the last article we compared the old way of selling to the new way. If you missed it you can still read it here. It’s called: The Price of Authority Just Went Up For Health Supplement Marketers
The old way of selling health supplements online was very transaction driven. The shift to the new way, is very customer relationship driven and is being directed by these changing forces.
The Market Forces Behind The New Way Of Selling Nutritional Supplements Online
The marketplace is in a transition from the old way to the new way of selling health supplements online. Today we’re going to uncover the three forces that are driving this change.
The three forces are…
- Marketplace Glut
- Customer Trust
- Content Distribution
Let’s unpack each force.
Marketplace Glut
The marketplace for selling health supplements online is over-saturated with an abundance of copycat funnel hackers. These hackers can literally build a health supplement company overnight. This was made possible by the ease of sourcing and white labeling ingredients.
Marketers capitalize on the ease of entry and the latest hot product or ingredient trend. We see this happening in so many different health sub-markets again and again.
A few examples of this are the weight-loss market with Ginkgo Biloba and the Neuropathy market with Neuracel, and there are many more. They are capitalizing on health trends to go to market with a copycat company.
All this glut leads to a saturated market, with many competitors for the same health condition. They are each stating many of the same claims, using similar or mostly the same ingredients and the same marketing tactics.
Creating a sea of sameness for the customer.
Which directly feeds to the second market force…
Customer Trust
The glut of sameness in products, marketing messages, and tactics is eroding customer trust at an exponential rate.
We’ve discussed the importance of trust when buying a health product online in several of our previous articles on trust. But we haven’t talked about trust from a driving force perspective.
The desire for transparency and trust in a misinformed and untrusting world is pulling consumers towards the new way, and away from the old way of selling health supplements online.
The final force that is pushing towards the new way is…
Content Distribution
Never has there been a better time in marketing history than today for content distribution. It’s cheap or free to distribute content online with video. All you need is a smartphone and you’ve got a production company in your pocket.
The new way of selling supplements online is fully leveraging channels like, Facebook Live, Snapchat, Instagram, and more, to connect with an audience and build a tribe.
The key to this driving force is not just the ease of distribution of video content instantly. Facebook Live, in my opinion, is the biggest contributor to this new way of building a tribe.
The key insight is the fact that the medium itself encourages face-to-face video creating real connections. Connections between sellers and buyers. This builds real tribes of followers that support your cause. Later those tribe members become customers in the new way of buying and selling health supplements online.
The new way supports a connection with the audience as the default method in a genuine and more truthful way. But this new model takes more time to build that audience as compared to the old model.
Which is why…
Selling Health Supplements Online Has Never Been Harder And Easier At The Same Time
Marketplace glut, consumer trust, and content distribution have created the perfect storm for which to build a tribe in the health supplement space in today’s market.
These three market forces are driving the shift and opportunity towards the new way of selling health supplements online. The old guard has an opportunity to establish deeper connections with their existing customers and catapult them beyond, but old guards are usually complacent.
The new marketer has the opportunity to surpass the old guard but only if they have the diligence to continue along the new path. And if they have the time needed to build that following, which could take years.
It is still unclear which way will rise above. But it is my belief that there is also an opportunity for a middle ground for both sides.
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.
Hi-
Thanks for sharing such valuable, insightful knowledge for free. I recently started niching in the natural health and supplements field —this looks like it will give me some valuable insights and a real leg up!