Marketplace Analysis for Dietary Supplement Businesses

The dietary supplement marketplace is fickle when it comes to business success.

People who buy health products like dietary supplements or the latest weight loss or back pain gadgets are constantly looking for the newest thing.

They are Googling their health conditions.

Devouring articles on WebMD, Doctor Axe, and other sites.

They are doing endless research that spans several years, with buying in between. And they keep buying different products to solve the same problem.

As a result, They never come to your product completely fresh. They are well-informed and have a high level of marketplace sophistication.

They have preconceived knowledge and opinions that have been shaped by your competitors.

Knowing what they already heard and saw before they arrived on your sales page gives you the edge.

Entering into the conversation your customers have already had on other websites, is how you get it.

To do that, marketplace analysis is your best friend. But make sure you’re doing the right type, because, there are two different ways to do it.

Two Types of Marketplace Analysis (one is more important for health supplement brands)

There are two types of marketplace analysis. One is more valuable than the other when it comes to optimizing and improving sales for an already existing business in the health and wellness space.

The first is, business marketplace analysis. This is the classic way of evaluating an opportunity. And is more traditionally used before you start a business. It’s used to understand the competitive landscape.

It looks at:

- Market size (current and future)
- Market trends
- Market growth rate
- Market profitability
- Industry cost structure
- Distribution channels

The second type is what I call marketing marketplace analysis.

This is the space in which, the market intersects with how people think about your product and their lifestyle.

It’s made up of:

- Offers
- Hooks / Big Ideas
- Stories
- Emotions

It’s in the marketing marketplace analysis where the biggest opportunities for gaps exist.

Identifying these gaps is the first step to making your marketing message stand out.

The Marketing Marketplace Gap

Marketplace analysis shows you what people see and hear in the market. Enabling you to align with the culture of your market segment.

It starts by identifying the problem from the perspective of your potential customers.

- Understanding the needs of existing customers
- Why they choose your product over competitors
- How they think about your product category
- And what they think of other marketing messages in your competitive space

Understanding what’s already being said, and how it’s being said, opens up gaps in the marketplace that are unfilled. Whenever a prospect has a need, even an emotional one, there is an opportunity to fill it.

Insight of markets, customers, competitive positioning are part of how we consistently create value for our clients.

Some of the things we look at include:

- The positioning of your product compared to your competitors
- The value proposition positioning again for you vs. your competition
- As well as the level of marketplace awareness and sophistication

Avoid The Marketplace Noise Trap

In the dietary supplement space, there are a ton of products that help to support the same health condition.

Take a joint pain supplement for example. Some may have a slightly different set of ingredients.

Others have a proprietary blend of ingredients, or maybe a different delivery method.

These are all types of unique mechanisms.

But in the end there’s an endless amount of options a consumer has for the same condition.

This adds to the average consumers confusion, creating an ocean of “me too” products. If you don’t know what your competitors are saying. Or if you’re saying the same thing as them, your marketing message just becomes more noise.

Marketing marketplace analysis will help you avoid falling into this noise trap.

Watch Out For The Marketplace Dive Trap

Marketplace analysis is not as easy as it sounds. Often times it gets left out compleatly when approaching an optimization project or it does not go deep enough to uncover the gaps to leverage.

Dietary supplement entrepreneurs tend to run right into the doing work without the thinking work. Or they think that the answer to the noise trap is just a good copywriter. Which results in an endless search for the next writer, and the next and the next… This leads only to lots of wasted money and time.

Optimization is more than just copywriting. Having a clear view of the marketplace, adds focus to all of your conversion optimization efforts.

The trap most conversion rate optimization practitioners and agencies fall into, is diving straight into the page without doing the marketplace analysis work.

The result is heuristics driven optimization. Heuristics is simply a “rule of thumb” and it doesn’t go any deeper than just looking at a page.

Sure, slapping on some paint can make a place look better. And just using best practices can get you a conversion lift (sometimes).

But, it’s never the game changing lift you’re searching for.

How could it be? All you did was improve the surface.

If you’re starting out from a low point, best practices can get you somewhere but it won’t be what gets you to the next higher level.

For that you need to understand the structure and fundamentally shift how you approach optimization.

Getting The Message to Market Match Right

People buy health products differently than any other product. They are driven by the buying forces of Trust, Belief, Desire and Hope.

Marketing marketplace analysis uncovers how your competitors are filling those forces. Which in turn, tells you what people are seeing and hearing.

Without doing marketing marketplace analysis your message to market match is going to be a me-too clone of everyone else in the market. This leads to mistrust, and inaction on the part of your prospects. They get put on an endless loop of research and inaction. Solving the same health condition or losing the same 7 pounds over and over.

But, once you understand where the market is, you can align with it, to help more people and have a bigger impact in the world.