Marketplace Sophistication and Awareness for Supplement Sales Conversion Optimization

If you’re a student of Gene Schwartz (his book on copywriting: Breakthrough Advertising, will cost you $125, and worth every penny) or if you’ve been in the direct marketing space for any length of time, you’ve probably come across the terms: Marketplace awareness and Marketplace sophistication before.

However, both of these terms get used incorrectly all the time. Many marketers don’t have a good grasp of what they really mean.

Don’t feel bad, a lot of marketers get awareness and sophistication mixed up. It’s easy to do, since they are both loosely connected.

Marketplace awareness is simply the answer to – How well known is your: product, benefit, or problem?

On the product level it’s the answer to: Have they heard of taking Calcium, Magnesium, and Vitamins D & K for bone health?

On the problem level it’s the answer to the question: Have they heard of Osteoporosis?

Here’s another example. Everyone is aware of aging. I mean everyone gets older right? But not everyone sees aging as a problem. it’s just a natural process of getting older.

That’s how awareness relates to the problem. But what about the solution?

Collagen Type 1, is a very effective anti-aging ingredient for skin. But is the solution well known?

Where as, marketplace sophistication is the answer to – How many times has your prospect (or “the market”) heard the same or a similar promise before?

Your prospects hear the same promises from other products on the market.

Let’s face it ALL Omega-3 fish oil supplements say they help promote or support the same things.

If every Omega-3 fish oil supplement is saying it, the market has probably heard it multiple times before.

Let’s look at both, awareness and sophistication, a little deeper, starting with awareness.

Marketplace Awareness Has 5 Levels

At each stage the awareness level of the marketplace increases. Remember awareness is all about how well the market knows their problem or your product. There are five stages.

Level 1: Completely Unaware – Your prospects are not aware of their problem or the need for a solution. (i.e. I hear a clicking noise in my ear when I press on it but I don’t know what it could be.)

Level 2: Problem Aware – They are only aware of the problem and nothing else. (I’ve heard of Tinnitus, that’s the ringing in the ear thing right?)

Level 3: Solution Aware – They are aware of the problem and the different solutions available to them. (Tinnitus, that’s the ringing caused by a lot of ear wax right? So I just need to clean my ears.)

Level 4: Product Aware – They are aware of the problem and the solution. (Oh Tinnitus, Yeah I’ve heard of that. I think I need to see an audiologist.)

Level 5: Most Aware – They are aware of what you offer and how it meets their needs. (Oh there’s a pill for that, it’s called Tinnitus 911 from Phytage Labs)

If you can identify the awareness level of the market, then you’ll know where the conversation needs to come in on in order to acquire new customers. It will also help you to come up with new hooks and angles for your lead copy and more.

We’ll uncover this in the what approach should you use section of this article.

To see examples of how to assess the awareness level of your marketplace refer to the article: Why Increasing Your Supplement Sales Funnel Average Order Value Starts With Your Marketplace

What About Marketplace Sophistication?

As you now know, marketplace sophistication is how ubiquitous a message is.

How many times have your prospects heard the same or a similar promise before?

Of course, it’s very difficult of not completely impossible to really measure precisely how many times the market has seen or heard a similar promise.

In the health fitness and dietary supplement space, customers are constantly on the lookout for new information and actively researching such information.

Because of that behavior, the health market is generally more sophisticated than the average market for other product types.

But, what if a market is completely unaware?

If your prospect is completely unaware (level 1 awareness) then they are also likely to have a low level of sophistication. i.e. They have not seen or heard the promise or claims of your product before. (Think CBD a few years ago.)

Or they may have heard the promise or solution before, from an advertisement, etc, but don’t know about the problem. i.e. I’ve heard of Collagen, but I don’t know what it does.

But, is there a correlation between awareness and sophistication?

What Marketing Approach Should You Use?

Each level of awareness and sophistication determines how you should approach your sales copy and conversion optimization strategy.

Let’s take a look at a simple chart below.

Across the top is the marketplace sophistication. How often has the market heard the message, promise, before? Never, once or twice, etc.

Along the vertical column is marketplace awareness. Levels 1 through 5, completely unaware to most aware.

There are five corresponding approaches that correlate with where awareness & sophistication line up.

	Never	Once or twice	A few times	More than 10 times	At least 20 times or more
Most Aware					Approach 5
Product Aware				Approach 4
Solution Aware			Approach 3
Problem Aware		Approach 2
Completely Unaware	Approach 1

If the market awareness is at level 1, completely unaware – Your prospects are not aware of their problem or the need for a solution.

They likely have never heard of your product’s promise before and approach 1 is best.

Approach 1: Offer + Promise / Benefit

All that is needed is to state the offer and the benefit.

Approach 2: Expand on the promise/benefit

As the marketplace goes to a higher level of awareness and sophistication, the selling evolves. At approach 2 you need to expand on the benefits.

No longer is it enough to simply state what your product helps with? At this stage, the promises become a bit bigger.

This is where dietary supplements step out of the compliance zone almost as a necessity. Because it becomes harder to sell otherwise as the market gets more knowledgeable.

Approach 3: Expand the Offer Using a Unique Mechanism

With approach three, many prospects have heard all the claims before. They may have even tried several different products in your category. Most are jaded and skeptical because others have made claims that others have made in the previous stage.

The market needs a new way to make the old promise work and a bigger claim no longer works.

So our marketing now has to expand on the offer through the Unique Mechanism. i.e. the reason why this will work, and the proof of the claims.

For a dietary supplement, the unique mechanism can be:

A part of the manufacturing process, or the sourcing of ingredients
A particular ingredient or combination of ingredients and how they interact together
The delivery method, i.e the way a supplement gets into your body or system like a spray vs. sublingual or lysosomal delivery
A method or process or philosophy of healing

Approach 4: Differentiate the Unique Mechanism + Expand the Benefit

At approach four the mechanism becomes elaborated, just like the promise did in approach two.

This is the sign of a mature market, which is where most of the products in the health and supplement space sit.

Approach 5: Identify With The Product

Eventually, no new mechanism will work. The market will grow tired of all the false promises. They would have heard dozens of times before. Once this happens the market begins to shrink because the competitors start dropping out in large numbers.

At this stage, the marketing message moves from the promise and the mechanism that delivers the promise, to bring the prospect back into your marketing message with the identification of the prospect and emotion rather than their desire for the outcome.

If you want to go deeper into each approach or stage of sophistication, refer to the article: What The Top Direct Response Marketers Know About Marketplace Sophistication And How To Use It In The Health And Wellness Industry