When consumers have millions of online health and wellness retail industry products at their fingertips, finding ways to get your health brand front and center can feel impossible. 

Even the most successful health and wellness retail industry brands are turning to creative methods to increase their brand awareness and to make their products the top choice for consumers. However, the question often becomes: what are the best ways to market a health product so consumers will want to buy it?

The answer might seem convoluted, but it hinges on one simple pillar:

A solid wellness marketing plan is designed to immediately draw your target audience and keep them continually engaged through their entire customer journey.

In addition, with consumers being more informed about their health than ever before, health and wellness brands need to meet consumers where they are with marketing messaging that is both educational and valuable. That’s why the best retail health product marketing plans often leverage a host of “social proof” techniques such as reviews, doctor marketing, and influence endorsements.

In this article, we’ll explore the top benefits of retail health product marketing and, more importantly, how to put together a winning health product marketing strategy that will increase brand awareness and customer acquisition.

Here are three key steps to follow:

Step 1: Identify the Top Health Niches — Market Research

With over 2 million health products on the market, your product’s chances of a direct competitor are almost guaranteed.

As such, health product brands must first get clear on where they stand in the market and how they can use this to their advantage. For example, if a gap exists in health products for pregnant women, then this could serve to be a highly profitable niche with limited competition. By conducting thorough market research, it will become clear where the most attractive and popular health niches are and what types of health products could be best suited to target those specific audiences. When health product companies can invest in market research, they’re better positioned to find the most lucrative niches that can afford them minimal competition and a large market share that can continually grow year over year.

Step 2: Finding Products to Sell in the Health Niche

Not all health products are made equal. 

What separates a winning health product from one that goes bust often comes down to if the product addressed a real and pressing need. For example, a wearable device that tracks sleep quality, may not sell as well as a wearable device that counts calories burned. The importance here is in fully understanding what the direst, unaddressed need is within the health niche you identify and create a health product to resolve that need for consumers.

Step 3: Methods to Grow Business without Wasting Money

With the niche and the product identified, now it’s time to begin marketing the product to reach a large audience. However, the key to not sinking thousands of dollars (if not hundreds of thousands) into health products. And the development comes back to investing time in doing the research upfront. There are a host of ways to get a health product to market, in a short period of time, without having to invest millions of dollars into development. Here are a few to consider:

Drop-Shipping.

With this model, a third-party manufacturer produces the product for you. They handle shipping it to customers, as each order is placed. This enables you to get a product out to market quickly without carrying inventory or shoulder the cost of buying production equipment. The only drawback is you lose control of the logistics chain. And are reliant on the drop shipping company to provide expedient customer service and shipping options.

Affiliate Marketing.

In many cases, there may be an existing health product that can be used to grow your retail industry brand. A lot of times the product has not gained a wide amount of traction. Also, not get licensing the rights to sell the product. You can quickly gain sales by leveraging the product development that has already been completed. The only drawback is you only receive a portion of the sales revenue since it is not your product.

White Labeling

Unlike affiliate marketing that requires you to keep the existing branding intact. You merely become a distributor, white labeling allows for much greater flexibility. With this product development option, you can buy an existing product (devoid of any branding), attach your branding to the product and sell it as if it were your own.  The only drawback is that you’re limited to what is currently available in the market for white label purchases and there is often a substantial upfront cost.

Marketing Your Online Health Business

Once you have decided on which route to take to get your product ready to go into the market. It’s now important to shift to consider how you will promote your health product and health brand. As with product development, health and wellness marketing strategies are plentiful. The key is to choose the appropriate strategy for both your target audience and for your health product marketing budget.

Here are the top healthcare product marketing strategies to consider:

Content Marketing.

From blogs to social media posts, to infographics and video content – this is the best and most cost-effective way to reach your target audiences. Taking into account what topics your ideal client is searching for and creating content around these themes and keywords. It can be a highly efficient way to increase brand awareness and your health brand’s reach. The importance of executing a winning content marketing campaign is to be consistent with posting. And to invest time into creating content that is high quality and easy to consume.

Facebook Marketing.

It is estimated that some 2.1 billion people use Facebook. This is an enormous market for health brands to tap into. Coupled with Facebook’s robust targeting tools, health product companies can effectively pinpoint exactly which users should receive their ads. For a new online health brand, leveraging the Facebook ad tools and platform can quickly increase brand engagement. It also helps to get your name into the market.

Pay Per Click Marketing.

Reaching a larger audience, especially with a new product can take time to gain traction. One of the fastest ways to lower this “adoption curve” is with paid advertising. By knowing what keywords consumers may be searching for, you can position your health product in front of consumers. On the search engines, they use, when they are ready to buy. If you go this route, you’ll want to be sure to closely monitor your ad spend. And also sales conversions to pinpoint which ads are performing well.  Also, check how you can make modifications to continuously optimize them.

Build an App.

Products that have an accompanying app tend to perform better in the market than products that don’t. Consumers want wraparound support from health brands and having an app enables users to stay connected to the brand. Whether your app enhances or tracks the product’s use, provides a platform to build community with other users. Or provides users with other benefits or perks – having an app provides you with a treasure trove of user data. That data can be leveraged in your other marketing strategies.

Finding success in the massive $52.5 billion health and wellness market takes a highly intentional approach. Those health product companies that invest the time and resources into doing thorough market research to both identify the right health niche and the right health product will be handsomely rewarded with increasing sales. However, choosing the niche and the product is just one (yet important) part of growing a successful online health business. 

Having a sound digital marketing strategy is fundamental for growing your health business. If that’s something you’d like help with, There are a couple of ways I can help. I am currently offering a limited number of short consultation sessions. As well as a VIP half-day session with me and my team for a deeper dive. If you’d like to set that up, or if you have any questions, just send me a quick email.