Ten common pitfalls when non-supplement brands launch a personalized supplement program
There has been a clear shift in consumers’ expectations when it comes to satisfying their wellness goals and supporting their health challenges. No longer does a one-size-fits-all approach work; we want individualized offerings and customizable solutions. And, we want convenient options that can easily fit into our existing lifestyle and routines.
Along with this growing consumer appetite for personalization, we’ve seen an onslaught of companies launching new digital programs that can fuel intelligent product recommendations for their customers, including brands that are selling supplements for the first time.
As an agency that has launched successful personalized nutrition brands, like Persona, Pure Branding recently assessed a number of companies that have launched personalization supplement programs as a way to diversify their offering and and have been disappointed by their results, While these new personalization programs may range widely in sophistication and inventory, we have seen common patterns emerge. For those readers who are either considering or in the midst of launching personalization, the following list aims to surface some of the most common mistakes to avoid — from strategy development, to program design, through launch.
If you would like to discuss further, please reach out to your OKCapsule lead to setup a discussion with our partner agency: Pure Branding.
Strategy
Lack of Cohesive Brand Storytelling: Brands launch a personalized supplement program without a cohesive storyline that demonstrates to their customers how supplements and personalization contribute to their broader brand mission and values. Without a strategy for integrating this new offering into their brand storytelling, their brand equity is not successfully transitioned over to the new program. Furthermore, the new personalization program does little to elevate the existing brand equity.
Disjointed Visual Identity: The new offering appears disjointed from the existing brand look-and-feel. It is critical that your customers see the personalized nutrition program as intertwined with your existing digital ecosystem. Otherwise the brand synergy that you hoped for could be replaced with a degree of digital anxiety — is this really connected to the brand I know and trust, or is it fraudulent?
Untapped Customer Insights: While the company may have a rich understanding of their customers’ past purchasing behaviors and shopping preferences within their category, they don’t have insight into the customers’ broader health goals and supplementation needs. While past transactional data is important, what is often missing is attitudinal or behavioral insight. And for brands that want to diversify into the supplement market, the reasons for buying one type of product are not necessarily translatable to supplement behavior. Strong customer intelligence is the backbone to any personalization program — fueling smart planning, marketing, CX and product recommendations.
Poor Customization: Available customer data (e.g. past purchase behavior) is not applied to the personalization engine to populate informed recommendations, inform cross-selling and clearly demonstrate product value. There’s an opportunity for the brand to acknowledge that they already know something about their shopper and leverage that existing relationship to create an individualized experience.
Program Design
Shallow Questionnaire Design: The evaluation process is generic without special consideration for the brand’s core values and expertise. The questionnaire is an opportunity for the brand to show thoughtfulness, comprehensiveness, and to demonstrate the many factors they are considering while populating a customized recommendation. People want to be heard when they fill out a questionnaire; brands will stand out if it's clear that they listened.
Timid Data Capture: The brand provides a free evaluation and recommendation to the prospective customer without expecting a value exchange. Capturing an email at the onset of the evaluation enables further re-engagement with the interested, non-converting shopper. While there may be some additional drop-off from a gated survey, we found that those who lost tend to be low intent shoppers with little impact on the business.
Functional Product Positioning: Supplement recommendations are positioned around functional ingredients — rather than around the shoppers’ need states and their anticipated benefits. It's imperative that recommendations include the “why” behind the “what”, clearly connecting their questionnaire responses to the output.
Dead End CX: The shopper is not given the option to further refine their product packs to best fit their needs. Furthermore, if a customer is not yet ready to commit to a subscription following the questionnaire, there’s no clear navigation or storytelling to further engage with the brand. The customer should see the process as collaborative, empowered to make changes to your recommendation or buy standalone SKUs if they’re not yet ready to commit.
Launch
Lack of Diverse Marketing Mix: The program launch is supported by a single channel (e.g. email) rather than diverse multi-channel touchpoints that surround existing customers with the new offering. An integrated marketing strategy should be designed around the customers’ journey to purchase - and deployed at the key moments where the brand can intersect.
Unrealistic Program Objectives: The brand does not have knowledge of the broader personalized supplement category and has unrealistic expectations for their ability to compete in this competitive marketplace. Rather than aiming to expand value with their existing shoppers, they may be launching personalization as a means to attract new prospective shoppers to their brand. When investing in customer acquisition within the broader personalized supplement landscape, brands must deploy strategic marketing approaches and establish appropriate KPIs for this portion of their program to succeed.
About the author: Pure Branding is a marketing research and brand strategy firm with over 20 years of experience building and supporting health and wellness brands. The agency works exclusively in the supplement category and has deep experience with personalization programming. Pure Branding was an investor in and led the brand strategy for Persona, acquired by Nestlé Health Science in 2019.
To learn more about how to avoid these pitfalls, reach out to your OKCapsule account lead to learn more about Pure Branding.
