By Sean Moloughney, Editor10.03.22
With more people attentive to and investing in their own self-care, there’s a significant opportunity (and challenge) to educate consumers about a host of health topics, including for example, how immune health is intertwined with other conditions like stress and sleep, or where common vitamins and minerals are sourced from.
People often connect the dots on their own—between how they feel and how they look or how they sleep and how clearly they think, for instance—realizing how one area of health correlates with another. This is a great baseline—a launch pad to further exploration of the dynamic nutritional products marketplace. But what don’t they know? What might they be surprised to learn?
Beyond proper nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle, people are looking for targeted solutions that can help them achieve their health goals. Formulations succeed when they include research-backed ingredients in adequate doses.
Transparency and accountability to consumers are good business practices. How many brands are sugar-coating the reality that their gummy supplements only contain a fraction of what scientific literature suggests is an efficacious dosage?
Gummies are attractive and can often deliver the product experience people want, but there’s a cost, and consumers deserve assurance that what they’re buying is worth their money.
And that brings me to quality. In many marketing campaigns, the notion of “high quality” is used (overtly or implicitly) as a differentiator. That’s unfortunate. It shouldn’t be that way. Quality is supposed to be a baseline standard. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) are a requirement in the dietary supplement industry. They are not a nice-to-have that your marketing team can leverage over the competition.
But of course, quality is too often a question mark. How often? Well, maybe it depends in part on where you shop? Recent analysis of immune health products featured on Amazon’s platform didn’t perform very well, to say the least.
How many new customers has the COVID-19 pandemic brought into the market? It would be unfortunate if their first impression has been a product on Amazon that is misleading, low-quality, both, or worse.
At a time when it can be hard for people to decipher truth from fiction, transparency and traceability can help build trust. How transparent are you, and the broader industry, about whether ingredients are “natural” or “synthetic,” for example? There’s a cost-benefit value determination to be made on everyone’s part, but knowledgeable consumers can help move markets in positive directions.
People often connect the dots on their own—between how they feel and how they look or how they sleep and how clearly they think, for instance—realizing how one area of health correlates with another. This is a great baseline—a launch pad to further exploration of the dynamic nutritional products marketplace. But what don’t they know? What might they be surprised to learn?
Beyond proper nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle, people are looking for targeted solutions that can help them achieve their health goals. Formulations succeed when they include research-backed ingredients in adequate doses.
Transparency and accountability to consumers are good business practices. How many brands are sugar-coating the reality that their gummy supplements only contain a fraction of what scientific literature suggests is an efficacious dosage?
Gummies are attractive and can often deliver the product experience people want, but there’s a cost, and consumers deserve assurance that what they’re buying is worth their money.
And that brings me to quality. In many marketing campaigns, the notion of “high quality” is used (overtly or implicitly) as a differentiator. That’s unfortunate. It shouldn’t be that way. Quality is supposed to be a baseline standard. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) are a requirement in the dietary supplement industry. They are not a nice-to-have that your marketing team can leverage over the competition.
But of course, quality is too often a question mark. How often? Well, maybe it depends in part on where you shop? Recent analysis of immune health products featured on Amazon’s platform didn’t perform very well, to say the least.
How many new customers has the COVID-19 pandemic brought into the market? It would be unfortunate if their first impression has been a product on Amazon that is misleading, low-quality, both, or worse.
At a time when it can be hard for people to decipher truth from fiction, transparency and traceability can help build trust. How transparent are you, and the broader industry, about whether ingredients are “natural” or “synthetic,” for example? There’s a cost-benefit value determination to be made on everyone’s part, but knowledgeable consumers can help move markets in positive directions.
