How Brands In Competitive Categories Can Stand Out From The Crowd
Most digital-age consumers don’t have to venture far from their Instagram feeds to understand the immense product competition in the marketplace. A simple scroll introduces us to a slew of new products to solve problems that we didn’t even know existed.
Particularly for verticals with growing demand, it can be difficult to stand out in a sea of content.
And the impact of COVID-19 has created new market demand in several categories, including health and fitness verticals that are seen to stave off illness and support mental and emotional wellbeing. Take dietary supplements, for example – at the beginning of the pandemic, the market size was $61.2 billion. Between 2021 and 2028, the market is projected to grow from $71.81 billion to a staggering $128.64 billion.
Meanwhile, market discovery has never been easier. Thanks to platforms like Instagram and TikTok, brands can seamlessly target and educate consumers. However, getting consumers past the discovery phase to purchase and beyond is a challenge that many digital marketers face.
Here are some tips for doing just that.
Lean Into Your Differentiators
When you’re in a popular space, it’s important to focus on your differentiators.
“Be in relentless pursuit of what makes your products unique,” says Duke Pitts, CEO of Healthy Extracts, Inc. “For us, that means acquiring brands to our portfolio that meet a strict number of requirements, including unique ingredients, clinical trials, and innovative delivery systems.”
Healthy Extracts, Inc. manages a portfolio of brands and products in the rapidly-growing nutraceuticals space. By focusing on their differentiators on social media and Amazon, they were able to increase product subscriptions to fortify recurring revenue and decrease cost of customer acquisition.
While product details such as benefits and price are common differentiators, in today’s marketplace, differentiators can also be related to value-signals like green packaging or corporate social responsibility. For example, the popular brands Gaia Herbs and Amazing Grass both market vegan ingredients.
Consider Your Full Funnel
A common mistake of product marketers, regardless of their industry, is not to think through their sales funnel holistically. While it can be easy to capture a consumer’s attention for a few moments on social media to make them aware of your product, taking them from awareness to action often requires more focused effort.
Digital marketers can plan for this. Analytics and targeting on social media are sophisticated, so be sure to take advantage of them by targeting consumers at different phases of the customer journey.
Bake time into campaigns where your key outcome is simply product awareness. Retarget consumers that have been made aware of your product with campaigns that support consideration. Once consumers are primed, it can be more effective to market sales-led campaigns with a call-to-action to purchase.
Finally, don’t forget to keep your consumer’s actual product experience in mind, and engage them post-purchase to keep them coming back for more.
Give Content Creators Power
Influencer marketing is a popular vehicle for discovery online. Many brands utilize influencers to tout the benefits of their products, but not all influencer marketing campaigns are created equal.
The most effective influencer marketing campaigns ring authentic to the creators’ audiences. When it’s obvious that content creators are using products organically, an endorsement has much stronger word-of-mouth-style marketing appeal.
Allowing content creators to control messaging so that it’s in their voice is also important. Audiences are highly attuned to inauthentic material, and it can be detrimental to both the content creator and the brand if messaging seems inconsistent or overly corporate.
Healthy Extracts, Inc. took their influencer marketing strategy to another level by partnering with fitness influencer Whitney Johns on her own product label, Whitney Johns Nutrition. Allowing creators to have a stake in the product is a great way to align incentives and promote authenticity while generating excitement and buy-in from the influencer’s audience.
Navigating a crowded content landscape can be daunting in highly competitive categories; however, a little digital marketing savvy goes a long way to making your product a standout. By keeping messaging simple and focused on differentiators, considering how to engage consumers throughout the purchase path, and being intentional about relationships with content creators, brands will be able to capitalize on growing demand.
