Marketing for Wellness Brands: Going Beyond ‘New Year, New You’

It’s January, and we’ve reached the final station of the classic end-of-year marketing train: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day Sales, and finally, New Year, New You…

But how can wellness brands cut through the noise and maintain momentum beyond the new year rush of resolution-makers?

In this article, we highlight the top marketing trends for wellness brands to watch out for in the year ahead.

The global men’s personal care market size was valued at $30.8 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1% from 2022 to 2023.

Wellness brands should therefore be looking to expand their product lines into this space.

One example of a great brand in the men’s personal care space is our client Pure for Men. Providing high quality wellness products that promote cleanliness, sexual empowerment, and confidence from the inside out makes them stand out.

We worked with them in 2020 to build a bespoke, mobile-friendly theme on Shopify Plus, resulting in:

• 117% increase in sales YoY
• Conversion rate consistently above 3%
• 84% of sales from mobile.

See the full case study here.

Brands can also look to gender neutral products, which is exactly what our client, Boy Smells did. Co-founder Matthew Herman explained that they “wanted to have products that were embracing masculine and feminine simultaneously in a simple and straight-forward way that wasn’t overtly targeted to one gender.”

In 2021, we worked with Boy Smells on their Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) for Black Friday, resulting in:

• Sales growth of 60% year on year (YoY)
• Conversion rate improvements of 42% YoY

See the full case study here.

According to a recent study by Vesta, 58% of consumers are “very interested” in personalised supplements made just for them. Their CEO, Susan Frech, explains that personalised health and wellness offerings are often the key to standing out from competitors. She went on to state personalisation builds consumer health routines that last beyond the new-year excitement.

This is exactly what we did for Kellogg’s when they launched a Microbiome powder called MWELL. We built a bespoke theme on Shopify Plus which included an API integration with Typeform, linking the customer’s responses to a health and nutrition based quiz to product recommendations.

According to Statista, in 2022, the most common fitness and health online services that consumers in the United States spent money on were fitness, yoga, and training apps and health tracking apps. And some of the leading health and fitness apps downloaded globally in the Google Play Store included weight loss and home workout apps.

So brands should be looking at how they can package their offering up into a health-oriented community-based app.

For example, Pocari Sweat launched their app, Born to Sweat, which contains community fitness challenges and healthy activities to accompany users’ cycling and running routines.

In 2021, we built a new website for Pocari to showcase their updated branding and messaging, and breakthrough to the American market. We utilised a new Shopify theme to give the website a youthful feel with clear visuals and product first pages tailored to an American audience.

The new approach resulted in:

• A growth of 500% in product page interaction
• A 250% increase in sales
• 6x as many in-store sessions
• 3x as many orders as previously seen.

See the full case study here.

With the rise of home workouts through lockdown, DTC brands expanded to start offering services as well as products. For example, Peloton started hosting live virtual workouts classes and in-person sessions to help them reach customers who may not have Peleton workout equipment.

Our client Twinings also expanded into services with their tea masterclass experience offering.Our ongoing relationship with Twinings kicked off with the launch of their new website in 2021. We built them a bespoke theme on Shopify Plus with a sleek, modern design which stayed true to their heritage. This project involved a migration of 700 products and hundreds of recipes, and a reorganisation of navigation menus and categories to align with customer wants and needs.Their new website achieved:

• 200% mobile conversion rate
• 7% site-wide conversion rate
• 40% of revenue from mobile
• A stepping stone into the wellness market

See the full case study here.

Health and wellness activities are no longer limited to physical experiences. To stand out, online and omni-channel experiences must be built into wellness brands marketing.

Propeller is a digital marketing agency specialising in UX design, web design and development, and Shopify Plus. If you’d like to discuss your digital marketing for wellness brands, get in touch.