Imagine that you are an entrepreneur who has just launched a line of wellness products. These products could be healthy snacks, canned beverages or even natural beauty products. You have spent years developing these products and worked tirelessly to brand them in a way that sets you apart from the competition. After all, your business is your passion and getting your products into the hands of health-conscious consumers is your number-one mission.
Now, imagine how powerful it would be to get thousands of people to try out your products for the first time. After all, what could be more influential than that person then telling their friends about how great your products are? This was easy back when a market was the local community. But today, an average grocery store has 40,000 to 50,000 different items. How likely is it for a consumer to even see a product on the shelves, let alone try it and tell their friends? How can a small brand get consumers to try their product and to tell their friends?
One way for a small brand to get consumers to try a new product is to do sampling programs in stores. These in-store demos allow consumers to try out the product and immediately make a purchase. There is no doubt that these demos act as a powerful marketing tool. Unfortunately, many stores severely limit the sampling and can even charge significant fees to do it. It can easily cost more than $500 per store to sample for a single day. So, if a company samples in 100 stores, it can cost over $50,000. That is a lot of money.
Word of mouth appears like it should be a little easier. We are lucky enough to live in a time when we have the ultimate word of mouth platform – social media. The idea of social media and social influencers in particular is a small brand’s dream. There is a lot of promise. Tomoson estimates that that every $1 spent on social media influencers generates $6.50 in revenue. According to another study by Nielsen Catalina Solutions, influencer marketing is 11 times more effective than standard digital advertising.
Unfortunately, the reality falls far short most of the time. The sad fact is that influencer marketing is filled with fraud. In a survey of its members, the Association of National Advertisers found only 36% said they judged their influencer marketing efforts as effective. Anti-fraud company Sway Ops found that a single day’s worth of posts tagged using the recommended hashtags #sponsored or #ad contained over 50% fake engagements and that bots are responsible for over 40% of total comments. Maybe that is why Social Chain declared that, “influencer fraud has conned our industry out of millions, making it the biggest scam in the history of marketing.” And Media Metrix states that it is only getting worse. It found that the demand for fake Instagram followers increased 71% in just the last year.
So, what is a small brand supposed to do?
There is a new program called Healthy-Finds that helps small natural health brands get their products into the hands of health-conscious consumers while generating some great social media buzz in the process. The best part is that there is very little cost to the brands.
According to founder, Pete Meyer, Healthy-Finds was launched with the mission to connect small natural health brands with health-conscious consumers. Mr. Meyer saw the natural health market to be heavily skewed in favor of large companies that can afford $50k sampling programs and large national social media campaigns. As a result, he launched Healthy-Finds as a monthly subscription program to help consumers find and try innovative health products. But perhaps the biggest opportunity for small natural health brands is the cross promotional platform that Healthy-Finds has launched to help promote its program.
Here’s how natural health brands can work with Healthy-Finds to get their products into the hands of consumers at little to no costs to them:
- If Healthy-Finds agrees to work with a particular brand, then Healthy-Finds will line up a series of influencers to promote the brand’s product.
- Healthy-Finds covers ALL the costs of the influencers, removing the risk from the brands.
- The influencers will try the product and post standard Instagram stories/posts with one exception—they will promote a product giveaway where all of their followers can get a free product. All the followers will need to do to is to pay a small shipping fee.
Consumers love the ability to try a brand-new product for just a few dollars. According to Healthy-Finds, influencers with less than thirty thousand followers have had over 100 people claim the products for just a few dollars in shipping. Companies appear to love it too as a way to reach truly qualified customers. After all, anyone will take a product for free! But to pay a few dollars to try a new product means the consumer is truly interested in trying it. The kicker is that Healthy-Finds also pays the company to ship the item. Most companies get $10 from Healthy-Finds for each product they send out. For some companies, this covers all of their costs. Others can’t cover all their costs with the $10, but feel the resulting campaign is worth the expense.
Imagine what it would cost for a small brand to launch a social media campaign to give away 5,000 products to interested consumers. Between the management costs, media fees, product costs and shipping, it could easily cost more than $50,000. Most small brands don’t have that kind of money to spend on social media promotion. But if they work with Healthy-Finds that same campaign may not cost them a thing. Even if it costs them $2 per giveaway, there is no risk for the brand. They only have a cost if it is successful. If no consumers claim a free product, the brand has no costs. But if the campaign is successful, the brand gets 5,000 of their products into the hands of interested consumers, thousands of additional email registrations and potentially more than $50,000 worth of social media promotion.
Sounds too good to be true, right? What is the catch? Healthy-Finds isn’t a non-profit who is subsidizing healthy new brands out of the goodness of their hearts. They do this to promote their online subscription program. Here’s how it works:
- When the influencers promote the giveaway, they send people to Healthy-Finds to claim their products.
- When they claim these products, Healthy-Finds gives the consumer a chance to try their program for free. According to Healthy-Finds, it has proven to be the most efficient way to get people to try their membership platform. As Pete Meyer describes, many people who want to try the natural health products opt to try Healthy-Finds as well.
- Of those who try Healthy Finds, most end up subscribing to Healthy-Finds and most subscribers stick around for a long time. So that is why Healthy-Finds is willing to cover most of the costs for these campaigns.
Healthy-Finds can’t work with all brands and products within the marketplace. The brands need to have products that are approved by Healthy-Find’s wellness team. They need to have products that have a “wow factor” with influencers and consumers. The brand also has to be willing to give away thousands of their products over time. If Healthy-Finds thinks the product has a shot, they do a test campaign and see what consumers think. Ultimately it is up to the consumers, which is how this industry should work after all.
To learn more about Healthy-Finds, please visit www.healthy-finds.com.