Taking vitamins might sound like a mundane, routine task.And one would think that it is a category that stays pretty steady in terms of sales. But actually, did you know that online vitamin sales are growing like crazy? In fact, in 2019, online vitamin sales grew more than 40%!
It may or may not surprise you to learn that most people buying vitamins online are millennial women. With that in mind, online vitamin retailers have learned to meet their audience where they already are—on social media. More than ever before, online vitamin marketers are using social media channels to grow their audience and their business. Read on to learn the top three social media tactics to develop a strategy, grow your audience and increase your online vitamin sales.
1. Use Instagram.
This sounds simple because it is. If you want to boost your company’s online vitamin sales, promoting your products on Instagram is essential. When adults ages 18 to 24 (which is the main audience buying vitamins online) were surveyed, 71% of them said they use Instagram. That creates a huge audience to whom you can introduce your product.
Plus, many vitamin companies have partnered with Instagram influencers who tout their product on their personal pages. When your audience sees popular celebrities posting about certain vitamins, they’re much more likely to purchase. Although it can be expensive to pay a celebrity and/or an influencer to rep your vitamins, there’s a good chance it’ll completely pay off—and then some.
That being said, many vitamin brands (and brands in general) may not have it in the budget to pay for big-name influencers like celebrities and sports icons. That’s why nano influencers are on the rise.
Unfamiliar with nano influencers? Nano influencers are people on Instagram who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers. Over the past year, nano influencers have become the most popular influencer segment for brand collaborations. Brands say they prefer collaborating with nano influencers over top-tier influencers because it’s much more cost-effective and because they feel that it creates a much more authentic bond between the influencer and their audience. In addition, nano influencers are much more likely than top-tier influencers to both adhere to brand requirements and engage with their followers.
2. Be responsive.
Even before you’ve built a noteworthy following on Instagram, it’s important to be responsive to your followers. Engaging with them will help grow your audience tremendously as it shows potential followers that your brand is engaged and active.
Then, once you’ve accrued a good following on Instagram, it’s vital to keep up the engagement and make your followers feel like they’re part of your brand. When people write positive reviews and comments on your brand’s page, be sure to respond with a heartfelt “thank you.” When people ask questions on your brand’s page, be sure to answer as soon as possible to keep them interested.
Finally, when people write a complaint on your page, definitely don’t ignore it. Monitor each complaint and address it. Immediately respond with something like, “Thank you for your feedback. We are working to resolve this right now and we’ll get back with you shortly.” It’s true that your company’s social media person might not know about a certain vitamin’s side effects, or whatever the complaint might be. But it’s crucial that this social media person talks to the most appropriate person for the issue and then responds quickly. It’s also important that this response is visible publicly. This shows that your company tackles criticism head-on and chooses to make the situation right. On the contrary, if you ignore criticism, it can cause major damage to your vitamin brand.
3. Give a great offer to increase engagement and brand loyalty.
The point of marketing your vitamins on social media is to sell more of them, right? And what better way to do this than with a great, enticing offer?
Vitamins can get expensive, and people want as many discounts and offers as they can get. That’s why many vitamin retailers give their audience the opportunity to buy vitamins (at a discount) directly from a post on social media. They might make an Instagram post that says something like, “Want to ward off a cold this season? Our Vitamin C tablets have been shown to help boost immunity, along with offering many other benefits. And now, for a limited time, when you click the link in our bio, you can buy a month’s supply! Plus, enter code VITC20 at checkout for 20% off your order.” This makes it convenient for your audience to buy with just one click — and also enticing because of the offer.
Many vitamin brands have also found success with this recipe: Write a blog post that includes an offer, post it on your website and then promote/link to this content on your Instagram. This not only gives people access to your offer, but it also gets people more familiar with your brand by having them land on your website.
In addition, this is a great opportunity to upsell. For example, if someone ends up on your website because of your social media post about Vitamin C, offer them three bottles for the price of two, or a great price on a companion vitamin. This goes beyond simply creating an offer; it also creates a new (and hopefully lifelong) customer.
Conclusion
When it comes to selling vitamins online, developing a social media strategy is crucial. It leads to more engagement, more awareness and then, inevitability, more sales.
To learn more about how InteractOne can help you improve your vitamin brand’s social media presence, contact us today.
