If you’re a health and wellness store owner or marketer, you are aware of the high-level competition in the industry. And most often, you might not have the in-house expertise to manage all the processes.
That’s where Shopify retainers for health and wellness brands come in.
In this blog, we take a look at what retainers can do, why your brand needs retainers, and how you should go about hiring them.
Let’s get started!
What Makes Health and Wellness Brands Unique on Shopify?
Health and wellness is an industry that requires specific scientific expertise and needs to follow regulatory compliance. Factors such as trust, personalization, and AI-driven processes are critical to this industry. Let’s understand what’s unique about wellness eCommerce brands.
1. Trust through transparency
For health and wellness brands, building trust and credibility is critical. Thus, brands focus on creating transparent product pages with detailed information. Every detail mentioned, the colors, design, and layout, all contribute to building trust.
2. Educational content
When it comes to health and wellness, customers prefer to make informed decisions. They end up reading a lot of informational and educational content before making purchases. This is why health and wellness brands share a lot of educational content, such as articles, blogs, FAQs, and more.
3. Regulatory compliance complexity
Health and wellness products follow strict regulations and have to be compliant with FDA, FTC, among other regulations. Product descriptions also include regulatory details, and so do marketing copy and advertisements.
4. Diverse buyer persona
Health and wellness brands have varied buyer personas. For example, from athletes to senior citizens to young fitness enthusiasts and those with health conditions. This diverse buyer persona requires different messaging, recommendation strategies, and educational content approaches.
5. AI-powered personalization
AI-based personalization is a must-have for all eCommerce businesses. AI tools collect and analyze customer data to make personalized recommendations and offers. For instance, AI can recommend health and wellness supplements based on customers’ past purchases, health goals, preferences, etc.
Why do Shopify Retainers Work Well for Health and Wellness Brands?
One of the fastest growing industries, health and wellness stores require a lot of processes to function smoothly. Many businesses may not have the required in-house support, and hence, Shopify retainers work well for health and wellness brands. Here are the reasons.
1. Regular product updates
Health and wellness products often go through variations based on new research. Thus, products keep changing. And so, brands have to keep updating their inventory and website with new products. This requires continuous support from Shopify experts. Hiring retainers works well for this regular product page optimization work.
2. Changing landing page strategies
Brands often create landing pages for targeted audiences based on health issues, products, seasonal health trends, etc. These landing pages have to be continuously optimized based on performance and other changes. Shopify retainers help with setting up, testing, and managing landing pages.
3. SEO and CRO
There’s immense competition in the health and wellness industry. The industry is projected to reach $ 9 trillion by 2028. To compete, brands require content, SEO, and CRO efforts and continuous optimization. Shopify retainers help with CRO testing, educational content, regular updates, marketing, and more, to ensure brands are able to reach their target customers.
4. AI-powered efficiency
AI and automation can streamline various processes and improve efficiency. For instance, AI can help with compliance checks, flag outdated products, generate FAQ content based on customer queries, and help with inventory management. Health and wellness eCommerce retainers offer advanced AI–based services that can help improve efficiency and lower cost.
5. Enables A/B testing
Shopify retainers help with A/B testing health and wellness products. For instance, testing different content, SEO strategies, offers, bundling, trust signals, product information, etc. It is essential to continuously run A/B tests to understand what works and what doesn’t, to provide a customer-focused experience.
What Should be Included in a Shopify Retainer for Health and Wellness Brands?
Shopify retainers provide various types of services, from regular updates to marketing to strategy and business development. Here are some services that you should specifically ask for from your retainer agency.
1. Strategic UX and visual services
Health and wellness brands need to stay up to date with seasonal health trends. This requires regular attention to UX and visual aspects of the Shopify store. Health and wellness eCommerce retainers should include services such as updating design and visual elements, refreshing layouts and navigation for new products, enhancing user experience based on customer behavior, etc.
2. Updating CRO aspects
To ensure consistent conversions, you have to build trust and credibility. Alongside, you need to consistently optimize your Shopify pages to drive sales. Your Shopify retainer should include CRO-related services, such as optimize trust signals, update customer reviews, add quality badges, run A/B tests, share customer success stories, and AI-powered recommendations.
3. Optimization for mobile
76% of consumers have made a purchase using their mobile devices. It’s easy for consumers to research health and wellness products on their mobile phones and make purchases. Shopify retainers should include mobile optimization services, such as speed and performance management, optimizing images, updating content, and streamlining mobile checkout process.
4. AI integration for customer support
AI-powered tools can enhance efficiency and performance for brands. Hiring Shopify retainers that offer AI-based services is beneficial. For instance, retainers can set up AI-based customer support systems to answer customer queries. Health and wellness customers usually have many small queries that can be answered by AI chatbots.
5. Data tagging and structure
Shopify retainers for health and wellness brands should include services such as data tagging and backend structuring that help with more targeted search results. This includes optimizing data for ingredients, health benefits, usage instructions, and compatibility information.
How Should You Vet an Agency for a Health and Wellness Brand?
Shopify retainers for health and wellness brands require certain capabilities and expertise that are specific to the industry. Consider these factors when choosing your Shopify retainer.
1. Compliance related industry experience
When hiring Shopify retainers for health and wellness stores, check if the agency has experience in the health and wellness industry. You should specially ask them questions about industry compliance matters and how they tackle related work. The agency should practice a balance between compelling marketing while following regulatory compliance.
2. Subject matter competency
Health and wellness content involves scientific terminology, research, and following medical disclaimers. Your health and wellness eCommerce retainer agency should have the knowledge and expertise to create relevant and authoritative content. They should have the knack of presenting informational content that is correct, while following disclaimers.
3. Agency portfolio
Assess the agency’s portfolio to check their experience in the health and wellness industry. Ask for case studies, success stories, and examples of campaigns and projects they worked on. Look for examples of complicated and difficult projects they worked on, problems solved, etc. This will give you an understanding of their competency.
4. AI capabilities
If you want to incorporate AI into your Shopify store, it’s a must to have a retainer agency that has advanced knowledge of AI tools and workflows. Even though you may want to start with basic AI features, your retainer should have the ability to help you scale as your business grows. Check for the retainer’s competency around AI content, customer service, personalization, data management, and more.
How to Maximize Monthly Shopify Retainers for Health and Wellness?
It’s easy to think that hiring a competent retainer will give the best to your business. To ensure you gain maximum benefits from your retainer, try these different strategies.
1. Strategic batching of updates
One way to maximize your monthly retainer is to batch the same or related work by planning much in advance. For instance, batch all product launches work together and all updates together. This approach can help remove extra and overlapping work, and enhance efficiency for your in-house team and retainers.
2. Customer-centric personalization
Another way to maximize your monthly Shopify retainer is to prioritize tasks based on customer insights. For instance, based on data, understand customers’ pressing needs and get retainers to address them. Say customers are frequently asking questions about a particular product, retainers should prioritize writing informative articles on those products and publishing it on your Shopify store.
3. Comprehensive audits
Request your Shopify retainer agency to conduct in-depth audits of your site’s performance and share it with you on a regular basis. For instance, these audits should reveal how well your site caters to different customer personas, identify gaps, and assess how new AI tools could make your website perform better.
4. AI-based automation implementation
Implementing AI and automation can improve your efficiency and speed in handling routine and repetitive tasks. Ask your retainer to recommend AI tools and enhancements to improve your efficiency. AI can help you with compliance critical content in the health and wellness industry.
Summing up - Getting Started with a Shopify Retainer for Health and Wellness
Your retainer agency should have specific competency to cater to the health and wellness industry requirements. And hence, your retainer should go beyond providing basic and regular services.
Your retainer agency should have the knowledge, expertise, and experience to help your brand grow and scale in the health and wellness space. Keep these factors in mind when choosing your Shopify retainer.
