10 questions with Anna Dunbar on Digital Marketing

It’s time to take a look behind the scenes and get our perspective on what’s going on in the Health & Wellness industry. In this short video, Anna Dunbar, Business Development Director at Ceuta Group, an IQVIA business, discusses the importance of digital marketing for Health & Wellness brands.

Hit Play to find out:

• How Health & Wellness brands can effectively connect with their audience online.
• The biggest digital marketing challenges Health & Wellness brands face and how to overcome them.
• Anna’s top tips for digital success
• And more…

1 – Please start by introducing yourself.

Hi, my name is Anna Dunbar. I’m the Business Development Director at Click Consult, the Digital Marketing specialist branch of Ceuta Group, an IQVIA business. I’ve been working at Click for 14 years now. Over that time, I’ve seen a real evolution within the digital marketing and search space.

2 – How has marketing in the Health & Wellness industry changed throughout your career?

There’s been a huge shift in the way we think about our wellness and the way that we search for wellness products online. One of the core things is that during COVID, there was a huge shift to digital, so that’s seen a real surge in digital marketing competitiveness within the Health & Wellness space. Brands that were really well known that might not have had to push aggressively with their digital strategies found that there were up and coming businesses that were really pushing hard, so they’ve had to pivot their efforts and champion their brands in a different way.

There has also been a real shift in the way people can access prescriptions and medicines that before you would have had to go to your doctor for. People can now get these online from online pharmacies. We’re seeing a real surge in the pill for women, for example, so consumer behaviour has shifted enormously and I think businesses have to be ready to move with that.

3 – How can Health & Wellness brands more effectively connect with their audience online?

In the Health & Wellness space, building an online presence is absolutely crucial.

Over the years, we’ve all become Dr Google and search on Google for the ailments that we’ve got. So although you might be a brand that’s really well known within your space, people aren’t necessarily shopping by brand anymore. They’re shopping by ailment. They’re looking for recommendations. They’re looking to become more knowledgeable about the issues and ailments that they may have. And if you’re not ready to provide a wider knowledge bank to your end user, then you’re not really going to benefit from that engagement with your brand.

4 – What are the main benefits of digital marketing compared to traditional methods?

Some of the channels that are out there, particularly within social and paid, allow for a much more personalised and targeted messaging to end users. I won’t go into too much detail around tactics, but you have the likes of Google Dynamic Remarketing and you have ways to track consumer behaviour and approach them with the right messaging, which really builds brand awareness. You can nurture existing customers and think about their health journeys and where they might be within that cycle, so subscription models are becoming more and more common as well.

Digital marketing is very trackable. You can see exactly which channels are driving revenue into your business and make sure you’re pushing and pulling levers accordingly to get the best result.

5 – What unique challenges do Health & Wellness brands face when marketing their products or services online?

There are quite a lot of digital marketing challenges within the Health & Wellness industry. First of all, it’s heavily regulated, so there are strict guidelines on what you can and can’t say for your products.  This makes it a lot harder when it comes to digital advertising. Health & Wellness brands are also held to much higher standards by Google as their products or services tend to affect consumers’ lives more directly than those in other categories. Fortunately, Ceuta Group, an IQVIA business, is a Health & Wellness specialist with years of experience and a robust understanding of the regulatory landscape and we can shape our clients’ digital marketing strategies accordingly.

6 – How can Health & Wellness brands excel on Google?

One of the core algorithms Google has is EEAT, which stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust. Google expects you to be able to position yourself as a knowledge centre and effectively answer end user queries surrounding your products and your brand in detail. If you’re not able to do that, they don’t really see you as being coherent with what’s called the “Your Money or Your Life” guidelines.

Brands in “Your Money or Your Life” categories, like Health & Wellness, which Google sees as very considered and important categories surrounding your lifestyle, tend to be held to a much higher standard.

7 – In which areas of digital marketing do you think Health & Wellness brands need to increase their focus?

This is a great question and really topical for us, because we’re we’re seeing more and more Health & Wellness brands increasing their focus on the digital space. Some of these brands have traditionally excelled in driving footfall in-store without having a very heavy focus on the direct to consumer side of their business, but they are now facing competition from digitally-focused brands that are rapidly gaining traction in the market.

Therefore, I think anything that Health & Wellness brands can do to to support their direct to consumer strategy, like paid media, retargeting shopping, social media, and anything that can increase that brand presence and brand trust online will be beneficial. Influencer marketing is also working really well for a lot of our clients. People really trust in Health & Wellness influencers online. You just need to make sure you feed that through into your social strategy and your broader digital SEO and PPC strategies.

8 – How can Health & Wellness brands benefit from outsourcing their digital marketing?

There’s a lot to be said for having in-house resource that you can pull on as part of your marketing strategy. Lots of larger brands and organisations will have really quite robust in-house teams. However, there’s always a huge benefit to piloting in digital strategies from outside.

If you partner with an agency, they have access to the most recent information and industry trends. We can also cross collaborate across various clients, which enables us to react to industry trends and market shifts much more quickly and feed that insight into your strategies. We can also collaborate with your in-house teams to provide a broader wealth of experience.

9 – How can different kinds of Health & Wellness brands benefit from digital marketing?

Health & Wellness is a a really broad area and we’ve got experience across the full spectrum, from supplements and over-the-counter medicines to dentistry to Food & Drink, gyms, and even midwifery, hospital trusts, and charities.

We’ve seen huge success across lots of these, whether that be 0n ecommerce sites where we can naturally attribute to a specific channel, like paid media or SEO. We’ve really been able to support brands in building a digital presence in their local community with strong content strategies. We’ve also helped some great Health & Wellness charities grow their digital footprint in their local area and encourage people to collaborate with them.

10 – What are your top three tips for a successful digital marketing strategy?

1. Gather as much data as possible on how end users are interacting with your messaging, whether that be through SEO, PPC, influencer marketing, or social media. Data is the foundation of any strong digital strategy. That also involves making sure you’ve got all of your tracking set up correctly, all of the funnels in your analytics are correct, and all of the right data sets are talking to each other to get a very strong output.
2. Once you’ve got the data, you’re in a great position to refine, refine, refine. You should be refining all the time. It should be an iterative process to make sure that your messaging is right for your consumer.
3. From there, retarget based on your data with highly relevant and personalised messages tailored to each end-user and specific audience segment.

Get in touch to discuss how Ceuta Group, an IQVIA business, can make your brand objectives a reality

As the Health & Wellness industry evolves, having a comprehensive, data-backed digital marketing strategy is indispensible to a brand’s success. Regardless of how large or successful your brand may be in the retail landscape, you need to build a strong and trustworthy digital presence in order to adapt to consumer behaviour shifts and connect effectively with your customer base. Key takeaways include the importance of personalised messaging, leveraging data for informed decision-making, and continual refinement of digital strategies to stay ahead of the competition.

Get in touch to discuss how Ceuta Group, an IQVIA business, can build your brand’s online presence from scratch or boost your existing performance marketing strategies, grow a loyal customer base, and achieve sustainable success in the competitive OTC & Health & Wellness market.