5 ways health and wellness brands can improve loyalty and retention by helping their customers engage with lifestyle change

In order to start seeing the effects of a health and wellness product, you typically need to use it regularly, over a sustained period of time. Adopting a new product into your routine can be challenging, especially when it requires habitual change.

For brands that support their customers along this journey, gently prompting usage of these  new products as part of their lifestyles, there are plenty of benefits to be had. 

This approach contributes to an enhanced customer experience where consumers feel supported and valued – driving brand loyalty and advocacy, encouraging repeat purchases, and increasing customer lifetime value.

But what does this strategy look like in practice?

Here are five ways health and wellness brands can improve loyalty and retention by helping their customers engage with lifestyle changes.

1. Encourage consistent product use with personalised post-purchase emails

Email: an accessible, yet powerful, tool for health and wellness retailers to encourage successful product adoption and strengthen brand loyalty. Delivering targeted, timely and relevant content to customers’ inboxes post-purchase can help elevate the overall customer experience and increase retention.

Here are some tips to consider when planning your email strategy:

• Start by sending educational content, explaining how to use the product effectively, proactively addressing common questions, and highlighting the benefits of consistent usage. Link out to step-by-step guides and expert advice to help ensure proper adoption and boost customer confidence. For some content inspiration, check out this ‘Getting Started’ guide by Tonal, which walks customers through what they need to maximise their results with the product from day one.

• Automate usage reminder emails based on customer behaviour, such as a lack of engagement. Focus on the benefits of regular product use, with advice for incorporating new products into a health and wellness routine. This strategy is particularly effective for brands incorporating a wearable tech product that’s directly able to track user behaviour like swims, runs, walks or workouts (more on this later). 

• Use visual social proof to emphasise the benefits of consistency. Before and after photos from real customers can have a powerful impact, inspiring consistent product use.

• Leverage what you know about customers to curate personalised health and wellness email content that aligns with their goals and interests. This demonstrates that you understand your customers and support their pursuit of a healthier lifestyle.

2. Prompt and track product usage in-app 

Creating an immersive app experience is a great way to help your customers track their product usage, whilst you support their overall health and wellness goals and foster long-term loyalty. Here’s how:

• Encourages consistent use – By leveraging push notifications to support product adoption, brands can help customers remain engaged and maximise the intended benefits of the product. This is important for maximising customer satisfaction, whilst increasing the likelihood of a product being repurchased.

• Tracks progress and spurs motivation – With a dedicated space for monitoring product adoption, consumers will feel supported by your brand as they look to change their habits, with a sense of achievement when looking back at logged progress. These positive feelings can contribute to a meaningful relationship with your brand – which strengthens loyalty.

• Builds meaningful relationships – By facilitating direct, personalised and regular communication with customers, an app enables retailers to nurture strong – and profitable – connections.

• Creates a community – In-app features like forums, leaderboards and challenges can create a sense of belonging, increasing brand loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases.

Brand example: Vitruvian

For a prime example of this in action, consider Australian smart fitness brand Vitruvian who sells an all-in-one home gym solution. 

The brand offers customers a dedicated app alongside their physical product, promising a personalised and optimised workout experience. Within the app, users can create customised workouts tailored to their specific fitness goals, track performance progress, and even compete against other users in leaderboard challenges.  This helps customers get the most out of the Vitruvian product, and in turn encourages stronger brand loyalty and advocacy.

3. Reward positive behaviour with a loyalty program

Loyalty programs that enable customers to visualise their progress and get rewarded for positive behaviours are another strategy for health and wellness retailers to consider. 

Positive behaviours to reward could include things like:

• Using products consistently – Support customers as they engage with lifestyle changes by rewarding activities like logging product use or repurchasing a product. This will help you drive positive outcomes for consumers, whilst winning their loyalty for supporting their goals.

• Uploading progress photos – Offer incentives to customers for sharing their experiences on your website or social channels. Not only does this help you collect authentic user generated content, it encourages customers to stick to their new routines. 

• Engaging with educational content – Give away loyalty points for accessing product usage advice or wider health and wellness content. This content will help support customers with their goals, whilst building more meaningful relationships with your brand.

The type of rewards you offer will ultimately depend on the type of brand you are and the products you sell, however, common examples include discounts on products, free shipping, early access to sales, and invites to VIP brand events. For some brands, introducing a loyalty collaboration with the likes of Sweatcoin could help incentivise positive health behaviours.

By creating a loyalty program that transcends simple transactions and instead fosters a sense of encouragement, brands can build stronger connections with their customers, drive healthier outcomes for their customers, and ultimately increase retention. 

4. Recommend complementary products to support lifestyle goals

Offering personalised, data-informed product recommendations based on an individual’s goals (such as better sleep, reduced acne or increased protein intake) demonstrates your recognition of their health and wellness journey and makes them feel valued as a customer. Introducing customers to further beneficial products can help them achieve their goals, whilst encouraging additional purchases, increasing average order value, and strengthening loyalty.

Implementing this approach might look like:

• Using quizzes or the like to collect first-party data from customers, then leveraging this to offer hyper-relevant recommendations.

• Promoting goal-oriented product bundles tailored to specific health and wellness outcomes, like a group of products designed to increase relaxation or calm blemishes.

• Post-purchase recommendations that support continued progress, such as refills, upgrades or advanced solutions.

• Leveraging machine learning tools to predict what customers may need next, creating a seamless experience as they work towards their health and wellness goal.

Brand example:

Popular skincare solutions brand Dr Sam’s leverages this approach to help its customers achieve and maintain their skincare goals. In its personalised, post-purchase email communications, the brand suggests complementary products that will boost the results of your initial purchase.

Providing a helpful and relevant recommendation to improve a customer’s routine and help them achieve their goal faster can translate to repeat purchases, stronger brand-consumer relationships and improved retention.

5. Leverage data from wearable technology

Capturing and activating behavioural data from wearable devices allows brands to create a holistic ecosystem that better supports customers’ overall health and wellness goals. It enables a comprehensive view of a consumer’s wellness journey, unlocking a whole host of opportunities for motivating lifestyle change whilst fostering loyalty.

Examples of this include:

• Behaviour-triggered notifications – Sending reminders to use products at optimal times, based on wearable data (e.g. a supplement brand sending a notification recommending supplement use once a workout has been completed).

• Goal-driven programs – Creating lifestyle programs that sync with wearable metrics and incorporate products as essential components of the plan. 

• Gamified challenges – Designing brand challenges that encourage healthier habits, with rewards tied to correct product usage and achievement of milestones.

• Cross-sells based on customer behaviours – Recommending and discounting products based on changes in a user’s wearable tech data (e.g. changes in workout type or intensity). 

Example scenario:

For instance, imagine a customer of a fitness brand shifts from a regular swimming routine to boxing-based workouts, and this gets logged in their wearable fitness device (data from which is captured by the brand). This would be a smart time for the brand to start promoting their combat fitness collection to the customer, as well as sharing any helpful content aimed at boxing beginners.

By serving up relevant content and recommendations, you’re illustrating an ability to support the customer as their health and wellness journey evolves, making them feel valued and more likely to continue shopping with your brand for the long-term. 

To conclude

There are so many ways that health and wellness retailers can build supportive, engaging brand experiences for consumers. Those that do can enjoy better brand recognition, higher consumer advocacy, and increased lifetime value metrics.

To discuss any of the themes in this article with the team at Swanky, please reach out to our friendly ecommerce experts. We offer a full suite of digital services to help international health and wellness brands get their ecommerce stores in the best shape possible.