The self-care industry has seen steady growth over the last decade. With thousands of people working from home and looking to save on extra costs like doctor visits and counseling services, the industry is experiencing an unprecedented jump in profitability. It is critical to understand how the self-care industry will impact retailers. Look at what self-care is, what types of products fall into the self-care category and how you can grow your business using affiliate marketing with self-care products.
What Is Self-Care?
Self-care is a catch-all term that refers to an activity that helps you holistically improve your health. Self-care encourages calming actions and routines that attend to your psychological, physical, emotional, environmental, social, professional, spiritual and financial wellbeing. Self-care activities help reduce stress, fear and anxiety through mental de-stimulation, physical release of tension, developing new, helpful habits and ways of thinking and nourishing your mind and body with natural, healthy products. Typical self-care activities include:
- Doing yoga
- Practicing meditation
- Tending a garden
- Listening to relaxing music
- Exploring a new hobby
- Being creative
- Walking or hiking
- Spending time in nature
- Taking a bath
- Getting a massage
- Eating healthy foods
- Drinking herbal tea
- Self-exploration
- Using at-home beauty products
- Learning something new
- Creating a comfortable space
Everyone’s self-care looks different, but the overall goal is to engage in activities that give you peace and relaxation, reduce anxiety and help you better your health in some way.
What Does the Self-Care Industry Encompass?
Self-care retail operations are as wide-ranging as the term self-care. It is difficult to narrow down what exactly falls under the self-care industry umbrella because the definition of self-care has broadened over the last several years. In the past, self-care mostly referred to free activities that helped people break away from everyday stressors and mentally regroup. In the last decade, the term has broadened to include hundreds of thousands of products that facilitate self-care activities.
The $450 billion retail industry encompasses everything related to the topic, including learning resources like books, YouTube channels, websites, blogs and products that enhance self-care activities. This includes a broad range of items such as bath and shower products, adult coloring books, painting classes, unique hobby kits, jewelry and more. The self-care industry also includes smartphone apps for meditation, courses that teach self-care activities and journals to encourage self-reflection.
Top-Selling Self-Care Products
When it comes to self-care products, the list is nearly endless. The types of products that offer retailers the biggest growth opportunities are:
- Sleep remedies
- Books and journals
- Skincare
- Bath and body items
- Soaps and salts
- Organizational planners
- Aromatherapy items
- Natural cleaning products
- CBD products
- Natural supplements
- Crystals
- Herbal teas and artisanal coffees
- Mindfulness aids
- Unique culinary items
- Meal prep services
Customers are looking for unique items that are customizable and made with care. They want products they can easily use at home to help them feel better, stay focused and calm, get good rest and help them feel special. Natural products, artisanal items and eco-friendly retail products are all popular at the moment.
How Does the Self-Care Industry Impact Retailers?
An industry as large and profitable as self-care is bound to substantially affect retailers, even those who don’t typically deal in the self-care sector. Self-care affects what products retailers stock and how they market them. The diverse array of specialized niches within self-care give retailers many opportunities to meet customer needs and earn a profit at the same time. There are several principles that retailers should be aware of when getting into the self-care industry:
Offer a Diverse Selection of Products
Self-care is highly individualized, and what works for one person may not work for another. This is good news for retailers, as they can use this need for a diverse selection of products to offer customers multiple options for self-care. This includes different versions of the same product that meet various customer needs, such as hair products for different hair types.
Another example of diversifying your selection is offering items that support the main self-care item. For instance, you may sell yoga gear, but you can also provide customers with yoga clothes, water bottles, essential oils, meditation tapes or other yoga-related items. The great thing about the self-care industry is that it is incredibly diverse, so, no matter what your business specializes in, you can find a way to work several self-care products into your inventory.
Customization Is Key
Because self-care is so individualized, it is essential to offer products that can be customized and tailored to specific customer needs. Subscription boxes are an excellent way to compile different products that follow a theme or customer-interest area. Alternatively, online quizzes that help customers find products that speak to their individual needs help elevate each person’s uniqueness and self-care options. Food subscription services with meal options like low-carb, Paleo, gluten-free, vegan or vegetarian are a great example of how customization and self-care meet.
Appeal to Customer’s Wellbeing
It is vital to use the right appeals when marketing to your customers. Self-care products should appeal to your customer’s emotional, mental, spiritual or physical wellbeing. The crucial thing for retailers to remember is that almost anything can be framed as a self-care product. One great way to do this is to engage in influencer marketing and find social media influencers to use your product and tell their audiences how much it has helped them feel connected, pampered and relaxed and enabled them to get in touch with their creative side, or any number of self-care objectives.
Aim for Natural and Artisanal
One of the biggest trends in self-care is eco-friendly, all-natural and artisanal items. Customers want self-care items that are made locally by real people rather than mass-produced in a factory. If you run a business that creates a self-care product that falls into these categories, advertise this aspect to customers. If you specialize in handmade products, make your item to order, if possible, to tie into the customization element. If you run a company that doesn’t create its own product but you are looking to break into the self-care industry, work with affiliates who make unique, hand-made items that sell.
Find a Niche
Retailers who operate in a profitable niche will see the most success in the self-care industry. Areas like men’s beard care, vegan-friendly meal delivery services, self-care ritual kits, herbal teas and supplements and CBD products are examples of niche markets growing because of their self-care focus. Aim to find a niche that matches what your company offers or, if you are looking to become an affiliate for a self-care brand, it’s a great idea to find niche products that fit with your content. Consider diversifying with affiliates in sub-niches to broaden your appeal. For example, CBD is used by bodybuilders, people looking for pain relief, people dealing with anxiety, people who use it for their pets and more.
Men’s beard products can be promoted to men who have handlebar mustaches, men who want to feel pampered and those who are looking for gifts for their significant others with beards. As a retailer, you might seek out different affiliates that reach these sub-niche markets. Working with influencers in your self-care niche is an excellent way to create organic traffic and get your product out to a broader audience.
Use Clever Marketing
While your overarching marketing strategy is important to succeed in the self-care industry, your packaging and marketing materials are crucial too. The industry has transformed the way businesses name products and how they sell them. For instance, your business might sell bath products like bath bombs, sugar scrubs, bubble baths or herbal soaks. For success in the self-care market, you should consider how to name the product to hit home the self-care aspect.
Highlight your product’s effect on wellness with words like energize, calm, peaceful, detox, de-stress and soothe. Play up the natural ingredients in products and make sure to indicate if the product is made locally by an artist or in small batches. Package them as small samples that entice customers to try another item or version of your product, and go the extra mile to send a personalized thank you email or insert. These marketing steps ensure that you focus on the customer and mimic the self-care they are performing.
Make It Informational
One central element of self-care is self-growth, exploration, reflection and education. Wherever possible, retailers should offer information that helps their customers learn something new or grow somehow.
For example, a business that sells chakra candles might include an insert that gives the customer an overview of chakras and why it is crucial to keep them aligned. A company that sells herbal supplements can partner with an affiliate or influencer who routinely educates their audience about supplements.
Retailers that offer tidbits of information to help the customer learn something important about an issue related to the product develop a deeper relationship with the customer. This helps establish brand loyalty and repeat business.
Boost Your Reputation
The self-care industry runs on good reviews. Customers are looking for retail items that move them along in self-discovery and which have a noticeable effect on their wellbeing. Retailers must maintain a high rating on online platforms and ask their customers to review their products. It is also essential to address any negative reviews and make changes that show your customers you care about their physical, emotional and spiritual health. Asking for honest feedback from customers gives you further insight into customer needs. This helps you choose products that genuinely help your customers in their self-care journey.
Utilize Affiliate Programs
Even if your company doesn’t serve a niche self-care market, a robust affiliate marketing network is a great way to boost business and create trust with potential and current customers. In addition to popular marketing methods like email lists, newsletters, ads and website blog posts, working with an affiliate or social media influencer is one of the best ways to grow your business.
When people choose a self-care product, they want to know how the product has helped others.
Your affiliates and the influencers you partner with can give honest reviews of your product, which begins your relationship with a customer before they make a purchase. Since self-care is so personal, trust in your product or service is paramount to success in the industry.
How Affiliate Marketing Boosts Business
Affiliate marketing works similarly to referrals; however, you get to pick who refers to your products. Although there is a difference between influencer and affiliate marketers, both types of partnerships allow you to reach a specific audience without making the same financial investment as traditional marketing. For instance,
- Choose who you partner with
- Target traffic that is interested in products like yours
- Pay per performance and sales, not upfront marketing
- Low risk and low start-up cost
- Organic growth and brand awareness
- Increase SEO with little active effort
- Less time spent on marketing
- Access to statistics that help you make business decisions
- Diversify income stream
- Create partnerships and networks
- Customer loyalty and trust
- Access to foreign or unlikely audiences
- Choice of incentives for affiliates
- Impressive ROI
The Bottom Line
Whether you are a business looking to reach a broader market or an influencer who wants to become an affiliate, a good affiliate marketing platform can help you boost sales and widen your customer reach.
Start building brand trust in your self-care products and reaching those who can benefit from your self-care services with a data-driven affiliate program and the right affiliate marketing platform.
