ENGAGE WITH YOUR COMMUNITIES

By Terry Johnson, SEOS Committee Chair and Business and Marketing Teacher
for IPF Teacher's Academy 

In 30+ years of supply chain marketing I have never seen greater opportunities ahead for those who are Natural Perfumers, Natural Aromatherapists, Herbalists, Natural Candle Makers, Natural Skin Care Artisans, or those who want to be. 
Every community in the world benefits from products made from sustainable and natural sources, yet consumers within these communities currently have substantial market loyalty to giant perfume brands and billion-dollar essential oil retailers, leaving the Natural Essence Community with less than 5% market share.
Changing the trajectory of current market dynamics and re-capturing market shares for High-Value Natural Essences necessitates Natural Artisan Retailers to improve market strategies to reflect current business, social, and economic realities, and then engage with the communities they operate within.

Engaging local communities and households within those communities is not just a good idea; it is a requirement in a post-pandemic market.
For Natural Essences Retailers, the best way to engage a community is by becoming an Expert in and a Teacher of the many benefits of Natural Essences to consumers, their families and even their pets.
Of course, the knowledge of what Value Elements you can successfully teach is up to you and what your Value Proposition contains.

Here are a few suggestions to help you add the value you need to properly teach and engage your community:

1. High-Value Components. Make sure that your completed products are a result of High-Value-related components.
2. Natural. Work to ensure that your sources of raw materials are verifiably natural or organic.
3. Sustainable. It just isn’t enough to sell High-Value products that aren’t produced sustainably.
4. High Quality/High Performance. Consumers will not have superior results from products that aren’t superior to begin with.
5. Add Value through Education. Learning up-to-date information from Natural Essences Experts such as the Teacher’s Academy is an excellent pathway to community expertise.
6. Differentiate Your Products at Two Critical Points. Natural Essence Retailers need to teach consumers how to identify the greater value of Natural Essences (and products made from them) at critical points: Points-of-Purchase and Points of Consumption. Improvements at Points-of-Purchase gets them to buy. Improvements at Points-of-Consumption brings them back for more.

Good selling!

Do you want to know more, enrol for a 8 week Business and Marketing online course with Terry Johnson