Copywriting is a key — if often undersung — element of conversion. Access to cheap — and now both limitless and mostly free — AI-generated copy has brought us to a natural endpoint. Instead of zeroing out the copywriting budget, though, it has only put the value of human-generated text at a premium. We’re at the point where text written by a person has become indicative of a luxury (or at least well-funded) product.

There’s one place which remains open to (human) writers of all skill levels: the founder’s story. It’s your story — truly no one can tell it better than you can. Sharing it in a thoughtful way can build, or increase, a trusted relationship between your brand and your buyers. And nowhere is this relationship more important than it is for brands in the wellness space generally, and more specifically, makers of vitamins and supplements. It’s beyond crucial. And here we’ll see how three brands, with just a couple hundred words, are creating a conversion-friendly environment with something as simple as their own story.

Key Takeaways

• A personal story can provide any brand with increased trust — this is exponentially so, and exponentially important, for vitamin and supplement brands. 
• A small degree of candor will confer a great degree of trust. 
• A more generic “founder’s story,” focusing on less personal motivations, only take up space, without conferring trust. 

Elite supplement producers have long understood the high expectations placed upon their brands to gain not only their buyers’ interest but their trust — a much higher burden. Their products address our most personal and secret desires: to improve our health (the loss of which shames many of us), to address our age-related concerns (ditto), and to help us confront our loss of sexual potency and desirability (double ditto).

This is often deep, dark stuff, more often discussed between our most intimate friends and advisors (and therapists). We might be willing to share the results of our blood panel or our sexual difficulties from behind the anonymity of a burner Reddit account. We might research supplements that could address our problems. But will we buy something online from an independent brand, without the intermediary blessing of a vitamin or health foods retailer like GNC or Whole Foods? Will we then ingest their product — and expect it to radically transform our health?

The answer, rather incredibly, is an unqualified yes. Online sales of supplements were already rising in 2019, which saw increases of 2.8% in brick-and-mortar supplement sales, and e-commerce growth of 26.5%. The industry has continued this growth (if not at the exponential and unsustainable growth in the earliest days of the pandemic), with certain niches — like sports medicine, mushrooms, and women’s health — at the fore.

Consumers who previously might have preferred to privilege familiarity and trust associated with local retailers turned to ecommerce vendors, and in many cases sought reassurance that these products were just as effective and safe — as trusted, in other words — as those they could pull from the shelves of their local GNC, Vitamin World or Whole Foods. Supplement makers accomplished this in many different ways: with industry awards and accolades and extensive team bios and backgrounders, as well as through the trust conferred to well-designed, well-written websites — presentation matters, here even more than in other ecommerce niches. But the best of the best traded on a single aspect, available to any founder or product developer worth their investment: their personal story.

As would-be buyers consider it, supplements are either born in a kitchen or born in a lab. They’re designed to help them lead better lives, or to line the pockets of those selling them (usually at a cost to the buyer in terms of financial loss or — much worse — personal harm). Speaking metaphorically: Do you trust cookies baked in a kitchen or a lab? 

Do you trust a supplement developed by a retired cardiologist hell-bent on solving problems before they present themselves — or one developed by committee? 

Would you trust a woman who spent six weeks in the hospital battling postpartum sepsis, whose recovery would hinge on an encounter with “a world authority on preventative degenerative disease” (and the supplement they developed together)? 

A seventh-generation dairy farmer whose daughter couldn’t avoid recurring infections and colds?

A woman who survived four miscarriages and years of PCOS to have three healthy children with the help of a natural food supplement? 

A caveat: A founder’s story is not the same as a brand story or a mission statement — the latter are expected pieces of business communication. Presenting them poorly can negatively impact your brand the way unswept floors or dirty shelves would at a grocery store. But even the best can’t gain buyers’ trust like a deeply personal founder’s story. Don’t mistake a brand statement for a founder’s story. If your brand story is to “improve your customers’ lives every day,” save it. No one cares. It’s a waste of pixels. 

It’s likely no mistake that products geared toward women — including two examples below, which address fertility, menopause, and women’s health — often feature deeply personal founder’s stories: There are deep-rooted cultural and social rituals, often gender-specific, that determine how we tell stories about ourselves and how we teach others to trust us. You’ll see fewer founders’ stories in sports supplements, in which male founders dominate, for example — but this is an oversight that is easily corrected, whether your buyers are predominantly male or female. 

Here are three brands that are doing it right: 

LYMA

With attention-grabbing packaging and a hard-won luxury aesthetic, the LYMA supplement is advertised as “the ultimate supplement solution for sleep and stress,” aimed primarily at women seeking treatment for health changes during menopause. Testimonials from users and references from physicians are augmented by the story shared by LYMA founder Lucy Goff. Goff gave birth to a daughter in 2012 and subsequently spent six weeks in the hospital contending with postpartum septicemia, a life-threatening condition, “riddled with toxins, told she had no real hope for recovery…[and] terrified for herself and for the future of her family.” Only with the help of a leading researcher in preventative degenerative disease did she find “a new protocol using peer-reviewed, patented ingredients” — and soon returned to her previous level of good health. It’s a wholly credible backdrop to her why for founding the brand: “Galvanized by her own experience of poor health, she's dedicated years to assembling the world's strongest minds to engineer scientific breakthroughs that change lives.” Without sharing her personal story, that bio wouldn’t be nearly as effective — it would, in fact, sound indistinguishable from her peers’. It doesn’t matter that Goff’s product — treating women in midlife — and story — affecting women post-childbirth — don’t perfectly align. The candor — and the implied personal stake in the results — are potent indications of trustworthiness. 

Where can you be candid about your own story, without divulging details you’re unwilling to share? 

WONDERCOW

WonderCow’s research (into the science of bovine colostrum and its beneficial relationship with the human gut) and its founder’s story are given equal space on the brand’s webpage. Founder Rob Diepersloot is a seventh-generation dairy farmer in Central California whose WonderCow supplements are intended to improve immunity. Similar to LYMA, WonderCow’s mission is bolstered by its founder’s personal history. First, the (personal) mission: “We strive to raise our family with strong values, care well for our cows, and leave the world a better place.” Now, the story: His oldest daughter with wife Erica suffered recurrent infections and colds, and the prescribed antibiotics “helped each infection, but took a toll on her gut and overall immune system.” With a background in dairy science, Rob had a long-gestating plan to bring “a nutritional dairy solution to the market.” At the nexus of concern and ambition: “a passion to find a way to rebuild her gut health and support her immunity—with a more preventative, holistic approach.” Enter WonderCow: “As dairy farmers, we knew firsthand the power of colostrum and its ability to benefit the gut and immune system.” 

Who would you trust more than a dad with a sick kid? 

MYOVA

MyOva founder Leila Martyn succinctly previews her founder’s story as “how I turned my pain into purpose” — a useful shorthand for the dramatic arc of the most successful examples. Martyn was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome as a teenager; warned that the condition might negatively affect her future fertility, Martyn confronted the tragic reality 15 years later, when she suffered the first of six miscarriages. Spurred into action, Martyn researched the relationship between PCOS and low egg quality — and a natural food supplement, myo-inositol, that could potentially help address the issue. She took it — and “amidst the pain of trying for a baby and waiting for a positive pregnancy test, it felt great to have something [her research] to focus on.” Martyn’s eventual solution — under the care of a doctor specializing in recurrent miscarriages, her medical care included steroids and intralipid — wasn’t solely, or even primarily, related to her supplement usage — but sharing her story illustrates how it played a crucial role in her healing journey. And it also establishes a context in which her motivations are primarily focused on care and well-being — her family’s and ours. 

Would you rather buy supplements from a company motivated by care? How can sharing one’s own “healing journey” suggest a desire to care for others — in other words, empathy? And how can empathy increase trust? 

These are examples of great personal stories. Now: How to tell your own? 

If you’re selling supplements, chances are decent that a personal experience motivated your product development. 

Maybe, like the founders above, you were a hopeful mother-to-be struggling to optimize her chances for a healthy pregnancy. Or a dad who wanted the best for his kid. 

Maybe you’re a former athlete looking for a way to maintain your power and endurance. 

Or a retired scientist who’s long been iterating on an idea to enhance cognition and memory, after you found your crossword scores declining. 

Whatever this story is: It’s valuable. 

No one’s asking for private details or information. Figure out what you feel comfortable making public, cognizant of the fact that the more you share, the more vulnerable you might feel (to outside criticism or concerns), but the greater the bond you will build with potential buyers or business partners reading about your experiences. 

In terms of the nuts and bolts of sharing that story. 

You can probably do it on your own. Write it down, keeping it to a tight limit (none of the founders above required more than 500 words.) 

Tell it out loud, to friends or family. Ask them for what elements they found most interesting or moving. Keep those, cut the rest. 

And if you feel more comfortable working with a pro, consider working with a professional copywriter, who can likely save you time and money and produce a higher-quality product than you could on your own. 

Understanding the link between trust and conversion

A trusted site is a site that converts. 

We no longer live in an age when we made purchases at the corner hardware store — and if a tool failed, we could return it to the local proprietor, someone we’d know from around town and from PTA meetings. 

Now, we’re mostly buying from strangers. Often from across great distances. And in the case of supplements, we’re buying products we literally swallow, and rely on to enhance our health. There’s no niche where trust is more important, outside of products for children. 

Everything we can do to enhance trust will radically enhance our conversion rate. 

Sharing accolades and awards will help — logos from well-respected organizations in your industry, which have offered you their literal seal of approval, make a huge difference. 

A credible, well-designed and well-written website will do the same. 

Beyond that, nothing will confer trust as much as sharing your personal story: why this product matters to you, and how you came to develop it. 

And if you’re not sure how to do it, we can help with a full range of conversion optimization services, including copywriting and conversion design.