If You Get It Right, It’s Magical” Lessons From An Online Disruptor

Lucy Goff wants to change lives with LYMA, a supplement she developed with a team of experts after a life-changing illness. After years developing the magic formula, I asked Goff why online was the selected channel to grow the brand.

How much of your success can be accredited to launching your brand online?

All our early success can be accredited to launching the brand online. Not only did it make commercial sense for us to launch with a ‘digital first’ DTC model because of our products, but for a company like LYMA it is crucial to understand our customers. Having a direct relationship with them has enabled us to develop our products and services so they are tailored to their needs, which is so often overlooked when brands start commercialising their ideas. DTC continues to be our priority but as we grow, we’re also seeing further success with a curated list of retail partners that help develop our position in the hearts and minds of our customers.

What have been the absolute positives using an online sales channel?

There are so many positives to using online sales channels but being able to carefully curate and build the brand and to have a personal relationship with our customers, these are probably the two biggest positives. The sheer speed of online has meant we can adapt in near real time to ensure the brand always remains relevant and approachable and it allows us to develop and evolve our offerings at pace.

How has the brand been able to take opportunities and work with partners to achieve greater success?

We’ve been really fortunate to work with some unbelievable partners since our launch and it has been an incredibly humbling experience to be able to work with some industry leading brands and experts. Being uniquely positioned as an efficacy-driven business changes our relationship with influencers and partners. These relationships have become less commercial and based increasingly on trust and belief in each other’s products, expertise, or services.

Health, beauty and wellbeing has relied on retail store floors for years – what can help that sector thrive online? The health, beauty and wellness industries have already adapted to online channels, particularly since COVID and there are some amazing technological developments out there that bring online customer experiences to life. But what can and would REALLY help the sector thrive is two-fold: transparency and education.

We’re operating in very crowded categories and sadly, particularly in the wellness industry, there are so many mediocre products that simply don’t work, and the current system is set up in a way that makes it difficult for those products that do stand out and for the consumer to know what really works. That’s why transparency and education are so important. The more the industry can educate customers so they know what they should be looking for, and the more brands are transparent about the efficacy of their products and their results, the more trust you build in the industry and the more people will trust shopping for these products in a virtual space. In the retail environment this becomes a challenge as all brands strive to offer ‘experiences’ which tend to focus on the superficial and not the efficacy of their products. As consumers begin to demand more information, experiences will have to shift away from the theatrical to the educational.

What is important to building your values with consistency as an online brand?

Consistency is the key word. Everything we do is to make people’s lives better. Unless you’re trusted to actually do that and take people on a journey where they can see and feel results, it’s impossible to build a successful brand – you can’t TELL someone to fall in love with you, you have to SHOW them why they should fall in love with you. Most brands struggle with this concept as their products don’t often live up to the hype, failing to deliver on their promise. Take the menopause for example, this is a time in a woman’s life when things can really start to go wrong. It’s not the time to hope a product can work, you want to know it can work and this is where LYMA really comes into its own. It’s this level of trust and efficacy that runs through LYMA’s DNA, the customer is always at the centre of everything we do and believe in.

Measurement must be a lot easier. What have you discovered from the available data and what has surprised you?

One of the interesting things that comes from data is that there’s too much of it and unless data is contextualised, it’s worthless. True data only has meaning if it can be understood, personalised and put into the context of the lives of each and every one of our customers. We are passionate about learning and spend a lot of time exploring our analytics; it has quickly become the very core of our day-to-day way of working.

What are the next steps for the brand?

We will continue to build trust with our customers, producing the best products in each category we operate in. As we look to 2023 and beyond, our roadmap is focused on delivering more category transcending products that will enrich the lives of everyone LYMA touches. We are super excited about what 2023 has to offer and hope that our customers love our new products as much as we do already. Watch this space.

Have you ever experimented with traditional retail, or will you do so?

Traditional retail is part of any distribution mix, and it is relevant in our development. For us now, we have much more of a partnership strategy, with the likes of Harrods and Goop representing LYMA in the physical space.

How can you reassure in a human way through a very digital format?

Digital formats can look very simple, but the interrelationship of each communication is extremely complex. When managing your online relationships, consistent integration is key. The way in which you communicate and represent yourself as a brand is how you are going to be perceived. Only by balancing each part of this mix, will it result in a cohesive and trusted brand consumer relationship. So, despite our digital world, our concierge is 100% human, and includes some of the best experts (from doctors to nutritionists, to laser scientists) who can assist with some very individual questions. At the end of the day, reassurance is a matter of trust. How much someone is willing to trust you, or a brand, comes down to the way we communicate. If you get this wrong, it can be catastrophic; if you get it right, it’s magical.