How Supplement Brand Owners Are Using AI to Run Sales and Marketing Without Learning a New Tool

Instead of software you have to figure out, I want AI to act like additional sales and marketing hires.

On this page

• Why supplement founders keep stalling on AI for sales and marketing
• What "no new tool to learn" actually means for supplement brand growth
• How AI handles the full sales and marketing surface area of a supplement brand
• The real business case: time and money for supplement founders
• What a typical morning looks like for a supplement founder using LemonLime
• FAQ

Why Supplement Founders Stall on AI for Sales and Marketing {#why-supplement-founders-stall}

By now, many of you will have taken a look at some of the available AI tools, with some of you even having tried them out.

The majority of problems that exist with the use of AI are caused by the AI having been configured to poorly interact with the end user. In most cases, an ‘input a block of text and hope for the best’ type of interface is not adequate for typical users, and for the owner of a supplement brand, it can end up being a second job.

While the Supplement founders have a many ideas for their products, they have insufficient hours in the day to complete all of the required tasks. This includes the formulation of the supplements, as well as ensuring that the labeling is compliant with all relevant regulations. They also conduct Amazon listing audits, and attempt to outreach to wholesale accounts and set up negotiations with influencers. They also create DTC email sequences, and this is not an exhaustive list of tasks that they are required to complete. "Learn to write better prompts" does not fit anywhere in that schedule.

The tool is opened twice, and then nothing.

This is not a failure on my part. It highlights a large gap in what most AI can offer to a small supplement brand.

What "No New Tool to Learn" Actually Means for Supplement Brand Growth {#what-no-new-tool-means}

There are two kinds of AI products being offered in the market.

One kind of AI is like a very capable engine that you then drive around. So you write the prompts, you configure the workflows, you build the templates, and then you check the outputs. This kind of works for a founder with dedicated marketing bandwidth, but not for a founder who is trying to manage all of this while also running the rest of the company. It adds a lot of cognitive load rather than subtracting from it.

Another system is similar to a good hire. You describe your business and desired growth, and then it does the work for you. You review the work it has done for you, approve the sensible things and ignore the rest.

LemonLime Type 2 – The LemonLime for a New Business. All that is required to get started with LemonLime is a business name, a website, current information on sales and marketing priorities. No connection is required to any internal data. LemonLime researches a business, industry information, competitors etc. and then starts to create relevant ready-to-use work, based on current content etc.

Anything that is posted publicly or sent to a prospect will be approved by the founder. This is not a constraint, it is quality control to ensure the brand is speaking in the right voice.

How AI Handles the Full Sales and Marketing Surface Area of a Supplement Brand {#ai-full-surface-area}

What does it actually take to build a distribution channel and a DTC customer base for supplement brands? The surface area for customer growth for supplement brands is unusually wide.

Identify independent retailers, gym chains, health stores in speciality and regional distributors that are purchasing within your category of interest. Find them, decide who you want to approach and create a relevant message that outlines margin and customer profiles. This is sourced, researched and personalized sales work.

B2C: Creating content to promote your brand and to get organic buyers. For example: Blog posts that explain the science behind the formulation of your product. Instagram posts that match your brand and your target group. Reddit threads where real buyers can share their problems and explain how your product can help them. Other types of content. This content has to fit within the format of your TikTok video before you start to optimize it for the algorithm.

LemonLime Evaluates Over 50 Lead Sources, Targeting Methods & Buying Signals for Job Boards, Social Media Activity, Maps, Review Boards, Forums, Funding News and More. For supplement brands, LemonLime Evaluates Over 50 Lead Sources, Targeting Methods & Buying Signals for Job Boards, Social Media Activity, Maps, Review Boards, Forums, Funding News and More. This results in a list of retailers who are expanding their health category of interest, buyers who are displaying relevant purchase intent, and creators who have an audience that matches the product of a supplement brand.

This content can be used for web and blog posts, and as social media posts for LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, and X/Twitter. The content includes text, images, and production instructions for content that requires authentic owned video or photography.

LemonLime determines whether creator partnerships, ambassador programs, giveaways, PR opportunities, podcast appearances, or events are right for the brand. A non-generic (boilerplate) approach is developed based on LemonLime’s continued study of the business and the supplement market at large.

LemonLime has prepared outreach for email, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter and TikTok for the various opportunities in preparation to determine the best channel for each opportunity.

The Real Business Case: Time and Money for Supplement Founders {#real-business-case}

The efficiency argument for AI in marketing is no longer theoretical.

This support is worth hundreds of dollars of support to supplement founders. 13 hours/week of support is the difference between them actively trying to find wholesale opportunities and not. It’s the difference between them posting at consistent times on social media and not, versus at random times, late at night (10 PM etc.).

Salesforce's 2024 global survey of 3,350 SMB leaders found that 91% of small and medium businesses using AI report that it boosts their revenue. This is not a narrow finding and applies to all industries of businesses that have moved from a manual, intermittent sales and marketing process to a more continuous process.

LemonLime costs $999 per month for one company. The product is self-serve and there is no minimum contract. LemonLime is happy to offer a 100% money-back guarantee for any new customer who is not satisfied or does not see clear value. In comparison, a part-time marketing coordinator would cost more and could not run outreach, sourcing, content, and growth strategy simultaneously. A freelance content creator can handle one surface area of the above. A growth agency would add reporting meetings to your calendar.

What a Typical Morning Looks Like for a Supplement Founder Using LemonLime {#typical-morning}

Note that this is a hypothetical scenario and how the system would work in practice.

You wake up at 9:00 AM to an email in your inbox. In the email you are provided with a list of High Potential Retailer Leads that have been set up for you and that have corresponding outreach templates that you can send out. In addition, you are provided with a draft for an Instagram post for your brand account, a short blog article that you can publish, a note with information about a podcast that deals with supplement science and that has an audience that is comprised of your ideal buyer. You also have a prepared pitch that you can use.

After reading through the information over coffee, you can decide on each piece of content whether to send it out straight away, to edit it first, or whether it is even relevant at this point in time and therefore you can just forget about it.

This has already been handled by Sales and Marketing for the day.

Work is generated and then you do whatever you want with it, as opposed to prompt engineering and configuration.

The next morning even more is delivered. Some days the lead sources are prioritized, and other days the content is. Everything is delivered in a highly relevance-filtered way and takes into account everything LemonLime has learned about the business, the competitive environment and the current opportunities.