Health & Wellness // ecommerce

Global Director of DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

CHALLENGE

Nature’s Sunshine Products, Inc. is a leading natural health and wellness company engaged in the manufacturing and sale of nutritional and personal care products. NSP is a public company (NASDAQ: NATR) with annual revenues of approximately $340 million. The US market had been declining steadily for over 20 years with consistent YoY losses.

approach

I lead Global Digital Transformation efforts for Nature’s Sunshine, focusing on Brand and Customer Experience throughout all customer-facing touch-points. I work with OBU Heads and cross-functional teams in the US, CA, LATAM, APAC & EUROPE. These efforts include eCommerce Platforms, Mobile Apps, CS Portals, and POS/3PL systems.

Agile, Scrum, Hoshin, RACI, KANBAN
Introduction of proven GTM Frameworks, New Product, Promotions, and MarCom with impressive results
Resolved issues with Marketing Communication to align with best practices with sweeping KPI improvements
Digital Transformation with a focus on Brand Experience and User Experience delivering historical results

RESULTS

Best Quarter in 50 years.

“Nature’s Sunshine notched its best quarter ever as it reported its 2020 year-end final results. Nature’s Sunshine CEO Terrence Morehead attributed the company’s strong performance to a transformation of the company’s e-commerce platforms, which was completed in the second and third quarters. With it, the company rolled out a new subscribe and save program that has proven popular with customers. After just a few months, Subscribe & Thrive already represents about 25% of our monthly orders, and we continue to see steady growth in the number of people joining the program each month…” full article.

11%

Q4 YoY Revenue Growth

5y

Stock Price 5 Year High

$385M

2020 Revenue

THE WORK

STRATEGY

Started with a strategic deep dive with our North America leadership team and began to recruit a team to aid in the evaluation, strategic and execution phases of the North America turn-around digital transformation.

Order From Chaos

Agile, Scrum, Hoshin, RACI, MBO, and Kanban.
Go-To-Market Frameworks: New Markets, Products, Promotions, etc.
Cross functional alignment and execution.
Data driven decision making through the development of user feedback and quantitative over anecdotal and qualitative analysis.

Collagen
Product re-Launch

Problem: Nature’s Sunshine Product Launches had suffered from low performance at launch with little attention to ongoing product category portfolio management. With the relaunch of Collagen we needed to make a greater impact.

Approach: Market primary and secondary research provided valuable insights to inform product messaging, positioning and brand packaging and visual representation. With the adaptation of proven GTM Product Launch Frameworks working cross-functionally with teams we completed the execution of strategy in the development of campaign assets, web experience and ongoing product marketing.

Results: 100%+ unit sales over forcast. We more than doubled the forecasted growth for this product launch and it is now among top selling products over a year later.

MARCOM TRANSFORMATION

Problem: Over-Communication (Spamming) the customer base had resulted in drastically lower audience engagement (Open Rates, Click Through Rates, etc.)

Approach: We started by comparing current methods against best practices and noticed a considerable gap relating the the number of sends most users receiving well over 50 communications per month. We shifted communications down by 70% and increased the quality of email and text communications. Additionally further segmentation based on personas and the introduction of marketing automation resulted in more targeted and timely communication.

Results: Unsubscribe Rate reduced by 50%, Open Rate increased by 200%, and Click Through Rate increased by 150%.

Promotions Transformation

Problem: Promotions were unprofitable and out of control with frequency and price point completely destroying profitability and ruining brand perceived value.

Approach: Evaluate promotions model and develop a plan that takes into account product category portfolio management and seasonal opportunity. Adaption of proven promotional frameworks provided the structure to realize NSP’s opportunity.

Results: Considerable impact to profitability and revenue with results that had eluded NSP for over 20 years.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

I different approach to Digital Transformation, combining Technology with Brand & Customer Experience—utilizing a new hybrid of design thinking “business transformation by design”.

Empathize // Discover

UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE

We utilized the following to understand the current buyers journey and gain clarity on all existing brand touch-points; Brand Analysis, Digital Capabilities Testing, Primary and Secondary Research, User, User Experience Scoring, Consumer Segmentation and Persona Development, Tech Stack Assessment, Content Assessment and User and Buyer Sentiment Analysis.

The information produced a seismic shift in widely held misinformed beliefs regarding—the the target audience and what motivates them. It also identified a considerable brand gap in the perception of the brand by consumers and the desired perception of the brand at the executive level.

define // THE GOAL

DEFINE THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE

Breakthrough disruption requires clarity, priority and definitive direction. User segmentation and persona development, competitive analysis and SWAT among other tools provided clarity around user pain points and the priority mapping of challenges to highest impact on profitability and revenue.

Renew the Brand
600+ Products — Easy Navigation, Health Topic & Concerns Contextually Displayed.
Make NSP easy to share with a new customer affiliate program and tools.
Improve Subscription Model and Adapt for Consumer Acceptance
Implement Ecommerce best practices.
Content Marketing and Marketing Automation to enhance every brand touchpoint.

IDEATE // SOLUTIONS

COLLABORATION & EXPLORATION

With clear definition of problems to be solved, the team worked to chose the MarTech Stack, UX/UI Design, User Stories, Ideal Buyers Journey Mapping, Concept Development, Customer Experience Design and more.

Ideal Buyer’s Journey
New Brand Guidelines
Contextual Search w/ Health Topic & Concern Filtering
Subscribe & Thrive as Default
Share NSP from each product page directly to social channels and get paid if someone purchased through your link in product credit or cash.

Prototype // Visualize

SHARE VISUAL IDEATION FOR COLLABORATION AND FEEDBACK

High fidelity wireframes and functional testing including pilot programs and both internal and external communications to drive awareness, adoption and acceptance testing.

User Testing
Pilot Program
Communications Planning
Stakeholder Acceptance Testing

TEST // FIRST ITERATION

MAKING UP FOR 10 YEARS OF DELAYED TRANSITION

Transitioning from monolithic to micro-services and from on-premises to cloud-native all one giant leap forward. This effort included a completely custom CS solution along with LATAM point of sale and micro-3PL platforms along with multiple Ecommerce sites spanning US, CA & LATAM. The work of cross-functional teams and agency partners all to deliver the first iteration and completely transform the business.

Ongoing User Testing
Rapid Iteration and Resolution
Internal and External Communications

ONgoing Business Transformation

RESULTS AND DRIVING CONTINUED BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Significant improvement in almost every consumer metric from legacy to current —leave little doubt as to the success of the teams efforts in transforming NSP’s business. Subscribe and Thrive already represents about 25% of NSPs monthly orders, and we continue to see steady growth.

Ongoing UserTesting
Conversion Rate Optimization
Customer Retention Optimization
A/B Testing
Ongoing Innovation & Optimization

Qemp // Launch

Powered by Nature’s Sunshine, qemp is the first CBD brand to develop Full Spectrum + CBD designed to deliver optimal levels of every phytocannabinoid to maximize performance. Architect of Go-To-Market strategy and business opportunity—including 360° integrated marketing plan, development of brand strategy, messaging, positioning, identity, website and launch assets.

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