You’re On FDA’s Radar

Asa Waldstein 0:00

Well, I'll start off by saying if you do market, especially if you market online, you're on FDA's radar. There's no such thing as being too small. If you're on, especially if you're online, you're on FDA's radar.

Tina Maddock 0:12

Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast. I'm your host, Tina Matdock. On this podcast, you'll hear from manufacturers, retail owners, and operators, and other business experts that will help you grow your business so you can serve more people and change more lives. Asa, I'm so excited to have you here. Um, this is your second time on the podcast. And the first time, we did have a lot of people reach out to us and ask us for more information about you because I think the dische topic is always front of mind for retailers and manufacturers alike. Um, and I know that I reached out to you after you presented at Soho. So I'd love for you to give us just a quick overview for any of the audience who wasn't able to make it to Soho and listeners, you definitely should go to Soho next year. They're great speakers, but also you get to mix and mingle with other retailers who give just absolutely great advice. So tell us what you covered during your session.

What Enforcement Trends Reveal

Asa Waldstein 1:17

Yes. So this was a really fun interactive discussion on enforcement trends, looking at warning letters, litigation trends, really as a way to inform compliant marketing. What are retailers, what are brands getting in trouble for? What are those little nuances that they can kind of ramp up or down to still effectively communicate with their customers without inadvertently stepping in hot water? I call them regulatory landmines. And then the second part of that was reviewing technology solutions for regulatory compliance. So we live in a tech world, of course, AI, AI forward world and many of our uh realities. And so I went over different technologies like Apex Compliance, Google's Notebook LM that can help companies understand compliance and make their lives hopefully a little easier.

Tina Maddock 2:04

Yeah, and I know your entire talk is in the Sinpa Circle community. So if anyone is a member of Sinpa or you want to join because you want to hear all of Ace's talk, you can sign up for the Sinpa Circle community. We will have a link in the show notes so that you can hop over there and ask for access to the Soho show information. But I'm so curious about enforcement, especially among independent retailers. Talk to us a little bit about, we've talked a million times about like what is compliant, what's not compliant, and even what enforcement letters say. But I'm curious about enforcement at the independent retail level. How often are you seeing enforcement letters sent out? What happens after that? Is there a response checklist that people should be aware of? And then are there penalties? Like, tell us a little bit more.

Warning Letters Vs Demand Letters

Asa Waldstein 2:57

Sure. Well, I'll start off by saying if you do market, especially if you market online, you're on FDA's radar. There's no such thing as being too small. If you're on, especially if you're online, you're on FDA's radar. So we'll start with warning letters. If a company does get a warning letter, they are not necessarily required, but they certainly should respond to the FDA. Usually they have 15 days, address the citations in the warning letter, the corrective action, that type of thing. So as we look at enforcement trend, it's really kind of FDA, FCC warning letters, and then litigation trends. So on the litigation trends, these usually come in the form of a demand letter. They're not public. It's essentially a, hey, I think you're saying this wrong, and you can settle with me for X number of thousands of dollars, or we might elevate it to a class action type lawsuit. So it's kind of when we look at enforcement trends with some quotes, those are two different angles that I like to I like to look at it through.

Tina Maddock 3:59

Okay, so if someone gets one of these warning letters, are is it a best practice to contact legal advice? What would you recommend?

Asa Waldstein 4:07

Yeah, warning letters do require legal resources. I always suggest reach out to counsel. There's people in my network, your network, that I certainly, you know, we could all refer to that do these things all day, every day. So legal counsel is great. They'll help you properly respond to the warning letter. What you don't want to do is not respond to the warning letter properly, and then it can lead to more warning letters. It could lead to FDA coming and visiting your facility over and over again, I guess, in a very, very serious scenario. It's uncommon, but it's possible it could lead to injunction and that type of thing. Also, warning letters are are public. So you don't you don't want to get them, right? But you definitely don't want to get multiple warning letters. Warning letters are public, so they can alert the class action attorney. So warning letters come out, and a bunch of demand letters and lawsuits follow. It can also, in addition to that, it can help scare away strategic investors. So if your companies are looking to raise capital or exit or whatever it may be, it can really scare away those potential uh strategic alignments.

Tina Maddock 5:11

Yeah. And we've seen whether it's a warning letter or other um lawsuit situations happening, have had the um the fallout from that are the partners get a little wary of doing business or or taking the next step with independent retailers, smaller retailers, this can really um be something that affects partnerships in the community. Um so they it's very serious. Whenever any of these sorts of things start happening, it there's some reputation um that starts to be on the line, which can absolutely affect business and revenue. Um, so if someone doesn't have an attorney for their business yet and um gets into a situation like this, could they reach out to you and your company and say, hey, do you have any recommendations about a lawyer that we could use?

Tracking Trends With A Newsletter

Asa Waldstein 6:06

I'm always happened to happy to open up my network and share all the folks, you know, the kind of greater, greater good. I love warm handoffs. I have a lot of people in my network, I'm sure just like you teamed over the many years we've been doing this that I know are kind of trusted resources, either for nuts and bolts, GMP support, you know, legal resources, attorneys, law firms that can help with these type of things. Yeah, always happy to, always happy to help people point people in the right directions. Feel free to send me an email or a note on LinkedIn. And if I can, I certainly will help.

Tina Maddock 6:39

And you keep people informed of this, um, what's happening with warning letters and what you're seeing and the trends um all the time through a newsletter, right?

Software That Flags Risky Claims

Asa Waldstein 6:48

Yes. I've been writing warning letter Wednesday at warningletterwednesday.com for 223 weeks in a row. Oh my goodness. I'm really, really a geek for enforcement trends. So I write about FTA warning letters, litigation trends, national advertising division cases, and I try to put it in a bite-sized weekly newsletter that anyone, not just regulatory experts, but entry-level people, marketers, executives, whomever. Even my daughter, that's a wildlife ecologist, she could read it and kind of understand, you know, what's going on. And if she was marketing a product, for example, what does she need to know about so she can adjust her marketing and hopefully stay out of trouble?

Tina Maddock 7:30

Yeah, that's amazing. So please do sign up for warning letter Wednesday. Um, but AC, you also have software that can help people with their websites or other marketing materials that they can plug in and it can identify some issues going on.

Asa Waldstein 7:44

Yes, I invented a product called Apex Compliance at apexcomplianceprogram.com. And initially I built a tool, an internal software software tool for my consulting practice to find trigger words that can lead to warning letters and lawsuits on websites. So I went looking for this technology that could I could just pop in the all these hundreds of words I have in my database, and it can give me a report of where these words are, the risk rating, low risk alternatives, that type of thing. There wasn't one out there, so I built one. I built it internally for my own consulting world. And then word got out, and I kind of had this light bulb moment. Oh my goodness, I'm onto something. So spun that out into its own company, hired really smart programmers and designers to build this out, launched about 27 months ago. So Apex Compliance has evolved quite a bit and it's still evolving. So it can identify risky trigger words on websites, on YouTube channels, on social media, it can go through every Instagram and Facebook account account, YouTube, Amazon, and then all the pre-published content. So it kind of works as a smart regulatory assistant that can kind of help you make decisions, especially if you're going through large amounts of data, all the stuff that's already out there. Because in the eyes of the FDA, even a multi-year-old post, a blog post, a social media post, it's considered active marketing. So it kind of gives you peace of mind with all those things that are out there, potentially keeping you up at night, and then streamlines that content review going forward. And it keeps getting better and better and better. I'm so so excited about this program.

Tina Maddock 9:19

Well, also, one of the things I loved about it was when you put the content in there, um, of course, you don't have to change anything. It's helping you make decisions and just sort of highlighting what could be a problem. But then it also gives you alternatives. Like you could rephrase it this way. So you don't have to think very hard about changing the content. It makes it really easy.

Asa Waldstein 9:42

Yeah, of course, everyone should have data to back up their claims, be truthful, not misleading, but it does help you with at least creativity, if nothing else. So it can flag a word like anti-inflammatory, give it it attributes it a risk rating. The program comes preloaded with possible suggestions. Again, we don't know if companies have data to back up, but it can kind of give them ideas. And then if we have these, this really strong, robust engine that's trained on compliance principles, my knowledge, and so much more that can kind of say, hey, I see that you're using this word in this context. I think that that's a risk level here. But here are some other ways to reword that entire sentence in that paragraph. So it's kind of really smart AI to help help guide people along the way wherever they are in the regulatory, where whatever type of regulatory aptitude they have.

Tina Maddock 10:33

Yeah. So that was one reason I really appreciated it, because you don't have to think so hard whenever you're trying to make changes to these things that could be problematic.

Asa Waldstein 10:43

Yes. And I will say also that we've we've built this new kind of Apex 2.0 smart regulatory chatbot, which will be out in the next month or a couple months or so. We built it for all levels of knowledge. So if someone's an entry-level retailer that doesn't know or maybe didn't worry too much about compliance, it can help you identify the things you might not know. So it'll you can put in your website and it'll basically say, you know, I know you didn't necessarily search for this, but here's some things you might want to look at. So it helps really bring things to the surface, and then you can chat with the program to help make educated decisions. So yeah, technology is amazing and it keeps getting better and better.

Tina Maddock 11:26

Yeah. Um, so that's so fun. And also just knowing that if you have a SINPA membership, there are um opportunities to save a little bit of money on the software uh with ACE. So hop into that SINPA community again and um play things like ACE software are being shared between retailers because again, that network and community help us all do better and find better ways to do business. So I'm excited that you're part of that.

Asa Waldstein 11:56

Thank you. And I did also sorry, I did also want to share that it's actually a really, really good discount. I understand, you know, independent retailers or startups. You know, it's it's it's hard, right? We're all very budget conscious. So we have a special, special arrangement in alignment with Sendpa because we just love the the partnership so much where we offer great discounts for Sendpa members and partners as well, too. So I just wanted to double highlight that there's some great deals out there if you are a member or a partner.

Clinical Studies And Ingredient Landmines

Tina Maddock 12:28

Yeah, definitely take advantage of that. And I didn't mean for this to become sort of an infomercial, but I just think it's people are always having so many questions about am I compliant or not? And and either using your software or um having some consultations with you or even listening to this podcast is very helpful for them to just become aware of things that could be triggers and what those what the ramifications are before they get into a warnings letter situation. Um, so there's a lot of ways to help you become educated and more compliant at the same time. Um so let's hop into a little bit more of the education part of it, where it's, you know, you and I were talking the other day, and you mentioned that retailers were coming up to ask you about everyday scenarios and whether or not they're compliant. And I'm just curious, like, what were the things that people kept presenting you with? Like, is this okay? Is this okay?

Asa Waldstein 13:25

Yeah, it oftentimes has to do with discussing clinical data or talking about their ingredients. Hey, guess what, Asa? We've got there is research on Oshwagand and depression. Why can't I say that on my website? Excuse me. So it's a lot of kind of re-education of what where the regulatory line is and the FDA structure. So to kind of break it down a little further with FDA, even if you have all the clinical data in the world, you're still not allowed to make disease claims about your products. And someone may say, well, what about if if it's an ingredient blog? And then I would counter with this happens all the time, with, well, it's on your website, and the agency would think that you're using this ingredient blog to sell products, especially if you're crosslinking, hyperlinking. If the closer it is to the shopping cart, the more likely it is to be scrutinized. But let's say that there's a product that has oshwagandha in it that you sell on your website, and you have a blog about oshwagandha and depression. Even if there's no crosslinking or hyperlinking, that is enough to attract a warning letter. So it's kind of we're allowed to discuss science, but where's that line between we're citing a URL or we're really actively using this to sell a product? So it's a lot of times it's the clinical data and discussing ingredients. Well, I'm just discussing my ingredients. I'm not saying that my product does this. Same thing, right? If we're talking about an ingredient, a constituent, an ingredient, if we sell it in any product, that um that's certainly enough to tip the scale based on enforcement trends. It always wasn't like that. So there's this one, but I can certainly keep going.

The Myth Of The Two-Click Rule

Tina Maddock 15:05

Yeah, we will. I want to dig into that one just a little bit more because um this comes from um part of the Deche um regulations around, and and people have talked about this before. Like you can have a book somewhere, but it can't be right next to the product. So this feels like that is very much in that same vein. Like you can't have this right next to selling the product. And this digital world just makes it a little bit more difficult because this was not envisioned at the time of D She creation, right?

Storefront Marketing Still Counts

Asa Waldstein 15:37

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It's the kind of reading, reading room discussion. But in this digital world, everything's so connected. So sometimes people say, Yeah, but I'm a two-click rule away. The the two-click rule is kind of like the Sasquatch. It's this urban myth that doesn't really it it does, it's not true. I mean, farther away from the the shopping car you are, the better. But two clicks doesn't protect you unless it's off on another website that that you can't control. So I like to kind of run everything through the through the gut feeling, you know, that it does this feel like I'm marketing this product. What would a reasonable consumer think? So let's say I've got a blog and I'm talking about best practices for winter wellness. Maybe I'm talking about meditation, I'm talking about acupuncture, maybe I'm talking about meditation can help with anxiety. Now that's fine, but where it certainly crosses the line is where we bring the commercial speech into it. Are we talking about ingredients or products that we sell? Sometimes I'll see companies that just for SEO purposes have a lot of blogs or information on their website that include disease words and these trigger words, as I call them, but it's not about anything they sell. It might be about ashwagata, but they don't sell ashwagata. That's kind of like okay, right? It's they're not, there's not, they're not getting that commercial bridge or that commercial benefit for it. So there's kind of an another uh you know possible idea that some people do.

Tina Maddock 17:03

Yeah, it's also um interesting because I I think there are many people who don't have an e-commerce website. So talk to us about that. They do have a storefront, it might sell those products. Is that enough space or is that still right in the line that's too close?

Asa Waldstein 17:22

Well, the more public something is, the more the wider net it casts, and so the wider the wider net for for scrutiny happens. So if you if some company has a web a website, social media, even if they only have an Instagram page or whatever it may be, that is kind of out there. Now let's say they have no online presence at all for whatever reason, I'm not sure why, but if they if they do, and and I found this as we we discussed before, I found this with some of the the retailers at this at the So Expo at the SENPA show. If you're not selling online, you're you're less likely to be noticed. But of course, all marketing should be compliant. So if a I'm just gonna run through a scenario. Let's say a retailer doesn't have an online presence at all, but then in their store they've got shelf talkers and signs that say we'll stick with ashwagandha, ashwagandha for depression, turmeric turmeric and curcumanoids for arthritis. Now, someone would actually have to come in that store, an agency or an attorney to s to see that. So maybe if you're remote in a middle some small town somewhere, that's less likely to happen. Now, where I've seen companies get into trouble, this happens also with farmers' markets too, is if someone then posts a picture. Hey, you know, I was at the store today and I saw this thing. If that goes, if they then post something, then that goes into the World Wide Web and then it's the algorithms and stuff can pick on it, pick up on it.

Tina Maddock 18:59

Then it's very public.

unknown 19:01

Yeah.

Google Reviews And The Reply Trap

Tina Maddock 19:01

Um, okay, so one of the things that we had talked about was how surprised you were that so many of the smaller retailers don't have an online presence, which it just that is surprising, um, especially if it's just a one-location store. I can only attribute that if they're thriving and doing well, to like an amazing investment and community, like showing up everywhere in their community and offering like um community events at their place that continues or they've got an amazing referral engine that just keeps driving people to their store. Um and I would also suggest that even if you do nothing else, that you get a Google Business profile. Because when someone searches online on their maps, when they're looking to buy a product or a type of product, they might look up supplements or vitamin store or natural food store, and you showing up on that map at that time with some decent number of reviews and a pretty high review level makes a huge difference. You're gonna pull in people that just never noticed you before. Um, so I would highly encourage that. But doing that and getting reviews could have us stepping in some compliance issues. So talk to us a little bit about that.

Asa Waldstein 20:31

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I love doing these discussions because I always learn so much from experts like you, Tina. So thank you again for sharing that. So let's say there is a what's it called again?

Tina Maddock 20:42

The Google Google Business, yeah.

Asa Waldstein 20:44

Okay, Google Business. Let's say that Google Business Count sounds like a no-brainer, even if companies don't want to do an online presence, and there's reviews on there. Of course, those are third-party reviews. So company, if they didn't if they're not nefarious, meaning they don't have their cousins or uncles or spouses writing reviews that are fake for them, or they're not compensating you know, people with free product to write reviews, fake write favorable reviews. Let's say the reviews truly are third party, non-curated, non-compensated, company you know can't control them. So where where companies can potentially step in hot water? And I don't know if on Google Business Reviews, if the company can then engage with those. Yes. Oh, okay. So this is a good one. This is a this is a landmine to stay away up, stay away from. So if someone wrote, hey, this product worked great for my arthritis and my depression, if you leave it alone, especially if it's on this third party widget, the Google reviews, business reviews, that type of thing, it's kind of this gray area, essentially not responsible. But if you as a company then say thanks, hey Tina, thank you so much for that review, it lets the agencies, the authorities know, hey, I've noticed that. And it's considered endorsing the testimonial, and therefore you've adopted. It as your marketing. So if you fight the urge to comment these claims, that's probably a good, a good entry-level strategy.

Tina Maddock 22:09

Yeah, and just to for everyone to be aware of how that sort of works from a marketing perspective, if you don't respond to every review, Google sort of downgrades that review and your account from showing up in search. And um, so the best practice that's out there from any marketing firm, and maybe if they're not in this business, they won't realize that this is kind of an issue, would be you always respond to every review. And ASA is saying don't always respond automatically to every review. Take a minute and think about it, which also means that many people are hiring um interns or you know, people who are just not as educated in this business to respond on their behalf to Google reviews just to continue that interaction so that they always show up in search, which normally would be a best practice. So a little bit of education can go a long way for that team or that person or whoever might be interacting as you on the Google Business profile, Facebook, any of these other Yelp, any of these other platforms that will offer the ability to have a review and a two-way discussion between you and the person. So a little bit of education would be wise just to talk through, like if there are any of these warning phrases, then maybe you just step back from engaging, even though normally that would be a best practice.

Asa Waldstein 23:41

Yeah, it's super it's super counterintuitive, especially if people are coming from other industries, essentially any other industry. Attack apparel, it's engage, engage, engage. Finding or true to engage publicly is a good idea. And also I love your point about making sure that your social teams trained in compliance. You know, there are the first and the last protectors of your compliance. So oftentimes companies overlook bringing them into the fold with training interns or whatever. But yeah, it's it's really, really important. It doesn't have to be complicated. I mean, literally listening to this podcast will get you a lot of a lot of the way there and what not to do. But it is interesting to hear about how Google Business might downgrade you if you don't engage with with with everyone. So, you know, being smart about your engagement, I think is a really important idea. I mean, maybe most of the reviews are are just fine. Hey, I love this. Everyone's so friendly. When I walk in the store, this lady named Tina smiles at me. Okay, sweet, that's great. But then walk into the store and I cured my arthritis. Right. You want to certainly stay away from that one if you can.

Tina Maddock 24:55

Yeah, for sure. And if um, I do think we had two podcasts last season that would be very helpful for anyone who's working on your behalf. And just remember that if um someone is interacting as you online, that means that you are legally responsible for what they're saying and doing. And we've seen plenty of cunt companies like just totally lose reputation over what someone as an agent is working on their behalf and and posting things online. So making sure you're monitoring that, approving it, or keeping a close eye on it, making sure that people are trained is really important. Whether it's your values or, hey, compliance legally, you are um it's your liability that's at risk here. Um, but there's two podcasts from the previous season, and one was we went through with several people who actually helped write the Dé legislation and talked about what it was like, how how Dé even came about to begin with. And then we talked to some people who were younger in the industry and what that looks like right now. So that's a really good podcast that I think everyone could see will link to it in the notes. And then um, Asa, you were on the program last season as well. And we went through a lot of scenarios of what about this? Would this work? Could we do this instead? And so just listening to a couple of podcasts could get you a long way.

Asa Waldstein 26:26

Absolutely. Yeah, good reminder. Well, I'm gonna look for that other podcast because that sounds really good. You could tell that I was getting excited, like, oh, this is just this is what I love to listen to when I'm driving or at the gym and or going for bike rides and that type of thing. So, yeah, I'm excited to certainly check that one out as well.

Review Widgets And Hidden Carousels

Tina Maddock 26:43

I will shoot you a link as soon as we're done recording this so you can listen, take a listen. Um, okay, take us through some more scenarios. We've named a couple.

Asa Waldstein 26:53

Yeah, I mean, we touched on product product reviews, but I'll go a little deeper on that. So if you have a review widget on your website, trustpilot, yappo, that type of thing, it's pulling in these reviews. Agencies are kind of hands-off as long as they do look like they're third party. They're not curated, they're not on a, you know, acewaltstein.com slash reviews are not curated on a special type of URL. So if they're third party, they're coming in, they're non-curated, non-compensated, all those other type of things, agencies are generally hands-off. But then even on the on our website, just like with the Google Business Reviews, don't engage with the disease ones because there's several warning, there's at least a few warning letters where they set a precedent for you're engaging with the product review, so you're endorsing it as a testimonial to flip that to social media. Same thing on a social wall. You could see this trend here. Someone writes something on your social wall, it's this kind of gray area. Maybe you want to leave it alone, maybe you want to delete it. But if you do decide to leave it up, don't engage with the ones with disease claims. That includes liking, smiley face emojiing, saying thanks. I was actually looking at a website yesterday that was a programmatic type website where the reviews were coming in, but then so coming in through the third-party widget, kind of you know, kind of okay-ish. But then part of the programmatic was they're also posting to a carousel. So they're basically showcasing them. And I did a review and I said, Hey, do you know this? There's literally like cancers and Alzheimer's claims just in a banner. Now, anything in a banner, it's without a doubt. It's marketing, it's labeling. This person didn't even know that the reviews were coming in third party and then populating, probably against his knowledge, to these banners. That'd be that's a fun example of wow, this can get you in a lot of trouble. It's not there's no malintent there, but you know, based on enforcement trends, you'd want to see.

Tina Maddock 28:51

Yeah, man, there's so many plugins that you can use that just pull and you can write some parameters around it. But um, and there are a few softwares that will even say let you have flag specific words. Um, and usually that's been based on obscenities, but now, you know, for this, you can also um pop in like specific disease claims that you're like, don't allow these. But even then, it's hard to catch everything before it gets posted because it's immediate. So every 15 minutes or whatever, the plugins pull in that um review onto your website. And truly, anyone who's listening to this, you only need three or four reviews on your website itself to help people convert into clients. Okay. Where the number of reviews become really important are on the platforms themselves. So, like on Google Business, if you've got a five-star rating and you only have three or four people who have reviewed you, that's seeing just trust from the customer that it's not that trustworthy. It's not enough people. So you want quantity there, and you just want some quality quotes that you pull in very specifically, you curate them onto your website. And you will not have any negative um ramifications if you don't have those things feeding into your website. So I think for this industry, that's the safest bet is don't do those automations.

Asa Waldstein 30:19

I'm learning so much. This is really helpful. Thank you.

Tina Maddock 30:22

Yeah, absolutely. All right, we've talked about reviews. Um, so what else? Are were there any other scenarios that were kind of coming up at Soho with people poking you like, hey, what if I do this?

Asa Waldstein 30:34

Talked about reviews, talked about clinical study citations and and references. A lot was in the we've lightly touched on it in the ingredients. So if they're talking about their ingredients, if they sell them in their product, it's you know, ashwagata, this and this and this, and turmeric this and this and this, vitamin C for this and this and this, even if it's not labeling, it's not on, you know, it's not on the label, it's not on the product page, it's still considered marketing. There's a lot of companies that have been building lots of content for many years, and maybe they know more about compliance than they used to, or they bought a company from someone else, or they inherited it. I mean, that's really common, especially in the the Soho community. They're they're multi-generational stores. So they what was compliant in five years ago in someone else's mind might not be compliant now because we've taken a bite of the forbidden fruit. We know we can't make disease claims. So the kind of hey, I didn't know that was on my website. I got that a lot, which is wait, am I responsible if this is 10 years old and I didn't even know it was there and I bought the the store or the website? Yeah, the answer is you're certainly responsible. And oftentimes I'll see these that's mostly blogs, but it could be product pages or what the science section or discussion where there's these blogs that are really pushing it hard. And I don't really see the the reason for when we're not supposed to do that, but it's not worth the squeeze. If we kind of look dig down, and I'm sure you do this with clients, what's the analytics? What's the metrics on that? Yeah, is this blog converting? Because definitely if it's not converting or no one's visiting it, there's no point in being there. If it is converting, then just clean it up and make it a little more compliant. So kind of being smart about the metrics and the analytics, that that was a discussion that came up quite a bit too.

Cleaning Up Old Content For SEO

Tina Maddock 32:36

Yeah, and most of the time you don't even have to look for the metrics because if they're old, old articles, a couple of things are happening. They're probably not being served up anywhere in organic search anymore because it's just too old. Like five minutes from now, we're gonna have new slang from the young people coming out. That's why these TikToks get shared all the time of like, here's the new language to use. And recency is really important to all the search engines and to AI. AI is becoming a huge part of search right now. And so recency does matter. Um, and I know some people, and the way we used to do it, quantity was a big part of showing up in search, but now it's organization. Do I have a quantity of things talking about a specific topic? And is it organized well that as a user, I can look at a specific topic and there's a clear path for me to get from one question that I have to another. So it's a great idea to look at those old blogs, even two years ago, is likely not going to be your best content that's serving you well. And the minute that you hit update to that, which is usually very easy as a blog post, and all you need to do for the next year, especially if you've got 10 years worth of content, is go in there every week, every couple of days, and update an old blog post to be more organized and to be updated with the new um with the new understanding of compliance. And you're gonna start showing up in more search results, including AI links.

Asa Waldstein 34:17

Oh wow. Okay. I I really love that. So if there was a timestamp or a date on something like that, would they update the the date, you know, re re-reviewed on this date type of thing?

Tina Maddock 34:28

Does that yes, it does say updated as of X date.

Asa Waldstein 34:34

I love it. Yeah, how do we get the the AI search quote search engines to find us? I mean, that's I'm sure you're asked that all the time.

Tina Maddock 34:42

Yeah, and I mean, the big piece from an SEO perspective, that's how it's shifting the most, is that AI is now responding, but not just that. I don't know if you've noticed in Google now, there's a tab that says interact with AI about this topic. So they are not even looking at anything lower down the page any longer. They might see you quoted as a resource, but very few are now linking, clicking through. The clicks are going way down, the impressions are still there. Um, so showing up in the AI piece as a ranked source, um, what it takes to do that is again creating these hub pages that help give your user a path on the journey to finding out about this topic. So even if it's about something like vitamin B or vitamin D, if there are certain pieces where you can answer some questions and follow the user along their journey and have hyperlinks at the very top, you're more likely to show up as a resource for AI. And people might click through in that than um in the old days where you could just publish a bunch of blog articles and you start showing up for different keywords, it's just not the way it works anymore. Organization is king.

Differentiation Without Risky Claims

Asa Waldstein 35:58

That's so fascinating. And yeah, like I said, I love learning. This is so great. I'm learning, learning so much. And so it sounds like if if people, if I could just ask you a question, if yeah, sure. What what type of folks do you like to work with? And what what type of problems are you seeing that you're helping you're helping people solve?

Tina Maddock 36:19

Yeah, so I think the biggest problems that we're helping people solve are they didn't get into this business to market. They got into this business to help serve people, and they've tried this. They're they they're kind of throwing spaghetti up against a wall to see what sticks. And I will tell you that sometimes they're doing the exact right things, but just maybe there are tweaks around how you fix the way that they're doing them that end up making a difference because they'll be like, I tried social media, it didn't work. I tried emails, it didn't work. And so we come in and do a review of the entire store, including the inventory that you have and looking at different margins of products in your store layout. Um, if you're doing functional versus brands, um, and just, I mean, Asa, you wouldn't believe how many times we're like, you just have to clean up the store because when people walk in and things are a mess, or they look a little grungy, or maybe the lighting, like there's some light bulbs out that haven't been changed in a little bit, that communicates something, a lack of care, a lack of cleanliness. And we're dealing with people who really care about their bodies. This is that kind of industry. So the minute that you show up as a little bit too messy or grungy or something that's not exactly clean online in your store anyway, um, then that's gonna be a problem for conversion or for you know, people coming back again and again. Um, so we do little tweaks and we review things like, hey, do you have enough Google reviews? Is it high enough? Are you 4.3 when down the road someone's a 4.7 and they've got 500 reviews and you've got 24? There's just there are little things that when we're looking at how do you show up online, doesn't match your values and vision. Are you standing out the way that um customers actually experience you? Because there are a lot of people that just don't communicate their differentiation, whether it's consultation or they have products that no one else will have, or we give back to the community and we're always here and we're local. There are so many ways to stand out that um I think working in the store kind of blinds you to what's so special about you.

Asa Waldstein 38:40

Yeah, it sounds like just a really professional experience, fresh set of eyes. Yeah. That also comes with candid feedback. And so that's really hard to find because you ask your friends or you get feedback, what do you think about this? Not that many people are gonna give you the best helpful advice. So it sounds like you're able to come in to be that new, new fresh eyes. You're seeing things that you know, if someone walked into my house right now, they'd see things that I'm just I they've been here for years, so I don't think about them. So that's just kind of human nature. And I can also tell that you keep a very clean and organized kitchen, which you also care about your food and health and all that other type of stuff. I'm just having fun with you. It looks beautiful in the background.

Tina Maddock 39:30

Yeah, thank you. Um, but that's right. I mean, I I think when you show up a certain way, whether it's in person or online, you're communicating a lot, right? So if there's a if there are smiling people, there's so many websites we go to where they don't even have people. It's just like products. And that's fine if products are your key differentiation. But I'm gonna bet if I look at your reviews, people are talking about the friendly people that they talk to, how someone helped them when no one else would, and um all the community pieces, and that this is a place where you have an experience and no, it's not showing up on your website or your digital footprint. So recreating that online, just like you have it in the store. And and we can look very quickly at 14 different ways that you're communicating with people. And so where are some gaps where it's like, hey, this is who you are, but here's where it's not showing up online. And then the other thing we just love to do is connect people with tools and resources that they can use themselves, whether or not they work with us. So this podcast is one way that we do that for sure. But also, as people are getting more into AI and other marketing tools where they have some team that's interested in marketing in the store, it's really fun for us to help direct that experience so that they get tools faster, they find things cheaper, they find things that are very um for this particular niche versus um using something that's more generic and gives them best practices that maybe wouldn't work here. Um, so we enjoy all of the above.

Asa Waldstein 41:08

I love that. And one thing that that jumped out at me while you were saying that, thank you for sharing that expertise. That's really, really helpful to me and I think to a lot of the listeners, is sometimes people will say, Well, everyone, all the other brands are making cle disease claims or pushing claims. And they kind of it kind of creates this false mentality or narrative that, well, in order to keep up and I need to make disease claims, I need to kind of keep pushing it. They're doing it, they seem to be doing good, I need to do it too. So what I heard from you is there's so many things you could do that don't even involve the compliance, you know, aspect of it. That's an important piece, but you know, enter, you know, stating your your mission, communicating with it. I mean, that's just so fascinating to me. Side story, I live near Boulder, Colorado, went hiking yesterday, came back, got some dumplings in Boulder, and I love these dumplings, but the surface and the experience there is so bad, like just so bad, and they just don't care at all. That for me, even though I'm a regulatory person, I'm really I'm truly a marketer at heart. I came back and I brought the dumplings to my daughter. I'm like, man, this is just really annoying. They're they're almost there, but they they could go good to grade with just like some human kindness, really.

Tina Maddock 42:32

The right people in the right place. And just speaking of human kindness, I think we're all craving that right now, even though all the buzz is about AI, AI, um, or you know, like automation tools. I think people are craving like authentic experiences and connection with other people. And one of the reasons I know this to be true is when we have um just I am a huge data person, so I'm a little I nerd out a little bit on these things, but we do test in all the time because when people spend money on marketing, it's usually a large investment. No matter how much it is, it's usually a large investment for them. And um, they're hoping to get a return on that investment. And so we're trying to find okay, what's the easiest, fastest way? So we recently did a test with ads where it's like, hey, fill out this form and we'll help you, or B, call this phone number and we'll help you. And the phone number outperformed the form. Whoa.

Asa Waldstein 43:38

Wow.

Tina Maddock 43:40

Yeah, which turned into because of the consultative conversations, it turned into really big conversions on purchases. So it turned into money, and the money difference was big between a form and that. And so that just felt like, oh my gosh, we have perhaps. Overautomated our experience, and people are craving the ability to talk to a real human, engage with a real person, and have some kind of connection with another human being. So I think that is a differentiation for this whole industry all by itself because you can buy a lot of these products on Amazon, but nobody's going to talk to you about it. No one's going to say, hey, and how are you doing? And did that work for you as a follow-up? Um, this industry is really great at that, creating those connections and experiences for people. Huge differentiator.

Asa Waldstein 44:36

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. It's a really great reminder. One thing I love doing is personalized videos. So it might be through a Loom video or I've got a fun background or whatever in mind where I might say, hey, Tina, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I learned a lot. It's like a 20-second embedded video in an email. And that goes a really long way. So especially as part of the biz devs cycle, if I'm going, if I'm a company and I get lots of emails and I see one with a someone's smiling face saying, Hey Bob, thank you so much for your time today, or I've got some opportunity, that's going to help, you know, kick you to the top, not only for business, but you know, job interviews and and all the other things that go along. But it's really just kind of you know honest, true communication. I think you're right. We're we are kind of craving that.

Tina Maddock 45:30

Yeah, and just a quick tip for that. If you use the words sound on in your subject line, people are more likely to open it because they realize there's a video or you're talking to them in the email. And that's just a little tip from Instagram. You know, when when there are those reels that are coming through, or you put music behind a photo montage, people don't realize that there's um something to listen to unless you have something like sound on, and it's just a prompt for people to be like, oh, there's an interaction here that I might want to participate in.

Asa Waldstein 46:03

I I love it. My daughter, as I mentioned, is a beaver ecologist, master's student in Boulder. She has her Instagram page, Save the Beavers, where she does a lot of these. Hey, check out this beaver habitat and restoration. So I'm gonna give her the sound on advice and we'll see how her page does.

Tina Maddock 46:19

Yeah, let me know. I've always loved data, so let me know how it works.

Where To Follow And Contact Asa

Asa Waldstein 46:25

Sounds good.

Tina Maddock 46:26

Okay, so any um, I know we're gonna have links to all of your um Wednesday newsletter and the your compliance tools. Um, anything else you want to mention where people can get in touch with you?

Asa Waldstein 46:40

I think that the warning letter Wednesday is a great way to stay apprised of the enforcement trends. You can always contact me through there. You'll have a link for Apex Compliance. I I think that's good, other than I am a fanatic on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. I like to share interesting business things, videos. You know, I like traveling a lot. So when I was in Laos a few months ago, I recorded a video as I was floating on the Mekong Delta about label compliance. So I post a lot of stuff like that on LinkedIn. And that's just my name, Asa Waldstein, on LinkedIn too.

Tina Maddock 47:17

Yeah, definitely hop in there and follow. And I know Asa does respond if people have questions to his videos on there. So very interactive for you. Uh so definitely do that. Use all the links in the show notes today. And we're just so thankful that both Asa, you've uh agreed to join us and share your wisdom with us today, and also that you um listeners have decided to spend a little time with us. Appreciate you for everything, and we will see you the next time. Bye-bye.

Listener Questions And Reviews

Asa Waldstein 47:47

Bye.

Tina Maddock 47:48

Thank you so much for joining us for the latest episode of the Natural Products Marketer podcast, where we're here to help you grow your business so you can serve more people and change more lives. If you have any questions that have come up during this episode or others, or there's just a retail challenge that you're facing today, I would love for you to reach out to us at info at naturalproductsmarketer.com. We're here to answer questions. But most of all, if you have a question, then another retailer probably also has that question. So we can bring experts onto the podcast to give you the information that you really need. And if you liked what you heard, give us a thumbs up or give us a review on uh YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening today. All right, it was great to see you.