I’m a research chemist with a company that manufactures dietary supplements based on tonic herbs from China. Tonic herbs are not “sexy”, from a marketing perspective. I can tell you that our little business is not nearly as lucrative as it could be if we sold, say, diet pills.

Instead, our focus is on providing nutrients and compounds that are typically lacking in a fast-food, frozen dinner, overstressed, double espresso, hyper-caffeinated lifestyle.

We do laboratory testing to verify that certain of our ingredients possess properties such as antioxidant, polyphenolics, etc. These are common lab tests and are broadly accepted in the scientific community. But conveying the importance and relevance of these results to non-technical people is a challenge.

Communicating benefits is fairly difficult for us because our product doesn’t typically provide an “overnight effect”, meaning that it takes several weeks to several months of use before a noticeable difference presents itself. As a result, our marketing is mainly by word of mouth among our user base, and is particularly strong among people wise to the ways of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

It’s strange, but there are basically two opposite forces (the “evil” hucksters selling often fraudulent and sometimes dangerous products, and the “good” guys selling the genuine article which at best is beneficial and at worst is harmless).

Sorry, a bit verbose, but your topic is one close to my heart and mind!