How Speaking Herbs Using Technology to Acquire Customers

Nowadays, words like 'herbal' and 'natural' are in vogue as the world is shifting towards sustainable, plant-based, and natural beauty regimes. In India, we have a long history of herbal remedies thanks to Ayurveda, which is why many brands are taking the opportunity to appeal to those who want to take a 'safe' and chemical-free route in terms of skincare and personal care.

Indian herbal products market is categorized into personal care, cosmetics products, and healthcare products, among which the personal care and cosmetics products segment is expected to grow at a higher pace than healthcare products going ahead. 

“India herbal products market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 18 percent during 2019-2024. The herbal products market in India is growing due to the rising awareness about the side effects of chemical formulations and the health benefits of herbal supplements over artificial ones. Moreover, in India, the consumer preference is shifting towards safe, natural, and luxurious products due to increasing disposable income and rising popularity of plant-based ingredients, “as per a report by techsciresearch.

By definition, herbal beauty products are created using herbs. However, unlike the pharmaceutical or cosmetic industry in India, companies making herbal products don't have stringent regulations or specific standards to adhere to. In fact, many a time it is hard to come across a 'herbal' product that is entirely herbal because they are under no labeling obligations by law. So, when buying herbal products manufactured in India, it is hard to be certain of their quality.

Founded in 2018, Speaking Herbs clears all the doubts regarding the safety and authenticity of products. From the very inception of the brand, it came with a vision to empower people with 100 percent pure and clean label botanical ingredients. Speaking Herbs started as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand, through its own online platform with four products: Black Seed Oil, Moringa oil, Sweet Almond Oil, and Jojoba Oil in July 2018. The initial growth came from the set of already existing customers that the brand catered to and who wanted a shift to toxin-free and pure natural products.

Amis Ahmed, Founder, and Chief Visionary, Speaking Herbs shared, “Since we were bootstrapped and never leveraged paid marketing, the growth was slow, but what kept us going was the support, loyalty, and encouraging words of our customers and the vision to bring a paradigm change in consumer products. Each one of our customers was in awe of the quality and how, when absolutely pure botanicals are used, they can be super effective for multiple concerns ranging from personal care to wellness. Well, growth was there, but it was slow, one major reason being that we never had the mindset and experience of hacking growth exponentially. Whenever we tried doing it, we would have setbacks in terms of tech failures, which would result in a short pause and everything would get stagnant.”

“Both Tanaya (Founder) and I were more into biology, biotech, and biochemistry and had zero experience or skill set in developing technology stacks for e-commerce. That’s when we started pitching our idea and vision to mentors and industry experts. In late 2019, we were joined by two experts (tech and marketing) as co-founders. We had started picking up the growth from January 2020, and before we could celebrate, our first target pandemic happened. But those two-three months of complete lockdown gave us time to re-think, re-strategize, develop bonding as a new team, and re-start the hustle once again,” he added.

Why Clean Beauty?
Speaking Herbs is not just betting on clean beauty, the brand is betting on clean consumer products across personal care, beauty, wellness, and home care. 

“We believe that people have started realizing the negative impact that synthetic chemicals have on our health and also on the environment, and this awareness will only increase from here. People will prefer to go back to simpler products that are devoid of any toxic chemicals and are yet effective in performance. We are betting big on the rise of new-age conscious consumers who are willing to pay a premium for a product that is better for their health and also for the environment,” he said.

Product Portfolio
Big market leaders in the ayurvedic and herbal category are well-known for adding new products to their portfolios. There are many reasons to expand a product line, most notably to grow the revenues and market share.

When asked about the product portfolio Ahmed shared, “Our vision is to build the world's largest inventory and ethical supply chain of botanical ingredients. Currently, we have 19 botanicals across three verticals i.e carrier oils, essential oils, and floral waters/ hydrosols. We will be adding products to each vertical as well as expanding horizontally with new product verticals. This collection  of pure mono herbal botanical ingredients is our proposition, the second proposition is the combination of these botanicals into a regimen for a specific concern across beauty, personal care, wellness, and home care.” 

Retail and Marketing Strategy
Speaking Herbs is different from the competitors in terms of its core focus on mono-herbal/ botanical ingredients rather than pre-formulated 'me too' products. On the retail and marketing front, he asserted, “Our top priority is to create a solid customer base of premium users through our own website. This will help us to understand them better because they will be completing their journey of finding us and purchasing as well as retention with us. All these data points will eventually lead to better customer acquisition and service. It will also help us in offering them a personalized recommendation.” 

“Once we reach a set of pre-defined goals on our website, we will then be foraying into marketplace and modern retails. Our strategy is to make Speaking Herbs synonymous with purity and efficacy and be the only go-to destination for botanical ingredients across India and the globe,” he added. 

Technological Approach
In this modern age, any brand that is not leveraging technology will soon perish. In this digital era, it becomes a mandate for a brand to explore digital opportunities in order to grow.

“At Speaking Herbs, we are using technology both for creating internal systems as well for better customer acquisition and experience. Since our core focus is our own brand website, we are creating the best technology stack for seamless user experience from the moment they land on our website to purchasing and post purchasing. We are building an AI engine that would recommend the best combination of botanical ingredients to customers depending on their personal profile,” he said.

“In the backend, we use technology to streamline our inventory management and forecast demand for a particular SKU. At the product stage we use biotechnology to assess the quality of every batch and also to identify the best geographical location to source our raw material,” he shared.

Future Plans
To be a successful business, it's crucial to plan every day in order to keep the business adaptable and ever-evolving to meet market demands. It is important for a brand to set goals in order to grow and meet the expectations.

While sharing the future goals of Speaking Herbs he shared, “To achieve the vision that we have and to build Speaking Herbs a leading global brand for botanical ingredients we would need to grow exponentially in the next 2-3 years and for that, we would definitely need to raise money. By the end of FY 2022-23, we are planning to increase the number of botanical ingredients we offer to 75. Currently, we are offering 19 ingredients across three categories, i.e., carrier oils, essential oils, and hydrosols/floral waters.”

“We will be comfortably closing this fiscal anywhere between Rs 3.25 crore to Rs 3.5 crore. The next fiscal year 2022-23, we will be achieving an annual run rate of Rs 10 crore,“ he further added.

The brand will be launching 30 concern-based regimens across personal care, beauty, wellness, and home care. An AI engine for a personalized recommendation of the best combination of botanical ingredients for the better consumer experience, establishing a center for botanical research for quality validation and efficacy establishment in partnership with premier institutes of research in India. Also, there will be an international delivery across Europe, the USA, Latin America, and the Middle East and it is going to be physically present in Kuwait by mid of 2022.