In the past ten years, online searches for health and wellness products and services have exploded! This has been beneficial for many providers, but also means many will need to “step-up” their online marketing for Health and Wellness offerings, if they want to be heard over the noise. That means your online content should be deployed strategically, and that’s why we decided to create 10 Marketing Tips targeted at Health and Wellness Organizations.
From beauty to lifestyle, to mental and physical well being, the health and wellness industry is far reaching, and is quickly becoming a trend that affects nearly every aspect of our lives, especially as consumers.
However, marketing for health and wellness comes with its set of unique challenges and isn’t quite as straightforward as it can sometimes be for retail companies that market more tangible products directly to consumers. Your marketing tactics often have to appeal to a variety of “pain points”, and we mean that literally.
You want a marketing strategy that’s targeted enough to reach potential customers, but not so targeted that it alienates part of your demographic. So how do you do this? And how do you ensure that your online content will have the right effect on your target audiences?
It may mean more than simply planning this month’s social posts. An effective content calendar takes into consideration not only your overall SEO (search engine optimization), but also other consumer touch points for your organization, such as email campaigns, your website, blog, landing pages, lead generation tools, and sales team initiatives. Remember, to be effective in today’s marketplace, organizations MUST align both their sales and marketing efforts. Only when they work together will they truly yield results!
That is why we’re providing you with targeted tips for creating more effective marketing for health and wellness organizations, so you can stay ahead of your competitors and see sales success from your online content.
Here are 10 tips to help get you started…
1. Use Email to Accelerate Your Content Marketing Plan
When it comes to effective online strategies, email marketing is often reported as second only to search engine marketing. This is because past purchasers and subscribers are the ones most likely to purchase from you in the future if you maintain an ongoing connection. And a very cost-effective way of ‘staying in touch’ is to send them an occasional newsletter or some promotional information. It will keep you ‘top of mind’, so when a customer needs a product or service that you sell, they will contact you or visit your website first.
Email also remains the one online communication tool that everyone understands. Studies show that 89% of internet users are sending or reading email and there are no signs of that number declining. Why not use email to connect with existing customers/patients and potential prospects? You can communicate brand updates, showcase new offerings, benefits and more. It’s one of the simplest methods of customer communication. You simply draft an email, edit it, review it and push send. Voilà!
You can also save yourself some time and hassle by setting up automated emails where appropriate. And if you’re posting to your blog regularly, you should certainly share those posts in an easy to read format via email campaign.
Expert Tip: Do you struggle with content writing, finding fresh visuals, or setting up email campaigns or automated drips? Don’t worry, we’re experts at creating branded, engaging content for health & wellness businesses. Click to find out more about content marketing .
2. Clean Up Your Email Database
In marketing, your email list is only valuable if it’s accurate. Remove subscribers who are no longer valid prospects and make sure to remove competitors. We recommend a regular sweep of your email lists to remove undeliverable, duplicate, and/or incorrect email addresses. You MUST also honour any unsubscribe requests immediately to comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). Since we use a commercial email service provider for our clients, much of this will be done automatically, which is a huge time saver.
When you have clean email lists, your reporting on deliverability and engagement will be far more accurate, and the insights far more helpful. You’ll also have a more realistic picture of the health of your email marketing efforts.
Expert Tip: Keep your lists clean by removing anyone who is no longer engaged with your brand. Work with an agency like Original Ginger, who can set up a commercial email dashboard for you that will monitor and ‘auto-clean’ your lists.
3. Laser-In on Your Ideal Leads
One of the biggest mistakes when marketing for health and wellness? Businesses that target too broad of an audience. We get it. You’re afraid of turning away customers by creating highly targeted content for a specific type of person. Or maybe you feel that your offerings are ‘good for everyone’?
Even if that’s the case, you’ll never see the growth you want by creating too wide a net, instead of honing in on your ‘ideal’ customers. The more you try to be everything to everyone, the less inspiring and engaging your content will be. First, figure out who your ideal customer is, then create content and messaging that speaks directly to them.
And don’t hesitate to send specific marketing messages directly to niche segments of your target audiences. The connections you make could prove more valuable than a general, overarching marketing message, especially if those customers spread the word by becoming brand ambassadors!
Expert Tip: A few Brand Strategy Consultations with our expert team can help you figure out exactly who IS your ideal customer in health and wellness. Call us now to get started.
4. Use Social Media Strategically
Our top 10 tips would be remiss if we didn’t talk about social media. Although social media is constantly changing, it’s also a key piece of your strategy when content marketing for health and wellness.
Always evaluate which channels you are using and whether or not it makes sense for your brand to have a presence there. For social channels like LinkedIn and Facebook, ensure you have a professional page set up. Social links on your website should always connect to your business page – never your personal profile. Always ensure your social pages have the most relevant and up to date information about your business, and keep cover images and profiles fresh and professional.
Expert Tip: Ask us about how to strategically focus your time on specific social channels and connect your efforts with sales initiatives.
5. Stay Active on Social Media
To stay top of mind and accessible to clients, maintain an active presence on the social media channels you’ve chosen. An abandoned or ‘sleepy’ social channel gives the impression you no longer care about your business. They could also think that it’s not a professional business, or worse yet, that the business no longer exists. Yikes!
Expert tip: Only assign the task of social media management to someone on your internal team IF you are willing to schedule appropriate time and resources for them to carry out tasks on a regular basis. If they are too busy and lose consistency, your brand reputation could suffer. At the very least, you won’t get the results you want. By hiring an expert and trusted agency like Original Ginger to manage your social media, your brand is elevated and consistently represented.
Be Realistic About Your Internal Social Media Capabilities
Who on your team is the best person to represent your brand online? Do they have writing and/or design skills? Do they understand your overall content marketing strategy and what you’re trying to accomplish?
Your social media manager will be responsible for content creation, content scheduling, social channel moderation and growth, so they should really understand your online brand strategy and how it relates to content, especially when they’re planning and scheduling posts (and tweets). They also need to be extremely familiar with your brand guidelines, so they maintain brand consistency when it comes to your content, your brand personality, your tone, and how they respond to customer comments.
Expert tip: Don’t leave your social media channels, and content, in the hands of a team member who is not a writer, or has no skill for creating branded visuals, or no idea how to use social media for business. Instead, ask us about our one-on-one workshops and consulting services to help you empower your team to use social media to your advantage!
Get Advantageous Tools Appropriate for the Job
Don’t pressure your team to produce content on the fly. Implement a planning tool that connects all your other content and activities such as boosting SEO, email campaigns, blogging, your website, and upcoming events.
Also, don’t leave your social media manager to post and tweet on each individual social channel. It’s time consuming and counterproductive. Instead, use a centralized social media management tool where you can quickly survey all of your social channels and gather essential reporting and insights in one place. It will allow you to better coordinate your content across all platforms and will facilitate a better measurement of your efforts.
Expert Tip: At Original Ginger, we can work with you to create an overall content marketing plan that takes into consideration all your marketing and branding activities, such as website messaging, blogging, email campaigns, and more. Contact us.
8. Seek Out Health and Wellness Influencers
Social influencers are becoming a go-to resource for businesses big and small because they’re a great way to reach new individuals who may not be familiar with your offerings. By leveraging top influencers and their followers, you can really elevate your brand’s online presence!
Influencers can try your products or services, share their experiences online and can encourage their followers to check out your brand. This strategy is particularly attractive and effective for smaller brands whose core values deeply align with influencers they identify. It’s even worth it to engage micro-influencers with only a few thousand followers if they have highly engaged audiences. But make sure they share similar values and content that aligns with your brand.
There are also tools that can help you identify social media influencers in the health and wellness industry. You can create a list of your target influencers and reach out with an offer to try your services or products in exchange for a review and link to your site.
9. Optimize Your Website for Smart Phones and Tablets!
It may seem obvious to us (perhaps because of what we do), but why is it that so many businesses provide a poor website experience to their mobile customers? It seems to be a major oversight when 60%+ of online web visitors are known to be using mobile devices. Not only should your website adapt to a smartphone or tablet, so visitors can easily navigate and find critical information. Your site should also load quickly, which is a BIG part of optimizing it for mobile.
The same goes for number 1 in our list above (email marketing). Make sure your campaigns are always mobile optimized.
10. Remain on Top of Your Online Reviews
What’s the first thing you do when you’re looking for a health and wellness service provider, like a Physiotherapist or a Massage Therapist? You ask a friend, right? But what if they can’t refer you to anyone? Most people turn to Google, where they can check for customer reviews on services and products.
Have you ever visited review pages and noticed that the last review was over a year ago? We have, and it lowered our level of trust in that business to a certain degree. Although, it’s important for you to have lots of positive reviews over time, to show that your services are consistently well-rated, it’s also important to ensure that there are recent reviews.
For health and wellness providers, we recommend making Google reviews part of your treatment process. For example, when appropriate, have your reception staff ask for a review after patient treatments or shortly thereafter. Without reviews, you could be missing valuable opportunities to grow your business by building relationships with new clients.
Expert Tip: Be active in requesting reviews from satisfied clients and be responsive to all reviews, good or bad. It’s important to publicly acknowledge negative reviews with a thoughtful response to the reviewer. It shows you care about all your customers and that you are proactive. If the reviewer was not a valid customer/patient, be sure to report the review to Google and have it removed. Never underestimate the power of online reviews.
We hope our 10 Tips have been helpful and that they put you all on the path toward more effective marketing for Health and Wellness organizations. We invite you to use these tips when you build your own overall content marketing strategy.
Want to see how we’ve helped other organizations in the health and wellness industry? Here are a few related case studies:
Don’t yet have a content marketing strategy for your health and wellness business?
Or are you unsure about its strength ? Find out how Original Ginger can help you create an effective, customized online content marketing strategy, or how we can help with day-to-day brand management and implementation.
We invite you to call us at 855.298.8650 or contact us online! Our dedicated team of branding and marketing experts are ready to get you started.
