Health and Wellness Marketing: 12 Ideas to Market Your Business

It can be challenging for health and wellness brands to differentiate themselves in their marketplace. At-home companies pop up every day, and most of them present the same clean and calming brands that invoke feelings of relaxation and vitality. 

Sound familiar? Don’t worry – there are still plenty of ways to stand out from the competition. 

In this post, I’ll share a list of health and wellness marketing ideas perfect for small businesses. We’ll review tips to make your brand look unique and help you stand out in a growing, health-focused marketplace. 

8 Health and Wellness Marketing Ideas 

Here are eight ways you can promote your health and wellness business. 

1. Send emails to re-engage past customers.

One tried-and-true digital marketing strategy is email. Health and wellness brands use email to re-engage past clients and remind them to schedule appointments with their businesses. This is particularly effective with businesses that may only see customers once or twice a year, like doctors or dentists.

It can also be effective for subscription-based brands like gyms when customers stop visiting them. You can send emails to re-engage people with limited-time deals and encourage repeat purchases. 

If you want to start email marketing, I recommend downloading automation software like Thryv. You can schedule emails in advance and personalize them using data from your CRM. In other words, email reminders, confirmations, and invoices are no longer written or sent by hand. All this is done automatically and personalized for each customer at your business. 

2. Use content marketing to improve your online presence. 

In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an essay titled “Content is King.” Digital marketers now follow that mantra like a North Star for online advertising.

In other words, content is the key to growing and improving your online presence. Whether it’s your website, social media, YouTube, or wherever your customers hang out online, your brand’s content must capture their attention. That’s how you get more people to engage with your messages, learn more about your offers, and foster a community of followers. 

We’ll include a few different content marketing strategies throughout this post, but here are the channels that most health and wellness brands should use: 

3. Sponsor local events in your community. 

Event marketing helps you connect directly with your community. You can meet potential customers and have meaningful conversations about your brand, products, services, etc. 

You can host or sponsor many events as a health and wellness brand. Fitness events like races and charity walks are good examples. You could sponsor a hydration station or fund the grand prize. 

You could also host a wellness retreat. Rent a quiet, scenic area and conduct workshops and classes like yoga, meditation, and physical therapy. These events build strong communities, using your brand as common ground. Because of the partnerships created through these events, groups of customers will return to the same retreats.

One example is Foss Running Camp, a fitness camp for long-distance runners. But it’s not just running; it’s like going to summer camp as a kid. There are games, educational workshops, healthy foods, and sleeping options ranging from bunks to private living spaces. It’s a great example of a retreat that has built a strong community of customers who return every year. 

4. Collect customer testimonials and add them to your website. 

Customer testimonials improve your reputation, making it easier for new customers to trust your business. Getting them can be tricky for small businesses; you have to follow up with customers and ask them to leave reviews before it’s too late. And, even if you send the right message at the right time, there’s no guarantee they’ll respond. Or, worse, they may leave a negative review by surprise.

That’s why I recommend automating this process with reputation management software. These tools collect customer reviews via email and alert you when negative comments are left on your business listing profiles. You can react quickly, protecting your business’s digital reputation and monitoring what people say about your brand online. 

customer testimonials software

Once you collect some positive reviews, you should repost them on your website as customer testimonials. This improves your SEO (search engine optimization) because it shows Google that customers trust your business. Your website will have a better chance of ranking for searches like “best [brand] near me.”

5. Offer to make a house call. 

Call me old-fashioned, but house calls are coming back in style. What’s a house call? It’s when you go to someone’s home and perform your services there. 

My doctor still makes house calls, and it’s one of the reasons his customers are so loyal to him. He makes it convenient for customers to work with him and shows them he cares enough about them to travel to their homes. I’m convinced it’s part of why he has a near-perfect rating on Google. 

Doctors aren’t the only health and wellness brands that make house calls. Fitness brands, nutritionists, and life coaches can all visit people at home and perform their services there. 

You could also go digital and offer virtual sessions instead. They’re not as personal as live appointments, but they allow customers to work with you from the comfort of their homes. 

6. Use ad platforms to advertise on search engines and social media.

If you want to try paid advertising, I recommend using platforms like Google Ads and Meta Ads. These platforms help you create digital ad campaigns, set your budget, and improve ads over time to attract more customers to your online store. 

They also have built-in artificial intelligence assistants that suggest ways to improve your campaigns. They can analyze your performance, ad strategy, and budget, then find ways to enhance your ads so more people will see them and engage with your messages.

7. Record educational videos. 

I know what you’re thinking – thousands of health and wellness “gurus” are making outrageous claims or teaching people the wrong information. You don’t want to be one of those brands but want to leverage video to promote your business.

The most effective video content you can make is educational, how-to videos. Everyone is looking for health and wellness tips, and YouTube is a popular place where people source information. They want to see it to believe it, and video content helps your brand showcase its products and services in a genuine, believable way. 

Here’s an example of a dermatologist who shares skincare tips on YouTube. She uses her channel to post educational videos and product reviews affiliated with different skincare companies. This builds her personal brand and generates revenue from influencer marketing on YouTube. 

8. Start a customer loyalty program for your business.

Customer loyalty is important for health and wellness brands, and loyalty programs are a great way to incentivize people to return to your business. 

There are several different types of loyalty programs. You can give people discounts for repeat purchases or reward them with gifts or upgrades for referring other customers. Or, you can give them special perks if they’ve been loyal to your business for a certain period of time.

Planet Fitness offers a “Refer-a-Friend” program to its customers. Members who refer others receive a free month’s subscription. This encourages people to sign up without the brand actively promoting itself to a larger audience. 

These are just a few ways to market your health and wellness business. Get creative; there are plenty of other strategies for connecting with new and existing customers. 

Tips for Marketing Your Health and Wellness Business

No matter your marketing strategy, here are some tips for creating a successful promotion for your health and wellness business. 

1. Prioritize your local search presence on Google.

Most people research a brand online before contacting a new business. They use search engines like Google, Yelp, and Angi to find businesses that other customers trust. 

That’s why you should update your Google Business Profile with accurate and relevant information. Your profile shows up on the right-hand side of the page when someone searches for your business on Google. If you haven’t filled out your listing, you can claim all your online profiles using a listing management tool like this one. It will claim your listings across dozens of sites and update them simultaneously.  

Here’s an example of a Google listing for a local physical therapy business. It includes a link to their website, contact information, and pictures of the business so customers know they’re trustworthy.  It also includes details about health and safety protocols, helping customers understand what to expect when they visit this business. 

2. Don’t skimp on your social media efforts. 

Social media is one of small businesses’ most important marketing channels, including health and wellness brands. If you want to use it effectively, here are some tips to maximize your brand’s presence:

• Use images: Humans are visual creatures, and 80% of people prefer visual social media wellness content. Don’t get lost in the crowd by not including an image.
• Go where your target market is: It’s impossible to be on every social media platform. Knowing your customer base will help you determine which outlets to focus on.
• Post reviews: Whenever you get a great online review, amplify its effect by posting it on social media. Research shows that displaying reviews can boost conversions by up to 270%.
• Automate your social media: Keeping up with social media can be hard. Fortunately, there’s software that can manage your social media profiles and help you create content. 
• Participate in social media groups: Facebook is a great place to find groups where people share tips and recommendations for local providers. For example, in my local area, we have a Facebook group, “Ask Boca!,” with over 12,000 members.

3. Ask for online reviews. 

One study found that 75% of people rely on reviews to find doctors or healthcare providers. That makes sense because you want to trust that you’re getting good information when dealing with your health. 

Customer reviews are critical for health and wellness brands because they’re synonymous with trustworthiness. People don’t want to risk their health, so they’re more likely to work with brands with good reviews. 

Make it a priority to collect reviews from happy customers or patients. Use this free tool to generate a link to your Google Business Profile where customers can easily leave a comment for your business. 

free google review link generator

4. Support your local community.

One of the best ways to connect with people and businesses in your area is through community activities like charities, events, and meetings. Get involved in what’s happening in your area, and you’ll discover plenty of marketing opportunities for your business. 

For example, consider borrowing an idea from my coworker’s orthodontist. Every October, you’ll find a big table in her lobby filled with amazing pink baked goods. One of her staff members makes them and sells them to anyone who stops in.

All proceeds go to a breast cancer charity. Her practice also sponsors charity walks and youth sports teams throughout the year. As you might expect, her practice is thriving.

Building Health and Wellness Brands That Stand Out

If you’re a health and wellness brand, you might feel like you’re in a crowded marketplace. This industry is growing quickly and is expected to exceed $4 billion by 2026. More brands are trying to establish themselves, meaning you have to work quickly to carve out your corner of the market. Use these ideas to get started and keep improving your marketing campaigns based on what’s working and what your customers are saying about your business.