Health and wellness advertising 101: Strategies for success
A brief history of wellness advertising from a marketer's perspective
I used to think that advertising was synonymous with TV ads from big corporations, but the reality is that advertising is important for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Today, advertising your business more flexible and accessible than ever. In fact, health and wellness advertising is a vital tool for healthcare marketers and the entrepreneurs in the healing arts. If you're in a healing field, understanding wellness advertising's role can make all the difference in connecting your services with those who need them.
The history of advertising and therefore healthcare advertising is as rich and varied as the practices it promotes. It began long ago, with ancient civilizations.
Advertising has shown up in the ruins of Pompeii and Arabia, those civilizations no doubt having no idea it would ultimately evolve into the multimedia platforms we see today. The art of advertising lies in its ability to connect with an audience, resonating with various psychologies, even as it’s changed and evolved in our the fast-paced, digital world of today.
Let’s start with the fundamentals…
What exactly is advertising, and how does it fit into the broader picture of healthcare marketing?
Marketing is a comprehensive strategy that includes the famous 4 Ps that every business student taking their first marketing course learns right away: price, product, place, and promotion. This framework helps you craft your approach to reach and engage your target audience. While this blog won’t focus long on the framework, we want to ground ourselves in it because advertising falls within the 4p’s as a part of promotion. In other words, all advertising is a form of marketing but not all marketing is advertising.
Here’s a boiled down way to think about marketing vs advertising:
So, there you have it: not all marketing is advertising, but all advertising is marketing
Wellness advertising in particular isn't just about commercials or even selling services. Done well, advertising conveys the value, emotion, and benefits that come with your healing touch. This spans across the following disciplines and more: massage therapy marketing, therapy marketing, along with acupuncture, chiropractic care, reiki, yoga therapy, naturopathy, dentistry, etc. Knowing how to use advertising effectively delivers the right message to the right audience and will set you apart from the crowd.
Takeaway tip: Leveraging advertising is a key part of your broader healthcare marketing strategy to effectively convey your healing services' unique value.
How business goals balance with emotional resonance in therapy marketing campaigns
Think about the iconic "got milk?" campaign. Memorable and catchy, it’s an undeniable success in terms of recognition. But here's something that might surprise you: milk consumption and sales have been plunging for decades. You could argue that perhaps the campaign may have slowed the process of fewer people drinking milk, but we can see that it didn’t manage to stop the decline altogether.
So, as you think about your goals, consider the purpose of the campaign you want to run - for example, how important is it to you that the campaign be tied to increasing sales?
As you can see, milk consumption has declined despite the “got milk?” campaign (in fairness I should note other dairy products from milk have increased during this period).
In any case, the dichotomy between one of the most loved campaigns ever and declining consumption of the product it’s promoting underscores the importance of defining clear and meaningful goals for your advertising. While connecting your campaign with the emotions of your audience is certainly core to how storytelling marketing works, it must also align with your business objectives. Here at Healthy Marketing, whether you’re talking about SEO strategy or advertising as a whole, we’re big fans of goal setting.
So, ask yourself what you want to accomplish.
For example, more social engagement? More inquiries on your website?
Your advertising can generally accomplish one thing well. Maybe one and a half, but generally expecting more than one outcome from an advertising campaign is asking too much. So be clear about your goals. Otherwise, you might find yourself spread too thin, resonating with your audience but not converting that connection with your best prospects into tangible success.
The key is to align your wellness advertising with your business's true needs, understanding what success means to you, and building a strategy that reflects it. If your goals aren’t “just” to grab eyeballs (aka get attention), you’ll need to think about how to turn those eyeballs into loyal customers and achieve the results that matter the most to your practice.
Takeaway tip: Clearly define the single most important goal for your advertising campaign to ensure it not only resonates with your audience but also achieves your business objectives.
Defining your target audience for inclusive wellness advertising campaigns
Knowing your audience is critical in any kind of therapy marketing or wellness marketing. Nailing this will help your advertising dollars go farther because you’ll be focused on getting the right clients (also, if you’re interested in purely free marketing techniques, check out our blog, “Seven free marketing secrets for your healing arts business.”
For this targeting exercise, let’s keep it just to the people you plan to actually advertise to, rather than thinking about all clients that you could possibly help across your business on the whole. This will help us not lose sight of the inclusivity of your business generally, while allowing for the necessary focus your campaign strategy will need. To start this process, you’ll want to root yourself in understanding who you can serve best that has the highest likelihood of becoming a great client.
Here's a few steps to consider for audience targeting:
1) Define who your audience isn't
You might be thinking, “wait, didn’t you just tell me to be inclusive?” Yes, and sometimes pinpointing who you're not specifically planning to spend money advertising to is the easiest place to help you focus on those you’re best equipped to help. It doesn’t mean turning people away at the door, just helps you focus ads to your top potential clients. Are there any types of clients that simply aren’t a good fit for what you offer? For example, maybe you’re a massage therapist who has made a decision to try and get more prenatal massage clients and therefore market to that group. In this case, you may decide that you’re going to let go of campaigns targeting folks looking for sports massage.
2) Create personas
Think about 1-3 different ideal customer profiles. Maybe you already have clients that fit these personas. Give them a name and understand why they’ve come to you in the first place - what about their life aligns to your services, and what motivates them to engage? An abbreviated example customer profile for a chiropractic office might be: “Lucy is a 45-year old active working mother with a healthy lifestyle, but also a high stress load. When her back doesn’t feel good, her schedule requires her to get fast, spontaneous adjustments. She never books long services or massages and always researches new care modalities before agreeing to them.”
3) Educate yourself
Don’t be afraid to challenge your assumptions about your clients by asking them questions, conducting interviews, using surveys, or any other method to help you gather real information. Understand client’s needs and preference so that the advertising they see makes them feel seen and valued. Why? Ever been an existing customer at a company, and felt upset when you saw an advertisement for that company offering discounts to new customers, but not loyal ones like yourself? It’s a bad feeling. Make sure you do what’s necessary to get an empathetic sense of how your clients might feel - from the loyal ones you have today to the new ones you’re hoping to attract.
4) Analyze
Look at your competitors and yourself. Use tools like Google Analytics to understand who's visiting your website and see if you can ascertain from your competitors' web presences who they’re targeting as well. Doing this work will help you understand your audience better by knowing what resonates with them and what doesn't. If your website is new or you haven’t set analytics up on it yet, you won’t get much data right away but over time it’s worth it.
5) Revisit and revise
Understanding your target audience isn't a one-and-done exercise. It's an ongoing process. Regularly reassess to ensure your wellness advertising continues to resonate and that you continue to foster an inclusive environment.
Takeaway tip: Ensure that your advertising resonates with those you're best equipped to help, while maintaining an open and inclusive business environment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, advertising is for you and your business, no matter the size. Here at Healthy Marketing, we think of planning for your brand and advertising strategy as an indispensable tool for healing arts practitioners, not just mega-corporations. From understanding the rich history of advertising to knowing how to define your target audience, you can start now.
The key to successful advertising lies in defining clear objectives, knowing your audience, and aligning with your business goals. The emergence of data analytics has replaced guesswork, allowing for smarter and more ethical decisions.
In future blogs, we’re going to get into the details for how you can both drive and measure your success, and in the meantime we hope you’ve enjoyed this advertising and audience targeting overview.
Free Branding Guide: As you work to understand advertising and setting clear goals, don't forget to leverage helpful resources like our interactive brand workbook. This guide will walk you through the steps of defining and refining your brand voice, ensuring your brand communication is both authentic and impactful. Our guide, "Crafting your unique brand voice in healthcare: a practical guide," offers self-assessment questionnaires, brand voice exercises, and real-life application scenarios to help you navigate the complexities of branding with confidence.