Articles Tagged with: marketing strategies

Top 10 Branding Must-Haves for Holistic Health Practitioners

As a business owner, you must know how to market your brand to gain new customers, build visibility, and maintain a good reputation across the board. But you may be struggling with finding the right branding strategies for your company, especially if you are part of the holistic health industry. 

Having a well-informed and multi-faceted marketing plan can make an enormous difference in your success – while also adding credibility to your brand, whether you’re a Reiki master or yoga instructor! 

Here are 10 branding must-haves you can consider to help you get started or improve your current marketing plan. 

1. Show your credentials, if you can

Your credentials matter. Having a state license can add credibility to your brand and attract more customers to your business. You can also post any licenses or training certificates you may have or are currently taking to augment your “About me” page. 

If you plan to receive money in exchange for certain health services, it’s a good idea to look at your state’s laws on how you should proceed. For example, you may need to be accredited by the Professional Wellness Alliance (PWA) if you want to legally be able to provide services. 

It’s perfectly okay if you don’t have credentials yet, especially if you’re just starting. However, you should plan your marketing efforts to slowly build up your credentials. This not only gives you better branding but also provides peace of mind that you are operating in a safe, legal environment. 

2. Define what makes you different 

As with any good branding strategy, you need to know how to differentiate your holistic health business from your competitors. Identify and highlight your unique selling points and keep repeating them throughout your social media. 

For example, if your health business offers a combination of Reiki with sound healing and manifestation practices, your brand strategy should highlight this unique blend. You can showcase how this combination can provide potential clients with a comprehensive and holistic approach to their well-being. 

3. Know your audience

No two holistic health businesses are the same, so it makes sense that no two customers are, either! Based on what you offer, try to gather as much information as you can on your target customer. Think about their needs and preferences and build your branding strategy from there! 

During the early stages of your marketing, you can ask your potential clients what they want from their holistic health business. Keep track of this information so that you can easily identify trends. 

4. Make a plan

This is especially true if you’re a one-person business or just starting. You need to make a simple and realistic marketing plan that works within your budget, time availability, and skills. You may want to go all out with your marketing plan – but remember that it’s better to start small but efficient than have a grand plan that is all over the place. 

5. Use the right advertising mediums

It is a common misconception that all businesses need Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This is why it’s so important that you know your target audience. Are you looking to attract tech-savvy individuals or is your ideal client more interested in word-of-mouth? 

Choosing the right advertising medium ensures that you get the right attention from the right people. This also maximizes your budget as you use your money more wisely on advertising that will work best for you and your company. 

6. Join a professional organization

If you’re a holistic health business, you will inevitably come across people who will think of your company as a lot of “woo woo”. The best way to reduce this is to join a professional organization. Not only does this add credibility to your brand, but it also provides free promotion, as these organizations typically include you in their professional directory. 

7. Make a website

Make your website easy to navigate and understand. This is particularly true if your holistic health business is a little esoteric and may need some explanation of the services you provide. It’s a good idea to also include several media that show what you have to offer. 

If your budget allows for it, you may want to create a professional website on DIY platforms for a monthly fee. 

8. Use social media

Make a habit of regularly engaging with your customers. Not only will this help build better relationships with them, but also help you understand their needs better. Most customers are more honest about their experiences on social media – so it’s a great way to hear unfiltered comments about your business. 

9. Create an email newsletter

Consider creating an e-mail newsletter that you can easily manage and schedule. Remember to always ask permission from your clients before adding them to your newsletter list! A lot of people don’t want to receive emails, so make sure that you inform them if they will be added to any list. 

You can use your newsletter to alert your community about any upcoming events, promotions, specials, or discounts for your holistic health business. 

10. Ask for ratings and reviews

A great way to build your holistic health brand is to ask satisfied clients to write a review online. This also has the added benefit of improving your SEO ranking and boosting your brand on popular search engines. 

 

Conclusion:

Owning a holistic health business does not have to be difficult if you have a well-thought-out branding strategy. Keep in mind that the goal is to build credibility, so it’s okay to take things slow and steady at first rather than go all out but have a confused marketing plan.


Do You Know the Power of FREE?

Let’s talk about the power of free stuff. Why does the word FREE have such an emotional pull? What do brands get in return when they give something for free? More importantly, how can you use the power of free to your advantage?

Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational (2008), showed that nothing is more motivating than getting something for free.  

He set up a table with two bowls: a bowl of Lindt Truffles that he sold for 15 cents and another bowl of Hershey’s Kisses for 1 cent. At the end of the experiment, he found that 73% of the students chose Lindt over Hershey’s. It seemed like students preferred Lindt over Hershey’s even if the cost was 15X higher.

Next, he set up two bowls again, this time selling Lindt Truffles for 14 cents while the Hershey’s Kisses were free. Guess what? 69% of the students chose Hershey’s this time.

This is the power of free or the zero-price effect, and it threatens to turn traditional cost-benefit models on their heads. These models don’t account for the fact that getting something for free has a psychological effect that trumps conventional economic theory.  

Enter behavioral economics: the umbrella term under which the power of free falls. This covers the study of economic decision-making through emotional, cognitive, psychological, social, and cultural factors.  

Why is FREE so powerful?

It’s not just a price indicator but an emotional trigger.

We tend to make decisions based on how they make us feel. Free things make us happy, and we’ll make decisions that make us happy. It sounds simple, but a decision made in the name of a free thing is often irrational.  

That’s largely due to perceived value. We place an unreasonably high value on free things merely because they’re FREE. It’s an option with no downside. There’s no risk involved. We have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose.  

We’ve all taken promotional shirts, pens, stickers, koozies, frisbees, bottle openers, keychains, and water bottles from companies we don’t even care about. Do we need them? No. But we felt a pull toward them – saying no didn’t feel like an option.

Surprise! It’s because they were free.  

Let’s look at an even stronger pull: free food. It’s nearly impossible to turn down free food. It doesn’t even matter if we’ve just eaten, are saving our appetite for something later, or aren’t that crazy about the food being offered. If it’s free and right in front of us, we’re likely to take it.

Most of us don’t consider time or even extra money to be lost when exchanging them for a free item or service.  

That’s why we’ll happily wait in a line for multiple hours if Starbucks is offering a free drink when, instead, we could stop by the next day, pay less than $10 for the same drink and be on our way in a matter of seconds.  

Another example is paying for additional products that we don’t need to receive free shipping. We could run out of shampoo and go to Ulta’s website to buy a new bottle but end up buying 4 because we didn’t want to pay for shipping. The shipping cost would be much less than those extra three bottles of shampoo, but we want it to be free.  

Paying for shipping feels like a waste, but paying for more products to get free shipping feels like a deal. It makes us feel like we’ve worked the system and are coming out on top.

While it may seem beneficial for companies to have free shipping minimums so that we’ll buy more to reach it, studies have shown that we’ll buy more things more often if free shipping is a constant offer.

When Amazon first started offering free shipping, they implemented it everywhere except for France but still lowered France’s shipping cost to 20 cents. Sales across the globe increased dramatically, but the sales in France stayed the same. After a while, they announced free shipping in France as well. Their sales there quickly climbed to match those of the rest of the world.  

Twenty-cent shipping wasn’t even close enough to free to be worth it to consumers.   

Lots of companies have figured out how to use the power of free to their advantage.

Various restaurants and retailers will send out freebies to people who have downloaded and made an account on their app.

Their FREE app.

They figure that you’ll come in to get your freebie and end up buying more while you’re at it. They got you into their store when you weren’t necessarily planning on it and made a sale, proving that freebie more than worth it to them.

Many restaurants also utilize a buy-one-get-one-free strategy to get us to come in and spend money. You’re excited to go in and share a discounted meal with a friend, riding the high of the free offer. The benefit for the restaurant is that you’re likely to buy more than what the coupon is for, such as drinks, appetizers, desserts, etc.  

A slightly different approach is giving away something for free that will, in turn, create a demand for something costly. Cell phone companies do this by bringing in customers with a free phone offer and then charging them for the necessary plan.  

The original user of this tactic was the founder of Gillette Razors and Blades. He was having trouble selling his disposable razor blades, so he started giving away the razor for free in various marketing partnerships with other brands. This created the demand for disposable razor blades and is what ultimately got his sales off the ground.

Increasing digital capabilities has had a significant impact on the ability to distribute free things.

Distributing free things online has little to no cost and gives businesses the freedom to reach people they would otherwise be struggling to connect with. 

This is one of the best ways for small businesses to utilize the power of free. 

Whether it’s a webinar, podcast, workshop, newsletter, or blog, small businesses can give away free things online that will gain them mass exposure at little to no cost while establishing themselves as an expert in their field.  

Especially this past year, as even more aspects of running a business have moved online, small businesses are offering free consultations. If they invest a small bit of time into sharing their expertise with a potential customer, that customer is likely to come back to them when they need a paid service.  

The key to gaining a return on these types of freebies is to provide value. 

While the FREE label will pique interest, small businesses aren’t going to gain loyal followers unless they provide a reason for them to stay.  

First, understand your ideal target audience.  

Then put yourself in their shoes and identify the type of content they would want or be interested in.  

What are their frustrations? What do they face day-to-day? Moreover, what are their aspirations?

Create your freebie around what would be useful to them and deliver a value-packed gift they can’t walk away from. Make it so beneficial to them that you and your business will occupy a part of their memory from that point on. 

Small businesses also create positivity in these difficult times by offering their free thing as a celebration.

What do people want on National Margarita Day? A free margarita! Perhaps with the purchase of an entrée.  

National Pi Day brings a flock of hungry shoppers to the internet, hoping to find deals on pizza and bakery pies. This is an excellent opportunity for a buy-one-get-one-free deal to increase business at your restaurant.

Free birthday items are another celebratory way to make someone feel special and get them into your shop.

Will some of us only pick up our free birthday treat? Yes. Will a good number of us buy other things while we’re there? Definitely.

Adding on a free item to something that has already been purchased is also an effective way to gain returning customers.

Going back to the fact that free things make us happy, you have associated yourself with that happiness. You gave us a gift that we didn’t ask for, and you made us happy.  

The other side to that strategy is that your freebie may be something that we’ve never heard of or used before. You’ve just opened our minds to a new product, increasing the chances that we’ll come back to make a purchase.  

The power of free isn’t something that should be overlooked.

There’s more than enough proof that this psychological wonder affects people everywhere.

However, it’s essential to take away that this marketing strategy shouldn’t be used to trick people into spending exorbitant amounts of money.  

Doing good business is about harnessing deep, genuine connections with people, and sneaky gimmicks will not get you there.

The best way to use this gold nugget of human behavior is to understand it, embrace it, and use it in the most ethical way possible.  

How about you? How are you harnessing the power of free? Got a question? Don’t forget to COMMENT below and SHARE your thoughts.

Sources:

https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/zero-price-effect/

https://avgjoefinance.com/power-of-free/

https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/power-of-free/

https://thedecisionlab.com/insights/business/impact-free-consumer-decision-making/

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-free/


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