Marketing for Health and Wellness: Strategies to Build Trust and Attract Clients
Recently, Georgina from Shaw Marketing Services shared her expert advice on marketing within the health and wellness sector at Selina Mackenzie’s Wellness Circle Group. The industry is currently in a “golden age”—people are hungrier than ever for information, solutions, and wellness support. To help you capitalize on this interest, we’ve compiled the best practices from her presentation into this comprehensive guide.
How do you market a health and wellness business?
To market a wellness brand effectively, you must first define a specific Ideal Client Profile to personalize your messaging. Focus on building Authenticity and Trust by sharing qualifications and testimonials. Finally, utilize visual social platforms like Instagram and TikTok to provide educational content that solves your audience’s problems.
Understanding Your Audience: Ideal Client Profiling
The first thing that we need to know for a successful marketing strategy in any industry is –
- Who are we talking to
AND
- What do they want from us
In the health and wellness sector, you will have different types of people who will be most interested in your product or service, will benefit most from what your offering, or have a problem that you are particularly well-placed to fix.
To start thinking about marketing, you need to have a super clear picture of your ideal client – the person who would be most likely to buy from you, or use your service.
To define that ideal client, grab a piece of paper and draw a stick man/woman in the middle of the paper and write on the top – My Ideal Customer.
Then list the key things about this person around their picture –
- Age
- Location
- Sex
- Job
- Interests
- Problems
- Fears
- Financial status – i.e. how much spending power do they have, that could be a salary or a family income, or defined as low, medium or high-income bracket.
You can also add things like –
- what social media platform do they prefer
- how do they like to be communicated with – email, WhatsApp, phone etc.
- what are their main motivating factors when it comes to health or wellness.
Include whatever you need to make this person really come to life and allow you to really understand them.
This person that you have created needs to sit at the very centre of your marketing, online and offline.
When you create a flyer, or write a social media post, article or video, think about your ideal client and ask yourself if your ideal client would be interested in it?
Would the words or tone of the material grab their attention?
Is the look and feel right for them?
Are you getting it to where they hang out – in person or online.
This is central to all good marketing.
Marketing Options
Once you have your ideal client, you can start thinking about how you’re going to reach them, using what marketing tools and with what materials, and start coming up with a strategy to communicate with them.
Here are the main options that you have available to you –
- Advertising
- Sales Promotion
- Public Relations
- Online marketing – including your website, search engine marketing, social media channels and any influencer marketing
- Personal selling and networking
- Direct marketing – this can be flyers with discounts or promotional codes, social media posts or emails which encourage people to take part in a challenge, or competition, anything that makes your potential customer take action
- Email marketing – building a database and regularly contacting them with useful content, information, advice, videos or guides, as well as products and offers, is a really good way to promote yourself and consistently is up as one of the marketing tools with the highest ROI.
Combining several of these tools increases the power of each. Read our article on understanding your marketing options for more information.
You will choose which tools are right for your business depending on your ideal client profile, your brand identity, where you are based and how far you want to promote your product or service, and of course the time and money you have available to you for marketing.
Authenticity, Credibility and Trust
Health and wellness brands need to build trust in their market place and demonstrate they are experts in their fields.
When you’re thinking about your marketing, these three things should be central to your strategy and come across in all of the things you do.
Here are a few ways you can build this trust and authentic brand image.
- You need to have a clear brand identity which conveys your mission, values and unique selling points and clearly shows why you are the right people to help your ideal clients.
- Your brand identity and voice should be consistent and authentic to you and one which resonates with that ideal client profile.
- Your qualifications, knowledge and experience, as well as past successes should be clearly stated, so people can quickly see why they should trust you!
- Use reviews and customer testimonials to build trust – don’t be afraid to ask customers for them.
- You should educate, inform and inspire and show the world how much you know through your marketing
- Social media is a great tool to build trust, in a very cost-effective manner – don’t be afraid to let your followers see the real you!
- Your website is also a great place to share high-quality, useful information with your potential clients and show that you are the expert.
- Partnering with influencers in the health and wellness space can expand your reach and credibility. Choose influencers whose values align with your brand, and collaborate on authentic, informative content.
Whether it’s blog posts, videos or infographics, consistently provide content that adds value and positions your brand as an authority in the field.
The more your customers and patients see you as an authority on what you do, the better they’ll feel about coming to you when it counts, and counting on you when it matters most.
Social Media
Social media marketing in the wellness industry is an effective tool to achieve a variety of organizational goals — develop credibility, build trust, improve communications and attract more patients and customers. People are hungry for advice, information and practical support and this can be shared on social media.
Where should you be?
Wherever your ideal clients hang out and which is most suitable for the kind of content you’ll be creating!
TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube consistently rank as the top-performing social platforms for health and wellness brands. These platforms dominate because wellness content thrives on visual storytelling, education, and community-building — all strengths of these channels.
BUT don’t just be there because it’s the best performing channel overall, you need to think about where your clients are, what kind of images and videos you have and also what platforms you’re most comfortable using.
Beware of vanity metrics – It’s better to have a smaller reach, and less views, but be reaching people who are likely to buy, than having millions of views who will never be your clients!
Best Social Media Channels for Health & Wellness Brands
1. TikTok – This ranks as number one due to its exceptional organic reach and virality and the fact that there’s a strong appetite for wellness content. There’s an opportunity to create a personal brand and authority due to creator-driven trust and authenticity and it’s ideal for short educational videos and trends.
BUT – TikTok attracts a younger demographic and is suited best to quick tips and catchy videos, rather than long-form content. You also need to be happy to produce lots of videos in the TikTok style.
2. Instagram – Instagram is perfect for visual wellness storytelling such as before/after image or videos, recipes, workouts, motivational quotes and aspirational photography. The Reels offer TikTok-like reach and there is strong community-building via Stories and DMs. Because you can mix images and videos, and don’t need to post as often, it can be more achievable for a small business than Tik Tok. It’s also great for lifestyle and aspirational branding.
BUT – It is picture led, so if you don’t have a photogenic product or service, or aren’t happy with taking pictures of yourself or making videos this may not be the platform for you.
3. YouTube – This channel is best for long-form education (workouts, deep dives, tutorials) and creates a base of evergreen content, which drives long-term discovery. It’s a great platform for developing trust and authority and many people search for content on YouTube, so it really enhances your search visibility. You can also monetize your videos once you exceed 1,000 subscribers, plus either 4,000 public watch hours in 12 months or 10 million public Shorts views in 90 days, so this can become its own income stream.
BUT – YouTube requires higher production than the other channels.
4. Pinterest – Users actively search for wellness inspiration on Pinterest and it’s great for recipes, routines, affirmations, and infographics. Interestingly it delivers a strong referral traffic to websites, so could be worth exploring.
5. Facebook – While this is quite far down the list, it is still a highly relevant social media platform, especially for health and wellness businesses with premises and a locally defined market, such as gyms, clinics, spas and offline therapists. Wellness groups and communities are extremely active and it appeals to older demographics with high spending power. You can also link to articles on your own website and other sites, to reduce the burden of producing content yourself at all time.
What should you post?
A good social media account for health and wellness should be focussed on educating, inspiring, and empowering people to take charge of their fitness, and fostering a supportive community where your ideal client can find the information and help they need to reach their goals.
Use social media to –
- Establish yourself as an expert
- Showcase your work and build trust
- Engage and connect with potential clients
Consistency, interest and value is key to a good social media account for the health and wellness sector and remember, the content should be designed with your ideal client in mind.
Here are some ideas –
If your clients are fitness lovers: Share exercise routines, workout suggestions, and motivational quotes to keep them energized and on the right track.
Nutrition-targeted audiences: Delight them with healthy recipes, meal prep thoughts, and informative meal plans and guides to make balanced eating sample.
Mental health focus: Offer mindfulness activities, stress management techniques, guided meditations and inspirational stories to promote emotional well-being. Explore subjects like meditation, yoga and self-care practices to inspire a feeling of interconnectedness and harmony.
How often should you post?
If you are a sole trader, or have a small team, high frequency social media posting can be a real drain on your time and resources. So, don’t overcommit yourself at the beginning, you are better to focus on quality not quantity, with a commitment to consistency and a frequency of posting that you can sustain over the long term.
Start small by committing to one per week and write and schedule several months in advance, so you know you have a backbone of content and know you will be consistent.
Once you’ve got started, you will likely be more inspired and less stuck and can add posts into your schedule gradually, or post in an ad hoc way when inspiration hits you, so you can test what works and start enriching your channels more.
Posting Planning
The key to consistency is planning, preparation and organization.
Start with a posting plan. This should include the following information –
- What platforms you will be using
- How often you will be posting per week
- What topics you will be regularly posting about and what frequency you will be posting about them
Once you have a clear posting plan, the ideas will come so much more easily.
We recommend trying to write posts in blocks – whether it’s every month, or in blocks of posts around the same topics/themes from your plan.
We write posts for clients a month at a time, in a Word doc, with the dates that you will be posting them clearly stated. Once you’ve written the month, following your posting plan and schedule them, you know you have that covered for the month and can focus on the rest of your business.
Meta Business Suite allows you to schedule to Facebook and Instagram, and is a great tool, or you can use a tool like Publer, to integrate LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and do it all from one platform.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the best way to attract more patients to a wellness clinic?
The most effective way is to build local authority. Use Facebook Groups to engage with your community, maintain a high-quality blog on your website to rank for local search terms, and showcase real-life patient testimonials to build trust.
How often should I post on social media for my wellness brand?
Focus on quality over quantity. Posting 2–3 times a week consistently is far better than posting daily for a month and then stopping. Use a content calendar to plan your topics in advance.
Can I use influencers to market my health product?
Yes, but choose influencers whose values align strictly with yours. Micro-influencers (those with smaller, highly engaged audiences) often provide better ROI and more authentic trust than larger accounts.
How we can help health and wellness businesses
Shaw Marketing Services is a full-service marketing agency on the Costa del Sol, which has been helping businesses communicate better and improve their marketing for 18 years.
We have marketed a range of businesses in the health and wellness sector including a medical clinic, dentist, spa and hair salon, as well as helping many small businesses achieve their goals and we’re here to help you too.
Please contact us for support with brainstorming, marketing planning, social media management, public relations and marketing and social media training.
The Wellness Circle
If you run a health and wellness business on the Costa del Sol we can highly recommend The Wellness Circle. They meet monthly to learn, share ideas and network. The next meeting is the 12th of February. Contact Selina Mackenzie if you’re interested in joining.