Let’s get into more detail on each of these points:
1. No Clear Brand Strategy or Values
Many wellness businesses launch without defining their brand strategy and clarifying their values. This leads to confusion internally and externally. It can also confuse potential customers, making it difficult to connect with the brand or understanding what distinguishes it from other brands.
As a wellness professional, you’re likely to have strong and clear values. The definition of your business values and brand strategy can and should be in alignment with your own true values.
2. Feature-Focused Messaging
The features of your products or services have been carefully thought out and designed, so leading with this type of information might feel natural and even exciting. But If you don’t start with the outcomes that the features bring your customers, you’ll miss an emotional resonance that creates the foundation for further engagement and connection.
3. Inconsistent Branding
When your messaging and/or visual elements are different on social media than they are on your website, for example, it can cause confusion (ie: “Is this the same company I saw someplace else?”) and weaken trust. In the same way, your “voice” will also have a familiar ring when your brand is consistent. It may be a warm, casual way of writing and speaking, or perhaps it’s more of a supportive, informative tone. Whatever it is, it’s important that it comes across wherever your people find you.
4. Generic or Unoriginal Branding
Sometimes it’s enough when you’re just getting started to have some materials and copy that look and sound “professional.” There’s so much to do and you may have diminishing energy, time or resources to dedicate to creating a brand that resonates with the true you.
If that’s the case, it might be time to revisit those materials if they’ve been around for some time as you’ve grown. Updating your brand so it reflects the uniqueness of your offerings can have a strong impact on new and potential clients as well as existing onesthat may be more likley to refer people to you when your brand feels like something special and real.
5. Vague Audience Definition
It is said that marketing to everyone is the same as marketing to no one. However, it can feel counterintuitive to target a small segment of folks. After all, what if someone who doesn’t fit that segment skips over your business because they think it’s not for them?
The reality is, these days we swim in a vast sea of information, and oftentimes the only compelling reason to choose one business over another is literally because you have a clear offering specifically for people like them. If you have the courage to say “it’s not everybody,” your chances of getting the attention of the people it is for increase exponentialy.
6. Ignoring Analytics
Marketing is always an experiment. You throw the mud against the wall and see if it sticks. But if you throw the mud and then walk away before you see where it lands, you’ll never know the real value of the effort and whether or not it’s worth repeating.
Analytics might seem like daunting technical stuff, but an installation of some simple software on your website, and making the time to keep track of what it says, is really just a habit that hasn’t started yet.
7. Neglecting Brand Evolution
When you started your business you couldn’t possibly have known what you do now. The types of clients that you engage with, the treatments you offer, even the way your space is set up might now be vastly different from what you started with. But your brand looks and sounds like it hasn’t moved forward with the rest of the business.
Revisiting your brand strategy and guidelines periodically can infuse new energy into your business and even get the attention of new prospective clients.
8. Imbalance of Expertise and Branding
Many wellness professionals have gone through years and years of education and certification training. You’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into building your skills and knowledge.
Now that you’ve hung your shingle, it’s important that your brand reflects your credentials and expertise. Cheesy stock art and poorly written copy will undermine all that you’ve invested in becoming the professional you are.
9. Poor Online Experience
Every business that wants a piece of the market needs a website and some level of social media presence. But just slapping something up there with a DIY platform or a social media profile that just sits there with no character can do more harm than good.
You don’t get a second chance at a first impression. Make sure what people are experiencing online is easy to navigate, contains the most sought-after information that people are looking for regarding your area of expertise, and the look and feel reflect your honest brand.
10. Overly Scientific Language
Being immersed in your profession as a wellness expert means that there are terms and ideas that you use all the time, but they’re often not heard in the everyday language of your average client. Be careful of using jargon, acronyms or uncommon words. Even if you think it’s common knowledge, you may not realize how many people aren’t familiar with it.
