5 Valuable Marketing Tips for Wellness Brands
Wellness is more than just a trend.
The growing generations are investing in running clubs, low-alc experiences, bathhouse and spa cultures, holistic health festivals and sober dance parties. The herbal products industry alone was valued at $233.08 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow nearly 20% by 2030.
This all points to a really important truth: people are actively invested in living more sustainably and living longer.
And if you're a wellness brand, you're here to support that! So as a marketer and an herbalist, I'm here to support you with marketing tips that you can act on immediately.
5 Valuable Marketing Tips for Wellness Brands
#1: Get to know your audiences - there are many!
Creating thoughtful, well-researched audience segmentation is invaluable and should be one of the first things you do as a brand. Back in the olden days of marketing, companies loved giving their demographics a gender and name, like Jessica - the 30 year-old mom.
True customer segmentation extends way beyond biological markers: it should be about their behavior, their rituals, their affinities and their core needs. And then you tie this all back to how your brand is solving for that.
Take time to do the market research and truly get to know your audiences better.
#2: Personalized email marketing is essential for driving true customer engagement that's authentic and consistent.
Your brand exists to show the consumer that you're here for their personal health journey. So is your marketing reflecting that?
Way too often I see brands make the mistake of sending out email marketing that's a catch-all for everyone's health problems, especially for first-time customers. Chances are that you're sitting on a data goldmine from your existing customers that gives contextual information about what their health struggles are. Utilize this! Look at past purchase history, quiz/survey responses, or click behavior to inform your sequences.
Create distinct email nurture sequences that speak to them: ie distinct journeys for gut health, skin, hormonal/fertility issues, etc. You'll see measurable results in engagement.
#3: Consumers love the science and the woo: balance credibility with connection.
Facts: we want to see them. This helps consumers feel more validated in purchasing decisions because there's science-backed accreditation behind your product. Some brand's messaging is highly scientific.
Woo: we also want to see it. Because Mercury is in retrograde again and surprise, people love seeing a beautifully-lit candle, a bundle of sage, and understanding how your product connects to their astrological birth chart.
This isn't to be cheeky - both are desirable forms of content for consumers. And it could be worth experimenting!
Here's an important point: your brand exists to fit into your customer's lifestyle and daily rituals. And for a CPG wellness brand, this often means multiples times a day. People don't want their adaptogenic mushroom blend to feel uptight. When they see your content, they want it to be informative, real and personable.
Sometimes early-stage brands skip over an important exercise of crafting a distinct tone of voice. Essentially, how would your brand sound if they were a friend?
Develop your brand's tone of voice and create a word map for how this is expressed. For example maybe you're witty, but not punny. Or you're highly-informative, yet not highly-analytical. Once you have this defined, you'll be more clear on how to convey messaging.
#4: Consult the experts, AI won't know all the answers about herbal ingredients and dietary supplements.
As a trained clinical herbalist with a deep knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants - I can definitively say that AI makes mistakes about plant facts. And every RD, nutritionist, nurse and licensed healthcare practitioner will say the same about their field.
YES AI has a lot of amazing information that you'd never learn otherwise so quickly. The key is that AI provides information - not knowledge - and not all info is verifiably fact-checked.
So please, fact-check your claims with an expert - maybe it's your ambassadors, your advisors, etc - before you send off health-related marketing claims for your content.
#5: Honor your competitor's work and hero your key differentiators.
Your competitors are here trying to make the world a healthier place too. And at the end of the day, we all need that. So rather than cutting them down, find the ways that you can honor their work while still leveraging all the beautiful selling points about your company! It's all about clearly expressing your company's inherent value, in an authentic and non-judgmental way.
When I worked at Bowery Farming, I ran a lot of events and industry trade show booths in AgTech where many of our competitors had booths too. Consumers would often ask me, why is Bowery better than other indoor farms?
And I'd answer honestly - that I think it's all needed. We are here to solve for major issues with the world's access to sustainable and nutritious food. It's an important issue that we're collectively working on.
Then I would go into our growing process and our supply-chain methods, the incredible flavor-driven qualities and health benefits, the ways we showed up in community, and how we created give-back programs with amazing non-profit partners. I never trash-talked competitors. And guess what: consumers still loved those answers because it demonstrated inherent value and sincerity. They were happy to buy our products. Take the high road.
Have questions or comments? Feel free to message on this post! I’m happy to connect. You can also check out the rest of my portfolio site: LauraAlyseRubin.com.