One of the hardest parts of working in the health and wellness industry is managing all the aspects of your business that don’t have to do with health and wellness. The reality is, if you’re working in this industry, you’re likely a small business owner, managing small operations like personal training, to large operations like multi-clinic private practice.
That means you’re doing a lot of marketing yourself, making use of tiny budgets managed by even smaller teams, and trying every DIY growth hacking trick in the book. But did you know that video marketing is one of the best growth hacking tools in your arsenal as a small business marketer?
Most SMBs in the health and fitness space avoid video altogether because of the perception of expensive upfront capital costs, but with the ability to create high quality videos on just an iPhone, you absolutely can’t avoid video any longer.
So how can you leverage video in the marketing for your health and wellness program? How can videos help grow your business, and where should you post them? We’ll answer all that and more; but first, let’s tackle why this industry needs video.
Why use video in the health and wellness space?
Video is a key marketing tool in the health and wellness space. For starters, your prospects are all about results. Video shows them.
Think about it: as a personal trainer, if you could visually represent a client’s weight loss journey in a well-documented video series, wouldn’t you? Or as a healthcare provider, wouldn’t you want a video of a customer testifying to the quality of your care on social media? As a yoga studio owner, don’t you want to show off how zen your sessions are on your homepage?
Then there’s the benefits of using video on Instagram, one of the top social platforms for health and fitness brands, where 75 percent of users end up taking action after seeing an ad, and where one in four Gen Z and Millennial users actively look up Instagram Stories of brands they’re considering buying from.
And if you’re looking for an example of video’s power specific to health and fitness companies, video has been reported to help maintain a 60 percent return rate for customers, three times the industry average.
Not to mention, viewers on YouTube are watching more relaxation, yoga, wellness, and meditation videos than ever before, as Google reported in 2018 that watch times for videos on managing stress were on the rise by over 60 percent year over year, with a 70 percent increase in the last 12 months alone.
How can I use video for my health and wellness business?
Video can help every aspect of your company’s marketing strategy, but let’s get specific based on what goal you’re trying to achieve:
Attract new clients with impressive results.
Finding new clients is often the hardest part of running a health and wellness company, especially when the customers you’re trying to attract are expected to be customers long term, like regulars for a bi-weekly aerobics class or new patients for your health care clinic.
Because you’re looking for quality of customer as opposed to quantity, using video will help you attract like-minded customers. Videos can showcase your personality as a trainer, your talent as a teacher, camaraderie as a studio, or community-focused care as a provider, and in turn, will appeal to viewers who value the same things you do.
Also, unlike other companies or industries that can attract customers from all over the world online, health care and fitness companies are typically looking for locals only. Video is the perfect tool to attract customers with location-specific search ads whenever they search for gyms, classes, or clinics in their area. For example:
- Create a short commercial featuring your best success stories and flashiest visuals to run paid ads on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites.
- Make an industry video on a topic facing your sector of the health and wellness community and pitch it to bloggers and journalists who write about your industry.
- Try a short 30-second promo video of an intense workout and ‘bulk it up’ with relevant hashtags to see how many views you can get on Instagram or YouTube.
Engage prospects when they follow up for more information.
When trying to engage with web visitors who click through from your original marketing efforts to your owned social media channels and website, there’s no better way to capture their attention than with video. When video and text are both available, 72 percent of viewers prefer to watch the video to learn more.
Video is also one of the best ways to stand out from the crowd, since many health and wellness businesses can feel indistinguishable without the unique voice that comes from good video marketing. By using videos to engage with visitors, you have another opportunity to wow them with your unique brand and vision, as well as showcasing your talents.
Pepper your website and social networks with plenty of follow-up videos for those looking to learn more information about your core products and services. For example:
- Feature a brand video on your homepage to familiarize visitors to your personal passions, talents, and value proposition in your chosen profession.
- Compile your most impressive results into a before and after video that will have your prospective customers begging to sign up for the same quality service.
- Utilize product or service videos to share more about the different health classes, wellness programs, or fitness offerings available to new clients.
Nurture interested prospects with valued content.
If you run your own gym, yoga studio, or personal training business, you should be no stranger to the value of email lists. Creating valuable content to establish yourself as a credible and influential expert is a great way to keep would-be clients coming back for more information.
Using video content as part of your email sequences helps to nurture clients, and since your audience retains 95 percent of a video’s message compared to just 10 percent when reading it, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity by not giving your prospects the information they want in the medium that best serves them. Plus, since video nurtures clients best by helping them better remember the information, it serves you by solidifying yourself as an expert.
If you use your video content to answer frequently asked questions and create dialogues with your prospects to discuss the topics they really want to know about, like proper eating, pros and cons of certain diets, or what type of treatments you offer, you’re that much more likely to turn a query into a client. For example:
- Survey prospects on your email list about what’s holding them back from pursuing health and fitness, and create an FAQ video to address their issues.
- Create and promote Facebook or Instagram live videos where your followers can ask you for tips directly.
- Try retargeting your potential customers with paid ads promoting an educational video series on important health issues instead of a sales-focused video, and see how many clicks you get back to your homepage.
Delight clients and patients to keep the referrals flowing in.
As you know, the work doesn’t stop once you’ve made the sale. That’s not how the health and wellness industry works; most businesses in this field depend on repeat customers, and more importantly, outside referrals to your clients’ extended networks.
Video can continue to be used to delight clients and patients well after they’ve had their first visit. For example:
- Offer discounted sessions for referrals via a 24-hour referral code in an Instagram Story video.
- Shout out current clients with customer spotlight videos of them crushing sessions at the gym or their happy life six months after a medical procedure.
- Post simple tips and tricks videos with ‘snackable’ diet and workout tips and blast them out to your community to keep your clients and patients coming to you for advice.
5 Types of Videos Every Health and Wellness Company Needs
By now you can probably see the value of video marketing for your health and wellness company. But what videos do you need to start with? Here are our top five picks for the best types of videos to create when just starting out.
1. The Brand Mission Overview
You went into this business for a reason; you didn’t just fall into it. Use a brand video to tell your story; the why behind your company (and why you started it), and feature it on the homepage of your website. You can even pin it to the top of your socials when you aren’t running another promotion.
2. Event Highlight
Whenever your company hosts or participates in an event, make sure you bring a camera team to document it and turn it into a powerful event video. These videos show social proof of your company participating in and interacting with the real world, and captures genuine reactions to your company’s services from customers and participants alike.
3. Pre-Roll Commercial
A commercial will be the one you use to promote your business with paid ads, using advanced audience targeting to reach people in your area. You want it to be short, 30 seconds or less, and you want it to offer a high-level overview of your services. Just a sneak peek to hook them and get them to click-through.
4. Product Spotlight
Even if you’re running a personal training business, creating a product video that focuses on one aspect of your business is ideal content for engaging visitors who click through to find out more. By dedicating separate videos for each different product or service, you not only get more content, but you can go deeper on each subject.
5. Social Media Content
Social videos are vital for marketing your business for two reasons. First, you want to populate your channels with short, snackable content; second, they’re so easy to produce, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be making enough to post daily. Between going live, filling up Stories with day in the life content, and the week’s social calendar of regular video content, you have plenty of opportunities to nurture your followers with video on social.
In Summary
Video marketing is perfect for health and wellness because of its striking visuals, its results-oriented nature, and its direct-to-consumer objective. Whether you’re just launching a new gym, trying to find new attendees for your dance studio, looking to nurture locals into consideration next time they need medical attention, or attempting to delight your current customer list into becoming a powerful referral network, video is your number one resource to make it happen.
If you’re too busy to tackle video production all on your own, we totally understand. It takes time and hard work, which is where we can help. We create high-quality, affordable videos for you, so you don’t have to take time away from what you really love about your business. Reach out to schedule your call today and let us help!