8 Effective Health and Wellness Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Practice

Key Takeaways

• Help build a strong, authentic brand by communicating what makes your practice unique, showcasing real stories and prioritizing scientific credibility to earn patient trust.
• Leverage multi-channel marketing strategies, including social proof, influencer partnerships and community engagement, to reach and grow your health and wellness audience.
• Offer flexible financing options to help patients move forward with care and support your practice’s financial success.

Health and wellness providers have one big advantage when it comes to marketing: an engaged audience. According to McKinsey research, 82% of consumers surveyed in the United States consider wellness a top or important priority, and the U.S. wellness market was estimated to reach $480 billion in 2024.¹ 

However, if a health or wellness provider feels unsure how to capitalize on that interest, it’s for good reason. A 2024 study found that, unlike other industries, healthcare marketing has not received sufficient research attention from academic researchers.² Reaching patients and clients with health and wellness marketing messaging isn’t just about helping the practice or business succeed, but also improving people’s health through their products and services.

Despite the lack of research, many health and wellness marketers have still found ways to get their message out and engage patients and clients. Here are some of the key marketing methods experts recommend to help you grow your health and wellness practice. 

1. Establish a Brand Identity 

What makes one practice different from all the others? Why should someone choose one dermatologist over another across town? Establishing a brand identity is a way to quickly and clearly communicate what distinguishes a health and wellness provider. It can also help build trust and reliability with patients and clients.

A brand identity can include: 

• A brand story, which explains what a practice or business is all about
• The visual elements used to tell that story, from a logo to designed content
• A brand strategy — essentially, a plan for how to connect with their target audience

A strong, clear brand identity may guide many aspects of an organization’s business practices, from employee engagement to customer service. For example, if your health or wellness practice’s brand is focused on offering financially accessible services, you might consider including healthcare financing options like the CareCredit credit card.

2. Showcase Authenticity and Transparency

Many consumers are bombarded with health and wellness scams online, like AI-generated “wellness influencers” promoting products on social media. It’s no wonder McKinsey found that efficacy and scientific credibility are now two of the most important factors to consumers when choosing a wellness product.¹ 

Authenticity in health and wellness marketing can mean showcasing real stories, experiences and personalities — both from your practice or business, and from your patients or clients. Showing results can be beneficial as well, whether that’s a patient sharing a successful treatment story or a CEO sharing data about a product’s efficacy. Providers can give patients a better experience by understanding the evolving expectations of healthcare consumers.

Language also matters when it comes to communicating authenticity. McKinsey found that consumers are shifting away from claims like “clean” or “natural” and placing greater value on products with clinically proven effectiveness.¹

3. Generate Social Proof Content

Social proof is an approach to digital marketing in health and wellness that may help build a practice or business’s authenticity and transparency. Customer testimonials, reviews and case studies are examples of social proof, as they lend support to a company’s claims. Reviews, in particular, can be powerful for local practices, as a recent study found that 76% of consumers regularly read online reviews when browsing for local businesses.³

Health and wellness providers can take the following actions to develop social proof marketing and help increase patient volume: 

• Request testimonials from patients
• Encourage online reviews via email or text
• Identify ideal success stories and reach out to patients to participate in an article or case study
• Repost positive user-generated social media content

4. Personalize Marketing Efforts 

In the age of algorithms, personalized marketing efforts are becoming increasingly common — and effective. A 2024 Deloitte study found a 50% increase in the number of brands that see personalization as a core component of their customer strategy compared to 2022.⁴

What’s more, 3 in 4 consumers said they were more likely to purchase from brands that deliver personalized experiences, and they spend 37% more with those brands.⁴ It makes sense that brands with high personalization maturity were 48% more likely to have exceeded their revenue goals in 2023 and 71% more likely to report improved customer loyalty.⁴

Personalization can look like:

• Customizing marketing channel choices, such as email
• Leveraging wearable data to target consumers with specific health needs
• Offering personalized video to customers — for example, a weight loss clinic might create customized videos for clients featuring their achievements each year
• Using generative AI to make personalized wellness recommendations

5. Create Strategic Partnerships

Through strategic marketing partnerships, health and wellness providers don’t have to make the case for their treatment, services or products on their own. Influencer marketing is gaining such popularity for good reason: A 2024 survey found that 87% of millennials and Gen Z TikTok users use the platform for nutrition and health advice.⁵

Working with influencers is only one type of marketing partnership, however. Other partnership opportunities could include collaboration with other wellness brands, doctors or academia, all of which can lend additional credibility to a health and wellness marketing strategy. Doctors in particular can be effective, as McKinsey research found their recommendations to be the third most influential factor in consumers’ wellness purchases.¹ 

6. Develop Thought Leadership 

Other potentially powerful influencers are the health and wellness experts inside your practice or business. Thought leadership is a form of content marketing that demonstrates expertise, and it can take different forms. Some thought leadership content features an internal expert’s point of view on a trending topic or information relevant to their products or services. This helps showcase the expertise of the people behind the brand, giving the practice or business more credibility by association.⁶ 

Another type of thought leadership is educational content that comes from the practice or business itself. Examples of this include creating an extensive library of health education content or a selection of provider-evaluated self-care apps.

7. Community-Based Marketing

Digital marketing in health and wellness may seem widespread, but in-person marketing efforts still have a role to play. Engaging with those in your local community can help your health and wellness practice or business build a reputation and increase patient or client trust.⁷ Examples of in-person, community-based marketing include:

• Being the local face of national health efforts
• Offering community health and wellness classes
• Sponsoring health or wellness programs at schools or workplaces
• Supplying booths at community events

8. Create Multi-Channel Experiences

Between health and wellness digital marketing trends and in-person marketing efforts, there are many ways to reach your target audience these days. Research indicates that it’s useful to pick several of them through a multi-channel marketing approach.⁸

Multi-channel marketing is the strategy of utilizing a variety of digital and in-person methods. This could include social media, in-person event sponsorships, email campaigns, seasonal marketing like back-to-school offers, printed ads and more. Though picking just one might sound the simplest, a 2024 study found that multi-channel marketing activities significantly affect consumers’ brand awareness, brand image perception and brand loyalty.⁸ While no one practice or business can market everywhere all the time, committing to a strategic selection of diverse channels may be worth the effort.

Reaching More Consumers, Helping More People

There’s certainly a lot for health and wellness providers to think about when it comes to marketing, but no one approach is the best fit for absolutely every brand. All of these marketing channels and strategies are opportunities that each health and wellness practice or business may consider when deciding the right mix of marketing strategies for them — and for their patients or clients.

A Patient Financing Solution for Health and Wellness Providers

If you are looking for a way to connect your patients with flexible financing that empowers them to pay for the care they want and need, consider offering the CareCredit credit card as a financing solution. CareCredit allows cardholders to pay for out-of-pocket health and wellness expenses over time while helping enhance the payments process for your practice or business.

When you accept CareCredit, patients can see if they prequalify with no impact to their credit score, and those who apply, if approved, can take advantage of special financing on qualifying purchases.* Additionally, your practice or business will be paid directly within two business days.

Learn more about the CareCredit credit card as a patient financing solution or start the provider enrollment process by filling out this form.

Author Bio

Natalie Burg is a writer, editor and editorial project manager with 20 years of experience. She uses her expertise from a range of industries, including economic development, business, sustainability and more, to create content that educates and engages readers.

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