36 WAYS To Promote Your
Health & Wellness Tourism Offers a stakeholder’s workshop with Maria Todd
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THE BIG MISTAKE Many health and wellness tourism stakeholders ask me to help them create a new marketing and branding product strategy for their health tourism offers. Often they believe that this is something that can be developed sight unseen, and that one strategy or message will work to promote their services to all consumers, worldwide. This perception couldn’t be more misguided.
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OVERSIMPLIFICATION Often, new health and wellness tourism sellers believe that the product they sell is a surgery or a medical service, and that the objective of any marketing campaign is simply to fill excess capacity of beds, hotel rooms, spa appointments, or medical and dental procedures. This may be true at the most superficial level, but it is insufficient as a strategy. This approach fails to address the unique characteristics of the destination, and it does nothing to differentiate the brand from the hundreds of thousands of competitors selling empty hotel rooms and excess capacity to book appointments for health and wellness procedures and services.
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THE 4 Ws To create a proper marketing and branding strategy requires a knowledge of: • WHAT: product knowledge & differentiation from competitors • WHERE: destination advantages & disadvantages • WHO: the identification and rationale of the target market and the personas of those who are most likely to purchase what you sell
WHAT
WHO
WHERE
WHY
• WHY: what they need or want to buy
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Professional health tourism marketing strategists craft targeted messages that explain the brand’s differentiation.
The message must resonate with potential customers who will pay money in exchange for services they want or need as part of a unique destination experience that cannot be duplicated elsewhere.
Before messages and a strategy and tactics can be created, the marketing professional must perform a situation assessment.
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TACTICS Once the situation subjective and objective data has been collected and analyzed, the marketing and promotional strategy and tactics can be selected from the options recommended by the expert. The decisions about which options are possible comes from the management review of the expert’s recommendations and are limited practicalities such as:
• Budget • Timing • Personnel • Regulatory requirements, and • Technologies to automate and streamline processes
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36 PROMOTIONAL TACTICS • Advertising • Article authorship • Alliance Marketing Partners • Audio recordings • Celebrity endorsements • Channel marketing (B2B, B2C, B2I, B2G) • Corporate logo wear • Corporate Identity design • Corporate hospitality (fam tours, etc.) • Customer testimonials • Direct mail campaigns • Email marketing campaigns • Events • Internet marketing • Location marketing • Media relations • Mobile marketing • Networking at events
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• Packaging that features your branding • Point of sale • Printed matter • Professional selling • Promotional gifts • Referrals • Regional /local/national tourism promotion • Retail sales • Sales promotions • Search Engine Optimization Treatments • Social media marketing • Sponsorship • Telemarketing • Vehicle marketing • Videos • Website • Word of mouth • Writing books and e-books in your specialty domain
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HELP IS AVAILABLE If you are ready to get started on a marketing and branding strategy for your health and wellness tourism promotion and you’d like some guidance, Mercury Advisory Group is ready to bring its broad domain experience and any external creative team support and internal training you may require.
Mercury Advisory Group
Health & Wellness Tourism Division Denver, Colorado USA +1.303.823.4662 info@mercuryadvisorygroup.com
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