4.5 min read – this article discusses the importance of planning when it comes to developing your brand and marketing strategy for your meditation business.
It can be really exciting to be sitting on the verge of creating your own meditation business after all the hard work you have done in successfully becoming certified.
Perhaps you have already started looking at some beautiful website designs and the types of logos you like – let’s face it, this is the most exciting aspects to starting a new business! We can spend hours if not days and days doing this kind of research. We might even jump into financially committing to some things.
However, starting here as the very first port of call, has the potential to lead us down a path that we might need to course correct later. But, don’t let that stop you from getting the creative juices flowing. In fact, we highly recommend starting a Pinterest board and pinning all the wonderful inspiration you have. This is a great way to keep all your visuals organised. It is also something that you can share with others later if you ever need to hire a graphic designer in the future.
So, first things first.
To build your brand and begin marketing your meditation business you need to start with a Brand Strategy. Working on your Brand Strategy will put you in a good position to develop a marketing plan (but more on that later).
What is a Brand Strategy?
Your Brand is not your Logo. It is so much more. Your Brand is the whole experience that your clients have with your business. It’s the personality of your business that imprints on the audience. As meditation teachers, this will be about the way you talk to your audience, the stories you share, how you conduct yourself in tricky situations, how you respond to reviews, how you answer questions in your community, the values of your business and the problems you set out to solve.
If you are at the stage of starting your own meditation business, you might want to take note of some of the below questions to help you with a brand strategy:
Brand Strategy Questions
- Why does my business exist?
- What problem/s is my business setting out to solve?
- What kind of future do I want to help create?
- Who are my clients?
- What problems do they have?
- What are the values my business is prepared to stand by?
- Are these values distinctive from other wellness businesses in the market I am wanting to operate in?
- When someone engages with me or my meditation business, how do I want them to feel?
- What are some of the emotional benefits my business can deliver to my clients?
- Who are my competitors?
- How do people feel about the competitor’s brand?
- What problems do the competitors set out to solve?
- How is my business different to my competitors?
- Is my business offering unique?
- What problem does my company solve?
- What kind of personality will my brand have?
- Who or what are some of the brands I love and what makes me attracted to them
- What kinds of fonts/logos and colours match the Personality of my brand?
You might discover some other questions that relate to the brand you want to create as you go through this list.
Excitedly, you will be in a better position to understand what kind of logo’s and website designs might resonate with your audience – time to bring up that Pinterest board!
You will also be a great position to start your Marketing Plan!
What is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a document that helps you map out vital aspects of how you will communicate your business to your audience. Planning out things like the types of goals you want to achieve and the steps to get there is important. A plan will give you direction, and help you keep focussed on the needs of your meditation clients.
Rest assured that marketing plans look different from business to business, so rest in the knowledge that you are not needing to create a document that needs to match the efforts of a complex global business!
Your marketing plan doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. But, at the very least, you need to have a good understanding of exactly who your audience is, where they are situated and how you are going to connect with them .
How do you write a marketing plan for a meditation business?
It can be a little overwhelming to look at all the components of a marketing plan and know exactly where you might start. So, we strongly recommend using a template that is specific for a small business.
A good template needs to allow you to address some fundamental questions about your meditation business. These might include:
- What is the current meditation market like? Is it set to grow? What opportunities are present for my business?
- What are my goals in starting a meditation business?
- How will I attain these goals?
- How will I measure my success?
- Who are my customers? Do they fall within a particular demographics? (Age, Gender, Location)
- What are their needs? What are some of the problems that my audience want to solve?
- How will my meditation offering address these needs and help them solve their problem?
- Is the service I am offering unique to what is out there in the market? How is my business different to other meditation businesses in my market?
- Who are my competitors and what is their position in the market? How do they offer their meditation services? Location and pricing? Etc
These are just a few questions you can answer in the framework of a structured marketing plan. A quick Google search will reveal plenty of free marketing plan templates.
We have also done a bit of research ourselves and listed a few for you to look at.
Free marketing plan templates for small business
Why go to all the trouble of creating your own document from scratch when all the hard work has been done for you?! Here are 3 free marketing templates we think might help you.
The Australian Government provides a simple and straightforward marketing plan template specifically for small business.
Smart Sheet have a great selection of marketing templates available. From a one page marketing plan through to a Service Marketing plan template. They even have templates for when you are ready to execute certain marketing strategies.
This marketing plan from Mind Body also includes a handy budget template along with a step by step guide on how to create your marketing plan.
The outcomes of a Marketing Plan
Upon going through the process of writing your marketing plan, you will develop a great deal of clarity when it comes to your goals, your audience and how and where you will connect with people to buy your service.
And, perhaps, after spending the time planning and understanding things like your budget , you will be in a position to execute a marketing campaigns that will build your audience and a loyal following.
Something to keep in mind when marketing your meditation business…
As you are going about creating your marketing plan, remember that you are an amazingly unique being who has a special talent to share with the world. No one can ever be YOU. No one will ever have a business exactly like YOURS. So, give yourself the gift of knowing this. And most of all, have fun creating your business!
The Marketing team @ ACMM x
