Marketing Health, The Ayurvedic Way.
We get this question a lot – What makes Socialike different?
In searching for a way to differentiate ourselves and our marketing approach, I looked to my newfound passion for Ayurveda.
One of the best things about owning your own business is that you can move the direction of your company to fulfill your personal needs, hire people that fit this mantra and create a culture that stands for your beliefs. That is what we are doing with health and wellness and, even more specifically, Ayurveda.
In a business sense, we are looking to Ayurveda as a differentiator in how we approach our marketing efforts.
We can not create a business solely focused on Ayurvedic brands, but we hope to find brands with internal teams whose mindset aligns with Ayurveda. We can use our passion for Ayurveda and marketing to help brands within health and wellness.
What is it like when your brand is optimized for the present day’s challenges? You can weather changes better and not just tactical changes like the algorithm but all facets of your business.
There are a couple of Ayurvedic pillars which we think about personally and translate into our marketing mindset:
Diet
- Personally – Everyone’s optimal diet is different. What works well for you might not work well for your partner. Constantly tweaking your diet to align with what is happening around, and that time of year can lead to optimized health.
- Professionally – Every brand is different. Before bringing on an Ayurvedic mindset to Socialike, we would send out a proposal before doing our one-month deep dive into research and strategy. Now, we split out our contract with clients into two separate stages: First, we agree on a price to execute our research and strategy phase that ultimately leads to price to execute our short and long-term recommendations.
- Until we had a proven track record, clients would not sign up for this two-phase approach. The client wanted a setlist of deliverables right off the bat for the length of our contract. No nutritionist or ayurvedic practitioner would give you a recommendation on how to live your life before truly sitting down with you and understanding who you are.
Sleep
- Personally – We need it to rejuvenate and re-energize our body, mind, and spirit.
- Professionally – We take Fridays to focus on ourselves. Understanding that we are in an ever-changing world and need to stay on top of trends. Fridays are used to hone our skills, research the latest trends and take care of our bodies.
Let’s look at a traditional brand through an ayurvedic lense – Imagine this:
25% of your business comes from Whole Foods, and they decide to private label a product you make. You think the worst is going to happen. But because you are focused on longevity and your brand, this helps you.
Your brand is strong, so they don’t take you off the shelf but remove another brand from your category. Whole foods or any other retailer are not traditional brands; they have many other worries. But you are brand first.
Whole Foods increases shelf space for your category. Because you have a mindset of investing in your brand, extra attention draws more eyeballs to your category. You can capitalize on the existing eyeballs because you have a strong brand (Ayurveda = Because you have been practicing preventive measures, you can weather this storm).
It’s a mindset you need to get into.
When Socialike thinks about how we market a brand, we draw on principles from Ayurveda. Even though the platforms where you get the message out have changed dramatically, the concept of creating a brand that resonates with consumers is timeless.
- Authenticity is everything
- Content is king
- Consistency is key
- Overthinking is a waste of time
- Out of all four of these, I want to call out “overthinking.” Don’t get too caught up in the vanity metrics or the latest fad. Listen to your consumers, be knowledgeable about the industry as a whole and if it feels right, go for it. (Ayurveda = Listen to your body; it knows a lot about you. If you eat something and don’t feel good after it, try to stop eating it.)
