Marketing for wellness practitioners and independent practices
We run every part of the funnel so the people who need you can find you, remember you, and book you. Strategy, website, SEO, email, and content- you can trust us to handle all of it.
You’re busy; let’s make this quick (a summary)
Merlinite Marketing is a two-person marketing agency in Dartmouth, Massachusetts (45 mins south of Boston). We work as the outside marketing department for independent wellness practices and brands, which mostly means one of us is your fractional marketing director and the other handles the technical side.
We work with functional medicine and integrative practices, concierge medical and cash-pay providers, therapists and counselors in private practice, Reiki practitioners, energy workers, bodyworkers, yoga studios, med spas, retreat leaders, and wellness product brands. Our clients are across the US, not only New England.
Every engagement starts with a consultation. Plans start at $4,500 a month. Month one is strategy. There's a six-month minimum, then it goes month to month. Most clients end up staying with us for years.
mer·lin·ite marketing
/ˈmərlə-nīt/ noun
1. A stone that keeps you grounded while it opens the third eye. It gets its sparkle from cooling slowly, deep underground, over a long time.
2. Marketing that works the same way.
Who this is for
Functional medicine and integrative practices. Concierge medical practices and cash-pay NPs. Therapists and counselors in private practice. Reiki practitioners, sound healers, energy workers, and bodyworkers. Yoga studios, med spas, and retreat centers. People selling programs, courses, workshops, sessions, self-published books, or products.
Who you're hiring
Merlinite is two people. Me and my husband Mike.
Kelly
I've been doing marketing for almost ten years. For a lot of that time, I was also running a wellness business of my own. I owned a crystal shop for five years. Before that, I managed a wellness center. I'm a Reiki master. I've coached other owners through their marketing and strategy too. Before any of it, I worked in banking and accounting, so I'm comfortable with the numbers side. These days it's all marketing and strategy.
So when you tell me about your practice, I get it. Functional medicine, therapy, energy work, bodywork, whichever end of this you're on. And when your client is a C-suite exec, or married to one, I get that too.
When we say we know how to sell what you make, it's because we've made it, stocked it, priced it, launched it, and sold it ourselves.
I do strategy, copy, content, search, and positioning. I'm the one you'll talk to.
Mike
He has a degree in business administration, human resources and marketing from UMass. He spent eight years in quality and operations management at Titleist and Precix. Now he runs MadFable, where he builds subscription-free software.
Google Ads and Meta ads are his. So is the analytics side of SEO. He's in strategy conversations as much as I am. Then when you need something custom, like a members area or a private page for your recordings, he builds it, so we don't have to find a workaround or tell you it isn't possible.
You'll meet me first and I'll be who you deal with day to day. But you're hiring both of us and he's in the work.
Handing it over should feel like handing it over
Most people come to us nervous.
Some have done this before and it went badly. You paid someone and still ended up writing captions at 10pm. If that's you, then you hired this out and it should have felt like it. That's what we're here to fix.
Some have never handed this to anybody. The business has your name on it, and letting someone else write in your voice is a fair thing to be uneasy about. I'd be uneasy too. All I'll say is that I'd rather sound like you than sound clever, and if something I write doesn't sound like you, tell me and I'll change it. You don't have to explain why.
Either way, when we say we'll take it off your plate, we mean the worrying too. The writing and the posting, sure. Also the part where you keep checking to see if anything's happening.
The platforms change something every few weeks. I keep up with it so you don't have to, and you'll only hear about the ones that affect you.
When there's a call to make, I'll usually just take initiative. If your input is needed, I'll come to you with what I think we should do instead of a list of options, because you hired me to take care of this.
Nobody gets into wellness dreaming about marketing
You got into this to help people, and to do the work you're good at (right??). Not to spend your nights fighting with Instagram, rewriting your homepage for the fourth time, or wondering why the people who need you can't find you.
Maybe you've tried a few things already. Someone handed you a content calendar to fill out, or built you a website you can't edit, or posted for you for a few months and you couldn't tell if it did anything. Every time, it landed back on you anyway.
Orrrr maybe you've been doing all of it yourself, at night, after clients, and you're done.
Either way, if you're coming into this burned out or not even sure what you need, that's a normal place to start. Most people are right there when we meet.
Your marketing is not your Instagram or TikTok
This is the part that usually comes as a relief. Social is one piece. It helps. It warms people up and gives someone a place to look you up and feel like they know you a little. But it isn't where your clients are coming from, and we don't build a funnel that depends on it performing.
The work that brings people in is less visible. Search, so you turn up when someone's already looking for what you do. Your website, so whoever lands there gets you in about ten seconds. Email, so the people already circling you don't drift off. Positioning, which is usually the problem underneath all of it.
So no scripts. Nobody's going to ask you to film a trend. If you want content ideas we'll give you plenty, and if you send us something you shot on your phone we'll use it and be glad you did. But none of it is required. We'll do fine on what we make.
We don't need you to send us content
If you have photos, footage, or a brilliant creative idea (or a reel you saw that you’d like to use as inspo), send it and we'll build around it. It always comes out better when we can show you and/or your space. But, if you have nothing, we'll create something. With full funnel marketing, your business doesn’t depend on your social media to pull in leads, nurture them, AND close the sale.
Be as involved as you want. You just don't have to be.
I know there are things you can't say
A therapist has board rules about testimonials. A functional medicine practice has limits on what it can claim about outcomes. Someone doing energy work has to stay careful about implying medical results. A med spa has its own set again.
I'm not your lawyer and I won't pretend to be. But you won't get copy from me that ignores the rules you practice under, and I'll always run anything making a specific claim about results past you before it goes out.
We've published free guides on this: a compliance checklist, a claims guide broken out by profession, and HIPAA-safe review response templates. They're below, and they're free whether or not you ever hire us.
How you'll reach me
I'm the one you talk to, and you get to pick how.
Text, voicenote, email, whatever's easiest for you. Most places make you use their system. You can use whatever you already use.
If a thought hits you at 11pm and it's easier to talk than type, send a voice memo. I'd take that over an email you've been meaning to write for three days.
I answer Monday through Friday, 9 to noon, so you'll always know when to expect me instead of wondering whether I got it.
No ticket system, no account manager. If Mike needs to get involved in something technical I'll tell you, so you're never hearing from a stranger.
Honesty is the best policy
No one can guarantee exact numbers. Including us. Too much of it comes down to your pricing, your availability, how fast you follow up with the people we send you, and whatever the platforms decide to change this quarter. What we can promise is the truth about what's working, including when the answer doesn't make us look good.
I don't know everything, but I will always find a solution. Nearly ten years in and I'm more comfortable saying that, not less. What I do know is that we'll find the answer, because there always is one. This is marketing. It's not life or death, and I'll remind you of that when it starts to feel like it is.
I'll never tell you your idea is bad. If you want to try something I'm iffy on, I'll tell you I'm iffy and then I'll help you try it. You know things about your business that I never will. I’m here to support you. I’m not here to control you or your dreams.
Read the blog
What clients say
Common questions
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The essentials is $4,500 a month. Full funnel is $6,500 a month. Strategy is built into month one. It's the same price every month. Every engagement begins with a $350 consultation, which comes off your first month if we go forward.
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Independent wellness practices and brands, across the US. Functional medicine, integrative and concierge medicine, cash-pay providers, therapists and counselors, Reiki and energy work, bodywork, yoga studios, med spas, retreat leaders, and wellness product brands.
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No. We write, design, and post it. If you want to send photos or video we'll use them and the work gets better for it, but nothing we deliver depends on it.
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Dartmouth, Massachusetts. We work with clients anywhere in the US.
Some of your best clients will come from people they already trust: a primary care provider, an OB, a chiropractor, another therapist whose caseload is full.
This 3-page kit gives you a list of likely referral partners, an intro email and follow-up script, a one-page leave-behind template, and a tracker. Built for therapists, integrative practices and bodyworkers.