Well+Good Drills Into Community With New Launch

NEW YORK, United States — US wellness publication Well+Good has launched a new community-driven initiative aimed at cultivating loyalty and boosting brand awareness.

Well+, an ambassador program for its most engaged readers, is a digital community giving members access to exclusive content, perks and prizes. For every friend that a Well+ member refers to the Well+Good newsletter, they earn points that can be redeemed for rewards such as discounted digital fitness membership, free fitness classes and discounts to retail and fitness partners.

According to the brand, the initiative is a way to reward the most loyal Well+Good readers for being part of its community and to encourage the sharing of its content with a wider audience. It also comes during an inflection point for consumer behaviour in which people are spending longer online amid enforced lockdowns and social isolation, as well as searching for new ways to connect within the digital realm.

“Community has always been incredibly important to us at Well+Good, and now even more so given the sense of loneliness and isolation many of our audience members are feeling,” said Kate Spies, SVP of Content & Growth, Well+Good.

“This new ambassador program allows us to engage with and understand our most dedicated members in a whole new way — all while rewarding them for being a part of our community,” she added.

Launched back in 2010 before wellness exploded into the $4.5 trillion market that it is today, Well+Good has grown alongside the industry to become synonymous with the wellness lifestyle. Today it boasts a monthly readership of more than 12 million, and before COVID-19 hit was operating a calendar of physical wellness events and retreats, as a means of cultivating community and building out its revenue streams.

In response, the business, acquired by Leaf Group — a US company that helps build creator-driven lifestyle brands — for $10m in 2018, has enjoyed a consistent record of robust revenue growth and profitability.

With its email audience one of its most valuable assets, Well+ is another way to enrich that relationship and build out a path for continued growth, said the brand. And it could point to a future strategy for the business which, like many publications is beginning to look towards the subscription model.

Speaking to Welltodo founder Lauren Armes in an upcoming Business of Wellness podcast episode, co-founder Alexia Brue hinted at the brand’s interest in the model, commenting:

“We’ve seen subscriptions really pick up steam with premium news sites like The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal leading the way and now that’s trickling down to lifestyle sites.”

Adding: “Readers are finally understanding that if they want really high-quality content created by professional writers and journalists they need to pay for that content. So, that’s something that we’ll be putting a lot more time and thought into in the year ahead.”

To hear more insights from Well+Good co-founder Alexia Brue, keep your eyes peeled for Season Three of The Business of Wellness Podcast, which will return in June 2020. In the meantime, catch Seasons One and Two on Apple, Spotify or Libsyn.