Market your business during Mindful Month

Promoting your business during Mindful Month

These notes are for businesses that are participating in Mindful Month, and businesses that offer visitors ways to relax and retreat from a busy world.

What do we mean by ‘mindful’?

Being mindful means focusing one's awareness on the present moment, especially as part of a therapeutic or meditative technique. For some people it means sitting and perhaps meditating. For others it could be an outdoor activity, really being in the moment and using all the senses to experience the North York Moors National Park. Some visitors may find creative activities such as painting or stitching mindful and relaxing.

What’s happening? Why?

The North York Moors National Park designated September as Mindful Month several years ago as a way of guiding people towards the activities and places where they can slow down after a hectic summer and regain a sense of harmony as Autumn approaches.

September is the perfect time to reflect and start anew. Mindful Month brings together businesses to create a month-long events’ programme for residents and visitors of all ages and abilities to feel refreshed and calm, within the stunning location of the National Park.

Who can participate and benefit?

Any tourism, hospitality, arts and crafts, food and drink business can participate and benefit. We’d like to help our visitors and residents feel better – and in so doing, promote the North York Moors National Park.

You don’t need to put on an event to benefit. You could simply give visitors an insight into the places or activities you find relaxing or suggest ways to step back from a busy world and be more mindful. Creating your own Insiders' Guide to... could work well. 

How the North York Moors National Park will be promoting Mindful Month:

Mindful Month webpage: Mindful Month 

Mindful Month press release: Plenty of new ways to unwind in nature during September's Mindful Month

NYMNP will also create social media posts about Mindful Month on all its channels, including facebook, and Instagram.

How you can promote your business and Mindful Month

How easy is it to understand what you do?

Whatever experience or event you are promoting, consider it through the eyes of a visitor who has never heard of you or the experience. How easy is it to understand what you do/what they could do?

Go back to basics, and make sure you’ve answered the key questions: who, what, where, when, why, how? Don’t forget to include contact details, and location. Don’t make visitors work hard to find out the basic details (I’d say at 30% of businesses do that, and miss out on revenue as a result).

What’s the transformation?

Explain how someone might feel when they do your experience. What might they feel afterwards? What are the benefits? Why is it good? How can they get the best out of it?

Overcome concerns

Many people will be doing your experience for the first time. They’ll have concerns or questions. Some might just not know what to expect – think through those concerns and try to overcome them by providing good information in advance.

I recently went on an hour-long ‘forest-bathing experience’. One of the participants was a woman who said she needed to relax but was scared of going for a walk alone so had joined this experience. She came with a full change of clothes, a huge backpack containing food and a rug: a lot of things for an hour’s gentle walk. But she was nervous about the experience, cautious and wanted to be prepared. She probably felt a bit embarrassed that she’d brought so much, when everyone else just showed up in their jeans, trainers and extra jumper. Better pre-event details would have made her feel much better, more confident and likely to participate in other events. 

Use Mindful Month as a foundation

Plan now to build on this month’s activity. Think of how you can use it as a foundation for future marketing activities. For example, can you use events this month to build your mailing list?

Keep bringing it back to the North York Moors National Park

Remember that the National Park is a very special place, with a huge following and many loyal visitors. You can use this strength as the context for your marketing and business. It's useful to refer to specific places within the National Park, and to explain what makes them special. 

Piggyback on the North York Moors National Park’s marketing activity

We encourage you to promote Mindful Month to your visitors – and future visitors - throughout September, and to promote your events.

• Use the hashtags #NorthYorkMoorsMindfulMonth and #MindfulMonth24 on your social media posts. These are the hashtags used by NYMNP. They could help a wider audience to see your posts and events
• Use the North York Moors Mindful Month logo/icon on social media and on your website. Contact Phoebe (p.smith@northyorkmoors.org.uk) for details
• Always tag the North York Moors National Park in your social media posts so we can share some of your posts
• Use the North York Moors content to your advantage: look out for blogs and press releases about Mindful Month and share them on social media

Susan Briggs/North York Moors Tourism Network