Marketing corporate wellness programs to small firms: a challenge for health educators

Despite significant growth in the number of corporate wellness programs during the past decade, their full potential for improving health and reducing corporate health costs has yet to be realized. Most small firms still fail to offer any health promotion programs to their workers and many programs presently in place are poorly organized and fail to address employee needs. In order for the corporate wellness movement to gain momentum, health educators must overcome the misconceptions many small business people share about corporate wellness programs. In order for these programs to become viable, health educators need to become effective marketers incorporating the social marketing components of product, price, place, and promotion. Based on these components, this article outlines strategies the health educator can utilize when approaching, planning, or implementing health promotion programs for small businesses and concludes with a number of recommendations concerning appropriate program evaluation and follow-up.