Service 01 of 05
Marketing For Ayahuasca Retreat Centers
One team accountable for the calendar, instead of four vendors each responsible for a fragment of it. Below is the actual twelve month plan, the monthly reporting spec, and the hours we will need from you. Published in full, because you should be able to judge it before you pay for it.
What is marketing for ayahuasca retreat centers?
Marketing for ayahuasca retreat centers is the practice of filling ceremony seats without paid advertising. Google Ads and Meta both restrict promotion of controlled and psychoactive substances, so growth has to come from organic search, AI answer visibility, editorial content, brand reputation, email and alumni referral. Run as a full engagement it means one team is accountable for the calendar rather than four vendors each responsible for a fragment of it.
Why the whole engine
Four vendors, and nobody owns the calendar
The usual arrangement is an SEO freelancer, a content writer, a web developer and whoever handles the inbox. Each does their part competently. Nobody is accountable for whether seats fill, and every one of them has a reason it was somebody else’s fault.
Four vendors, four invoices
- An SEO contractor who reports on rankings, not deposits
- A writer who has never asked what a dieta is
- A developer who ships the page a month after it was needed
- An inbox handled by whoever is not in ceremony that day
- No single person who can tell you why March is empty
Each part is fine. The seams are where the bookings fall through, and nobody is paid to look at the seams.
One system, one scoreboard
- Strategy, content, search, AI visibility and email planned together
- Written by people who already know the industry’s vocabulary and its limits
- Pages built and shipped by the same team that planned them
- The enquiry path treated as part of marketing, because it is
- One monthly report that opens with enquiries and confirmed deposits
If March is empty, we are the ones who have to explain it, and we have to have seen it coming in January.
The plan, published
What twelve months actually looks like
Most agencies will not show you this before a contract. Here it is. Your version will differ in detail, because the audit changes the order, but the shape holds.
Foundations
Goal: stop the leakingNothing here is glamorous and all of it compounds. We fix what is losing you bookings you already have before spending anything on getting more.
What we build
- Audit and channel map, delivered as a document you keep
- Site structure, internal linking and schema, implemented
- Your first two destination pages, written with real specificity
- The enquiry path rebuilt, from first contact to screening call
- A baseline of what ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity say about your destination today
What changes for you
- Enquiries start arriving better qualified
- You can answer within a day without it eating the morning
- Long tail search terms begin appearing in month three
- You know, for the first time, what each directory actually returns
Authority
Goal: become quotableNow we build the reasons for a search engine and a language model to trust you, and the reasons a human does too. This is the quarter with the most writing in it.
What we build
- Publishing at a real cadence, written by us and reviewed by you
- Answer first rewriting across the pages that matter, so sentences can be lifted whole
- Entity and citation work across directories, forums and profiles
- First press and practitioner placements
- Email list rebuilt, welcome sequence written, alumni segmented
What changes for you
- Destination queries start returning your pages, not only directories
- AI assistants begin mentioning you, often before Google moves
- Past guests hear from you again, some of them book again
- You have content you are not embarrassed to send to an enquirer
Compounding
Goal: the head termsThe work from the first two quarters starts paying. This is where the graph shape changes and where most engagements that quit early would have quit just before it did.
What we build
- Head term positions pushed, with the link and press work behind them
- Remaining destination and service pages completed
- Alumni referral program launched properly, not as an afterthought
- Shoulder season planned deliberately rather than absorbed
- AI visibility retested monthly against the same prompts
What changes for you
- Competitive terms such as your destination plus retreat begin to move
- Referral becomes a measurable channel instead of a happy accident
- The months you dreaded start filling earlier than last year
- Directory dependency is visibly falling
Ownership
Goal: you could run itThe engine should not need us to keep turning. By the fourth quarter the point is to hand it over in a state where staying with us is a choice rather than a dependency.
What we build
- Directory spend reduced deliberately, in order of what returns least
- Returning guest and second retreat programs
- Documentation of every process, written for your team not for us
- Next year’s calendar and content plan, built with you
- Handover of every asset, credential and document
What changes for you
- The majority of bookings come from channels you own
- You can see a full year ahead instead of the next two retreats
- Stopping would slow growth, not stop the enquiries
- The strategy lives in a document, not in our heads
The operating rhythm
What happens, and how often
Retainers go wrong when nobody can say what is being done for the money. This is the cadence.
| When | What happens | Who is involved |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Publishing, technical fixes, outreach, and a written note of what shipped | Us. No meeting required. |
| Fortnightly | Enquiry review. We read a sample of real enquiries and how they were answered | Us, with whoever handles your inbox |
| Monthly | Full report, then a forty minute call to decide the next month | You and Michael |
| Monthly | AI visibility retested against a fixed set of prompts, so movement is comparable | Us |
| Quarterly | Strategy review against the calendar, pricing and occupancy, not just rankings | You, Michael and your numbers |
| As needed | Anything urgent. A policy change, a bad review, a facilitator leaving | Email, answered within a working day |
The reporting spec
Exactly what is in the monthly report, in this order
Business outcomes first, activity last. Most agency reports run the other way round, because activity is easier to produce than results.
- Enquiries receivedThe raw number, and how it compares to the same month last year rather than to last month, because this industry is seasonal.
- Enquiries answered within one working dayA percentage. This is usually the single biggest lever on your booking rate and it is entirely within your control.
- Screening calls bookedHow many enquiries became a real conversation. If this is low, the enquiry path is wrong, not the traffic.
- Deposits confirmedThe number that matters. Attributed to a source wherever attribution is honest, and marked unknown where it is not.
- Search positions on booking intent queriesNot every keyword. The ones somebody types when they are close to deciding, tracked in the country your guests come from.
- AI assistant citationsThe same prompts asked of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews every month, with the actual answers included so you can read them yourself.
- Directory performanceWhat each one returned this month against what it cost. This is how we decide which to keep.
- What was published and shippedThe activity list, at the bottom where it belongs.
- Next month, and what we need from youNamed, dated and specific. If we are waiting on something from you, it says so here rather than surfacing as an excuse later.
What we need from you
Roughly six hours a month, and honesty
We can write about search, structure and conversion. We cannot invent what happens in your maloca, who your facilitators trained under, or why someone should choose your valley. That has to come from you, and it is the part that makes the work unique rather than generic.
First month
Heavier, because this is when we gather what only you know. Interviews with you and your facilitators, a walk through your intake, access to your analytics and inbox.
Every month after
Reviewing drafts, one forty minute call, and answering the specific questions in the report. Not a standing weekly meeting.
Your clinical lead
Every medical or safety passage goes to your physician before publishing. Nothing about screening, contraindications or preparation goes live without their sign off.
Real photography
We direct it and give you a shot list. Someone still has to take the pictures. Stock jungle reads as stock jungle and it costs you trust.
Scope
What is included, and what is deliberately not
Included
- Strategy and a twelve month plan built around your calendar
- Destination and service pages, written and shipped
- Organic search: technical, on page, internal linking, links
- AI answer visibility, tested monthly against fixed prompts
- Editorial publishing at an agreed cadence
- Email, welcome sequences, alumni and referral programs
- Press, podcast and practitioner placement
- Enquiry path design and response time coaching
- Monthly reporting and a quarterly strategy review
Not included
- Paid advertising. Google and Meta will not run ayahuasca campaigns and we will not waste your money finding out again
- Any claim that ayahuasca treats a condition, in any wording
- Bought reviews, fabricated testimonials, invented scarcity
- Daily social posting. Organic social is proof and lineage, not an acquisition channel
- Booking software, CRM licences or your hosting
- Clinical protocol, legal or immigration advice
- Photography or video production. We direct, a professional shoots
- A second client in your destination market, at any price
Terms, in writing
How the engagement works
- Fixed fee audit firstTwo weeks. The document is yours whether or not you continue, and you could hand it to another agency.
- Quoted after the auditThe monthly figure is scaled to how many destinations and languages you run. Quoting before means guessing.
- Month to monthNo twelve month lock in. Stop after any phase, keep everything built so far.
- One center per destination marketYour competitor does not get in while you are with us. If your market is taken you hear it on the first call.
- Clinical sign off before publishingMedical and safety copy goes to your physician first. Always, without exception.
- Everything is yoursPages, schema, sequences, brand assets, process documents, strategy. Nothing leaves with us and nothing is clawed back.
Questions about full marketing
When will I see bookings from this?
Enquiry quality usually changes first, within the first two months, because the enquiry path and the main pages are rebuilt early. Long tail and destination search movement arrives around month three.
Competitive head terms take nine to eighteen months depending on domain history. AI assistant citations often appear faster than Google positions, sometimes within four to ten weeks, because so few centers are structured for them yet.
How much of my time does it take?
About four to six hours a month from you after the first, plus roughly two hours a month from your physician or clinical lead. The first month is around eight hours because that is when we gather what only you know.
There is no standing weekly meeting. One forty minute call a month, and email in between.
Why not just buy SEO and skip the rest?
You can, and for some centers that is the right call. It works when your site already converts, your enquiries are answered the same day, and your brand does not undersell the place.
If those are not true, rankings send more people into a process that is losing them. The audit tells us which situation you are in before you commit to anything.
Do I have to stop using retreat directories?
No, and we would not cut them on day one. We measure what each one actually returns, keep the ones that convert, and drop the ones sending unqualified enquiries.
The goal is to reduce dependency deliberately across a year, not to create a hole in your calendar to prove a point.
What happens if we stop working together?
You keep everything. Pages, schema, brand assets, email sequences, process documents and the strategy. Rankings and AI citations stay with your domain because they were built on it rather than rented through us.
No lock in, no clawback clause.
Who actually does the work?
A small team, and you will know everyone on your account by name. Michael reviews every client’s strategy personally and takes the monthly call himself. You will not be handed to an account manager who has never read your intake form.
Can you work in Spanish as well as English?
Yes. Most guest facing content is written in English because that is where the booking intent sits, but Spanish language local presence matters in Peru, Mexico and Costa Rica and we handle both.
One center per market
Find out whether your destination is still free
Forty minutes, or an email if you would rather write. We look at your search visibility, ask three AI assistants to recommend centers in your country, and tell you the first thing we would fix. If full marketing is more than you need, we will say so.