Marketing Massage

Marketing your massage business is an ongoing project that needs to be constantly addressed in order to keep massage clients on your massage table. It is basically everything you do to inform people about your massage business and what you do.

Marketing is usually one of the hardest things for massage therapists to do because it can be overwhelming and massage therapists just want to do massage! Well in order to just do massage, you need to market your business. It doesn’t have to be a major campaign – just an effective one.

Start with creating a vision of your ideal massage client. Your ideal client will nourish you when you work with them. They will show up on time in general and will appreciate you. They will also support you by paying for missed appointments or will gladly pay you more when you raise your rates. Having a vision can help you in creating your marketing plan and taking the appropriate steps. You ideal client is about setting boundaries. A target market will come out of that vision. A target market is different than an ideal client. The target market will be a specific niche of clients that you might want to market too like athletes, women only, pregnant women, injuries, a specific injury like carpal tunnel or something like headaches.

The best things are to have an optimized and content rich website that works, build a referral network which included getting referrals from current clients, other businesses and also from doctors or other health care professionals. For the most part, advertising does not work. Paying for radio or newspaper ads are costly and are very broad in their target. The key is to educate clients along the way.

Building a referral network is also about getting your current clients to refer people to you and also get doctors or other health care professionals to refer to you. It is also about getting other local businesses and people to refer to you. Building a referral network is about getting to know the other person first – that way they are more likely to refer to you. When people feel like they are heard and appreciated they are more likely to have an honest interest in you. Often networking events bring people who are only interested in getting people to refer to themselves and they just will take referrals from anyone and everyone. When you find people with similar values and philosophies on healing and health you will have a more solid referral relationship.

Start with also knowing who your ideal client is. When you have a clear picture of who you want to work with, your business and marketing decisions will also be simpler. When you set boundaries around taking clients that support your vision, you will be supporting yourself in the process.

Take a look at the very big list of Massage Marketing Tips. Go through the list and pick out a few things that resonate with you. Start with one at a time and set a goal to complete one. If it doesn’t work the first time, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Try changing the offer, the time offered or any other variables. Keep trying different things until you find what works for YOU.

There was a book out called “Marketing Massage” by Monica Roseberry (the 1st edition) that talks about what it takes to be successful as a massage therapist. What makes the difference is surprising (read the article in the link) -it doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of money spent on an office or marketing. What makes the difference is:

Having a desire to serve.
The commitment to succeed.
A strong emphasis on Professionalism
A commitment to Excellent Customer Service

What gets in the way of these things are usually our own critical voices that say ‘I am not good enough’ or smart enough or worthy enough or whatever it is that your inner critic is constantly telling you.