marketing

The best marketing is client-centered. That is, it talks about what the client wants, not what you want.

People go to massage therapists because they want something to change, something to be different. The best marketing helps them realize you are the person who can help them achieve the change they want.

You’re not selling massage. You’re selling results.

Good marketing is a service to your potential client. There’s someone out there who needs what you have to offer but if they don’t know you exist or can’t find you, you can’t help them.

The best marketing is helping the people who need you find you.

There are two rules to choosing your marketing tools:

1. Is it something you’re good at and comfortable with? The more that’s true, the more likely you are to do it well.

2. Is it something your potential client will respond to? Whether it’s social media, donated gift cards, public seated massage, whatever it has to be something that your ideal client responds well to.

You have to market to potential clients and to existing clients. Marketing isn’t just for attracting new clients. You have to invest energy in strengthening and securing your relationship with your existing clients as well.

So your marketing efforts should always be two-pronged: attracting the attention of potential new clients AND solidifying the connection with your existing clients.

Marketing Truth #3

Someone has to see your marketing message 5-8 times before they remember that they’ve seen it once. They’ll see it 5-8 times before it penetrates all the info overload in everyone’s life and lodges in memory.

That’s just lodging in the memory. It’s not when they make a decision. That may take seeing your message many more times.

So you have to commit to putting out your marketing messages over and over and over and over. It’s never once-and-done.

Marketing Truth #2

Marketing is as much magic as it is science. When you are making marketing decisions, you are trying to predict (i.e., guess what will happen in the future) how someone you don’t know will react to something you’ve done.

That reaction is based on how they think about their body, understand and value massage, place it in relationship to all the other things they have to pay attention to in their life, and when and how they receive your marketing message.

How can you ever know all of this for sure? You can’t. Even people with college degrees in marketing are always doing some guesswork. They’re never certain that what they recommend will work. So don’t feel bad if you feel like you’re guessing. You’re in good company.