By Amy Roberts, LMT.

Many therapists that set up a stall at trade shows, such as the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival, soon understand that it’s not a simple and straight forward process. Apart from the raging competition that is also there, as a Massage Therapist, you will want to stand out from the rest of the therapists that are there. Here are five tips to “being seen” by your prospective clients. After all, the sole purpose of doing a trade show is so that potential clients can see you and then do business with you.

So, how can you break through the crowd and have your trade show exhibit stand out in a way that draws the interest of your potential clients?

A Professional Image

It’s a good idea to have your colours worked out before you go. In fact choosing two or three colours to have as your professional colours will enhance a strong sense of professionalism with your prospective clients. Get your colours and designs all matching. Chose some relaxing colours such as blue or green.

Have a Professional, Functional Website

Along with your professional image, have a professional website. (And use the same colours as you’ve used on the day of your trade show.) You can have someone create one for you which might cost a lot, or you can buy a website with an already made up template. Round the Bend Wizards and My Arts Desire have some templates you may be interested in using.

Add Music

Having an interactive element to your stall will gather some professional momentum. You can have gentle music playing in the background to attract people to you, or have music with headphones you can give to them to block out the background noise and focus on relaxation.

A Water Feature

For added affect you may also have a water feature in the corner. A gentle fountain in a massage clinic is always lovely to listen to. Like music, the sound of gentle falling water, will induce feelings of relaxation- all aspects of your massage you want people to experience even before you’ve touched them.

Lighting

It’s a good idea to create mood with your lighting. You can have some soft globes in standing lamps in your stall then creates a feeling of relaxation. Some globes with a more yellowish tinge to them is a much better alternative than hard white fluorescent shades that some globes give off.

Smile and the world smiles with you

When people first see you they make a conscious or subconscious judgment about how effective your massage treatments will be just by what you wear, your stall layout, your colours and the way you approach people. Don’t sit down reading a book waiting for people to come to you. If you do that you could be missing so much potential business.

If you are doing chair massage then have a friend in the chair and gently massage them so it gives the impression of being busy. And if you are not massaging your friend then be smiling and energetic to attract your potential clients.

Get Ready for new clients

Have your appointment book with you on the day so that if people want to book in after the show they already have their appointment with you. Don’t wait for them to call you, offer to book them in for an hour massage in your clinic with you that week.

Create a special “show offer”

As an incentive for people to come and have massage with you after the show, create special offer for them when they book their first appointment with you. I’m not talking about ten percent off, that won’t rock anyone’s boat. Perhaps you can make up a blend of massage and essential oil and bottle it, then give it to them on their first appointment. You can also put this in a little basket with some dried lavender and some soap as a small gift. You can display it on your table to show them what they get when they have their first appointment with you. You might also be able to create a small booklet with stretching ideas for a variety of problems. You can have a “lower back”, “neck and shoulder” booklets and display them on your table too.

You could give the booklets away on the day to take with them. Print them in all your professional colours, with your website and contact details clearly displayed on the booklets. If people do suffer with these things I can almost bet money that they will in deed read them. It’s another way of problem solving for your client.

Test and measure

It’s a good idea to test out certain things in your efforts. For example try one of these suggestions at a time. See which works best. Then combine them all and see how that goes too. Keep a diary of these changes so you become versed in marketing your massage business. Soon you’ll be able to attract a whole new block of clients just from the day.

I recommend using trade shows but only if you are well prepared. A good image is just as powerful as a poorly prepared image. A poorly prepared image can do as much damage to your reputation as a good image can boost it. So make sure you are prepared and don’t hold back. Try new things but above all present yourself well and give people excellent massages.

Best wishes,
Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapysuccess.com

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Tags: trade show

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.