I want to share the next step in Caroline’s story. She is not marketing massage, but her postnatal exercise classes. Still, what she has done applies to all other modalities as well.

There are 4 simple steps… (and I learned something new in the process as well).

1) Caroline identified her target market clearly
In this case it is mothers who have given birth in the last 6-12 weeks. She knows her clients intimately, because she is a recent mother herself. And she has the skills to help them with the problem of getting their bodies back in shape.
2) She tested the market for interest
Rather than starting with marketing, she just got the word out through friends. The enthusiasm she received was a clear indication that mums want her service. So she is using market pull, rather than pushing something onto the market.

3) She found a quick and cheap way to get her message out
Every woman in Australia who has given birth, sees her obstetrician for a 6 week check-up. That is the perfect time to introduce them to Caroline’s services. Her own obstetrician was enthusiastic about passing her information on and was certain, the others would do that as well.

Rather than producing flyers that would just have general information on them, she opted for a business card with her contact details and a website (www.HealthyMum.com.au) that had all other information on it.

Total costs were less than $500 (including 1,000 cards, the design and production of the website). OK, maybe you would pay a bit more for the website, as we did a lot ourselves.

4) Start the campaign
Now all that is left to do is to start the campaign by sending out the letters to the obstetricians and other organizations that deal with new mothers. It is almost Christmas, so it will not really happen until early next year, but all the pieces of the puzzle are in place.

Marketing Massage needs Support

Even though I have worked with many practitioners on marketing massage services, I had not quite understood what emotional stress many are going through. I guess, most of them showed their more professional face and dealt with the stress elsewhere.

Sharing life with my wife, I got to experience all the excitement and insecurities; all the joys and the frustrations of this process. It was not enough to support her in deciding what to do. It involved coaxing her along, reminding her to take the next steps, comforting her when it got too much. (Mind you our second daughter is only 3 months old, so Caroline is really looking after a lot of things already).

In conclusion I want to suggest that you find your own support to market yourself and your services better. Find someone who supports and motivates you, who is patient and persistent. That is far more important than someone who has a lot of marketing experience.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and a great 2008.

Alexander

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Tags: Marketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Marketing, Support. 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.