Six Steps to Shifting Your Focus
Promoting Your Massage Business When You Make a Change

Massage therapy is an exciting field with many opportunities for training in new techniques or focus areas. If you plan to take your practice in a new direction, here are six steps to help you achieve your goal.

1. Develop excellent skills in your new specialization.

• When switching to a new technique or client focus area, get well trained so you go in feeling completely confident. Study and train to get the background that will prepare you to fully understand both new techniques and the special needs of your targeted client group.
• Practice your skills with a test group of friends, family or established clients. Hone new bodywork techniques so you will be doing great work from the get go.
• Get feedback from your test group. What are their primary concerns? What words do they use when speaking about your chosen approach - can you apply them in communicating what your work can offer others?

2. Develop your benefit statement.

• A benefit statement is a vital piece of information because it lets people know how you can help them. Include:

• How you address specific problems.
• Your specialized training.
• Your experience.
• Any testimonials or acknowledgement of your work.
  
  
• For an example, let's say you have prepared for a practice that will focus on massage for seniors. For your benefits statement, think about and write down your understanding of what older adults need and how your work can help them. Do the same for a new technique, stating the benefits and what kind of people or conditions it can help.
• Remember to allocate the bulk of your message to how you can help. People do not particularly care that you do the latest, greatest technique. They want to know that a session with you will decrease their arthritis pain, help them recover from an injury, or benefit them in some other way that makes their lives better.

3. Invest in marketing tools that support your new focus.

• Draw from your benefits statement for the messages you use on your marketing materials.
• Create a new or second business card that promotes your new modality or client focus.
• If you have a website, add a page that explains your new focus, and is easy to find, attractive and well-written.
• Get a brochure or newsletter that focuses on particular conditions or interest groups.
• Add your complete contact information to all your materials.

4. Promote your new approach to clients and community.

• If you are promoting a new technique, send a mailing or emailing offering a discount for an introductory session. Hand out your new business cards to clients, friends and colleagues. Ask permission to place your brochures in offices around your community.
• Mail or email a newsletter to both new contacts and existing clients. If we take the example of senior massage, send a newsletter that focuses on the needs of seniors. Even if it reaches people who aren't themselves seniors, some may read it and think, "Oh, my mom needs this."
• Take your marketing materials out into the community. In the case of seniors, it shouldn't be hard to find them - many seniors congregate at senior centers, churches, assisted living housing and fitness clubs. Make a presentation or give short demonstrations. Hand out business cards and brochures while you are there.

5. Build your professional network.

• Connect with other providers who serve the same population as you. Consider reaching out to MD's, acupuncturists and naturopaths, support group leaders, yoga and meditation instructors, exercise and tai chi teachers, or nutritionists. Hand or mail them your business card, brochure or newsletter along with a letter introducing your work.
• Consider initiating a referral system with other bodyworkers who do a different technique or focus on a different target group than you. This arrangement will mean that you refer some clients on, and even lose some. But that can actually help you become a trusted source. When you refer clients on, tell them it's because you want them to find the best help for their particular situation. And be sure they understand what your specialty is now. Send them off with a few of your business cards and ask them to pass your name on.

6. Become known as an expert over time.

• As you work with a particular group, say seniors, or people with chronic pain, you will get to know them more intimately. They will teach you a lot, perhaps even more than your training. You will continue to grow into the expert people seek.
• Keep working on your "elevator speech." That's your 30-second introduction explaining what you do. Use it whenever people ask what it is you do. Focus on how you have helped people resolve their pain, maintain their flexibility, recover from surgery or resolve other issues.

Specializing in your practice can actually make marketing easier. And it can be less work than you thought it might be. As you shift into practicing a new technique or working with a specialized clientele, you'll become known for that specialty and naturally attract clients who respond to your new approach.