Felicia Brown, massage therapist and owner of Spalutions, believes it helps to perceive marketing as a modality. Just as it took  time, energy and practice to master each of your modalities, it will take the same to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and look at every step of their contact with you through their eyes.

Before you meet them

Even before people phone or email you, you want them to have a positive impression. So you have to look at your massage business card, brochure, newsletter or any other printed materials you have with a discerning eye. Get family members and friends to look at them, and comment. Take their comments seriously and make the pertinent changes.

The same goes for your website. If it’s confusing, distracting, or if important information is difficult to find for any reason, you are losing clients before they even try to contact you.

Whether it’s on the web or or in print, everything a person sees needs to be clear and clean. Forget the bells and whistles. Forget the stunning designs, if it means your name, contact information, services and rates are hard to find or read.

First contact

Once a person contacts you, stay in your marketing mindset. What is the response when they phone you? Does a real person answer in a polite and helpful way? If there is a message, is it given in a professional manner?  Does someone respond to the message within a short time? Listen carefully to what you or your receptionist say in person or in a message, and consider the questions above.

When a client arrives

When a person arrives at your studio, you are still marketing. I can hear some of you thinking, “Hey, I’m a massage therapist, not a marketer. I just want to be myself.” I hear you. If it’s your nature to be friendly, sincere, neat, organized, curious, polite and calm, then you will be marketing just by being you.

Stop and consider. What is it like to enter your studio, clinic or spa for the first time? What can you do to make sure each time someone arrives, they have a pleasant experience that makes he or she feel they are in the hands of a professional? As Felicia Brown says, an overflowing trash can is marketing. But not the kind of marketing that you want to be doing.

It’s a modality, guys. You can do it. Just keep practicing.