This presentation is designed to help massage therapists and other self-employed wellness practitioners with practical, free practices that will improve your practice and stimulate growth.

Here are excerpts from the presentation:

What is Marketing?

 first, I want to define marketing. I know we all know what marketing is, but most people’s definition is pointed in the wrong direction. This causes a lot of people to be allergic to marketing. Marketing should not be looked at as selling your services or products in order to generate revenue. That can be a way to look at marketing. But when you look at it like that, it feels icky to just talk about selling services. It also tends to focus your energy on doing things that are a little more desperate, like discounting services and things I don't agree with when building a long-term practice.

So what is marketing? For the purposes of this webinar we will define marketing as creating a path for clients that leads to time on your table. Marketing is simply creating an opportunity and a path that's going to lead people that don’t know you to trust and get on your table.

The Customer Journey

This is the structure for a lot of what I'm hoping to impart on you as a marketer. The customer journey is simply the point at which somebody interacts with your brand or you throughout your relationship.  There are a lot of ways you can map a customer journey, but we're going to stick with a very simple structure that applies to every customer experience.

Phase 1: Awareness

The first touchpoint along the journey is awareness. Its definition is the moment the client becomes aware of your service or offering. This is the aspect of marketing everyone is aware of. This is why definitions are so important. Most practitioners stop at awareness and assume this marketing.

 If I can just get out the bullhorn, if I can just find a way to tell enough people, then I will be busy and I'll have a successful practice. That’s the thinking. The challenge to this limited scope is that awareness is only the very, very first step. And it is the most costly in both time and money. This means if you exclusively focus on Awareness marketing you will be exhausted, broke, and have few results.

Phase 2: Consideration/Exploration

This is typically the second touchpoint. It is often the third, fourth, and fifth as well. This is the piece of the relationship where a potential client considers your advantages, fit, and if your service is worth the energy and resources. Without understanding the consideration phase, you are paying for a negative marketing response. What do I mean? If you spend money and energy on Awareness marketing but neglect the consideration phase, then you inoculate people from your services. Once someone researches you and decides you are not a good fit, it takes substantially more energy to get them to change their mind.  What is involved with the consideration phase? Most often there are two aspects to focus on early in your marketing, your website and reviews.

Phase 3: Conversion

You have a client who has heard of you and thinks you could be a good fit. But now what? Do they see an easy, no-friction path to connecting with you? The Conversion phase is about creating a simple path to connection. If neglected, clients become paralyzed and move on to other, easier tasks.

Phase 4: Loyalty

Loyalty is the often-forgotten aspect of marketing. You’ve done all the work to engage and treat a client, but did you build long-term loyalty? Loyalty is about building a relationship. It means you need to dictate the communication channels and how the relationship will go. Waiting for the client to develop a relationship with you is bad form and leads to low rebooking rates.

Want to understand how to work with each phase of the customer journey? Watch the video webinar above and hear practical tips for utilizing Google Business, improving your website, and getting more reviews.