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Tag: marketing

Knowing your ideal client

Whether you’ve learned barefoot massage already or are pondering your possibilities, it’s important to decide who your ideal client is for barefoot massage.

Really, you should know this even if you haven’t even considered the possibility of taking our classes!

1st consideration

You can’t serve everyone.

Think of big chains.

While it may seem like they serve everyone, they’ve probably narrowed it down something like this-the person

  1. wants the convenience of a membership
  2. doesn’t mind seeing a wide variety of therapists
  3. wants a less expensive massage
  4. is willing to buy products

2nd thought

In trying to have everyone as your client, you are missing out on those who want to find someone who specializes in XYZ.

This brings us to specializing in a modality.

You don’t have to be a barefoot nerd like we are. Some massage therapists love taking a wide variety of CE classes, and we’re into that as well.

But when you offer 37 items on your massage menu, it:

  • creates confusion with your potential clients
  • it makes it harder for them to make a decision
  • ultimately, they’ll probably leave your site
  • you aren’t seen as an expert in any one field-you look more like a dabbler in modalities.
  • Just pick a couple of things and get really good at them.

Be known for something specific.

3rd idea

Now that you’ve chosen a thing or 2 to specialize in, who do you want to work with?

My ideal client used to be someone like me (Mary-Claire)-a parent who didn’t have a whole lot of money but wanted to take care of themselves. As a result, I didn’t charge a whole lot.

While noble, that’s not a great idea if you actually want to make a living doing massage therapy.

When deciding your ideal client (also known as an “avatar”), get super specific.

Do you want to work with:

  • men or women
  • athletes or wanna be’s
  • someone who’s working from home and is stressed out
  • car accident rehab patients
  • oncology patients (not for barefoot massage, though)
  • etc. (you catch my drift, right?)

What’s their name?
Do they have kids? How many? Ages?
Pets?
What are their hobbies?
What kind of work do they do?

Be specific as you can. For instance, mine looks something like this:

Bob is a 54-year-old married dad of 2 whose kids are out of the house. He has a Labradoodle named Sals who he takes on walks twice a day. He is an upper-level executive of marketing with Procter and Gamble and likes to hike on his days off. He loves deep tissue massage and is a foodie.

What 3 important facts does this tell me?
1. He has a reasonable amount of disposable income with his job and his kids being out of the house.
2. Bob likes being outdoors and getting exercise.
3. Being a foodie, he is open to new experiences.

Therefore:
1. He would probably like stretching added into his barefoot massages (which I want to do)
2. Bob has enough money and time to take care of himself with regular massage.
3. As a matter of fact, Bob is an ideal client who can afford to come 2x a month to receive massage.
4. He is willing to try new-to-him techniques such as side-lying,

Knowing your ideal client will help you target your social media and marketing to the right potential client.


Interested in learning more about barefoot massage?

Visit us at www.barefootmassagecenter.com

We have tons of Tip and Tricks on YouTube!

And check out our Facebook page

Don’t forget Instagram!

2021 reSOLEution #BarefootMassageChallenge

Join the challenge!

reSOLEution 2021 #BarefootMassageChallenge

GOAL: Create NEW content that educates YOUR community

Who needs help creating new content for your Barefoot Massage social media accounts?! Over the next 3 months, we will be providing you with coaching prompts and we want to see you adapt it to fit YOUR business. We want to see you create content on your social media account that is unique, engaging, and accurate. We want you to think about creating content that would bring your clients in and connect with them. We want to see you use our examples as inspiration, but not use them as verbatim – change up the idea to fit your voice and branding. THIS CHALLENGE IS FREE and is meant for Center for Barefoot Massage alumni. You can do it live with us and win prizes, and/or you can pick up this challenge anytime and use the prompts as content starting points just to have a fresh take on how you talk about your work. Our goal is to help you create 9 pieces of new, focused content that you can reuse over time in your rotation of posts. In fact, these 9 posts – just 3 a month – can easily become 18 different items thru the bonus challenges! WHO COULDN’T USE 18 NEW THINGS TO POST?!

What you’ll get
  • 3 months worth of focused topics to create NEW social media content, with guidance from the Center for Barefoot Massage Instructors & their local businesses
  • 3 specific assignments each month
  • End up with 9-18 new pieces of content that are true to your brand AND uses updated Barefoot Massage information: no more re-using outdated, overused lingo or old posts.
  • Earn points as you post and you can win a free Center for Barefoot Massage shirt, collectible stickers from our instructors across the nation AND an upgraded directory listing on our website to boost your SEO rankings and help more potential clients find you.

CLICK HERE to have your posts counted into the challenge!

SCROLL DOWN TO FIND THE CONTENT YOU NEED TO CREATE EACH MONTH ON YOUR OWN. >>>

Why a barefoot massage membership site

When Jeni, Paul, and I started this little business in 2017, and we spent a lot of time visioning and planning how we could make our barefoot massage company different from others. Not only in the strokes and how we teach, but in our post-class support. A barefoot massage membership site made sense.

It would be a place for our community to review strokes, download marketing and business materials, ideas on how to better run their massage studio and more.

I’ve been doing barefoot massage since 2002, and Jeni was shortly behind me in 2003.

Together with our instructors, we’ve learned so much about what helps barefoot therapists.

By the same token we’ve also discovered what also prevents other skilled therapists who have learned ashiatsu from actually doing it in their studio and growing a business.

Transitioning your clients to barefoot massage

Once you’ve learned barefoot massage and have practiced, sometimes the biggest challenge is how the heck you get your clients to try it. Let’s talk about the transition to ashiatsu barefoot massage.

The question recently came up in our FB alumni group, so we thought this might be a question that others have as well.

First off, you must practice and accept feedback from non-paying clients about your newfound barefoot skills. Why non-paying? Because if you are fantastic at hands-on massage but only mediocre, at best, from having recently learned ashiatsu, your clients will not love your new skills.

They’ll say, “Thanks, but I’ll stick with what I know and love” or some similar jargon that will deflate you and make you wonder what you’re doing wrong.

Is Barefoot Massage the same as a Foot Massage or Reflexology?

reflexology-foot-massage-barefoot-massage

If you are already massaging with your feet, you’ve probably spoken with clients who perceive “Barefoot Massage” to be some kind of foot massage, like reflexology.

“Oh I LOVVVE to get my feet rubbed” is one of the top responses I get when I introduce myself as a Barefoot Massage Therapist.

::eyeroll:: <>

Just laugh it off and show them this video:

 

10 easy ways to get your clients to say “YES!” to barefoot massage

So you’ve taken the first step and learned a beginner’s level ashiatsu barefoot massage. Practice and feedback make perfect, so you’ve listened to your practice clients’ constructive criticism and have achieved a certain level of comfort in your barefoot bodywork. But how do you transition your clients to barefoot massage?

Many of us hate the thought of marketing ourselves because we hope that the public will somehow know how fantastic we are (because we put out good vibes, right?).

Maybe you’re worried that because you live in Podunksville that people will think you’re weird for using your feet to massage.

But in your heart and sole 😉 you know that barefoot massage is the best way to give your clients the deep tissue massage they need without hurting yourself. It’s the only way you’ll be able to successfully continue your massage practice for years to come.

Are you excited about the work? Clients will quickly absorb your enthusiasm! Here’s what Sara Newberry Clavenna had to say about her transition.

I went full on ashi all the time. My clients were mostly excited/intrigued which really fueled even more of my excitement. It really helped that I was super stoked before I went to the training.

Dawn Dotson had the same approach, saying she “started the hype” before she went to class proceeded to incorporate it with her clients right away. Importantly, she also “proceeded to get feedback. I spent a good 30 extra minutes on feedback and follow-up after each session.”

Another experienced massage therapist did the same, “I simply told my clients we were doing a new thing and that was that.”

Importantly, they did not charge more for barefoot massage, because they had already figured out it was the key to career longevity.

3 top free email marketing programs for massage therapists

Emailing your massage clients periodically should be a given, like Marketing 101.  You can send them monthly tips about health or something interesting, and you can also let them know your upcoming openings or changes in your schedule. But how do you do that without emailing each person individually?

An email marking service is the best way to go. You can either use plain text for a simple email (apparently, your clients’ inboxes are less likely to send them to spam that way. Read more about that here). You can also design something nice (which is what we do) that will mesh with your website.

We are going to skip over the paid versions because if you’re just learning about this now, a free version will probably suffice nicely.

What is Ashiatsu Massage?

Ashiatsu Barefoot Massage is a massage. That’s it, honestly. A licensed massage therapist will provide a professional, well educated massage service catered to a clients needs, and they just so happen to use their feet as the tools that deliver the technique, rather than hands. Why should a person try Ashiatsu?

You can talk about it’s depth and consistency of pressure. You can go on and on about how you use 1 foot at a time unless the client happens to weigh more than pounds than you… you can talk about your overhead bars or your super sturdy massage table… you can explain your soft, smooth, clean feet…  you can mention how it saves your own body…. FOR REAL THOUGH!?

Do you go into that much detail when you explain a deep tissue massage that’s delivered from your upper limbs?! Not usually. Although ALL of this information is imperative to explain at some point during your client education, sometimes you are limited on time, so get to the point. Let them ask those questions instead, and you can come back to these key points while keeping them engaged in conversation.

 

How do YOU introduce this specialized technique to your clients or your surrounding community? Do you have a rehearsed elevator speech that explains the key benefits a person may experience when receiving an Ashiatsu massage from you? Sometimes an on-the-fly elevator speech seems intimidating, but it can be really fun and inspiring when you speak from your experience!

Instead of memorizing a script and repeating it back like a robot, aim to embody your own walking/talking advertisement so that when you need to, the words will roll off your tongue and fit the situation. Here are some tips to explain your work intuitively and fluently: