Home » UpMarket

Before Starting Your Massage Business...

KDimmick by KDimmick
Last updated: 12/30/2010

5 Simple Steps To Starting Your Massage Business

I'm often asked, "Karen, how do I start my massage business and get clients, if I know nothing about marketing and I've never run a business before?"

Well... that's simple. Actually, starting a massage business is pretty easy, once you get the hang of it, but there are things to consider before you start.

Here are the five simple steps you can take right now, to get yourself started:

1) Pick a niche you are passionate about
2) Create a unique business name
3) Create a website
4) Get visitors coming to your website and inquiring about your massage services
5) Produce effective marketing material that you can measure the results from, that converts inquiries into paying clients

What You'll Find On This Lens...

  1. 1) Pick A Niche You Are Passionate About
  2. 2) Create A Unique Business Name
  3. 3) Create A Website
  4. 4) Get Visitors To Your Website
  5. 5) Produce Effective Marketing Material
  6. What Do You Think?
  7. Business Books
  8. How Close Are You?
  9. My Business Lenses
  10. Tweet Tweet?
  11. Dear Reader...
  12. All About The Author

1) Pick A Niche You Are Passionate About

Specialists get more clients. So if you specialize by picking a niche you'll find it much easy to tell potential clients exactly what you do and you'll find you attract a lot more clients.

To find your niche, ask yourself these questions:
Who do you love to work with?
What issues do you love to work on?
What can you be so wrapped up in all day that you never get bored?
What do you look forward to at the start of each day?

As long as there are enough people in your area who meet these issues or are in this group that's a good niche.

2) Create A Unique Business Name

When you start a business, any business, you want to set it up with a view to selling it one day - even if you never do!

The reason for this is that it becomes much easier to run if you set it up correctly right from the start.

When it comes to picking your business name, there are a few things to AVOID:

1) Naming it after yourself - because then you can never sell it, or have someone else working for you
2) Naming it after your location eg College Avenue Massage - because then you can never move locations, or at least not without destroying all your marketing efforts
3) Naming it with "massage" in the name - because then it will be much harder if you want to expand to including other modalities like acupuncture in the future
4) Giving it a name no one can spell or pronounce - because then no one can easily refer others to you, or search for your business online

So with that in mind, keep the name relevant (something to do with health, wellness, or preferably your niche)

Keep the name catchy, but not so much of an "in joke" your target market won't understand.

3) Create A Website

More than 80% of people will look online for a local service before they'll look elsewhere. Without one you've already lost 80% of your potential audience!

So it's vital that you have a website for you new business!

You'll want to get clients coming in to your new business as quickly as possible and the best way to do that is to have a good website, written by someone who understands SEO, direct response copywriting and website design.

If the person you pick to create your website doesn't understand those three things and can't explain them to you, give you their "conversion rates" for their copywriting and tell you exactly which keywords they are going to target for you and why.

Then hire someone else!! (At least for the parts they can't explain)

Do You Like This Lens?

If so, please consider giving it a thumbs up!

This module only appears with actual data when viewed on a live lens. The favorite and lensroll options will appear on a live lens if the viewer is a member of Squidoo and logged in.

Add this to your lens »

4) Get Visitors To Your Website

Once you have your website up and running, you'll want to get it in front of a lot of people. This is called getting visitors, or traffic, to your website.

Depending on the keywords your website is optimized for, you'll probably have a hundred people or so each day looking for your services in your location, so provided your website persuades your visitors to call (or email) for an appointment, you should start to have your phone ringing very early on in the life of your new massage business!

5) Produce Effective Marketing Material

You must be able to measure the results from your marketing material, or you'll have no idea if the money you spent creating and distributing them was worth it... Or whether you want to repeat it!

Direct marketing is the only form of marketing that lets you measure your results. It is also the most effective way to convert the reader into one of your paying clients.

You can use your direct marketing material to get you new clients, as well as encourage all those previous clients (like the ones you had at college) to come back and starting having massage with you again.

I have had clients who have nearly tripled their income in less than 3 months using this method of getting clients.

It is highly effective!

So you want to make sure all your marketing material has the elements of direct marketing in it, to make sure you get as many clients as possible from your marketing investment.

What Do You Think?

Are you excited about starting your business?

Loading Fetching blurbs now... please stand by

Yes - It's going to be a huge success!

More like rather nervous!

 

Business Books

Loading

How Close Are You?

Loading poll. Please Wait...

My Business Lenses

Loading

Dear Reader...

Please share your thoughts below on this lens and any other massage marketing ideas you'd like to see a lens on!

submit
Show All

All About The Author

Loading

This UpMarket page written by

KDimmick

As the creator of the Enlightened Millionaire Code I help people create enlightened wealth. more »

Deluxe. Remarkable. Creative. Unusual. Successful. Upmarket businesses push the envelope -- does yours?

Connect with UpMarket

This author recommends...