Like any company, deciding on a target market for your massage business is essential for success. It enables you to attract new clients as well as maintain a profitable and efficient marketing campaign. The more you know about your current and future clients, the easier it will be for you to provide them with exactly what they need.
The importance of choosing a target market
The main reason businesses choose a target market is to help them provide clients with the services they need, and also to help them develop specific and effective marketing strategies. But having a target market doesn’t mean you exclude clients who don’t fit your criteria. Rather, it allows businesses to focus their marketing efforts on a specific market that’s most likely to respond to their campaigns and ultimately purchase their product or services. With a clearly defined target market, it’s much easier to determine where and how to market your business without losing time and money.
Choosing a target market makes it easier for you to decide upon and create marketing campaigns, products, and services. By knowing what your current and potential clients want, you’re able to offer tailored services to make sales easier to attain.
How to decide on a target market
Look at your current customers
You should begin by determining who your current loyal customer base is. Take a look at your current clients and observe any common characteristics and interests. Ask yourself; why do these customers buy from you? Why are they using your services? Are they people who have a high-stress job? Mothers who need a time out? The more you delve into your current customer base, the easier it is to find common characteristics that can shape the definition of your target market.
Create a target market profile
To help with pinpointing your target market, you should devise a general target market profile based on your existing customers. Within this profile you can dig deeper and figure out the demographics and psychographics of your current clientele. Demographics can include age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, education, and income level. Psychographics include the personal characteristics of a person, such as their personality, attitudes, interests, lifestyle, health, and wellness goals. You can also take into account factors such as how many sessions your clients book and what their reasons are to use your services.
If you’re unsure of where to begin, here are a few examples of the different markets you may have as a massage therapist:
- People who are busy or who have high-stress jobs are often in need of massage services to help them manage their stress levels.
- Athletes and sporting professionals commonly need massage services to help with pain management, rehabilitation, and the strengthening or relaxing of muscles.
- Elderly patients and those with medical conditions often find relief with massage services. Many seniors seek therapeutic massage to decrease stress and to help manage aches and pains. For those who have suffered a stroke or live with arthritis, massage has been proven to help with recovery and management.
- Clients with mental health conditions. Massage is often referred to patients who are dealing with anxiety or depression due to its profound effects on the mind and body.
- Pregnant women are common target markets, with pregnancy-related symptoms effectively managed through prenatal massage.
- Students who are seeking relief from the stress of studies and daily life. High school and university students are good target markets since they face constant performance anxiety and stress, often needing a break to relax and calm their nerves before important exams.
- People who are focused on a healthy lifestyle and their overall well-being are great targets for massage businesses. These clients know the importance of massage as an alternative form of therapy and medicine.
Using your target market profile
Deciding on a specific target market profile based on the above considerations helps to improve the success of your marketing activities. By targeting those clients who are most likely to use your services, you have more chance of increasing your sales and maintaining a large clientele.
Using your target market profile for marketing purposes will allow you to effectively cater to your clients’ needs and offer more specialised services. Communicate this to your clients through social media, advertorials, brochures, and press releases. Your marketing campaign should be ongoing, and not just when you need to boost client numbers. By having a clear idea of your target market through the tips above, you can deliver a confident and efficient campaign that will continue attracting your ideal clients.
Social media marketing is an effective tool to use for customising your campaigns. This is because you can customise your social media page to target a chosen audience by sharing pictures and articles relevant to what you specialise in. For example, if you specialise in sports massage you can share articles about managing muscle pain or provide examples of common stretches. Platforms such as Facebook allow you to target content toward your chosen audience.
Benefit from targeted marketing
Choosing a target market for your massage business isn’t difficult. Setting aside some time to explore your current client-base and familiarise yourself with your unique services and their benefits will help you to draw up the perfect marketing campaign for potential clients. Discover Massage Australia courses provide you with all you need to know not only about massage techniques but also about how to manage your massage business and target market. Browse the list of courses here, or check out our newest online message course.
