My main area to practice massage is in Priest Lake, Idaho. Because it is a resort community the busy season is July 4th to Labor Day. Knowing that my business would be slow in the fall, I did some marketing footwork in Spokane earlier this summer. I went from business to business, introducing myself and dropped off marketing materials for their perusal. I wanted to get my brand out into the market. When fall arrived I planned on getting some call backs on this energy output. Come July, after two-three months of this activity I started to get busy in my home territory and gave up on going into Spokane to get new massage clients.
Now it is the end of September and certainly my business has slowed down at Priest Lake. I am again starting to look at Spokane and closer communities such as Priest River, Newport and Sandpoint. This time I will focus it a little differently. Coming up with a plan and then following up on the leads immediately before they dissipate into thin air is optimal. I learned that just plastering my cards and flyers around does not get me very far in the gain of new clients. Out of the two-three months of marketing I have gotten three responses. One was another business person trying to get me to buy into their pyramid scheme, the other was an injured runner I offered a free massage to, and the third was a cold call from a neighborhood hotel. The method was very un-focused; as you can see from the types of response. If I had focused a bit more, perhaps I would have generated a greater percentage of interest in one arena. I did not have a specific market I was trying to reach. I only wanted to reach the market. Focusing in on a particular market will allow me to re-use marketing materials and really solidify my message.
I have narrowed down the above process to the following target points:
Determine the target market.
Research the needs of the market.
Are there enough customers in the target market?
Check out the competition.
Develop market materials and get to work!