Brand building requires an understanding of the industry terms: marketing and advertising. The two terms may seem to mean the same; however, they are not.
Marketing is defined as a business function that guides how the needs of the customer are recognized, anticipated, and satisfied. You create a brand (an effective marketing image) by knowing what your customers want, what makes them care about products such as yours, what causes them to take notice your product and commit them to memory, and what makes them choose the products that they do. In order to develop your marketing strategy, you will collect this information during your marketing phase that will help you to create advertising strategies that will connect your products to that customer.
Advertising is what is used to attract public attention to a specific brand or product to encourage the customer to purchase it. Many media outlets that are common to massage therapists are printed flyers, business cards, newspaper ads, posters, and word-of-mouth referrals. However, there are more options that can be used such as billboards, radio, cinema ads, television ads, web banners, magazines, and posters – basically anywhere someone pays to deliver their message.
Primary Components: Asking Yourself the Right Questions
At the barest level of marketing, there are generally three components answered within any particular business organization. These could be specific tasks assigned to an employee within the marketing or other related department. But, obviously, if you are seeking to develop your own brand, you are the one responsible to handle that particular marketing aspect for your business.
If you have created a business plan, which you should have, you may have already decided what specific avenue of a massage therapy you want to practice. It should be more specific than providing massage therapy services to a variety of individuals through out-calls, home-office, or through another arrangement. If you haven't decided, it will be harder to know what value you offer to your customers.
Knowing what specific practice you want to offer, will also help you to identify what opportunities, if any, that you should pursue. How do you recognize an opportunity? By pursuing this particular opportunity, is it within your brand's image to pursue this opportunity? Without knowing what value you offer, these questions will be next to impossible to consider.
You will also need to understand "how am I going to compete against the competition?" Research your competition. Learn what media formats your competition utilizes, to whom do they advertise, what is the public perception of their brand or image, and how they deliver on their brand promises.
There is only one possible way to learn all that you need to about your competition and that is to research every aspect of their business. Become their customer, at least once. Take note of their customer service, what products (specifically their services and retail products) they offer, what image do they convey and how it was received by their clients. Collect their advertisements, business cards, and brochures. If they have a web site, review it. Identify what is their unique value and why that makes them different from you.
Lastly, you will need to know how to create and keep your customers. By identifying that brand value, you will then be able to identify who your true customers are, generally referred to as your target market segment, and what advertising efforts that will be the most effective in order to attract and retain your customers
Cherisa Chapa, LMT is the owner of www.BrandMassage.com, where she offers business planning, marketing strategies, and advertising methods resources for massage therapists. She also teaches workshops, seminars, and courses that provide massage therapists the skills they need to develop a successful massage therapy practice. |
