The following will be for a new massage therapy clinic. Here are the areas to be discussed: market segmentation/customer relationship marketing/goals and objectives/defining marketing strategy and action programs.
Solution
Over the past few years, the demand for massage services has increased dramatically, owing to the integration of massage in treatment plans of disorders such as depression and anxiety. For example, in the United States, it is estimated that massage therapists’ employment will grow by 21 percent from 2019 to 2029 (“Massage therapists”, n.d.). This data suggests that opening a massage therapy clinic is a lucrative business in the country. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a marketing campaign for a new massage therapy clinic based in the United States. Some of the areas covered in the paper include the clinic’s market segmentation, customer relationship marketing, goals and objectives, marketing strategy, and action programs. Upon implementation, the developed campaign will assist the facility in reaching and attracting prospects.
Goals and Objectives
Goals
The facility’s primary long-term goal is to maximize profits while offering quality and professional therapeutic massage to customers. The short-term goal is to boost repeat business, which will facilitate the achievement of long-term gains. These goals will be fostered by practices such as customizing every client’s therapy based on their pre-therapy interview feedback and during the sessions with our professional therapists, observing and respecting customers boundaries during the therapy, and seeking their most preferred massage environment- with music or silent- to ensure they are fully relaxed and satisfied with the service.
Objectives
The facility will have three primary short-term and focused objectives, given that it is at the startup stage.
- Attract prospects through social media tools such as Facebook and Instagram, and by word-of-mouth advertising from customers.
- Expand the facility’s professional workforce to assist in offering massage therapy to clients.
- Achieve maximum growth in finances and customer base.
Market Segmentation
Demographic Segmentation
The clinic’s market will be divided based on populations that share similar demographic characteristics. As the literature suggests, demographic segmentation is based on age, gender, and life cycle criteria (Gajanova et al. 71). In this context, the clinic will establish demographic segmentation on consumers’ income and health variables. Notably, the massage therapy clinic will target high-income clients who seek massage therapy sessions to pamper themselves. Arguably, this market segment has high disposable income, enhancing its affordability of massage services at least four times a month for relaxation.
The facility will also target clients based on their health status. Notably, the clinic will develop unique services for clients seeking to recover from physical injuries sustained from accidents and workouts. This group of customers will mainly be persons referred for therapist services by their caregivers. Therefore, unlike the high-income earners, this group of clients may have limited income and may only seek the facility’s services for a restricted period until recovery.
Psychographic Segmentation
The clinic will categorize the second target market on psychographic segmentation. This segmentation focus on consumers and their lifestyles (Pitt et al. 3). In this scenario, the massage therapy clinic will target individuals with an athletic lifestyle such as cyclists, runners, and professional swimmers. This group of consumers is more likely to sustain physical injuries due to regular workouts, increasing their demand for massage services.
Besides lifestyle, the facility will also base the psychographic segmentation on consumer’s conscious beliefs. Notably, the clinic will target clients who believe in the efficacy of alternative treatment options such as acupuncture. This category of consumers is more likely to prefer having regular massage therapy as an alternative treatment option for other pharmacological therapies, thus enhancing their demand for the clinic’s services.
Geographic Segmentation
The facility will also categorize its target market on a geographic basis. This segmentation will reflect the geographical boundary that the facility will serve. In this case, consumers are more likely to seek massage therapy services from easily accessible clinics within their geographical location. Therefore, the clinic will primarily direct its marketing efforts to a specific city in the United States with high-income earners and proximity to facilities such as gyms and outdoor sports stadiums.
Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM)
CRM will complement the 4ps of marketing and play a critical role in boosting the facility’s profits and enhancing consumer loyalty. As the literature suggests, CRM focuses on attracting, developing, and retaining customer relationships (Velnampy and Sivesan 2). The facility will mainly attain customer retention through promoting trust, commitment and cultivating a long-term relationship with the clients. Some of the CRM tactics that will be used include collecting customer data and feedback and using it to improve the services. Arguably, this strategy may enhance consumer trust in the facility’s commitment to offering the best services based on consumer feedback and customizing services to suit customer expectations. In turn, the prospects may be willing to book other massage therapy sessions in the clinic, leading to consumer loyalty.
Other CRM tactics that will be used include rewarding and offering discounts to repeat customers and acknowledging consumers through social media tools. From a customer’s view, rewards and discounts may be the firm’s gesture to build a long-term relationship. Therefore, the strategy will help build a lasting relationship with consumers, maintain a significant customer base, which will, in turn, boost the facility’s profits. Similarly, appreciating customers by sending messages and thanking them for using the facility’s services will help build trust, a long-term relationship, and loyalty and boost profits.
Marketing Strategies
Very few people will know the massage therapy clinic, its services, and other offerings because it is at the startup stage. Therefore, adopting marketing strategies in the clinic will help target and inform potential customers about the facility’s offering. However, it is worth noting that the clinic is at the startup stage, and some of the marketing strategies may be too expensive in this phase. Hence, to help achieve the intended goals, the firm will adopt low-cost marketing strategies that target local consumers, who are the primary target market.
Email-Marketing
Email marketing will be widely used in the clinic to attract customers. As noted in a Forbes’ article, email marketing is an essential strategy for attracting customers to a startup for little or no cost (Bina). All the marketing team will have to do is send emails promoting the business to prospects. However, this marketing strategy may also require a close partnership with other firms with access to customers’ email addresses.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing will also be an effective strategy for promoting the firm’s services to several consumers at a single time. Bina notes that approximately 2.4 billion people globally use social media, deeming it vital for firms to incorporate the medium into their marketing strategy. Social media marketing will help the clinic popularize its services among local consumers and distant clients who visit the city. Besides attracting a broad customer base, social media marketing will also be a low-cost strategy. The firm will only require a social media page and a frequent upload of its activities and customers’ reviews.
Paid Search Advertising
The firm will focus the first few years of its operations on enhancing its visibility among potential consumers. Therefore, marketing strategies such as paid search advertising, which brings brands at the lead, will help achieve this goal. Paid search advertising will involve creating custom ads using keywords related to the business (Bina). For example, given that the clinic offers massage therapy, the target keyword will be “massage therapy clinic”. This marketing strategy will be cost-effective as the firm will only pay for viewed clicks.
Blogging
The clinic will also use blogging as a strategy to generate traffic to the newly established facility. Prior reports reveal that businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads than their counterparts who lack blogs (Bina). The use of blogs will help attract customers to the facility, as they seek to ascertain the information they read on such channels. However, the clinic will first post its blogs on other popular sites to help generate traffic on its future website as time goes by.
Action programs
Marketing Action Program | ||||
What to do | Who | Required Resources | When | Priority |
Create appealing emails for the clinic’s prospects | Marketing team | Prospects’ email addresses
Reliable internet connectivity
|
The first month of the clinic’s operations | High |
Create a social media page for the firm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter | Marketing team | Reliable internet connectivity
Internet-enabled devices Interior images of the clinic to post on the social media pages |
The first month of the clinic’s operations | High |
Paid search advertising | Collaboration between the IT and marketing team | Internet-enabled device
|
The second month of the clinic’s operations | Medium |
Create blogs | Marketing team | A popular blogging website | The second month of the clinic’s operations | High |
Works Cited
“Massage Therapists.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/massage-therapists.htm. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020
Bina, Arya. “Five Essential Marketing Strategies for any Startup.” Forbes, 30 May 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/05/30/five-essential-marketing-strategies-for-any-startup/?sh=9893c4857959. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020.
Gajanova, Lubica, et al. “The Use of Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation to Creating Marketing Strategy of Brand Loyalty.” Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, vol. 66, no.1, 2019, pp.65-84.
Pitt, Christine, et al. “New Approaches to Psychographic Consumer Segmentation: Exploring Fine Arts Collectors using Artificial Intelligence, Automated Text Analysis and Correspondence Analysis.” European Journal of Marketing, 2020, doi:10.1108/EJM-01-2019-0083. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020.
Velnampy, Thirunavukkarasu and Sivesan, Sivanandamoorthy. “Customer Relationship Marketing and Customer Satisfaction: A Study on Mobile Service Providing Companies in Srilanka.” Global Journal of Management and Business Research, vol. 12, no. 18, 2012, pp.1-7.