Sunday, August 3, 2003

Holistic Marketing When most people think of marketing, they think of advertising, distributing brochures, and "getting the name out there." To me, these are the last steps in marketing. I view marketing as first "what" then "how." By "what," I mean deciding what business you are in and what services you are offering. My impression is that a lot of holistic health smal business owners are not completely aware of this early part of marketing. The "what" looks at how you are different than other people offering similar services. Let's say you are a massage therapist. What makes you different? Okay, you have learned some other techniques, perhaps trigger point myotherapy and acupressure. What does that mean to me, as a potential client? Would it be more powerful to say that I am the massage therapist who specializes in working with computer programmers and administrators who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome? If you are a person who suffers from wrist pain due to too much typing, and you could choose from five massage therapists, one who specializes in your problem, who would you go to? How much more would you pay to go to that person? $10? $20? But if I specialize, do I turn away everyone else? You might, but you don't have to. Instead, once you have decided on a specialty, you can focus your marketing efforts (speaking, networking, writing, etc.) on that market. What do computer programmers read? Where do they meet? Where do they shop? The fun part of this is that there are a million ways to specialize. You can specialize by the problem (cerebral palsy), demographics (children), technique (reiki), customer service ("we pamper you"), hobbies (sports teams) and many more ways. The trick is to pick some combination for which you have passion. As you've probably guessed, I could have opened a general small business school, instead of focusing on holistic health. But I have tremendous passion for holistic health. I want it to become the major medical system of North America. Opening this business school is my small way of being a part of that happening. Find your niche and live your passion. 2:36:55 PM

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