Spa Canada Magazine

Build Your Brand, Bottom Line & Word-of-Mouth By Adding a Touch of Wellness

Build Your Brand, Bottom Line & Word-of-Mouth,

By Adding a Touch of Wellness

by Mindy Terry

The spa industry is in an evolution phase that includes a shift back to wellness. If you are a spa manager who is not thinking about wellness, you should be. A ‘wellness focus’ moves spa treatments into the “need to have”, instead of
“nice to have” category for consumers, equaling a better bottom line for your business.

The market is definitely fertile for “need to have” services. The Canadian Mental Health Association shows the number of Canadians reporting stress increased 30 percent in a year’s time (2009). The International SPA Association cites reducing/relieving stress as the No. 1 reason people goes to spas. As a spa manager, where do you start when it comes to wellness?

DUE DILIGENCE
Consumers are often confused about what exactly ‘wellness’ is. As spa professionals, we have to help define wellness and, in turn, offer effective wellness education. Traditional Western medical practices are about fixing a problem and are not based on prevention. Rather, wellness includes products and services that help guests make adjustments to their lifestyle in order to prevent illness and disease.

Your spa likely offers massage and Yoga, both of which are wellness services. If you plan to incorporate complementary/ alternative medicine, it’s absolutely critical to ensure service providers are properly educated or licensed. It’s also important you don’t make bogus claims about your treatments and consultations. Hospitals/medical practices are making excellent strides in incorporating wellness services and benefit from already having a high level of credibility with the consumer. Focus your marketing messages on how your products and services will help consumers achieve wellbeing. Don’t oversell or under-deliver. When a guest leaves having had a better-than-average result from their experience, they feel they received an amazing value for their dollar. In turn, your facility experiences increased loyalty, market share, and enhanced word-of-mouth.

SIMPLE WAYS TO ADD WELLNESS
Wellness is a long-term commitment that involves changing one’s lifestyle. However, the financial and space commitments from a spa are not as sizable as you may believe. You don’t need special rooms or expensive equipment to teach people how to manage their stress and live well.

Low-cost, yet effective ways to integrate wellness include:
• Incorporating audio/visual guided meditation into existing spa services. If done properly, treatment times don’t need to be extended.

• Implementing a library of tips into your team’s vernacular makes a significant difference for guests in building loyalty and credibility. Treatment times don’t need to be increased as the tips can be added when walking a guest to/from the treatment room or when the treatment is being explained.

I invite you to look for tips in an online resource called Get Spa Smart. The Spa Inspired Life section includes professionals offering free advice on fitness, well-being, healthy cuisine and beauty. Get Spa Smart may be accessed on www.creativespaconcepts.com

• Adding aromatherapy inhalation during treatments and helping guests learn how to benefit from aromatherapy at home.

If you so choose, you can move into more elaborate programs that include complementary/alternative medicine, specialty equipment, nutrition and weight loss, etc. However, with the vast amount of free education available online and a little creativity, it’s relatively easy to incorporate wellness into existing offerings.

A CASE STUDY IN WELLNESS
An example of a company that is doing wellness well is Vita. Opened in March 2009, Vita is a groundbreaking wellness and lifestyle facility from Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan. Vita is a completely innovative approach to health care that combines traditional Western medicine with Eastern philosophies, healing treatments, and educational opportunities for women, children and families.

Creative Spa Concepts was part of the team that created Vita’s wellness programming, integrative therapies and classes. Early on, CSC carefully reviewed Vita’s consumer profile. Until they saw the market research, the doctors initially wanted to offer only medical programming. When we analyzed Vita’s potential consumer, they matched the average spa-goer (female, mid 40’s, educated, goes to spas to reduce stress). In addition to the demographic research, we also discovered a lack of quality day spas in the area, which led to a great opportunity for Vita to be a key community resource.

While Vita offers traditional spa therapies (massage, yoga, facials), it was decided early on that ‘spa’ would not be used in any marketing materials. This omission of spa meant the marketing messages had to be really clear in order to help consumers understand what they would find at Vita.

It turns out that when Vita opened, the preventive health services (physical assessments, nutritional counseling, acupuncture, etc.) were empty. It was the traditional spa therapies (massage, yoga, facials) that pulled Vita through the first year. What has been great to see is that those who came for the ‘day spa’ experience, are coming back for the preventative approach to health care offered by Vita. Vita’s business model proved to be a successful one that is helping consumers understand and engage in preventative health practices.