Even before experiencing a global crisis, float centers have had a hard time navigating social media, marketing, and just generally keeping their customers engaged. That struggle is even more real in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
We’ve spent the last two months (in between bathrobe interviews) putting together the Buoy Project, an ever-growing collection of marketing materials and content that will help you save time and bring in new customers.
Throughout the years, Float Tank Solutions has seen float centers evolve from ideas, to plans, to buildings, to destinations for healing, growth, and community. Hundreds of entrepreneurs from all around the world have worked with us to plan and build their centers – now, we want to help you to grow and thrive.
Coming up with fresh ideas and good content while also keeping abreast of the latest trends is not only challenging – it can be a full time job. Outsourcing is a common solution, but not everyone can afford to hire a marketing agency or someone to handle their social media, and our industry is so specific it’s hard for an outsider to produce truly good material.
The Buoy Project helps lighten the burden of social media, website, and newsletter content for float centers. This is an offer designed to amplify your current social media, whether you manage it yourself, have an employee run things, or have hired out a marketing company.
It’s a total social media toolkit designed specifically for float centers. As a monthly subscription, you get:
- 10+ Float Centric Social Media Posts
- 500-750 Word Blog Post w/ Images
- Customizable Email Newsletter
- Content Calendar Posting Schedule
- Access to All Historical Marketing Content
This content is designed to be adaptable. If you want to add a vector logo, host the blogs on your website, and change the template newsletter to include updates from your shop, we’re giving you all the tools to do that. This won’t replace your own marketing efforts, but it will give you a solid foundation and lift up what you’re already doing.
We’ve priced this to be accessible for everyone in the industry.
If you want to pay for the Buoy project on a month-to-month basis, it’s $225. If you’re able to commit to a full year, you’ll only be charged $150 each month, and you’ll get access to our growing archive of past blogs and images.
If you sign on before July 31st, you get the whole deal for only $75 a month for the first year. And, if that doesn’t work for you for whatever reason, but you think this could be helpful, let us know and we’ll work something out. We want this to be a useful resource for everyone who needs it.
We’ve also got more than just Marketing in mind…
We want to create an infrastructure that can carry floating forward and weather future storms, not just the one we’re in now. The Buoy Project will evolve with the needs and the desires of the industry, and we already have some things in the works.
While that’s very theoretical, we’ve got a lot of ideas we want to pursue, but only if you want to be a part of them! If you’d like to know more about our proposed timeline, or about more specifics for the project as a whole, check out the main page for The Buoy Project.
We’ve felt the community come together now more than ever, and we want to use this momentum to really help achieve something big for the industry. Check it out and see for yourself and let us know what you think.
The Daily Solutions Podcast – Our Top 5 Episodes from December
Since a new episode is released, every day, we thought we should do a roundup of some the top episodes so far to keep you from missing out on important topics in the floatation community.
Behold the creme de la creme of podcastery, if you will. Here they are, in chronological order
Should I Have One or Multiple Styles of Float Tank?
If you had every model and type of float tank you’d be running the Burj Khalifa of float centers, with an estimated 38 unique float tanks, which include pods, custom open pools, cabins, vertical tanks, and inflatable or portable float devices currently on the market (not even counting old models).
This is all to say that there are a ton of options out there when considering tanks for your center.
Whether you’re opening a two-tank center, or a bajillion-tank center, do you want all the same model, or will you have some variety?
Why ROI Calculators Suck! (or at least why you should use caution)
“What is an ROI calculator?” I hear you asking. “ROI” simply stands for “Return on Investment”. An “ROI Calculator” is just a tool that outlines the cost of something and generates what your anticipated profit will be over a certain length of time. Usually annually.
We should make a distinction between a simple ROI calculator (i.e. a widget built into a website with limited inputs), and a financial plan (complete with P&L, cashflow, and balance sheets). Both are going to try and do the same thing, but one is going to be far more detailed and accurate.
Roughly what we’re going to be talking about is a return on investment for your whole business, but return on investment can (and should) be used for lots of different aspects to your business to help you determine how best to spend your company’s money. Usually, though, that’s going to require a lot of detail that a simple widget can’t provide.
How to compete on price without slashing prices
Let’s say you’re a float tank center and more centers are starting to show up in your town…
Or, maybe you are that other center starting up a town that already has float tanks…
As new centers enter the market, the typical response is to run promotions on daily deal sites, promote large specials, and/or run Facebook Ads selling floats for much less than the usual offerings.
The best case scenario is this price slashing behavior subsides shortly after the neighboring center opens.
But what if it doesn’t? What if an existing competitor decides their new price is even lower?
How do you compete with a price slashing neighbor without competing on price?
Learn a few ways to make price a non issue with your customers…
Float On’s Halloween Spooktacular!
‘Twas briny, and the epsom groves fluttered with salt-bats, a lurking fog floating atop the murky bog. From the dark maw of silence came a guttural groan, an eerie utterance akin to those of monsters. From the depths of darkness, that groan turned into what mortals...
Timeline for Opening Up a Float Center
Opening up a float center is a lot like climbing a mountain. Even if you can see the peak, it’s a lot further away than you think, and when you finally get there, the journey and the destination usually end up being different than previously assumed.
In this post we’ll lay out a general process and timeline of what you may encounter on your path, from initial idea to actually operating a center.
Can you have volunteers at your center?
So you’re thinking about using volunteers in your float center?
Before we clarify what a “volunteer” actually means, we’ll first explore why a float center might be considering them in the first place. While it can be a way to provide floats to people who are otherwise unable to pay, the impulse to bring in volunteers can also stem from a desire to get some sort of free labor (later in this post we’ll dive into why you can’t actually do this, but it’s important to recognize that the instinct is understandable, especially when you have someone lined up and willing to work for free).
In addition to a desired boost in overall productivity, it’s also a way to invite more people into your center to experience what you do. Some customers actually want to help out and see what happens behind the scenes at a center.
Floating and Athletics, a Strong Relationship
One of the beautiful things about the float tank is that it serves to rejuvenate the whole person. — the body, mind, heart.
Broadly speaking, it’s a tool for homeostasis, an ideal environment that supports balance, health, and growth. This piece will look specifically at floating and athletics. For anyone who defines themselves as an athlete, or as a general pursuant of athletic endeavors, the float tank can be a powerful asset.
In this post, I’ll discuss individual athletes who float and how to look at this from a marketing perspective. I’ll also discuss past and present research, and share some thoughts on how the relationship between the athletic and floating communities might continue to unfold.
A Skeptic’s Guide to Floating
I think it’s time we addressed the giant metaphorical elephant in the salty metaphorical room — there are lots of exaggerated and untrue claims about the benefits of floating being spread around the industry.
Some are anecdotal, some are only half true, and some are just patently false. Floating has historically had a strong oral tradition tied to it — the practice has survived through word-of-mouth, one passionate floater teaching another everything they know. The unfortunate thing about this is that the information disseminated can’t be reliably tested or shared with others on a broader scale. You can’t use “my buddy Chris” as a source for a health benefit of float tanks in a newspaper article, much less for a research paper.
Now that we’re becoming a bit more mainstream, we thought it would be nice to add some clarity to what we should and shouldn’t be telling people about these difficult-to-understand, saliferous containers.
How Many Float Tanks Should I Have?
Intro If you’ve crossed over into the sacred realm of “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna open up a float center,” an obvious question arises — “How many tanks should I have?” Now, if you’re like me, you’re creating a 90 tank float community where everyone who buys in...
