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.
Take Part in the 2017 Float Industry Report
We’re gathering responses for our 2017 Industry Report through the end of June, and we once again need your help.
Please take a brief moment to answer a few questions about your float center (or future float center) – it may be easiest thing you can do to contribute to the growth of floatation around the world.
The Basics of Float Tank Sanitation
Some of the most common questions you’ll get as a float center operator involve the cleanliness of the tanks. This post will be an introduction to some of the most commonplace sanitation methods used in float tanks. These are generally either chemicals that go in the water or devices that attach to your filtration system. We’ll be discussing chlorine, bromine, ozone, UV, and hydrogen peroxide, which accounts for the sanitation methods used on nearly every float tank on the market.
Testing and Maintaining Float Tank Water Quality
Editors Note: This is a revision of a past blog post, updated to reflect the most current sanitation methods and standards
In a perfect world, you could just pour water and salt into a float tank and it would stay pure and clean and fresh and salty forever. In the real world, conditions in the water are constantly changing, so keeping your water safe and clean takes a fair amount of vigilance.
This post covers how we maintain basic water quality in the float tank, except for sanitization methods, which will be covered in their own beastly sanitation blog post. Stay tuned for that coming out next week!
Floating, mental health, and wellness
This post will explore the intersection of floating with the concepts, beliefs, and experiences related to mental health and wellness, with a focus on anxiety and depression. I’ll explore my own story as it relates to floating before diving into the current intersections of floating and mental health, with a look at past, current, and potential opportunities for research and personal growth.
Massage, Acupuncture, and Float Tanks… A Chat with Sandra Calm
We’ve seen lots of float centers that aren’t just float centers.
Many have massage, some offer counseling, some have yoga classes next door. Lots of people start out either by incorporating float tanks into a larger business, or with float tanks only being one of many modalities at their center. Being specialists in floating, Float On has not mastered anything else.
So, to help gain insight into this growing aspect of the industry, we contacted our old friend, Sandra Calm. She started up The Float Shoppe here in Portland with her husband and podcast sensation, Dylan Calm, back in 2011. When they first opened, they had just two float tanks, and slowly added acupuncture, massage, counseling, along with two more tanks. Talk about expansion!
She was more than happy to take some time for the industry to help us understand just what it’s like to run a center with multiple services by answering some questions.
Reflections from the Rise Float Gathering
Over this past weekend, a good chunk of the Float Tank Solutions and Float Conference crew ventured to St. Louis, MO for the first ever Rise Community Float Gathering. Beyond our excitement to see old friends and meet new ones, we were thrilled to be able to attend a float event that we didn’t have to plan.
When it comes to float tanks, we often deal with a lot of the “what” and the “how” of things – what do I need to do to open a float center and how to I make everything work? We write blogs and put out content. We spend our days thinking about conference flowcharts, water chemistry, detailed business plans, soundproof insulation, etc.
Rise, on the other hand, focused on the “why?”
The Story Behind the Float Marketing Forum
Over the past few years, primarily through feedback received from conference attendees and through industry survey responses, float center owners struggled with and wanted a solution to one thing… marketing. It makes sense – if there’s one thing every center needs (besides salt), it’s a solid flow of customers in tanks.
After some brainstorming with Ashkahn, we’ve decided the best solution for this year was to host a series panels covering key marketing topics that will provide the biggest impact in growing your float center business.
Introducing: The Float Conference Marketing Forum.
Announcing the 2nd Ever Start-a-Center Giveaway WINNER!
In what was one of the most difficult decisions that we had to make as a team… and after sorting through nearly 200 entries… we’ve decided upon a winner in our second ever Start-a-Center Giveaway.
Read more to learn who we’ll be guiding through the process in starting a float tank center in their community.
Gut your space before construction!
One line we don’t think you should cross is this: as much as possible, when building out your float center, gut it completely. Start from scratch.
At least then the mistakes you make are your own and your building will hold fewer surprises down the line. There are many benefits that you may not think of immediately. In this post, we’ll guide you through some of them.
The Heart of Floating – Guest Post by Kevin McCulloch
“When we commit to The Heart of Floating, we form relationships and communities. We share experiences, we connect, we learn, we teach. We care.”
In this guest post, Kevin McCulloch, owner of Float St. Louis and organizer of the Rise: Float Community Gathering, explores the heart of floating and it’s power and potential to connect, heal, and grow individuals, relationships, and communities.
