Some of the ways to find the niche is to do market research in your community. You must enter the world of your client and view the spa experience from their perspective. The easiest way to persuade or influence someone and build clientele is to find out what they want in a treatment menu and give it to them.
To perform your market research, start with the Internet. Go to local spa pages and see what they offer or community forums that discuss spa and wellness to find out what your potential clients are looking for. Put together a small focus group with people who are your ideal clientele. Ask them to fill out surveys, answer questions, or discuss what they are interested in, like, and do not like when it comes to spa wellness treatments. One of the best ways to get a feel for the industry and decide on a treatment menu is to go to spas in your area and experience services. Take notes on what you would do differently, what you enjoyed, and how you could incorporate their menu choices into your spa.
Once you have researched your market you can envision a direction for your menu – whether it be eastern, holistic, organic, clinical or medical – and you will know it is the right fit for your spa and your community.

Spa Menu 101
As a spa owner, you will have the creative challenge and fun of selecting the treatments your spa will offer. This mix can be as eclectic or straightforward as you want, but remember that for every service and treatment, you will need a staff member able and available to perform it. For this reason, many spa owners start off offering just the basics, and test out specialty treatments selectively, one or two at a time. But whatever the vision is for your spa menu, it is important that you are aware of a few things before adding anything to your menu, such as: who performs the service, how long the service takes, what equipment or supplies are needed, what takes place during service, the training required, and an idea of how much to charge for the service.
One of the pillars of a successful spa menu today is a skin rejuvenation facial that exfoliates, hydrates, smoothes, tones and tightens. The first step for your skin rejuvenation facial is a thorough skin analysis that will include assessing skin type, severity of skin condition, skin color, and tolerance for specific targeted treatments offering results with acne, aging, hyperpigmentation or sensitive skin.
It is a good idea to offer clients facial treatments of different levels of intensity. First time clients, women on a spa day, or someone who just wants to indulge in some rest and relaxation will enjoy a more basic facial like a primary cleansing. A primary cleansing will include deep pore extractions, a relaxing massage and hydrating mask that infuses the skin with vitamins and minerals to bring a radiant glow back to the skin. It will be profitable to include upper level facial options that are targeted to the treatment of certain skin conditions for clients seeking more than just a relaxing appointment.
Microdermabrasion, a good add-on treatment device, provides mechanical exfoliation of dead skin cells from the strateum corneum, and is one of the top requested services in the spa industry today. This treatment may be performed alone or layered with a pre-peel enzyme to create a deep exfoliating result.
Enzyme and acid peels are also becoming a standard for the spa treatment menu. Because these treatments result in the regeneration of new epidermal and dermal tissues, they are always a highly requested service from acne to aging clients.

Massage therapy is no longer a luxury to most clients.
Whether it is a basic Swedish massage or newer techniques such as hot stone therapy, spa clients love the tension relieving, relaxation inducing, and soothing benefits that come from a massage service.

If you are just starting as an independent aesthetician, hiring a massage therapist might not be in your budget. If this is the case, consider adding brain-based stress reduction that can be combined with a relaxing head and neck massage while clients are resting with a mask or enzyme peel. This is a great time to add on an extra service.
With so many treatment options available for the spa, it is extremely tempting to change your spa menu. Making minor changes to correlate with the changing times is a good thing as new research on treatments, products or ingredients becomes available, but to have a successful long-lasting business the key is consistency. Make sure your steady, dependable, result producing treatments are consistent. You want to become known for providing a great service that clients can recommend to their friends, and the only way to do this is to make sure you keep your most requested treatments on your menu. While the basics are your bread and butter, have some fun adding to your menu during the year with seasonal promotions.

‘Tis the Season
Because each season provides different challenges for the skin, it is important to adjust your spa menu throughout the year to reflect changing seasons and to correlate with holidays.
Start promoting winter skin and body care around Thanksgiving. Harsh winter months can be especially troublesome for clients and deep exfoliation and hydration treatments are a real benefit to them this time of year. Make winter exfoliation a must with a body polish treatment at your spa for the face and body to relieve dry itchy skin. Client’s hands can also become dry and cracked during the winter so add-on hand exfoliation treatments
are fantastic.
Not only do winter months leave the skin dry, but it can be especially unpleasant for rosacea sufferers. Cold, windy weather (especially seen in the North) can cause rosacea to flare, leaving the skin sensitive and inflamed. It is important to be able to offer these clients a soothing treatment to reduce irritation and bring their skin back to a comfortable state. A soothing infusion treatment with licorice derived ingredients will fortify and act as an anti-
inflammatory to irritated skin.
Winter months have their problems, but skin needs special attention during spring and summer months as well. Clients who live in hot, humid climates can see an increase in oil production resulting in acne breakouts. Consider a spring cleaning promotional treatment, offering the client a clarifying facial and let them take home an acne fighting serum with ingredients like tea tree oil and totarol to handle breakouts between visits.
A pumpkin peel themed promotional treatment for the face and body is always a successful seasonal menu service in the fall. Pumpkin enzymes are a potent botanical that provide an amazing exfoliation of dead, dry skin cells while stimulating the generation of new cells. This treatment will leave skin luminous, and your clients will be drawn to the natural ingredient which is the overall appeal of a pumpkin infused treatment. Natural pumpkin products have a beautiful spicy aroma that will only add to the luxury of your fall themed service.
Themed treatment promotions during the holidays can be both fun for your clients and financially rewarding for your spa. Plus, holiday spa promotions make wonderful gifts. These promotions can be a percentage discount you offer clients on your best selling treatments or specifically designed holiday themed services that offer seasonal service results. Be sure to research the promotion’s success to gauge whether or not it was profitable for your business and beneficial for the clients. This will help to determine your future promotional offerings.

Trends
New trends on treatments come out frequently in the spa industry. Be cautious! While it is tempting to be drawn into the latest anti-aging miracle treatment being marketed or products that are outside of your niche, make sure to only invest in things that are aligned with your overall brand. Currently in the industry, there is an enormous surge not only in overall skin and body services but in whole being wellness. Clients are pursuing healthier lifestyle choices and want their spa treatments to enhance this goal.
Stress reduction and mind mastery meditation based treatments are rapidly growing in popularity in spas and wellness centers around the globe. With more time commitments, families and hectic work environments, clients are seeking meditation and guided imagery treatments to stimulate feelings of calm and tranquility. These brain training treatments usually come in audio form and are an excellent add-on to facial or body services to ease stress, change old habits, and enhance the relaxing nature of the treatment.
Along with stress reduction, clinical cosmetic treatments such as microdermabrasion, radio frequency, micro-needling and light based therapies are currently in high demand by the baby boomer market. These anti-aging treatment procedures will require a capital investment and specialized, advanced training as there are usually certifications that you acquire as part of your continuing education.
Building, creating and maintaining a spa menu can be a daunting task for the spa owner and manager. With so many options to choose from and so many categories of spa services available, it can be arduous to decide what the right fit is for your business. Always start with the basics to establish a solid core menu and add on, testing new services as promotions, and opting to add on specialty services. With spa menus, sometimes less is more. Another idea is to establish a basic fee for your service menu based on treatment time and completely customize each individual session depending on the client’s need and budget. In conclusion, while there are many options for developing your spa menu remember one thing… in the spa business, time is money. Be sure you do not under value your services.

Master Aesthetician, Lyn Ross founded Institut’ DERMed 27 years ago with the goal of empowering skin care specialists with knowledge and proven treatment systems for optimal success. The company, located in Atlanta, currently consists of a medical spa, a full line of cosmeceutical products distributed to spa’s nationally and internationally, and the Institut’DERMed College of Advanced Aesthetics. Ross is a published author, with two books currently in print. Her articles appear in industry and trade magazines throughout the United States and worldwide.