I hear this all the time from massage therapists who have been around the block: I know I’m a good massage therapist, so why can’t I get more clients?
I have a theory—you’re not getting enough at-bats and you’re not converting enough newbies to repeats. It’s a theory that proved to be the correct for me.
A while back I looked around at more successful massage therapists and thought, If only I could get more massage clients to walk through my door, I know I could convert them to repeat clients.
That led me to a Groupon experiment where I was drowning in new clients. At the end of the experiment I was successful enough at converting new clients to repeat clients to make me wonder if I could be even more successful.
But the new client spigot was turned off. Groupon was over. It served its purpose to jumpstart my business, but I had no desire to run another one.
So, now I knew my mission for the next year: (1) drive more clients through my front door and (2) convert as many of them into repeat business.
Let’s talk about driving more clients through the front door. I’m about to say a word that is going to make you stop reading.
Ready?
Marketing.
Wait, here’s the thing, marketing isn’t out of your reach and it’s less painful once you see start seeing more clients walk through your door.
My first, big marketing foray after Groupon was demo massages. Demo massages are free massages, yes, free—please send all hate mail to mark@makethemostofmassage.com.
But before you do, I need to tell you that “free” is not forever. It’s one-and-done or structured in a way that has a strategic beginning and end. By strategic I mean that the beginning and end are determined in a way that maximizes your advertising return.
For example, if it’s an advertising benefit for you to offer free, 15-minute massages to a chiropractor more than once so that she really promotes your massage business, build in start and stop dates that give you enough in between time to hook the chiro, but not too much time to establish free massage as the norm.
The cool thing about demo massages is that you’re advertising in the most effective and easy way you know how to do—with your hands. By the way, having your hands on potential customers will help with your conversion rate.
Demo Massage
After the Groupon experiment, I picked out 4 categories of businesses to approach with demo massages—physical therapy, chiropractic, personal training, and specialty sports, like a bike or running store.
I sent emails to local businesses and landed demo massages in all 4 business categories.
I set up on-site, demo massages. During Covid-19 you can arrange to do the demo massages at your office. I gave 15 minute massages to the business’s clients/customers/patients and 30 minute massages to the business’s owners and employees.
The result?
Doing demo massages was a huge success that created on-going, referral sources of clients. I just needed to stay in touch with the owners and employees of these businesses to keep the referral source spigot turned on.
You can read more about demo massages here.
Doing demo massages wasn’t the only way I got more people walking through my door post-Groupon. I re-did and optimized my website.
Website and GMB
For a full website build-out from scratch or to do a redo, go here.
Once you’re done with your website you can set up your Google My Business page.
What exactly is Google My Business?
“Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps,” says Google. “If you verify and edit your business information, you can both help customers find your business and tell them your story.”
Mark says, turn on your computer. Google “massage near me”. The first thing that comes up is probably an ad(s). Then under that is a local search with massage businesses in the area. Right now (Google changes things around often) that local search has a map with 3 businesses underneath it and a “More Businesses” button is underneath that.
Google My Business is the way to input your business’s information so your business appears in the local search. Do the basics and you’ll get basic results. Do more than your competition and you can potentially climb higher on the local search page.
You can learn how I set up and optimize my GMB page by going to step #5 in this article.
Personally, I recommend jumping into my whole marketing program to get the phone ringing. It’s free and you’ll have all the information you need at one place, but don’t bug out too soon. We have one more important thing to talk about.
As you start your marketing, it’s a good time ask yourself this important question: How good am I at converting new clients to repeat clients?
Newbies to Regulars
Hellzyeah, I’m good, I thought when I asked myself that question before I ran the Groupon experiment. After all, I had been doing massage 20 plus years. But did I really know? What standard was I comparing myself to? Where were my stats?
When I did a deeper dive into my thoughts about my conversion rate, I discovered that “Hellzyeah” wasn’t always my response. The answer actually depended on when I asked the question.
If I’d ask myself on a day when I was booked with clients, I’d start humming Nobody Does it Better.
But if I asked myself on a bad day, I would sound like I was back in talk therapy: I take “suck” to a whole new level. How come everyone else has massage clients and I don’t? It’s my mom’s fault, right?
After some time I started to realize that the truth about my conversion rate was probably somewhere in between my good day perception and my bad day perception. In other words, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was on my good days, and I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was on my bad days. I was somewhere in between.
This was supported by the observation that I had proven that I could bring in clients because, after all, I did have a massage business, albeit not one overflowing with clients.
So, okay, I was competent at converting newbies into regulars, but I wanted to do better. Before I entered the Groupon experiment I thought about the things that made people want to come back to me.
It wasn’t a tidy office. I’m still working on that one.
What kept a client coming back to me could be boiled down to the work I did on and the connection I had with the client.
If I did a good massage and connected with the client it was likely that she would come back to me and not look for another massage therapist.
What is a good massage?
That can be a complicated question or not. Here’s how to make it “not” a complicated question.
I provide two services: relaxation massage and pain-relief massage. Often they are combined during a massage.
For instance, Leandro wants to be relaxed and he has pain in his neck. So, I give him a relaxation massage with pain-relief focus work on his neck.
How I relax Leandro and help him with his pain will be different than how you do it. But within that framework of relaxation and pain-relief is a common element that is essential to making Leandro happy—pressure.
If my pressure is too hard then the massage is not going to be relaxing. If it’s too light then the massage pressure could be irritating. Spot-on pressure is the pressure that Leandro likes best—and that’s the pressure I need to nail.
The same is true with pain relief massage—I don’t want to put the client in more pain so my pressure needs to be appropriate for the situation.
Around-the-blockers are thinking, Dude, my pressure is fine.
I’m sure it is, but could it be better?
I’ve been working with massage tools for 20 years, and I use them in practically every massage I do. I’ve gotten feedback when I’ve used massage tools and I’ve experienced massage tools as a massage recipient. But, and this is a big but, my information is old. The feedback is cumulative and has been acquired over years—less in the later years. In fact, when was last time I actually got a friend on the table and asked for feedback through the entire massage while I used all my massage tools?
I’m going to say never.
Hmm…guess what I’m going to do this week?
When I do the feedback session I don’t expect any great revelations, but I do think that I’m going to get valuable insights that will make my tool work better.
How about you? Have you assumed things about your massage that aren’t entirely accurate? Tweaking your massage can only help your conversion rate.
Good Therapists Getting More Clients in a Nutshell
My approach to building a massage business has changed over the years. After my Groupon experiment I realized that I needed to find ways to drive people into my office while maximizing my conversion rate.
But even now I still slip back into old marketing thinking that doesn’t serve me. A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post called How to Take My Clients (And Potential Clients). But here’s the thing, you’re not going to take my clients once they are my clients. That’s a done deal.
Why?
If they’re satisfied with my work, they have no reason to try someone else.
So, going back to the title of my blog post, the “How to Take My Clients” part is wrong. What’s in between the parenthesizes, “And Potential Clients”, is right.
You can take my potential clients.
How?
By not letting them get on my table. Intercept them. Get to them before I do.
Hey, no hard feelings here. Believe me, if you opened your business next mine, I’d so be trying to beat you to the punch. The reality is that we work in a competitive field.
I can name at least 3 massage therapists within 5 miles of my office who would absorb my clients if I closed my doors today. These therapists wouldn’t have to advertise to get my clients. My clients would find them. And if I pissed a client off, that client would eventually find one of these competitors. Yes, I have a unique relationship with each client that is special, but the bottom line is: I’m replaceable. And there are massage therapists near me who can replace me.
That said, I never, ever have to worry about my client, Toni, going Jeremiah on High or Sayo on Main, and now you know the reason why—because I got to Toni first.
Get to ‘em first. Convert ‘em. And keep ‘em for life or until you’re ready to let them go:-)
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A while back my wife, Lisa, and I had started a hotel massage business. One day we decided to offer other on-site services, like an on-site chef.
My first goal with writing was to sell one article. It took me many months and about 50+ query letters to sell my first article.
