Make the Most of Massage

Category: Advanced Marketing

  • How to Get Your Massage Noticed

    How to Get Your Massage Noticed

    I could kick myself when I think about all the massage business marketing mistakes I had made, especially when I didn’t understand and execute this:  HEY, I’M HERE!

    To me, HEY, I’M HERE! is a must for MTs trying to grow a practice. By the way, the caps and exclamation point are on purpose.

    View them in contrast to the massage business marketing strategy I had used before: Hey, I’m here.

    Noticeable difference, huh?

    HEY, I’M HERE! is screaming. You have to turn your head and look at me.

    With Hey, I’m here. you only hear me if you’re 2 feet away from me. It just doesn’t get the job done.

    I know what you’re thinking: I’m not a HEY, I’M HERE! kind of person.

    Neither am I.

    But you can convey HEY, I’M HERE! without being obnoxious.

    Source: moulderjohny.com

    Massage Business Marketing: HEY, I’M HERE!

    Here’s how I do it.

    1. HEY, I’M HERE! just needs to be impactful enough to be noticed.

    For signage, impactful means it needs to be seen from a distance. And it needs to capture the passersby’s attention. You can capture someone’s attention with content and/or design.

    This is my car magnet sign:

    I wanted to convey that we are confident in our ability to do good work.

    Impact with a website could be content driven, too.

    I offer this deal…

    I’m different than the competition because…

    Here’s my opening for our Google blurb to differentiate us from our competition:

    If you want a massage without a membership contract or a chakra re-balancing, you’re at the right place. We help avid runners, weekend warriors, arthritis…

    Impact on a website could be highlighting great online reviews.

    And pictures have impact.

    Think happy clients. A warm waiting room. Your smiling face.

    Speaking of your smiling face, if you’re really shy, read this. It will help you start moving in the right direction.

    On to tip number two…

    2. Execute HEY, I’M HERE! from a customer’s point-of-view.

    Put yourself in the perspective of your customer when trying to get noticed, especially when it comes to signage.

    At our one office, we’re at the corner of an intersection. We have multiple signs outside the office building. Two marquee signs, a banner sign and 2 tent signs.

    Recently, a new client, Riya, said that she had seen our banner sign for the past couple of years but never called.

    Why?

    Because the banner sign she saw every day going to and from from work was next to the side of the building and didn’t direct her to the entrance. It left her confused. Was our office in the building or somewhere else?

    Also, since she didn’t know where the entrance was she couldn’t determine if our office looked safe and inviting, a place she’d want to try out.

    One banner sign on the side of the building directing potential customers to the front of the building coming up!

    Here’s the last tip.

    3. HEY, I’M HERE! needs to be in multiple marketing areas.

    Guess what ultimately drew Riya through our doors?

    Not the sign she passed by 100s of times.

    It was our website.

    She did a search, pulled our website up and we just happened to be the place she drove by all the time.

    Thankfully, we were using the HEY, I’M HERE! strategy with our website.

    So with Riya, here’s what we got right with HEY, I’M HERE!: Impact and  multiple marketing areas.

    We missed “execute from a customer’s view point”. And here’s what it cost us.

    For about 2 years, Riya’s husband had been telling her to go to the massage place (us) that she passed by the days she went to work. After all, they lived within walking distance.

    Finally, she did (not because of our signs). She liked us and was used to getting massaged regularly, so she started coming to us once a week.

    But, here’s the kicker, she’s moving very soon.

    Hmm…what if we had gotten her to try us 2 years ago?

    Let’s go conservative. 40 weeks x 2 years x $70 (our charge) = $5600.

    Can you say waah?

    HEY, I’M HERE! in Three Steps

    Get your massage business marketing moving by having the right strategy in place.

    Try HEY, I’M HERE!.

    Make it (1) impactful enough to get noticed, (2) execute it according to the customer’s perspective and (3) cover multiple marketing areas.

    Need some help with your massage business marketing?

    Try this free Jumpstart Program.

    Trying to turn  a meh business into a yeah! business, then you may want to look into advanced marketing.

    And I’m here if you need help: mark@makethemostofmassage.com.

     

  • Where Do You Get Your Clients?

    Do you know how you’re getting your clients?

    It’s a simple but important question.

    I wasn’t quite sure where to put our marketing efforts because I didn’t know how our new clients heard about us. So I asked our lead therapist/manager to track that information.

    She tracked it by looking at the new client intakes to see if they filled out how they heard about us. For those that responded, she would record and report the tally to me at the end of the month.

    And boy was it an important thing to do.

    We found out that most of our new clients were coming from two sources: Google and the pharmacy where our office is in.

    Now we know where to spend our time and money, and it has paid off because I stopped spending money on the advertising that wasn’t producing for us, like Nextdoor, and I focused on the advertising that was working.

    Currently we are adding new ways to be seen in the pharmacy, like having small signs at the checkout counters and more signage throughout the store in general. We are also continuing to build our relationship with the pharmacy by doing special things for them like free chair massage events for customers and employees.

    It’s paying off. The pharmacy employees are talking us up and providing us with even more referrals. The other day, a pharmacy employee went out of her way to bring a potential customer into our office and sat with the person until I had a minute to talk to him.

    Next we expand our marketing effort with Google.

    By the way, if you don’t have enough new clients coming in to get decent tally, survey your old clients. Incentivize them by offering to put their name into a raffle for a free massage if they answer the survey. Survey Monkey has a free, online survey-template that you can use.

    Easy-peasy.

    I’ll keep you posted about our Google push.

    Have a question? Email me: mark@makethemostofmassage.com

     

  • Send Your Massage Clients Away and Make More Money

    Send Your Massage Clients Away and Make More Money

    When I first opened my massage practice, I was a strict neuromuscular massage therapy (NMT) practitioner. I believed that NMT could get any client out of pain. Period.

    Twenty years later, things have changed for one reason: I get better results for certain clients when I collaborate with and/or refer to other health professionals and experts. An added bonus to collaboration is that my massage practice grows.

    Why I Became a NMT Purist

    One of the things that drew me to neuromuscular therapy is the idea that I could resolve clients’ pain and soft tissue conditions using a “scientific” framework. (I use the quotes because NMT is actually based in theory, not hard science.)

    If a client didn’t get better, I’d go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate my course of action.

    Hmm…maybe I should I work the right longus colli 3X more than the left longus colli…

    Why I Became a Multi-Disciplinary Guy

    But often after re-evaluating, I’d find myself deeper in the rabbit hole because the new thing I had tried on the client also didn’t work.

    I wish I could say that I got out of the rabbit quickly. But it didn’t happen like that.

    The move towards the light of day was gradual and promulgated by failure, like a hammy that didn’t resolve or a neck that got worse. Eventually the failures added up to where I had to admit that my purist approach to massage wasn’t working. And, finally, I started looking for answers elsewhere.

    Losing Money in my Massage Practice—NOT

    I began to connect and collaborate with chiropractors, PTs, personal trainers, exercise physiologists, functional exercise therapists, orthopedists, podiatrists, acupuncturists, and sports coaches.

    On a whole, my more challenging clients improved when I took a multi-disciplinary approach and collaborated or referred out to other health professionals and experts.

    From a business standpoint, this sometimes meant I lost clients because they started to go to someone who could help them better than I could.

    But, interestingly, this didn’t mean I lost money.

    Why?

    Some of those practitioners who I referred clients to, referred clients back to me. In addition, those practitioners indirectly or directly connected me to other health practitioners and my referral network grew.

    And there’s more…

    The more I collaborated with other health practitioners in my referral network, the more they connected “massage” as a component of care for their own patients/clients/athletes and “Mark” as the person who should be doing the job.

    The Long and Short Roads

    If you want to start or expand your referral network there’s a long and short way to do this.

    The long way is to let the system grow naturally without a plan.

    The shortcut is to narrow your focus and build connections within a niche market.

    A niche market can be defined as a group of potential customers who have specific characteristics and a common need.

    Anyone who goes to the gym and works out is a general market. Crossfit is niche market.

    A niche market makes the world smaller. That means your name will spreader faster than if you were trying to make connections in a big market.

    Referral Network Shortcut for Your Massage Practice

    Here’s my referral network shortcut recipe:

    1. Develop a niche market.

    Here’s how you do that: A Niche Market = More Clients.

    1. From that niche, connect with other health practitioners who will collaborate with you to help your clients in that niche.

    Here’s what I did: Start a Massage Business: Connect with the Right Physical Therapist

    1. Promote yourself by being accessible and demonstrating value.

    I’m a big fan of demonstrating value through demo massages: How to Grow Your Massage Business With $0.

    Not a Huge, Hairy Deal

    If this is starting to feel like a big, hairy deal, let’s back up.

    When I couldn’t help certain clients, I reached out to other health practitioners and experts. They started to refer back to me. And my network of health practitioners and experts grew.

    Then I focused on helping clients in a niche market and in-coming referrals really took off.

    This showed me that if I focused on a niche market, I could really increase the number of referrals coming my way.

    Here’s what you need to do to grow your massage practice with a referral network:

    1. Pick a niche market,
    2. Connect with other experts servicing that niche market,
    3. Promote yourself by being accessible and demonstrating your value.

    P.S. It works. If you follow these steps you’ll serve your clients better and your massage practice will grow. And if you need more guidance, sign up for my email group. I’ll let you know when new articles, tutorials, downloads and videos are out. The subscription is free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

  • How to Use “Care” to Build a Massage Business

    How to Use “Care” to Build a Massage Business

    This is how I thought years ago when I didn’t have enough clients coming in: I’m a massage therapist with zero massage marketing skills. 

    No biggie, I’ll hire Ashira to do my marketing.

    Oh, wait, she charges more than d0-it-for-free.

    So, I was left with two choices: Hide my table from the repo man or start to market myself.

    I decided to dip my toe into marketing and after a while I discovered something pretty cool: I didn’t have to be a marketer to market.

    I just needed to take my massage skills and turn them into massage marketing skills.

    So, I clicked my heels together three times and said “There’s no place like home”.

    I know, turning massage skills into marketing skills sounds like something that only happens in Hollywood, not real life.

    But it does happen in real life.

    In fact, we’re going to take one of your massage skills and turn it into one of your massage marketing skills right now.

    Ready?

    I bet you care about your clients.

    I’ll go one further. I bet you care about your clients a whole lot.

    You show that care through fantastic therapeutic rapport and by doing a kick-butt massage every time.

    You see where I’m going here.

    Caring for your client is one of your massage skills.

    And it can be turned into one of your massage marketing skills by simply up-ing the care.

    Here’s how you can up your care:

    1. After the massage explain your findings.

    In other words, let clients know what you did and what you found.

    Your levator scapulae was tight. Your lower-back required less pressure than y0ur upper-back. Your traps felt good.

    Clients will appreciate that you’re going the extra mile to help them.

    2. Call new clients 2 days after the massage to see how their doing.

    Not only is this a good PR strategy, it’s a good way of gauging whether what you did was helpful.

    Did you feel relaxed? Are you in less pain? Do you move better?

    If there answer is yes, then they’re probably coming back to you.

    If no, decide if a different massage approach would be worth a try. If so, explain what you’d do differently next time.

    3. Be available.

    Who has my cell number?

    Everybody.

    Clients.

    Potential clients.

    Running coaches.

    Store owners.

    Physical therapists.

    Chiropractors.

    Personal trainers.

    Straight from the pages of “7 Habits of Highly IN-effective People”, right?

    But here’s my counter.

    No one abuses having access to me.

    Clients only text when they want a massage. And being accessible to other business owners, managers and sports coaches has allowed me to build an array of referral sources.

    Can granting more access get difficult to manage?

    Sometimes.

    But I’d rather be challenged with managing interactions that keep a healthy business going rather than in a position where the only person calling my cell is my mom.

    4. Care about other businesses and their clients/customers.

    Nothing says caring than giving your business buds something to give their customers/clients.

    Here’s what I give the customers of my business buds: limited, free massage.  Here’s how I do that: How to Grow Your Business With $0.

    5. Find businesses that share your core value of caring.

    This sounds like fluff, but it’s 100% not.

    When you align yourself with other businesses that share your core value of caring for clients and customers, you get solid and steady referrals forever.

    Why?

    Because those business allies know that you’re going to take care of their customers/clients/patients as well as they do.

    And there’s more…

    When you hook up with businesses that share your value of caring for the client you get connected with their business allies who share the same value. And your  network of businesses who provide extraordinary customer care grows. As it grows you’ll have more opportunities to do business in an environment where you thrive.

    You Have Massage Marketing Skills

    Don’t fight it.

    You care.

    And you can’t turn it off.

    So why not just turn that spigot wide open and grow your business by caring even more?

    Talk to your clients after the massage. Tell them what you’ve found. Make recommendations.

    Call them a couple days after the massage to see how they feel.

    Give your cell phone number to random strangers. (Just seeing if you were paying attention.)

    Make yourself accessible.

    Care about other businesses’ customers by doing something of value for them, like demo massages.

    Align yourself with other businesses who go out of their way to care for their customers and jump on the opportunities that arise from these relationships.

    Fired up?

    I am.

    Building a business that is authentic to my way of being makes me seriously do this:-)

    Need more help?

    If you’re just launching your massage business or thinking about launching your massage business, this free course will help you get the job done: Jumpstart.

    If you have a meh business that’s making 30K or less, this program will take your business to the next level: Accelerator.

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