Marketing Your Massage Practice With A Blog

If you have been reading my sequence of posts on marketing your massage practice, you’ll know it is now time to discuss the marketing potential of a blog (if you haven’t read the previous posts, start here).

A lot of people might ask “why blog?” Well, the simple answer is, it works! A blog is a way for you to connect with clients and potential clients. It is your opportunity to show people your expertise, your skills and abilities. You have the opportunity to educate and inform your audience, and in the process set yourself up as an expert – which you are.

Blogging has changed dramatically in the past few years. What once was a way to share your life and experience with friends has now turned into an actual business model. People actually make a living from their blogs.

One of the things that has changed the effectiveness of blogs is the speed with which a blog can gain traffic (traffic being unique visitors – basically current and more importantly, potential clients). Blog readership has skyrocketed. As such, the ability to develop and earn quality traffic has skyrocketed as well. Social bookmarking has make a huge difference. Sites like del.ico.us and Digg have the potential to send huge amounts of traffic your way. I am currently trying to understand how these work myself, and when I have a better grip on it I will share it with you. Learn how to use these and other social sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) and you will have great potential in bringing quality traffic to your blog.

But what to do once they get there? Well, the bottom line is content is KING! You must provide quality content. Basically, what you have to say must be of value and help to the visitor or they will never return. However, give them great information and they will come back, and that will greatly increase the chance to build a relationship with that reader. Ultimately the goal is to get that person to call and set up an appointment for a massage. Prove your worth on your blog and people will flock to get a massage from you. Of course, that won’t be easy, but it is certainly attainable.

How to do this? Well, there isn’t enough time to go into all of the details, and there are certainly others out on the Internet more qualified to teach you, but let me give you the basics of what you need to do.

First, establish your blogging goals. Understand what it is you want to accomplish. Next, come up with a plan for your content. And the key word is plan. Know what it is you want to talk about and plan ahead so you can constantly add more content.

What should you write? Well, that depends on your goals. What I will say is, keep it conversational and short. Write for readers who skim. But give them quality information. Write like you talk. That is the beauty of a blog, it is like a conversation with your reader.

What shouldn’t you write? Well, don’t talk about your personal life unless it is pertinent. Keep focused on your blogging goals. Be laser sharp on your message and what you want to accomplish. Basically, keep on message.

Some of you will want to know how to set up a blog. Well, I am not the expert, but frankly it is easy. I just went to wordpress.com and followed their directions. I didn’t know how to do it before that. I had a blog set up in less than 10 minutes. Once you get going and have the chance to learn more of the technical aspects you can improve it. But first things first, just get started.

Well, I know that isn’t an exhaustive approach to starting a blog, but I don’t want this to run on forever. If you have any specific questions, let me know. I can go into more detail on certain specifics in later posts.

Until then, happy palpating!

Marketing Your Massage Practice With An Ezine

The first question I need to ask you; are you collecting your clients’ email addresses? If you said no, then you better start right now. Add it to your forms somewhere. You absolutely need to start collecting them. If you answered “yes” what are you doing with them?

You see, having a client’s email is better than giving them a business card. You don’t have to have a website (although I highly recommend it – read more here). Collecting and utilizing your clients’ email will allow you to communicate with them on a completely different level. But most importantly, it will keep your name and business in their mind. They are much more likely to come see you when they have aches and pains when they are consistently seeing your name in their in-box.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should be sending them an email everyday. On the contrary, you should send them something every week at the most, and maybe even just once a month. The more important thing is the content of those emails.

That is where an ezine, or email newsletter comes in; basically I’m talking about any publication that is regularly delivered via email. These can be incredibly effective forms of marketing at a very small cost.

Please note: I am not talking about spam here. These ezines only go out to people who have given you their email. Please, don’t buy lists or send these to unsuspecting people. No one appreciates spam and you will do your business harm by doing so.

The purpose of these ezines are many, but here are the top reasons:

1. Instead of using traditional advertising to tell people how great you are, you can use an ezine to SHOW how great you are by giving them a taste of what you have to offer through your experiences. This vehicle allows you to educate your clients (and prospective clients) on why THEY need your services.

2. Publishing an ezine positions you as an expert. By sharing your knowledge and experiences in a conversational, educating way (as opposed to pushy, sales-hype advertising) you are saying to your prospects that you are knowledgeable and skilled enough to take care of their issues. By sharing and educating you give credence to your skills and this gives the prospect much more confidence.

3. Publishing an ezine allows you to keep in constant contact with your clients. This goes back to the 7-to-10 rule (go here if you haven’t read about it yet). Ezines are a non-threatening form of communication that won’t be putting pressure on your clients, and yet they are much more likely to pick up the phone and make an appointment when that low back pain comes back because they have been reminded of your services every couple of weeks. Remember, it isn’t your client’s job to remember you are in business, you need to regularly remind them you are available to take care of them…but in a low-pressure way.

4. Ezines allow you to spread the word about your practice effortlessly. Encourage clients to forward your ezines to friends and relatives. This is key when you are educating them on specific conditions that you treat. If you have a story on the negative effects of stress, make sure you recommend clients forwarding the email to any friends or family who may be suffering from stress. This is a great way to pick up new clients without any effort on your part.

5. An ezine is a cheap and easy way to publish. Compared to printed newsletters, ezines are considerably less expensive. The cost is almost nil – no printing, mailing or other costs. Just the time writing (or paying someone else to write it), and the time to build, manage and mail to your list. Printed newsletters and postcards still have their place, but for cost-effective marketing, nothing beats an ezine.

Finally, an important key to making ezines successful is to give great information. Don’t send garbage that won’t help your clients. Educate them, help them to eat better, exercise better, stretch better, basically give them information to help them be healthier and happier. Whatever you want really, just make it quality, unique, beneficial information. This will make you a valued source of information and build trust in you as a person, which will translate into trust as a therapist and make it easier for your clients to say “Yes” to getting a massage from you, as well as refer people to you, which in the end is what the entire purpose of an ezine really is.

So get started on your weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, whatever-time-frame-you-want ezine, but get it going now. Build your email list and start educating your clients. It may take time to build up that list, but it will grow if you are persistent. With that persistence your ezine will become an important part of your practice building marketing machine.

Best of luck and happy palpating!

By the way, I would love for you to take my survey. Click Here to take survey. Thanks

Marketing Your Practice With A Website

Following up on my recent post on marketing your massage practice, I wanted to discuss the importance of having your own website.

First and foremost, it is probably the most cost-effective means of marketing your practice.  Yes, there are costs involved, but you have the potential to reach more NEW clients for less money then any other method.  I have seen various statistics, but the bottom line is more and more people are searching for massage online.  Go to google and type in your city name and the word massage. One of your goals with a website is to show up on that first or second page. Those people have the best chance of getting a lot of new clients simply by showing up on the first couple of google search pages.

If you don’t have a website you are missing out on a lot of potential clients.
Of course, it isn’t easy to get ranked high on google search. It takes time and effort, but it is well worth it. I will go into more detail on getting ranked higher and other ways of getting traffic to your site in a later post.

For now, I just want you to understand the importance of having a website and what it should include.

As I stated earlier, more and more people are using the internet to find a massage therapist. Those numbers will only increase, so get a page as soon as possible to help position yourself to be the recipient of those searches.

It is also important to have the right information on your website. Just having one is a start, but there are some keys to having a more effective site that will get people to call. There are a lot of ways to do that, and I won’t go into that just yet either, but I do want to touch on the most important aspect of your website.

What is the goal of your website?

Pretty simple – get people to pick up the phone and make an appointment. But do you know how to do this?

Well, frankly, most of the websites I have looked at don’t seem to understand this aspect. Most massage websites talk about the therapists and their knowledge, experience and skills. That is great, but that isn’t going to convert many potential clients into paying customers.

The most important thing to convey on your website is “What’s in it for the client”. Sounds basic, but most sites fail to do this. People are looking for massage for a specific reason; maybe they are stressed and need some relief, possibly they have chronic pain, a recent injury, been in an auto accident, etc. So what you need to do with your site is talk about the benefits of massage, and not just general benefits – get specific. When a potential client lands on your sight they need to be grabbed immediately and shown how coming to get a massage from you will help them with their pain, stress, etc. Figure out the best way to show the potential client how you can help them with THEIR problem and you will dramatically increase the phone calls. You need to get people to take action. Telling them how great you are and all of your knowledge, experience, and even your “certifications” doesn’t mean jack to most people. You need to show them how they will benefit from calling you in a personal way. Do that and your website will become a huge practice builder for you.

Until next time, happy palpating! 

By the way, I have a new survey up and would love your input. It is only a couple of questions! Click Here to take survey. Thanks.

Marketing Your Massage Practice

I got a lot of response from my recent article on how much money massage therapists can make. The over-riding theme was “how do we make more?” Or more importantly, “how do we better market our services?”

That, really, is what it is all about. You can be the best therapist in the tri-state area, but if no one is aware you exist, it really doesn’t matter.

Massage schools do a terrible job of teaching the business side of massage, which is a real shame. I feel lucky that I spent 15 years in sales and marketing before becoming a therapist…it made the transition easy for me. I already know how to sell, and specifically how to sell myself, which is what it is mostly about.

But, back to the biggest question, how to better market our services? Well, that is too large of a subject for one post, but I will give a little rundown of my thoughts and then follow up with several more posts going into more specifics.

If I was starting my practice today, or if I was going to try and leave a spa or massage clinic to start my own business, the first thing I would do is get a website. They are cheap and great ways to market. The key to marketing is time. You can’t go out and sell one-on-one everyday if you need to be giving massage to make money. There are other forms of advertising, but they can be cost prohibitive in the beginning. A website is the best option in my mind. Or, if you want, you can skip the website but produce a blog or an e-zine (an e-mail magazine, newsletter, etc.) The e-zine and blog can be powerful marketing tools by themselves. Of course, a website combined with an e-zine or newsletter and a blog is very powerful.

One thing you must understand about marketing is something called the 7-to-10 Rule. This basically says that prospects need to see your message (sales pitch basically) 7-10 times before they will buy. That is where the e-zine comes in. If you provide great information about the benefits of YOUR massage on a weekly basis, people will get the picture and realize they NEED your service. This is a very powerful and effective way to reach more people with little effort…again, very important in marketing.

Well, I could go on, but I will stop here. Keep an eye on my blog (or better yet, subscribe to it using one of the tools on the left side of the page) and I will go into more detail about how to get a website as well as starting an e-zine or newsletter.

Until then, happy palpaiting.

Oh, by the way, I have a quiz posted at the top left-hand side of my blog. Please check it out, I would love to get your opinion. Thanks!

How Much Can A Massage Therapist Make?

How much money can I realistically make as a massage therapist?  That is always a big question I get from new therapists.   

I was recently speaking to a group massage school students who will be graduating in a couple of weeks and that was the topic that drew the most discussion.  It didn’t surprise me, as it is always one of the more critical topics of any therapist, not just new ones.

Of course, there is no simple, straight answer.  The real answer is, it depends.  Not a very satisfactory answer, but the truth.  Are you working for yourself or someone else?  Do you work at a spa, for a chiropractor or at a massage clinic?  If a massage clinic, do you work at a therapy center, or are you at one of the newer discount franchises?

The bottom line is you can make as much as you want, but you must be willing to work for it.  By this I don’t mean perform more massage, but work to set up a business or program that will maximize your skills and abilities and make more money per massage.

Most people that enter massage school have an unrealistic expectation that they are going to make $60-$80 per hour upon graduation.  Well, that isn’t likely to happen.  It isn’t impossible, but it takes time.  However, the market is ever changing and the new discount franchises are paying their therapists much less than average, and it is also making some independent therapists feel the need to charge less to compete.  I think both are bad ideas.

Several therapist I know went to work for a franchise and started out making $15 per hour.  Bonuses were available but they were forced to perform so many massages to reach them that they hit burnout very quickly.  Now, $15 per hour might be good pay for some, but it is a little low in my mind for a qualified and skilled therapist.  However, I do see a place for the discount clinics.  It isn’t a bad place for new therapists to hone their skills.  The key is for those therapists to take care of themselves and not burnout too fast.

As for the rest of us, independents, spas and other clinics, the goal is to create a unique experience to compete with and overcome these discount prices.  I believe you should charge what you feel you are worth, in relation to the market (which obviously varies by location).  Charge more per massage, perform less massages a week, and build a business one client at a time, relying on good marketing and great referrals.  

But how does one do this?  Well, there are many ways, and frankly, I don’t have all of the answers.  I know ways that have worked for me, but that doesn’t mean it will translate into success for you.  How best for a therapist to figure out the best options for growing a successful practice?  I believe a MasterMind group would be a great place.

Soon I will be opening up MassageMasterMind.com, a subscription site that will bring professional, smart, driven massage therapists together to share their successes and failures, to teach and to learn from each other.  I have received the best advice and help from other successful therapists, and I feel that you have your best chance of success working with other like-minded individuals to give advice, aide, support and encouragement.

My goal is that MassageMasterMind.com will be the ultimate resource, a one-stop site, for massage therapists.  But the most important aspect will be it’s members, sharing their vast knowledge and experience, while learning and prospering through the help of others.  We all have our strengths and we can all teach others as well as learn from others.

Stay tuned for further announcements about MassageMasterMind.com.  It will be opening in a couple of months, and I hope you will check it out and consider being a part of a community of therapists with the same goals in mind – creating prosperous practices while helping to heal the world through massage.

The bottom line is we can all make a great living while doing something we love.  I don’t have a job anymore, I have a career.  I love to go to the clinic everyday.  I look forward to massage and love what I am doing.  I don’t know that I would feel the same while making $15 per hour, but I don’t need to be making $80 per hour either.  It is realistic to make a better than average income while doing something you enjoy.  Be a part of the Massage MasterMind community and start realizing your dreams and goals. 

Oh, and tell your friends about this blog and the upcoming site so we can build a large enough community to be able to provide all the resources and help we all need.

Until then, happy palpating!