The Massage Marketing Connection

Many LMT’s spend the majority of their time, energy and marketing generating new clients. They advertise market, sell, network….whatever it takes to bring new clients in the door.

Let me ask you a question though. How much time and energy do you put into keeping the clients you’ve got? It’s called client retention. Did you know that you spend eight times as much to gain a new client as it does to keep your existing clients/patients? In today’s economy you it’s imperative you at a minimum maintain your market share and not lose it. It’s worth your time and energy to keep the clients you’ve worked so hard to earn.

Here are a few customer retention basics:

• Provide excellent customer service. Notice I didn’t say ok customer service. Or be nice when you’re in a good mood customer service. To keep clients from leaving you, be excellent.

• Acknowledge clients and let them know you appreciate them. Little things like remembering their birthday or anniversary go a long way when it comes to relationship building.

• Smile, be happy. Make sure you’re office is a pleasant place to be. Whether you communicate with clients via email or over the phone you also need to provide a positive experience. Be pleasant to be around – and ensure your staff or assistants are pleasant too.

• Use client’s names often when talking to them. It personalizes the conversation and lets them know you recognize them as a person and not simply your next client.

• Educate and inform your clients all the time about how you are helping them.

• Always be looking for new ways to help your client. This can provide new avenues for your business to grow and allow you to help others in a bigger way at the same time.

Investing your efforts into client retention can really pay off. If you are attracting ideal clients who happily refer you to other ideal clients you need to consistently ask them how else you can help them. In what other ways can you serve them.

Keep in mind that most people don’t tell you they are leaving. They leave quietly. Keep your eyes open, listen, and pay attention to the small things in your business. It all makes a difference.

To your success!

Kelly Robbins

Kelly@AMarketingConnection.com

About the author

Author of Healthcare Copywriting Secrets Revealed and The Practice Evolution Success Kit, Kelly Robbins is a healthcare copywriter and marketing coach/consultant. She also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, 5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits at www.AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.

 This week I’ve spoken with quite a few LMT’s about their practices and why they have ups and downs in their business cycles. We talked about why they never seem to have a consistent stream of clients (and income). Some of them assume they are working with the wrong group of people, the wrong niche. Or that they don’t have a niche and that’s why they aren’t making any money. Others tell me they aren’t making the money they deserve because they are in a small town and there isn’t much business there. Some don’t specialize, some don’t have a web site.

There are a lot of excuses I’m hearing.  

After talking to these folks for a few minutes, I realized that while these excuses may be contributing factors, this is not the reason why they don’t have a thriving business.

They don’t have any business because they aren’t marketing to ANYBODY at all.

Yes, you need to be strategic about your marketing. Yes, it’s smart to chose a target group of people that have a need for your services (and the money to pay for it) and spend your time and energy on them. Choosing a niche is a term for this.

It’s important to know who you are marketing to and to understand WHY they would hire you, what they are looking for and how you could best and least expensively get in front of them.

That’s all important, and you should do it. If you don’t do those things and you aren’t strategic about your marketing, you will waste your time and your money. But the bottom line is…you still have to market yourself. If you don’t do something, no one will know you are out there.

Write articles and publish them. Go to networking events. Make a point to have coffee with one person a week. Send postcards. Make cold calls. Whatever you chose to do – do something. Take action.

Your marketing doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be happening. Now, this is a non-tangible thing I am going to say and some of you may just laugh at me, but you have to get that marketing engine in motion and get that energy moving. Go. Go. Go. It’s all about the moving energy.

If you are in a place (like starting a new business or trying to kick-start an existing business that is not living up to your expectations) and you are uncomfortable with where you are at or with the results you are getting, you need to change things. You have to move.

Imagine being in a stale or stuffy room with all the doors and vents closed. New air can’t come in and the stuffy, stale air is just sitting there and can’t get out. No one likes the way this room feels, but no one is doing anything to change it. No one wants to be in this stale and stuffy room. New people rarely if ever come in, and the people that are in the room are too hot to talk or be friendly with each other because they are miserable.

But then…you come in.

You open the windows and the door, maybe bring a fan in and start moving the air around. You get the air to circulate. Suddenly it’s easier to breathe and new people start to come into the room and socialize.

You need to do the same thing with your marketing. Of course you don’t have a room with stuffy air, but the energy around your marketing is stale and is either not attracting clients or not attracting the right clients. You need to change the air – i.e. your marketing energy.

If you are doing nothing but thinking about what you are going to do, nothing is moving. Including your energy.

The funny thing about doing this, about taking action, is that people start coming to you that you aren’t even marketing to. It’s something about getting your marketing energy moving around, just the act of doing it and building the momentum up starts to make things happen.

The moral of my story….get marketing. Do something. Move your butt.

About the author
Author of Healthcare Copywriting Secrets Revealed and The Practice Evolution Success Kit, Kelly Robbins is an award winning copywriter and marketing coach/consultant. She also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, 5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits at Kelly@AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.

Why don’t we market our massage therapy practice? What are some of the things holding us back, or causing us to procrastinate putting that flyer together, or calling that other practitioner and inviting them to lunch? Do you find yourself busy and saying “I’ll do that tomorrow” when it comes to activities you don’t enjoy?   

I was thinking about this yesterday while writing a sales page for alternative health practitioners. Why don’t we do something that we know is going to help us? All of us want to make more money. All of us want to serve more clients. All of us want to create a successful and prosperous business doing what we love.  

So why don’t we do the one thing that we know will lead us to achieve these things? 

In many ways, marketing for massage therapists is like working out for some people. You know it’s good for you. You know you’ll feel good after you’re done. Ultimately you’ll lose weight, look better, feel better, and live longer. So why doesn’t everyone work out even a little bit? 

Because getting started is hard. It takes discipline. It takes overcoming fears you have. You are putting yourself out there – other people may judge you (or even worse, you may judge yourself and compare yourself to others).  

Plus, working out is hard! It’s not an easy and fun thing to do in the beginning. Once you get into the swing of things it becomes fun, but starting out doesn’t work that way. 

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why massage therapists don’t do marketing. Perhaps we’ll uncover some beliefs you have. Awareness is the first step to overcoming unsupportive beliefs.  

“Marketing is expensive”“Marketing is time consuming”“Marketing doesn’t work”“I tried marketing once and didn’t get any new business”“I’m afraid” “I’ve never done it before”“I don’t know where to start”“My business will grow naturally through word of mouth referrals”

“I don’t have 3 hours a day to devote to that”

“Marketing is hard”

These beliefs you have about marketing are nonsupportive. Doing something different requires YOU to make a change.  

There are three key elements to change:

1. Awareness
2. Understanding
3. Reconditioning

Let’s start with awareness. Are you AWARE of what excuses you’re using for not proactively growing your business?  

For help overcoming your marketing procrastination, contact us for an initial marketing coaching review at info@amarketingconnection.com

About the author

Author of Healthcare Copywriting Secrets Revealed and The Practice Evolution Success Kit, Kelly Robbins is a healthcare copywriter and marketing coach/consultant. She also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, 5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits at Kelly@AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.