Marketing Matters

As I go through my days I see all sorts of ideas other, non-massage/bodywork businesses use to market their services. Why can’t you take what they’ve done and make it work for you and your ideal clients?

1. Kind of Frequent Flyer Bonus, but Not
I heard an ad on the radio for an active senior apartment complex. The special was: Sign a one year lease. After you pay for the first 11 months, you get your 12th month free.

How this can work for you: Massage is a reward and motivator! Give yourself a reason to keep working toward your goals. Book and keep one appointment a month with me for one year. Get the 12th month free. OR get a certificate for a [90 minutes session] that you can keep or give to a friend. OR, or, or …

The advantage to you is obvious. The advantage for your clients is being able to make appointments for times that work best for them.

2.  Get People Thinking, Get Them Laughing … about You
Coffee huts and hamburger stands have these little “quizzes” where you get 10% off if you answer the trivia question correctly. Stuff like “Where did the word trivia come from?” or “Who was the father of the sons of Zebedee?” It’s fun, it’s cute. If we don’t know the answer, we go home and look it up. You can take this basic idea but make it bigger.

How this can work for you: Send out an email or postcard to your clients with an intriguing question. eg: My favorite holiday is fast approaching! The first five people to correctly tell me what is celebrated [September 19] will get [a preferential appointment time/extra 15 minutes added onto their next appointment]. If you’re not one of the first five, I’ll put your names in a hat and draw three more names for the same prize. Answers must be received by Friday, January 29th.

3. Respond to Your Ideal Clients’ Immediate Needs
I saw Avatar this weekend. After a 3+ hour movie, my first stop was the restroom. Two things jostled for brain-space as I washed my hands: 1) The cleverness of the florist who placed fresh arrangements on the counter top with her name and location clearly visible and 2) My leg really, really hurt.

I had carried the tension of the last two hours of the movie in my right leg. I think I had been physically ready to leap in to action and … do … something.

I felt the same way after one of the more recent Bond films.

Surely I can’t be the only one that does this.

These physical feelings combined with the smart florist’s marketing got me thinking about you.

How this can work for you: The first off-the-cuff thought I had would be to place a card at the bottom of each mirror in the bathroom — with the theater’s permission. The text could relate to a specific movie saying something like:

“Helping [Neytiri]? Feeling a little sore now?
Take a deep breath and exhale, letting the tension out of your neck.
Breathe deeply again and exhale the tension out of your lower back.
With your third breath, let the tension out of your legs.
Better?
If not, give me a call at 555-1212.”

Or you can offer advice for sitting through long movies in general. Or you can leave cards in the men’s room suggesting that after dragging their date to whatever the current blockbuster shoot-’em-up is, they could do something she would appreciate, ie: couple’s massage, chocolate massage, etc.

This would work best if you reference a movie that you feel your ideal clients would go to. You want your ideal clients to get that “They’re talking to me” feeling. This isn’t as hard as you may think. Hey, come on, an amazing number of 40-50 year old women went to whatever that vampire movie was …

All my best,
Eileen

Further Reading
Ideal Clients Defined
Who Are You Talking to?

My mother-in-law (whom I adore) is a disaster magnet. It’s nothing she does. Stuff just happens.

Whiteouts. Wildland fires. Elk.

After seventy years she has her disaster management down to a science. She can throw her stuff into the car and be down the road in under 25 minutes. In addition to her essentials, she is always sure to pack her address book, a phone book, and her cell phone with an extra battery.

In other words, she is well-prepared to maintain contact with people who care about her and also with people she needs.

If you don’t have a plan for keeping your clients in the loop if and when your practice experiences a disaster, now is the time.

Soon we’ll be in the season of burst pipes and collapsed roofs. Never mind the high flammability of things in the Pacific Northwest right now.

If you have to close down your practice for even a week, how will you keep your clients in the loop? How will you care for them while you’re repairing your place — or looking for a new one? And how will you bring your clients back to you when your practice is up and running again?

What’s your massage practice marketing plan for disaster recovery?

Basic Steps for Right Now

1. Get all your clients’ current emails and addresses.
2. Check periodically to make sure the contact information is still good. Send an email to check that they can receive emails from you. Or send a postcard mailing with 1st Class postage so if their address has changed, you’ll get the postcard back with the corrected address.
3. Keep a copy of your client contact lists in a place other than your studio — at home, in a safety deposit box — and be sure to update it weekly.
4. Think about how you will keep in contact with clients if disaster befalls your practice. Start a blog? Will you email them all? Can you email them all? Some email accounts won’t let you send emails to more than 25 people at a time. Know these things before you are under serious stress.
5. Make at least a minimal effort to maintain a rapport with local news media — whether it’s radio, newspaper, health issues blogger with a decent following. Whomever. If you suffer a disaster, you will need someone with a bigger voice who is willing to readily support you.
6. Be a friendly neighbor. If your practice has smoke damage, will the salon down the block give you a “friends and family” deal on a temporary room? Look in your neighborhood for places that would be okay in a pinch. Bring over a couple lattés once a month and have a little chin wag. Can’t hurt.

Marketing After the Disaster

1. Contact your clients. Tell them what happened, your current plans and how you are going to keep in contact with them.
2. Keep in contact. Blogs, emails, twitter, phone trees, whatever works. Do it. Do it regularly. Make people part of the process.
3. Get the story out. Disaster is newsworthy. When you get your story on the radio/newspaper/newsletter, make every effort to ensure the story includes ways for your clients (current and potential) to be updated on your progress.
4. Don’t whine about frustrations to your clients. That’s what your friends and forums are for.
5. If you’re down for a long time (a month+) create ways so your clients can still see you and still get a taste of your healing services and so you can continue to market your massage practice. Set up a chair at a coffee house or gym or park. Be adopted by an other practice that has a free room on odd days. Anything to keep yourself on your clients’ radar.
6. When you reopen (even if it’s only been two weeks) make it a big deal. Make it newsworthy. You overcame challenges and you want to celebrate and thank everyone for their support. Right? Have a BBQ or potluck or outdoor movie night. Invite your clients and everyone else who helped: city employees, the fire department, the plumber, other therapists.

As I wrote this entry it was very hard to stick to just marketing topics for disaster preparedness. Of course, you need to think about your practice and insurance and customer care and all that kind of stuff.

I did a little searching and found three relevant entries on my new favorite blog. They are Planning for the train wreck before it happens, How your top 10 clients can impact your disaster recovery, and What can you learn from a business disaster.

All my best,
Eileen

This is the time of year where the rains ease up and my gas bills quadruple. Festival season, oh, yes!

For the bodyworker in the right frame of mind, a festival or fair can be an excellent place for you to meet the clients you would like to add to your practice. At the very least, it’s a nice break from the norm.

Local vs. Regional:
A regional festival, like Bumbershoot or the Oregon Country Fair, is more likely to be a working vacation than a perfect spot to reinvigorate your practice. It might be a good opportunity to reinvigorate you. These sorts of events are generally full of people looking to have a positive experience and you can’t stand in the middle of so much fun energy without catching it yourself. Also, it’s a place where you can be inspired by what other vendors (not necessarily bodyworkers) are doing to attract clients.

Local festivals are the places to look for clients to add to your practice. Not only do you get your dose of good energy but you have exposure to people who live and work around you. This is a chance for people to meet you in a “neutral” space. It’s a chance to become familiar with your face and your personality and, hopefully, your work.

Focus on Who You Want to Serve:
If you are trying to add clients to your practice, you will be most efficient when you know who you want to attract. Some are obvious: local races or matches for sports massage, farm fairs or farmers’ markets for green-focused practices, 4H events for families.

Also consider the neighborhood where your practice is located. Introduce yourself. Be neighborly. Perhaps the office next door has an employee lunchtime BBQ every spring. Can you do neck/shoulder/arm work while they’re waiting for their bratwursts to grill?

If the Tae Kwon Do school across the way has a big meet every year, go see how you can get your practice involved. Wouldn’t it be useful to help local competitors gain an edge over the competition by being focused and warmed up before they step into the ring? And, while we’re thinking about it, wouldn’t it be useful to parents dropping off their kids to have an appointment with you while their child is in class?

I have seen the same therapist next to her chair shaking hands and handing out cards at both the Capital Food and Wine Festival and at SLURP this year. I’d say she’s after gastronomes who like a little luxury and are willing to spend their money on quality. A lot of the attendees go to both events so she’s gaining recognition and becoming comfortably familiar. And the sign by her chair saying, “Will work for wine,” probably doesn’t hurt.

Be Ready:
Have some sort of signage where people can clearly see your offer and rates from more than 10 feet away. A piece of notebook paper taped to the sunshade support isn’t going to do it.

Business cards, business cards, business cards. Geez louise, if I see one more MT with a stack of torn up — neatly, I’ll grant you — slips of paper with their name and number, I shall bite through the radiator. You’re going to need a gazillion of them because you’re going to hand two to every person you talk to. They’re not that expensive. If you’re really together, make up some specific for the event. They need to look professional and they need text that explains the benefits of your work. People need a reason to keep the card. Give them one.

If you have a brochure or flyer that explains the work you do, so much the better. Someone may be interested but still unsure or doesn’t have enough time (or your festival schedule was packed! ) Be sure any information you give them has your contact information on it. There is also a greater impact if you are able to address their needs as specifically as possible. An example: At an airshow, have one flyer for men, another for elder men and another for stressed out, Tums-popping men.

Festival-goers are great but don’t forget the vendors, coaches, bands, volunteers, staff, etc. I recommend walking around the festival location during set-up and introducing yourself. Bring your daily schedule. Get people signed up. “You know, at lunch time and the end of the day my schedule gets packed. Those seem like times that would be best for you. Do you want to sign up now so you have a space saved before the crowds get here?” Don’t discount the benefits of trades, either. Wouldn’t it be nice to trade a 15 minute session for help taking down and loading your stuff? Or for two flats of bedding plants?

There’s nothing wrong with being memorable. The therapist with the sign reading, “Will work for wine” got more people talking to her than she would have otherwise. They wanted to know what kind of wine she was after. If there was a low price limit. If they got a special award for finding the best tasting wine. The conversation was opened. People could approach her about something other than her work initially. Also, she had the same sign at both events so people were inclined to remember her.

Festivals are a time to celebrate. Celebrate your practice and celebrate the work you have put into making our world a little better.

All my best,
Eileen

Related article: Dipping in Your Oar: Notes on marketing massage at local events