Can I Just Build A Website For My Massage Business On Amta Or Abmp
I strongly recommend that you have your own website. You can certainly create a profile page on AMTA and ABMP, Facebook, or one of the online booking websites. But those are someone elses platforms which you have little control over. They can change the rules whenever they want. Plus the web page designs on AMTA and ABMP are kind of dated.
Instead, I would recommend building a website using WordPress.org, get hosting and a theme you like. Keep it simple! There are thousands of free themes to choose from, and shared hosting is very inexpensive. There are plenty of resources online about building a WP website.
A new website will take time to rank on Google, even if you post new content frequently. So even though having a website is important, the fastest way to grow a new massage business and get clients is through in-person, local marketing.
Learn To Love Soft Sales
When you think of the word sales do you feel a little nauseous? Believe me, in the past, sales turned my stomach, too. But heres the thing: If you want to succeed in massageno matter if you work for yourself or someone elseyou better be able to sell.
Yuck, I know. Who wants to be the proverbial used car salesperson? Well, you dont have to be. In fact, you can be successful in sales by doing the opposite.
Its called soft selling, also known as gentle persuasion.
Heres how I soft sell to get repeat clients: I provide extraordinary customer care. This means I return calls quickly, allot ample time for the initial intake, explain my findings, and follow up with clients three days after the massage.
These simple acts of gentle persuasion create loyal customers and translate into five-star online reviews.
To bring in more clients, I do gentle persuasion with free demo massages. Free labor? Think free advertising instead.
I also target businesses in my niche market. For example, my niche market is runners. A while back, I approached a running store and offered free, 15-minute demo massages on a group run day. Guess what I did to sell my massage? You got it. I massaged the runners and provided extraordinary customer care.
In this situation, extraordinary customer care meant I had my massage books with me so that I could back up my findings.
I also demonstrated self-massage techniques when applicable and gave runners my business card when they had more questions.
Get Involved In Community Activities
Participating in community services is another way to promote your massage therapy clinic. It provides you with more business opportunities such as building connections with other massage therapists, and other healthcare professionals and reaching out to potential customers.
Aside from that, it also helps establish a good reputation for your brand. Its like a win-win situation where you get to do good things for the community and at the same time, you do something that your brand will benefit from.
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Promote Yourself As A Massage Therapist: 9 Creative Ideas
by sinead | Oct 19, 2021 | , Tips and Tricks |
Whether you are an established massage therapist beginning to branch out on your own or a newly qualified therapist starting from the ground up, learning how to promote your services is essential. As a small business owner, your time is limited and marketing often falls lower on the priority list most massage therapists arent drawn to the business through a love of marketing! But like the chicken and the egg, the promotion of what you do and your success are intrinsically linked.
Lets take a look at some creative ideas that will set your massage business up for success.
Put Some Thought Into The Design
When planning your marketing materials, at the minimum include your name, plus your preferred email and phone number. If you have a website, be sure to include that as well.
Some therapists also like to list their hours, services or rates on the back of their business cards. If your hours or appointment procedures are in flux as you reopen consider using your website or social media links with a reminder to check for the latest hours and updates.
Demonstrate your professionalism by including the AMTA member logo on your card. .
The design is important, too! If you dont have graphic design skills, that is okay! Vistaprint has free template design options for you to choose from.
Pick a design that feels like you, but make sure your text is legible. Script fonts can be difficult to read, especially in smaller sizes, so keep those as the headlines. Numbers and emails are easiest to read in a sans-serif font like Arial or Calibri.
Dont forget to proofread, and then proofread again. Avoid wasting your money by printing materials with typos or incorrect contact information.
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Build Your Personal Brand
If you want to stand out from other massage therapists, show your personality and youll strengthen relationships with your clients. Remember: the goal should be to connect, not to collect. Try a friendly and professional tone that transforms you from just another business into one that cares about its clients.
While its vital to establish yourself on standard social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, you also need to dive into more photo-centric sites like Instagram. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Images can make an impression more powerful and lasting than only sending emails.
Connect real-time events, stunning visuals, and topical humor to stay relevant and timely.
For example, this was was a funny post from the holiday season:
A post shared by Lake Austin Spa Resort on Dec 21, 2019 at 2:14pm PST
Content like recipes and instructional videos benefit from having a visual element along with content.
How To Get Repeat Business With A Client Retention Strategy
When you do start building up your clientele, you need to know how to keep clients and earn referrals. Ive grouped keeping clients and getting referrals together in this section because you achieve both of these goals the same way.
Its been said that it is six to seven times more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. Also, your probability of selling to an existing customer is much greater than selling to a new customer. So it makes sense that a business owner should work as hard to keep a customer as they do to find a new one.
Pro tip: Market to your best clients first.
Your ability to market and promote yourself can get clients in the door. But to get repeat business and referrals from your massage clients, youve got to be the best massage therapist around. This is where your ability to deliver an outstanding massage and client experience really matter.
Your marketing strategy should include your client retention strategy. It is MUCH easier to grow a massage business by encouraging repeat business than it is to continuously have to keep getting new clients.
It is six to seven times more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.
One way to create a raving fan is to solve their problem. When I was in massage school I naively asked my instructor, Once we fix the clients problem, wont they leave us because they dont need us any more? His response was:
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Demand For Massage Therapy Is Growing Unfortunately Its Demand For Relatively Inexpensive Convenient Massage
There are a lot of people willing to pay for massagebut how do you attract these people into your practice?
Many massage therapists in private practice dont have full schedules, and want this to be different.
Contrast this with the concerns from massage chains that dont have enough therapists to meet client demand in fact, several franchise owners have shared with me that they are turning away 15 to 20 clients per week due to being understaffed.
Still, local private-practice massage therapists arent getting those clients. Perhaps this is because therapists in private practice charge fees that are usually higher than those charged by franchises.
Perhaps it is because private-practice massage therapists dont have the same scheduling options that franchises do.
Layer on top of that the fact that consumers might not be able to locate private-practice therapists as easily as they might locate a name-brand franchise.
All of this begs these questions: How can you, a private-practice massage therapist, attract clients to your practice?
Do you have to lower your prices to compete with the chains? And how can you build a clientele of your ideal clients?
How To Win With Soothe
There are several practices that 5-star rated massage therapists always perform when operating on the platform.
Top massage therapists will bring a table, fresh sheets, and an assortment of lotions with them to the job.
Secondly, if youre ever worked at a retail establishment or at a coffee shop, you know how rigorously they train and emphasize delivering service with a smile.
Being warm and friendly will also go a long way as this is a service industry and thus having great customer service skills is critical.
This inviting attitude will serve you well and may even lead to more tips and a higher dollar-per-hour pay in your pocket.
Soothe offers some guidance for therapists on their website.
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Logistics Matter Too When Getting More Massage Clients
We recognize that a good fit is about more than just personality and style. We had to look at some things that may seem obvious, because it helps us bring more consciousness to these aspects. It can be surprising how easily the basics can be overlooked!
Clients who are good fits pay us on time. They show up to their appointments on time and they take responsibility for that. If theyre caught in traffic they will contact us and let us know theyll be late. They show up ready to work with the time remaining.
A good logistical fit changes over time. For example, Kate has two middle-school-aged children and she works during school hours only. So, working with children who are in school does not currently work so well. She is fortunate to have practitioners close by to whom she can refer clients of this age group however, working with clients who are at college does work because when they are home during their breaks, they have flexibility that is a fit for Kates schedule.
You Want To Get More Massage Customers But Most Massage Therapy Marketing Runs Counter To The Evidence Provided By The Best Available Research
Client education isnt always consistent with current science, either.
We can change that.
As a former marketing professional who wrote ad copy, designed print ads and developed angles to convert reluctant buyers into regular customers, I have paid a lot of attention to how massage therapy practices, methods, tools and personalities are marketed.
Very little of this marketing ever cites supporting research, and some claims are completely contradicted by a basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology. Clearly, this approach to marketing works for a lot of people, but is it consistent with ethical, professional practice?
No, it isnt. Check the ethical codes published by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork, Alliance for Massage Therapy Education, state boards of massage therapy, and other professional organizations in our industry.
Most have guidelines regarding how we represent our credentials, what we do and the limitations of what we do. Even Minnesota, which lacks state licensing, has a statute for all massage and bodywork providers that prohibits, among other things, Advertising that is false, fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading.
Consequently, my business partner and I have attempted to stay abreast of research. Our marketing and client education have changed to reflect that, and we have provided updates to our employees as needed. This has been extremely beneficial in building our business.
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Dont Use Industry Terminology
Another major mistake is using complex industry terms, technobabble and geek speak in your marketing. Remember youre communicating with people who have never experienced your treatments before.
Keep your message simple. Use everyday language to describe what you do.
Dont focus on the hows
Your client doesnt care how you do it they just want an outcome. Your client is ultimately looking for a solution.
Concentrate your marketing material on outcomes and benefits, not the techniques you use.
Ner With Local Businesses
Last but not least is the well-worn concept, which might feel dated but definitely is not of connecting with other local businesses. This is smart networking. Finding out ways to support other local businesses is usually something that fellow entrepreneurs are interested in. And they have to know that you are out there in order to want to work with you, so our advice is to put yourself out there and make that contact.
Find out if there is a local business community group that you can join and if not consider setting one up yourself. You can also just walk into businesses and introduce yourself, or be completely old-school and send something fun and attention-grabbing in the mail. One idea we loved was to bring along or send in a bag of popcorn with a note saying just popping in to say hello. Memorable, right?
You can narrow down your scope and connect with other businesses in the wellness field to see how or if you can support each other in a more focused way for example, if you know a massage therapist that works in a specific niche that you can refer clients to, and vice versa or perhaps a local physio clinic refers out to massage therapists and is looking to expand their network. Again, they wont know you are there unless you put yourself in front of them in some way. And if one contact attempt doesnt seem to get anywhere, try again.
About
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Ner Up With Local Businesses
Even in this digital age, you should still partner up with local non-competing businesses in your area and build a community.
You can build relationships and potentially partner up with local businesses that offer similar services and share similar values, such as:
- Dietitians and nutritionist
- Holistic medicine practitioners
Also worth noting is that businesses like gyms with large venues may be looking for massage therapists to diversify their services, so you can probably partner up with them and rent out a room to expand your clinic.
These businesses may share the same clientele as yours, so you can partner up and offer cross-promotion discounts. For example, you can offer a 20% discount for those who have visited a local hairdresser, while this hairdresser will also offer the same discount for your clients.
Also, dont underestimate the importance of connecting with your local community and building meaningful relationships. For example, you can try to be involved in the local massage therapy associations in your area, the chamber of commerce, and so on. Being active in these local communities can also open up new opportunities to connect with potential clients and partners.
Get An Online Presence
Most, if not all, new clients will most likely find you online. Its the reason companies like Soothe are doing so well theyre taking advantage of clients inherent bias towards searching online when looking for a new service provider of any kind.
Be visible online. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Online Directories
Of course, without a way for clients to book you, youre throwing money down the drain because folks will find your business listing, not see an actionable way to book you, and simply move on to a provider that does have online booking.
A simple solution for this would be to install your PocketSuite online booking widget everywhere youre showing up online, giving your customers an easy way to book your services as soon as they see your listing
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Massage Business Marketing Ideas: 7 Tips To Get And Retain Clients
Thinking of starting your own massage therapy business but dont know how to get and retain clients? Or probably youve already got an established massage business but are looking for new ways to grow it.
Youve come to the right place.
As we know, marketing a massage business can be challenging. Just because youve built the perfect massage clinic at the perfect location, doesnt mean youll automatically get clients as soon as youve set up this clinic.
Not to mention, retaining clients is another challenge. Maintaining a healthy customer retention rate can be more profitable than acquiring new customers, and yet, keeping existing customers happy so they keep coming back can be a serious issue.
With that being said, in this guide, well discuss actionable marketing ideas you can use for your massage business, including top tips you can use to get and retain clients.
- Important principles to know for marketing a massage business
- How to perform market research and competitive analysis
- Key areas to focus on when planning massage business marketing strategy
- Actionable tips you can use to market your massage business
And more.
Let us begin from the basics.
How To Make Sure Your Clients Keep Coming Back
There are lots of marketing tricks out there to get new clients in the door, like social media campaigns or new client discounts. But if youre focused too much on new clients, you could be missing out on the steady revenue of returning clients.
Its common knowledge in the marketing world these days: Acquiring a new client is much more expensive than it is to retain an existing client. And its true acquiring a new client costs up to five times more than retaining a current client!
As a massage therapist, keeping your clients happy and returning to you again and again is so important. Clients who rebook not only create a more stable income for your business, you can also be sure theyre singing your praises to their friends and family, giving you free word-of-mouth marketing. Win win!
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