Massage Therapy News and Events!

Aloha Friends & Marketers of Massage!

In my last post I covered just how important massage testimonials are when it comes to marketing your business and attracting new clients.

But what it is that makes a great massage testimonial?

Well, other than talking about how professional, nice or wonderful you are, a great massage testimonial will ideally ‘prove’ how your massage effectively solved a ’specific’ problem for your clients.

Your testimonials should also address any specific ‘hesitations’ (if any) that your clients had prior to booking in with you, which we’re ultimately proved to be unfounded.

If you have a specific ‘target market’ that you are focusing on, then you should ideally have lots of great testimonials from people from within that market.

For example, when I used to practice massage from home, I would always target one primary market - stressed out, white collar professionals aged 35-55.

Want to know why I always target that particular market?

Well, other than the fact that their bodies are screaming for massage and I want to help them, they also have the disposable to income to ‘afford’ regular massage.

This makes your marketing that much easier, because if money is an issue for the people you are targeting than you will need to be all the more convincing in your message and your offers all the more appealing (value-added).

Plus, we usually always live in areas where ’stressed out, cashed up’ professionals are abundant.

{SIDENOTE: Take a drive, walk, ride around the area surrounding your practice. What kind of houses are there? What kind of cars are in the driveway? What kind of businesses surround you? This is your most easily accessible market, so you would do well to get to know it so you can tailor your marketing so that it speaks to them directly.}

Anyway, I had built up a number of regular clients from the ’stressed out, cashed up’ professionals market mainly by going into office buildings and asking if I could put my flyers up in the staffrooms, which worked beautifully.

However, one day it occurred to me that my clients we’re primarily male and I wanted to balance this out a bit by attracting more female clients from this market.

So I opened up my marketing file and took a closer look at my flyers, brochures, ads etc and I made an interesting discovery.

Every single testimonial I had used was from a male. No wonder I had been attracting primarily male clients.

I also felt that there may have been some reservations from potential female clients because I was a male massage therapist.

So I mailed out a card, a Feedback form, a $50 massage gift voucher and a self-addressed postage paid envelope to 5 of my female clients that I felt I had a good rapport/connection with.

In the card I asked if they would kindly fill in the Feedback Form and send it back to me.

Here are the 5 questions I asked them on the Feedback Form:

1) Did you have any hesitations at all about booking in for a massage with me?

If so, what we’re they?
(example: being a massaged by a male, or concerned that the massage might be not be firm enough etc)

2) How did you feel at the beginning of the massage?

Did you have any specific aches, pains, injury or discomfort?
(example: tight neck and shoulders, headache, sore legs etc)

3) How did you feel at the end of the massage?

Did you get what you needed from the massage?
(example: pain relief, relaxation, rejuvenation etc)

4) Was there anything about the massage you didn’t enjoy or that you feel I could improve?

5) What did you enjoy about the massage?

I then asked them if they could write me a testimonial that I could use in my marketing and that they could simply refer to the answers they gave to my 5 questions to help them write it.

I also gave them a few examples of testimonials I have received in the past.

{SIDENOTE: Asking these specific questions and also providing examples of past testimonials you have received actually ‘trains’ your clients to give you great testimonials. Provided you’ve actually given them a great massage treatment of course!}

So, within the week I had 4 out of the 5 ladies return their Feedback Forms / Testimonials to me and they we’re just fantastic.

I then called up each of the 4 ladies and thanked them and asked them when they would like to book in for their next treatment and use their $50 gift voucher.

{SIDENOTE: I only offered 90 minute massage treatments in those days at $100, so the $50 gift voucher was effectively a 50% discount, without calling it a discount. Promoting discounts to your clients and using the word ‘discount’ can be very damaging to your business, but that is a subject for another post.}

When they came in for their treatments, I kindly asked if I could take a small photo of them with my digital camera so I could include it with their testimonial and they all agreed without hesitation. Note: I emphasized that the photo would be small.

In less than 10 days I now had 4 really great testimonials, all from women in my target market.

One of which I’ve included below:

So let’s take a closer look at it and see why this is such a great testimonial…

If we take a look at the first paragraph we can see that Anna did in fact have reservations about being massaged by a male therapist, so my intuition was spot on there.

However, in the second paragraph she comments on how professional I was and how I made her feel ‘comfortable and safe’.

This is huge because other females within my target market will be able to relate to her initial reservations BUT at the same time they will see that I am a ‘good guy’.

If we look at the third paragraph we see that my massage effectively ’solved a problem’ for Anna.

Before the massage she felt stressed and tense in her neck and shoulders and  afterwards her stresses had melted away and the tension had been completely dissolved.

Now this is very important because I know that pretty much everyone in my target market sits at a desk, works on a computer and usually has a heavy workload that must be completed by deadlines, so there are many other women in this market that are going to have this exact same stress and tension.

Anna’s comments in the third paragraph ‘prove’ that MY massage is an effective ’solution’ to this common ‘problem’.

In the last paragraph, she goes on to say that it was the best massage that she has ever had and that she highly recommends me to anyone wanting a truly excellent massage.

Now that is a powerful and convincing endorsement and a great way to finish the testimonial strongly.

If we look at the bottom you will see that I have included a photo of Anna, along with her full name, her age, her occupation and the suburb where she lives.

Including all of these details, makes your testimonial both credible and believable.

Some marketers will tell you that you should also include their phone number and email address for maximum impact. However, while this would definitely increase your testimonial’s ‘believability’, I have not found it to be necessary in the massage industry. Besides, I wouldn’t feel good about plastering my client’s private contact details all over the place.

Anyway, this post has ended up being much larger than expected so let me wrap up.

Once I had my 4 ‘you-beaut’ testimonials from women in my target market, I then updated all my marketing pieces (flyers, brochures etc) and included a 3 testimonials from my male clients and 3 testimonials from my female clients.

I then set about placing them in all the office staffrooms that allowed me to place them there.

Within just a couple of weeks, the number of female clients that booked in for treatments increased and within a couple of months my male/female client ratio was very close to 50/50. How’s that for ‘balance’.

When I asked each of my new female clients what made them decide to book in for a massage, every single one of them said that it was the testimonials from other women!

So this case study goes to show you just how much your testimonials can influence both ‘how many’ clients make contact and book in for a massage AND ‘what type’ of clients make contact and book in for a massage.

So if you have a specific ‘group’ of people that you target with your marketing, make sure that you use plenty of testimonials from people within that group. This will serve to attract and ‘persuade’ more of the same people to come and try out your services.

Anyway, I hope you found this information useful.

Keep doing the great massage work that you’re doing and be sure to keep gathering great testimonials for your marketing.

To your massage success,

James Thomas
Marketing Director
TOUCH OF ALOHA

Lately as I look around at the marketing efforts of lots of massage therapists I’m left scratching my head asking, “Where are your massage testimonials?”

I mean, when it comes to marketing massage (or any business for that matter), testimonials from happy clients are an incredibly powerful motivator in getting potential new clients to make contact with you and book in for a massage treatment.

Just look at the wildly successful acne product, ‘Proactiv Solution’ for example. I’m sure you’ve seen their infomercial at least once. (One of my core marketing mentors Dan Kennedy was a consultant on this Guthy Renker campaign as well as on the Tony Robbins infomercials). Anyway, three quarters of the infomercial are testimonials from extremely happy customers which include before and after shots of their skin.

Do you think ‘Proactiv’ would have been anywhere near as successful had they not used testimonials? Absolutely not!

No matter what it is you’re selling/offering (acne cream, weight loss programs, fitness equipment, massage etc) testimonials will go a long way in ‘convincing’ your target audience that what you’re offering really works. In fact, they are absolutely essential!

When it comes to massage, you’ll want your testimonials to ‘prove’ that you are professional and truly excellent in providing your clients with what they want, whether that be relief from back pain, stress or just a totally relaxing and pampering experience.

We are funny creatures in that what other people say about a person very often influences our opinions/beliefs a whole lot more than what that person says about themselves.

Although it is our job to sell ourselves as the best solution to our potential client’s problem, this means nothing if we then don’t provide testimonials to ‘back up’ what we are saying about ourselves and the services we offer.

Testimonials are the ’social proof’ that what we say about ourselves as massage practitioners is true. Without them, our marketing will be left weak and ineffective.

So, if you are not yet including testimonials in every single marketing piece that you do, please, please start doing so A.S.A.P!

As someone with over a decade of experience in marketing and promotion, I cannot make a stronger recommendation to you!

Stay tuned for Part Two of this article where I explain exactly what makes a powerful massage testimonial, as well as how to get them from your clients.

Until then, I wish you much success!

James Thomas
Marketing Director & Co-Founder
TOUCH OF ALOHA

Greetings Massage Marketers!

February 14th is less than 2 weeks away and beyond organizing some special valetine’s surprises for your significant other, it is time now to START SELLING YOUR MASSAGE GIFT VOUCHERS (if you haven’t already)!

Valentine’s Day is the absolute best time of year to sell your massage Gift Vouchers both to your existing clients (for their partners) and also to the general public.

Why? Because a massage is the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day and studies have shown that people who will probably never book in for a massage themselves, will in fact buy a massage Gift Voucher for their partner.

So this post is a timely / friendly reminder to you all to start promoting your Valentine’s Day Gift Vouchers A.S.A.P!

Here’s a few suggestions to get you started…

You can start by making up a sign and displaying your beautiful Gift voucher and envelope in a small basket of rose petals in your massage room or waiting area, clearly where your clients can see it.

You can also let your clients know that you have them available, at the end of their treatment, before they pay you.

If you have a massage newsletter about to go out, you should definitely announce your Valentine’s Gift vouchers and specials in there.

NOTE: If you don’t yet publish your own massage newsletter, you are missing out on what is probably the most effective way to keep your clients coming back again and again.

For more information see my post at:

Massage Marketing Newsletter

If you have an email list of your clients, you should definitely write up a nice friendly email and tell / remind your clients that about your Valentine’s Day gift vouchers that way. It’s fast and it’s free!

This strategy works brilliantly if you are also set up to sell your massage Gift Vouchers automatically online.

For those of you that are a little more Internet savvy or know someone who can help you, Gift Vouchers for massage treatments (and the like) sell like hot cakes on eBay, especially just before Valentines Day!!!

For those of you who want to sell a lot of Gift Vouchers (perhaps if you have a larger massage/spa business), you could approach other local businesses to sell your Valentine’s Day Gift Vouchers on your behalf for a commission - say 10-15% of the sales price.

This kind of ‘Joint Venture’ marketing can be extremely effective and is great for building solid ’supportive’ relationships with other ‘non-competing’ local businesses.

If you are worried about this eating into your profit, then simply increase the sales price by the amount of the commission.

When you have someone out there ‘endorsing’ you (i.e. saying your massage is amazing) people will be happy to pay more to have a treatment with you.

In fact they would more or less just assume that this is your normal price.

Off the top of my head, here are some possible partners that may be interested in selling your Gift Vouchers.

Card Shops
Newsagents
The Body Shop
Hairdressers
Gift Shops
Nail Technicians
Real Estate Agents (They could buy them as gifts for their clients)
Chemists/Pharmacies
Health Stores (i.e. Mrs Flannerys)
Gyms
Cosmetic Surgeries/Plastic Surgeons
Yoga Schools
Naturopaths
Juice Bars
…and the list of possibilities goes on!

NOTE: Be aware that many businesses may already supply a massage service or represent someone who does, so be sensitive and considerate in your approach. If you don’t ask though, you won’t get, so don’t be shy!

A general caution when it comes to selling Gift Vouchers…

“Gift Vouchers bring in tomorrow’s money. So be careful how you manage this money. You haven’t earned it yet!”

The last thing you want to do is to spend this money carelessly in advance and then have 3 weeks straight of little or no cashflow because some happy little ‘Valentines’ with Gift Vouchers in hand have suddenly filled up your appointment book.

Tania and I had a couple of close calls with this when we were first starting out, so we can speak from experience. Make sure you allocate that money carefully!

Anyway, if you don’t yet have a nice, warm, professional looking Gift Voucher for your Valentine’s Day promotions, don’t worry, I’ve just created a basic (yet beautiful) one for you below.

All you need to do is edit the business name, address and phone number in the lower left hand side of the Gift Voucher.

Just open the file in Microsoft Word, click on that section (there’s a text box there) and type in your details.

Then hit save and either print them out yourself on some thick paper or card, or for best results burn the file to a disc and take it to your local print shop.

If you decide to take it to a print shop, you will need to convert the Word Document to PDF. Print shops hate Microsoft Word because the formatting of a Word Document can change very easily and they generally dislike working with that program because of the need to reformat a lot of the time.

When you convert a file to PDF, that format is ‘universal’ and what you see is what you get. If you don’t have PDF converting software, such as Adobe Acrobat, here’s a free online service you can use to convert your Gift Vouchers to PDF:

https://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp

NOTE: If you’re not too computer savvy and you’d like me to customize the Gift Voucher for you and convert it to PDF so that it is Print Shop ready, I’d be happy to do it for you for a small fee of $20. I’ll then email you the finished PDF as an attachment and also send you a copy on disc.

If you’d like me to do this for you, just send me an email and give me your details. Otherwise, if you know your way around Microsoft Word, feel free to customize the Gift Voucher, however you like.

Anyway, here’s the download link to your free Valentine’s Day Gift Certificate:

Valentines Day Massage Gift Certificate

Please enjoy with my compliments and all the best with those Gift Voucher sales.

Remember, time is ticking so make the most of this once a year opportunity!!!

Mahalo

James Thomas
Marketing Director & Co-Founder
TOUCH OF ALOHA

P.S - If you use my Gift Voucher, be sure to let me know how many you sell. I love to hear how you guys are doing!

P.P.S - If you already have a Gift Voucher that you’re using, one way to make it more ‘Valentiny’ (if there is such a word) is to purchase some nice little heart, Cupid or rose stickers from your local newsagent or Officeworks and just stick them onto your regular Gift Voucher and or envelope.

NOTE: Always, always provide an envelope with your Gift Vouchers. You want it looking beautiful and professional when it is opened, not marked or ‘dog eared’ because it’s been floating around the car or your handbag unprotected.

Surprisingly, I have bought several Gift Vouchers over the last few years and I did not receive them in an envelope. I remember thinking to myself how ‘cheap’ and ’unprofessional’ that was.

Remember, it’s often the ‘little things’ that set apart the ‘ordinary’ from the ‘excellent’…so why not be EXCELLENT!!!

Speaking of envelopes, bright red ones for your Valentines Day Gift Vouchers would be a nice, warm touch (red is the colour of ‘passion’ afterall).

P.P.P.S - Here’s a bonus tip!

You will sell A LOT more Gift Vouchers if you put together a ’special package’ for Valentines Day.

So if you have skills in addition to your regular massage for example, Lomi Lomi, Hot Stone Massage, Spa Body Treatments or beauty therapy (nothing painful though like waxing), then put together an ‘irresistable’ package that you yourself would like to receive.

Also, if you can make the numbers work, perhaps you can include a glass of champagne with a couple of ‘chocolate-dipped’ strawberries (YUM!). Or, if you’re set up for it, perhaps you could create a special Valentine’s Day package for ‘couples’.

You could easily charge a ‘premium’ price for this and people will pay it as they buy with their ‘heart’ and not with their head, especially at this time of year!

The secret is to focus on selling the benefits that the Gift Voucher ‘buyer’ will receive (as opposed to the actual ‘recipient’) i.e. convenience (no need to go shopping which is a great incentive for a lot of men!) and how much their partner will love and appreciate them for organizing such a caring and thoughtful gift!

Anyway, I hope that wets your appetite and gets some ideas flowing. I wish you much success with your Valentines Day promotions!

 

The single most important thing you can do as a ‘marketer of massage’ is to grow and nurture your list of leads and clients.

The second most important thing you should do is to continually ‘follow up’ and build a relationship with your lists via your own monthly massage newsletter.

Here’s why a publishing a regular massage newsletter is so important…

1) It gives you the ability to build trust and credibility with both your leads and your existing clients.

2) It positions you as an ‘expert’ in your field.

3) It gives you a way to promote special offers to your clients that ‘call’ them into your practice, when times are slow.

4) It gives you a way to promote/sell other related products and/or services - a way to make an alternative income stream besides massage.

5) It gives you the perfect vehicle to ‘educate’ your leads and clients about the specific ways that regular massage with YOU can benefit THEM.

Plus, statistics have shown that it can take as many 7 contacts from you or 7 exposures to your marketing, before you are able to convert a ‘Lead’ into a ‘Client’.

A newsletter is the most effective way to make regular contact without feeling like you are ‘intruding’.

For those of you who don’t yet publish a newsletter for your leads and clients, it must sound like a daunting task. But the truth is, it doesn’t have to be. It can be very basic and still be very effective.

Remember, the main purpose of a newsletter is for making regular contact with our leads and clients and building a relationship with them by providing them with helpful information and at the same time making them special offers that bring them into our massage practice.

Here’s what a basic newsletter should consist of:

1) A warm, welcoming introduction. 
2) 1 or 2 short ‘content-rich’ articles with valuable health and wellbeing ‘tips’.
3) A couple of testimonials.
4) 1 or 2 promotional offers.
5) A warm conclusion that basically finishes with,

“Thanks for your support and I look forward to seeing you soon!”

That’s really all you need. Don’t worry, once you’ve read through this post, you’ll see how easy I’ve made it for you to publish your very own monthly massage newsletter.

——————————————————————————————————————
IMPORTANT NOTICE
For years I have been a big advocate of ‘e-newsletters’ as opposed to ‘printed newsletters’, however I have recently changed my view on this completely!
——————————————————————————————————————-

Here’s why…the lack of ‘ DELIVERABILITY!’

The spam filters of all the major email service providers have become extremely strict due to the proliferation of unsolicited/uninvited email (i.e. spam) by unscrupulous ’spammers’.What this means is that many legitimate and ‘expected’ emails are either being blocked outright or put straight into junk mail folders, where they are highly unlikely to be seen, let alone opened and read.

So, for all the benefits of sending your newsletter via email (i.e. fast, free, convenient etc) these benefits are greatly diminished if a large percentage of your emails aren’t actually getting through. So you may think that your 100 subscribers (or whatever number you have) are getting your newsletter, but in reality it’s probably much less!

Unless you are able to track your emails, you would have absolutely no idea that this is occurring, but I bet you’ve noticed that the response to your emails is not as strong as it was before. That should give you a clue right there.

So how bad is this problem of ‘deliverability’?

Well in addition to running Touch Of Aloha, I usually have several different online projects going, and I have a different email list for each.

Over the last several months I have been paying close attention to my email stats as I track every single large emailing that I do, especially my e-newsletters.

What I have noticed is that only about 65% of my emails are getting through to my subscriber’s email accounts (the rest are blocked) and of this 65% only 50% are actually being opened.

I would guess that a large portion of the 15% that were unopened were actually delivered straight into the junk mail folder but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Early last year my email stats were all up in the 90% range and higher. So you can see that there has been a considerable drop since then.

In fact only half of all my emails are potentially being read, and I’m not the only one who is experiencing this. Several of my friends who are very experienced Internet Marketers are also experiencing similar results (or lack there of) with their email newsletters and other promotions.

The crazy thing is, everyone on my email lists are ‘double opt-in’ which means they first filled in a form on one of my websites and then they clicked on a confirmation link in an email that was sent to them, making sure that I had their permission to email them.

What’s sad is that it’s only going to get worse as spam filters get even stricter, particularly if you send attachments with your emails, which I know many of you do. I’ve received half a dozen e-newsletters from Touch Of Aloha graduates this week (please feel free to include me on your mailing lists by the way) and all were sent as attachments and all were delivered straight into my ‘junk mail’ folder.

Now I always check my junk mail folder for legitimate emails, but do your leads and clients? Maybe they do, but probably not consistently, which means that your email will most likely be purged after 7 days and they would never have known that it was there.

Even if your subscribers ‘whitelist’ your email address by placing it in their contact list/address book, there is no guarantee that your emails will get through to them.

And, even ‘ IF‘ your email actually gets through to their Inbox, you still have a high chance of being ‘lost’ in a pile of other emails and even if they do open it, you’ve got just a few seconds to hook them in to your newsletter before it gets deleted.

Then there’s that small but significant percentage of people who only check their email once a week, or once a fortnight and yes even once per month!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that email and e-newsletters as a marketing medium is dead. Far from it, but a definite trend is occurring and e-newsletter publishing is nowhere near as effective as it once was.

Considering how our newsletters are such a vital part of our ‘Internal Marketing’, we ‘ need‘ them to be as effective as possible!

So, contrary to my previous advice, I’m now recommending that you switch to publishing a ‘print’ newsletter that you post out to your leads and clients every month. The sooner you do this, the better!

You should definitely still use email, in fact you might like to send your newsletter via email AND via post. But I suggest that you focus on using email more for ’spontaneous’ special offers that you announce to your “Very Best Clients” (i.e. all of your clients!) ‘in-between’ issues of your newsletter.

I gave you an excellent example of an email I have used effectively on numerous occasions, in the post called ‘Building Your Personal Goldmine’. By all means you’re welcome to use it!

Now I know that publishing a ‘print’ massage newsletter is going to be more time consuming and will actually cost you some money in ink, paper, envelopes and stamps etc, however the real benefits of the print newsletter now significantly outweigh the ‘potential’ benefits of the e-newsletter.

For example, you can pretty much guarantee that provided you have the correct mailing address, your newsletter WILL be delivered and has a very high probability of being opened and read (i.e. not lost in a sea of other emails all competing to be opened and read).

Plus, your print newsletter has the potential of being given much more ‘attention’, often being read multiple times and by more than one person as it floats around the house from the coffee table, to the kitchen, to the bathroom etc, before being tossed out. (Yes it’s sad, but your newsletter will ultimately end up being ‘recycled’. The good news is that there’ll be a new one to replace it every single month.)

This will increase the impact of your newsletters and also the response you get from them, which is ultimately what you want.

Now as I’ve already said, a print massage newsletter will definitely be more work for you, particularly if you have a large list, but what I’ve done to help you is I’ve designed a complete Massage Newsletter Template that you can download and use over and over again.

All you need to do is customize each section of the newsletter with your own information (i.e. testimonials, offer, photo, business name and address etc) and your done.

This single page template will make it much easier for you to actually be ‘consistent’ and publish your newsletter EVERY month, which I know has been a challenge for many of you.

The reason we send out a newsletter on a monthly basis is because at the very minimum we want both our Leads and Clients to at least to be ‘thinking’ about having a massage with us at some point every single month!

The more we think about something and imagine it in our minds, the more we are likely to ‘act’ on that thought, which is exactly what we want our readers to do…take ‘action’ and book in for a massage!

Anyway, I’ve created a video for you where I take you through all the significant sections of the newsletter, explaining the marketing angles behind them, as well as how to customize each section with your own information.

You can watch the video now by clicking on the following link:

http://www.massagemarketingmastery.com/video/newsletter.html

Please Note: This massage marketing video is 18 minutes long. So make yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable!

Once you’ve watched the video, you can then download your customizable Massage Newsletter Template.
 

Here’s the Newsletter Template for Female Massage Therapists:

http://www.massagemarketingmastery.com/files/newsletter_template_female.doc

Here’s the Newsletter Template for Male Massage Therapists:

http://www.massagemarketingmastery.com/files/newsletter_template_male.doc

I hope you found this information useful and that you will make the commitment this year to publishing your own massage newsletter for your leads and clients every month. It really is the most powerful massage marketing strategy available!  

James Thomas
Marketing Director & Co-Founder
TOUCH OF ALOHA