Okay now here comes the honest truth. When it comes to advertising and marketing your massage business, ignorance will kill the first chance of getting new clients. DO NOT let your own ignorance cost you all of the above. I am going to tell you some facts which are harsh, brutal and 100% TRUE! A small percentage of Massage Therapists who work for as sole traders suffer from thinking that what they think is what should be marketed to their clients and nothing else. When it comes to advertising and marketing of their massage business, choosing to allow their own beliefs and opinions as to what their clients want is actually detrimental. It's pretty dumb really. And because Massage is about truly serving another human being, by not marketing to their clients needs, they are only serving themselves. Not their clients. Instead of making the effort to find out what their clients actually want by testing a couple of marketing campaigns and asking their clients questions about the treatment, they sit back on their backsides and think "I don't have to do marketing, Marketing and Advertising's not for Massage Therapists." (Hey I was as a smarty pants like this too once, until the Universe took me gently in its hand and showed me the threat of poverty and what failure would look like if I continued on this path. Its amazing how things like that can be so humbling!) Somehow they think making a good effort with marketing and advertising is ripping people off and just being like a used car salesmen. Somewhere along the line it got into their heads that marketing is not for them. This leaves them set in the firm thought that they are "too good" for marketing. They forget that marketing is just an open form of communication into truly serving others. (What I want to know is how they think that not doing marketing will give them clients!? Some can't see the wood from the trees, and I am not afraid to say it.) Basically, in a nutshell, it's all too easy to assume you know what your potential clients want but this is just not the way to get clients. WHY? Because you are not your client! The problem is we as Massage Therapists have a habit of not bothering to find out what our clients want directly. I hear too often the 'joke' that advertising for a massage business doesn't work. This is incorrect. Advertising for a massage business DOES work, and can work so well that you don't know how you will fit in this huge flood of new clients in all in that week that they requested. It's not just "advertising" you have to do. (You know the kind of advertising I mean. The "shove-any-ole'-thing-in-the-paper" type advertising.) It's relevant, solution orientated advertising plastered with benefits to your clients that you have to do. Advertising your qualifications and the school you graduated from seems to be an ineffective way of advertising because it tells your clients nothing about why they should come to you. When you do your advertising and marketing, you have to get inside your clients hearts and minds and find out exactly what they want. You will only be able to do this if you get direct information from the clients themselves. This direct process will allow you to do this and give you a lot of fresh new clients at the same time. You see hardly any Massage Therapist has the gumption to go up to a client and say "So what IS the reason you have massage with me once a month?" Some Massage Therapists, (and I'm not saying you personally, I'm just saying 'some') think that that is a "sales pitch" or a "tactic" and they are not like that. They prefer to stay in their comfort zone with their denial that they are above all that "business" and "marketing" stuff. Its now time we started changing our attitudes toward marketing and advertising as Massage Therapists. No longer can we sit back and expect clients to just come and 'love' us automatically. Your relationships with your clients is like passing an exam, it has to be earned. And the beginning to earning that relationship starts with your advertising. |
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