Marketing and Advertising Strategies for Massage Therapists:

The yellow pages is the first place that a prospective client will let their “fingers do the walking”. While the yellow pages is a good place to advertise, this is not where you will get most of your patients, most of your patients will come from other patients or professional referrals. The size of an ad in the yellow pages probably does not make much difference. Prospective clients will either go to the largest ad or just proceed alphabetically, or perhaps they are going to pick the closest therapist to either home or work. Do not spend a lot of money on a yellow page ad, the return on investment is poor.

Save your money for a good answering service or a cell phone. A single or double line ad in bold will serve most needs for yellow page advertising. Remember, your yellow page advertising representative works for the company that profits from your advertising, they like to encourage larger ads.

Your well designed and eye catching business card is your most important piece of advertising. Cards can easily be placed or left in a large variety of locations. Your business card should be simple and contain only the information that pertains to your professional credentials and how to reach you. Artwork or photographs are a good idea, but the plain professional card is just as good. Your business card should list your degrees and association memberships. You can add a brief slogan or statement like, “your health is our concern”, but in some States where massage is not a licensed profession statements or claims regarding treatment or cure can be a legal problem. Leave your business card in the following locations:

With all health care professionals

Anywhere you make a business call

Health clubs

Health food stores

Associations that services patient populations that you treat

Medical clinics

Dental clinics

Psychology clinics

At all group athletic events

Health fairs

Public bulletin boards

With the waitress that served your lunch

With service clubs and organizations

With support groups

Anywhere that makes sense to you

The locations mentioned above are also the contacts that you want to develop as referral sources. For example, health food stores see a lot of health conscious people in a single day. If you offered to provide discounted massage therapy treatment to health food store staff, the staff in turn would probably not hesitate to refer patients to you. Dentists often inflict dental trauma while providing dental care. Dentists normally care for hundreds of patients, a single dentist referring to you could provide you with many patient visits. Psychologists see many patients who are experiencing various levels of stress and who experience muscle spasm, pain and/or headaches or other health care problems. Psychologists are a good source to market, they frequently practice in groups and you could offer them discounted care in order to educate them regarding your services.

Some weekly newspapers are a good source for inexpensive advertising. It is not the size of the ad that is important, but rather, consistency in advertising. In other words place a small inexpensive ad and leave it in place for weeks or months. A single ad or a short term ad is usually not very effective. The best buy in most small newspapers is the classified ad section, it is usually very inexpensive and in a small weekly paper it is usually read about as well as the rest of the paper. A one or two inch ad is usually a good purchase and once again in a small paper still gets the attention of most readers. If after an ad has run for two or three months no one seems to have seen it, find yourself another paper. If you live in a small area with only one paper then every one will see your ad. If you live in a larger area then find out which paper has the best readership and use that one.

The keys to successful marketing are as follows:

Keep your message simple.

Use a bold headline or attention statement and then a simple, short message.

Be consistent, leave the ad in place for weeks.

Don’t think that you have to spend a lot of money, you don’t.

Develop a program of regular consistent marketing and advertising exposure.

Spend time every day marketing your practice.

Look for free and easy opportunities to educate people regarding your practice.

Remember the most important education and marketing is done in the office and during the patient visit.

Your practice will grow mostly from referrals and not from advertising.

Successful Practice Building:

First of all, here are guaranteed ways to fail in practice:

1. Do not answer your telephone on a consistent basis.

2. Use an answering machine.

3. Do not establish regular office hours.

4. Do not spend time daily planning your practice growth and development.

5. Do not think about your practice.

6. Do not tell people about your practice.

7. Do not educate your patients.

8. Let your patients determine treatment plans and return visits for treatment.

9. Do not ask for referrals.

10. Do not educate your patients in the office.

11. Do not work full time at building your practice.

12. Make sure that you are not available for urgent calls or emergencies.

13. Create a “bankers hours” schedule. Never work evenings or weekends.

14. Practice like everybody else.

15. Over charge for your services.

16. Act like you don’t care.

17. Do not act or dress in a professional manner.

18. Do not return phone calls promptly, within twenty minutes, or at all.

19. Do not visualize or pray for your personal success.

Most massage therapists fail in practice, and statistically most do fail, primarily because they simply cannot be reached by prospective clients. When we surveyed massage therapists in one Mid West city on a Monday morning at 11 AM we could not reach one out of forty massage therapists telephoned. Using an answering machine to run your office is a guaranteed way to assure your failure in practice. People want to reach a real human being and not a machine. In this age of advanced telecommunications you have many communications options. The best method of handling incoming calls is with a cell phone that you personally answer ten to twelve hours per day. The second best method is an answering service with a live operator answering your telephone and then paging you with the message, then you return the call within twenty minutes.

Patient retention and practice building begin the moment the patient enters your office. Patient education should be provided while the patient is still on your table and during treatment. This educational process serves several important functions, but the most important thing that it does, from the perspective of this guideline on practice building, is it increases patient retention and rescheduling. An educated patient is more likely to seek continued treatment.

If you want a successful massage practice you must behave and conduct yourself like a health care professional at all times:

· You must have regular and convenient practice hours, this should include one or two evenings per week. Some patients need early morning appointments, you should accommodate the needs of your patients.

· You should be either in your office doing paperwork or making marketing phone calls, or out doing practice building activities outside of the office.

· You should attempt to schedule one or two contact lunches with either other professionals or services organizations per week.

· You should always be available by telephone or pager, and you should follow the twenty minute rule, return all telephone calls within twenty minutes.

· You should be available immediately to schedule any urgent appointment, and your answering service should be able to reach you at any time.

· You should establish a reasonable fee schedule that describes both the services that you provide and the fees you charge for each service. As a massage therapist these fees should be based on seeing multiple patients per hour.

The patient should be rescheduled for therapy in your office after you have educated the patient regarding the findings, the treatment to be provided, the cost of the treatment, and results you expect to achieve. Once you have ascertained that the patient understands all of this then reschedule the patient while they are still on the table.

The Essential Rules for Massage Practice Success:

1. Be professional at all times.

2. Develop a realistic and affordable fee schedule.

3. Be responsive, available, and in communication at all times.

4. Educate and reschedule the patient on the table.

5. Look like a professional.

6. Keep regular hours.

7. Promote yourself and your practice every day.

8. Give referrals and seek referrals.

9. Go out of your way to serve the needs of your clients and other health care professionals.

10. Put service ahead of profit.

*Note: This article has been edited for space requirements, and to allow a broader use in the massage community.  We encourage you to view this article in its entirety.