Recently another business consultant contacted me about needing my expertise for a client of his.  This client was a massage office, located in another part of the United States.

The consultant had been hired to craft a Yellow Pages ad that would produce much better results for his client.  Unfortunately, he didn’t know much about the massage industry.  So he did some research on the internet and found me.

We chatted by email and I gave him some pointers to help out his client.  After thinking about it, I decided to share some of the same advice with my loyal readers here this month.

First, many massage therapists make the mistake of talking about themselves in their ad.

Now, this might hurt some people’s feelings but I’m going to be completely honest: the prospect doesn’t care about you. They probably don’t care how long you’ve been in business… or how many massage techniques you have been trained in.

They care about themselves.  They are reading your ad to learn “What’s In It For Me”.  They want to know what you can do for them.

It might be to get them out of pain.  Or to wipe out their stress and help them feel relaxed.

Make sure your ad tells them what they will gain by calling your office instead of someone else.

Second, people who look in the phone book for massage therapy are ready to make a buying decision.

They don’t need to be sold on the benefits of massage.  Most of the time, they aren’t looking to be educated on the types of massage either. They need to be sold on why they should pick your business instead of all of your competitors.

Third, Yellow Page prospects tend to be more impatient shoppers.  Based on my professional experience and my long-time habit of tracking where clients come from, I’ve noticed a few common traits of phone book clients which can rub a massage therapist the wrong way (no pun intended).

The Yellow Page prospects tend to be impulsive buyers.  They pick up the phone book and look for a therapist.  If no one ad catches their eye, they will literally sit down and start calling ads until they get a massage therapist or a receptionist on the phone.

If they get a phone machine or voice mail, they rarely leave a message unless they have a specific need that is your specialty like medical massage.

Yellow Page clients tend to be impulsive schedulers.  Many times, they will wait until the last minute to call for an appointment.

If I had a nickel for everytime I heard a prospect ask for a massage appointment “right away” and then learn they found my massage center’s phone number in the phone book, I’d own several vacation homes in Europe and Asia by now.

Yellow Page clients will literally keep calling until they someone who can take them when they want an appointment.  They can literally become tunnel-visioned in their desire for a massage.

For example, I once had a male prospect call my massage center three times within 20 minutes looking for unprofessional massage with a female therapist at his home.  Each time, I told him that we only offered professional therapeutic massage and he’d thank me, say that he would just call someone else in the phone book, and hang up.  When he called a fourth time and started out asking the same exact questions, I told him that the answer still hadn’t changed after 4 calls!

Don’t get me wrong… you can find quality clients who are looking for professional massage from the Yellow Pages. If you take the time to put together a well-written Yellow Page ad, it can be a very powerful way to generate new clients for your massage business.

If you need additional help with creating your first Yellow Page ad, then check out my massage marketing book, Help Your MASSAGE Practice.  In it, we spend several chapters talking about writing ads and how to get the most out of your Yellow Page ad.

Until next time,

Michael