Happy Holidays Fellow Massage Therapists!

In the spirit of giving, I wanted to share something that could help you continue to market and grow your massage business. At the same time, I’m pressed for time this week and didn’t have the time to come up with a brand new article for you.

So I decided to share an excerpt of the deluxe version of Help Your MASSAGE Practice with you. This is just a small sample from our 245 page massage marketing manual.

See how many of these tips you can put into action for your own massage business.

An Excerpt of the 81 MASSAGE Practice Marketing Tips Chapter
Found In the Deluxe Editionof Help Your MASSAGE Practice

1. Develop a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. A USP tells any prospect why you are the best choice for their needs. Use your USP to stand out from the pack!

2. Don’t be cute or creative in your marketing or advertising. The purpose of your marketing or advertising to create a new client, not create a laugh.

3. Keep the creative graphic artists away from your marketing and ads. Words sell, graphics on their own rarely do.

4. If you offer the same service, same offers, and features as another massage therapist, the prospect will consider one of you to be unnecessary. A classic example is your local Yellow Pages…everyone’s ad looks the same!

5. Pick a specialty or niche. Specialists are more valuable, sought after, and paid more than a generalist.

6. A general practitioner usually needs up to 20 times more money to properly market their practice than a specialist. Why? They have a lot more people they need to reach to find each new client.

7. Pick a strong, positive name for your business that accurately communicates what you offer or what you do. If your significant other can’t say your business name with a straight face, you need to come up with a new business name. If your clients can’t tell a friend where they go for a massage without making someone laugh, head back to the drawing board for a new business name.

8. Skip the “hands” reference in your massage business name. We can’t tell you how many massage therapists we’ve seen with business names like:

Cloud Hands Power Puff Hands Healing Hands
Helping Hands Strong Hands Tranquil Hands

Are you saying your “hands” are the same as every other set of “hands” in your town or city?

9. Focus on giving clients what they “want” and not what they “need”. They want a great massage. They may need to relax more, decrease pain, eliminate muscular spasm, and so on. “Wants” sell…”needs” wind up on the bottom of their “to do” list.

10. Use comparisons that favor your business. If you have 17 years of experience, mention it in your marketing. If you have office hours at night and most of your competitors don’t, you better mention it in your marketing.

11. Create a sense of tremendous value in the minds of your clients. If your client feels they are getting $200 worth of value from your service, they won’t complain about paying you $100 for one hour of your time.

12. Never aim to be the lowest priced massage therapist in town. There will always be someone who will be able to go cheaper.

13. If you make a marketing offer that seems too good to be true, you need to explain why you are offering such a great deal. If you don’t, it destroys your creditability and ability to charge higher prices in the future.

14. Use testimonials everywhere. In your ads, on your website, in your office. A credible testimonial is an endorsement of your service and helps sell the benefits of choosing you instead of another massage therapist.

15. Offer a money-back guarantee. If you are as good a massage therapist as you believe you are, then less than 1% of your new clients will ever ask for their money back. Plus, your competition won’t put their money where their money is, so you become even more attractive than them to prospects.

16. Always use an expiration date on any special offer. Otherwise, it’s not special.

17. Use premiums or free bonuses to sell special offers.

18. Unusual or lumpy mail always gets opened. Plain looking mail may not.

19. Start a Swipe File. Put any marketing or advertisement piece you get in there that you think is exceptional. Circle or mark the parts you think are great. When you are stuck for a new idea or a different headline, flip through your Swipe File to spark some new ideas. Use your Swipe File to stimulate your brain, not to steal someone else’s marketing.

20. Always use a headline!

21. Your headline is the most important part of your marketing piece or ad. If it doesn’t draw the attention of your reader, the rest of your marketing or ad copy won’t matter.

22. Long copy versus short copy. Long copy works best, especially if you are trying to tell a story or sell the benefits of your product or service.

23. Using small text size is rarely a deal breaker. It’s better to use a smaller font and tell the reader all of your product’s benefits, than to start chopping your ad copy.

24. Yellow Page or advertising reps will give you some of the worst advertising advice that you will ever hear. Their job is to sell you advertising space, not help you run an ad that actually works. Take their advice on ad size, text size, or ad content and ignore it.

[Sidebar: Michael once had a Yellow Pages rep who was a former massage therapist. She informed Michael that she stopped doing massage because she couldn’t make a successful career out of it. In her next sentence, she proceeded to tell him everything that was wrong about his future Yellow Page ad. What was Michael’s reply? “The ad stays exactly the way I gave it to you if you want to keep our account.”]

As a special holiday deal, you can get a free upgrade to the deluxe version of Help Your MASSAGE Practice when you order the standard edition. But don’t just take my word on it.

Take a few minutes and read everything that’s covered in Help Your MASSAGE Practice. Simply go to http://www.helpyourpractice.com/help_massage.html

If you decide to grab your own copy of Help Your MASSAGE Practice, I’ll upgrade you to the deluxe version fr*ee of charge. That’s a $20 savings off the regular price.

Consider it an ethical bribe from me to help make 2009 your best year ever.

This offer will expire December 31st at 12 Noon EST.

Now is the time to start planning how you want your massage business perform. Together, let’s make 2009 your best year ever.

To Your Success,

Michael