Newsletter Back Issues
New Tips Newsletter, Issue #003 -- Power of Content
Contents:
- Avoid this big mistake – not giving your content enough focus.
- A review of a great massage website.
- Sometimes you can’t learn what is best.
- Completely practical tip you can put into action now!
Massage Marketing Bones
Avoid This Big Mistake – Not Giving Your Content Enough Focus
In this newsletter I want to encourage you to grasp an important marketing perspective. No matter what form of marketing media you are using, whether it be word of mouth, yellow pages, coupons or newspapers, it is the specifics of how you do it that will make a big difference in the volume of response you get.
Related to this is a misunderstanding that many therapists make. The mistake is saying that specific types of media just don’t work. Newspapers ads don’t work, yellow pages ads don’t work, discounts don’t work.
Now, I will be the first person to suggest that some forms of marketing media offer greater opportunity than others for the massage industry. But the major failing I see in the marketing that massage therapists use is in how they take advantage of those opportunities. The way they create their marketing is a greater detrimental factor to its success than the media choice.
Let’s make this all super-duper clear so you never make this mistake and get better results.
Here are some definitions to help:
Media = any form of marketing, including: word of mouth, referrals, coupons, discounts, special offers, newspapers, yellow pages, networking, newsletters, signs, etc. These are the vehicles of your content.
Content = all the variables of how you can use the media, including: Words, headlines, offers, guarantees, calls to action, size, shape, position, leverage, etc. Content is the direction you drive your media vehicle.
Media only offers opportunity.
Different media have higher and lower ranges of opportunity.
Turning any opportunity into new clients depends on how you take advantage of the opportunity with your content. You can drive your content into a ditch, or you can drive it in a straight fast path towards your goal of new clients.
A media type with the highest range of opportunity can yield lower results with poor quality content than a media type with low opportunity and great content.
Content is most important.
So, for maximum success, absolutely, choose media forms that are known to work better for massage therapists. That will give you a higher range of opportunity. But spend most of your time developing great content so that you take the most advantage of this opportunity.
So in the future when you ask the question, “What marketing works best” make sure that by marketing you mostly mean what content works best.
Learning how to create good content is not any different than learning how to massage. You are a little lost the first time you put your hands on someone. After six months, you start to get a feel for it. But those six months required a lot of work, and more importantly required learning about yourself and your client. After a year, you are pretty competent. After five years it is intuitive.
Creating effective marketing content requires learning more about yourself and your client. Even if you are great at listening to your clients and give a great massage, you will still have to relearn about your clients when it comes to marketing. Because when you are new to it, you will end up focusing on yourself. It is almost unavoidable. But if you put in the effort to learn how to market from a grounded understanding of your clients, then you get good at marketing! Just like learning massage. In fact it is just an extension of contact energy you provide when your clients are not with you.
When you do realize that you can make a big difference in the response of your ad, marketing gets interesting and exciting. You start to think things like “You mean for the same amount of money I have the opportunity to increase my return, if I learn how to do a better job of creating my content?” That is exciting. That is empowering. If you just use the media as an excuse for why things are not working, you hand away your power.
So please take the opportunity to ask yourself these questions with any of your marketing decisions, “How can I leverage my results to a higher level and make this marketing work in the best way possible?” Then allow yourself the freedom of creativity and genius! Make it work great! You deserve it.
It does not take a brilliant mind to do this. It just takes a committed one, which anybody can be. Committed and willing to learn and change.
Massage Marketing Muscles
A Review of a Great Massage Website
Now let’s look at a massage website that I really like where the therapist is using excellent content. Please look at this site and leave it open in another screen so that you can follow what I am describing: www.karmassage.com
When I first came across Brandy’s site I thought it was very good. It offered a lot of key features to her clients. It was innovative. It is not necessarily the most beautiful site, but that does not matter. Content is what matters. I contacted Brandy to let her know that I liked her site, and I also offered to give some suggestions to improve it a little. She readily took my suggestions, and implemented them.
In addition to this newsletter review I also interviewed Brandy about all the choices she made for her site and how it is working for her. You can read that interview on a new page I have created on my site here:
Interview with Brandy on www.massage-marketing-tips.com
From a marketing standpoint Brandy is doing some very smart things.
One of the most important things to notice on Brandy’s site is that her primary focus is on helping her clients. Her online scheduler helps them. The new client forms help them. She makes her business easy to find with a map. Her contact information is on every page so clients don’t have to look for it. They can purchase gift certificates online. But the biggest way that she helps them is that she shows new clients a clear picture of how professional she is before they even meet her. It helps them have confidence in their choice.
You will notice that on every page she has a “Make an appointment now” button that is very easy to see. So at any point where a client is ready to make an appointment it is super easy. No missed phone calls, no putting it off until later and then forgetting. This button also is suggestive. She suggests they do it. Having a call to action like this is very important.
Her site also has three different ways of capturing client contact information so that she can keep in contact with them and convert them into clients.
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Her free newsletter signup form.
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Her monthly drawing under the massage therapy specials grabs their information.
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Her free massage through the innovative “Giving Back” program.
A very important feature of Brandy’s site is flow. Her site is very easy to navigate and it flows in the natural progression of the questions new clients will have when looking at it. She solves as many questions and problems that a new and existing client may have that she can. On almost every page, there is a link within it, or on the bottom that suggests the next most likely page that a person may want to go to. She does not force them to figure out where to go next. She does not force them to scroll back up and look around. She suggests a flow pattern that ultimately leads to making an appointment. This is very helpful for them and for her.
Finally, Brandy is always looking to make things better, and is paying attention to the results. These are very important skills for success.
I would just like to thank Brandy so very much for being willing to share her web site with us. I highly suggest you check out her site and thank her for her willingness to share. Who knows, maybe you can get her to make your web site?
Massage Marketing Skin
Sometimes You Can’t Learn What is Best.
You know how I have been saying that learning how to create better content is very important? Well, sometimes you can’t learn why something works better, because there is no rhyme or reason to it. Very often something will work better for no apparent reason. That is why you have to test. And whenever possible, test two different versions of content in the same media. For example use a different headline in two coupons at the same time, or a slightly different offer. Track the results. You will find that one works better than another. Without running two, you lose the opportunity to test, so whenever possible, run two tests.
Completely Practical Tip You
Can Put Into Action Now!
In my last newsletter I requested that you send me your great ideas for creating great signs. The best idea that came in was the suggestion that if you have a sign that allows you to put a different message on it, why not post a different client testimonial every week? This is a great idea. If it is a sign for people who drive by, it would have to be a short testimonial. But you could just put up part of it, like: “The best massage I have ever received….” Client Jane. Try it out!
“Don't find fault, find a remedy.” -Henry Ford
(Fortunately you are not offering people cars, but something much more valuable.)
