Things I love

I have to admit – I am a sucker for the unusual.

I have used moo mini cards for my business cards and the fact that I can personalize the cards and have something to give to clients and friends that is a bit different makes me happy!

These business cards are inexpensive, look great and stand out from all the usual business cards people are used to seeing.

Look for the little ways you can make YOUR services and business stand out form your competition.

Clients’ Experience

Continuing on with the theme of our previous post. It’s all about your clients’ experience with you and your practice.

Sure, your regular and loyal clients are used to the fact that often you don’t answer your telephone and they KNOW that you will return their call when you can…

BUT what if they didn’t have to call at all? What if you had your calendar available to them on your website, so they could access it at THEIR convenience, compare it to THEIR schedule and selected a time that worked for the BOTH of you.

Would this be a more positive experience for them?

They can request an appointment with you whenever they are inspired to do so (day or night), they know immediately when you are available, so they can match your openings with their own busy schedule - Instant gratification!

With this in place, do you think your regular clients would become MORE regular? Think about impulse buying…

One more thought to ponder.

What about your potential clients’ experience?

How many times have you heard your telephone ring when you were busy treating another client – only to find that when you checked your voice-mail it was a hang-up? Obviously this wasn’t a good experience for the caller.

Was it a new client that was looking for a massage therapist and when they got your voice-mail they simply moved on to the next therapist in the telephone book?

How many more new clients would you acquire if your voice-mail message directed them to your website to select an appointment time??

Remember on-line booking is a value-added service for your clients (existing and potential). It enhances their experience with your practice and shows them that you care about their valuable time.

BTW, you will love it too!

Please Leave A Message

How many of you have setup your business answering machine to simply take messages?

When you are with a client, you may be missing out on phone calls for new or repeat clients to book their next appointment.

Most massage therapists add an answering machine telling their clients to “please leave a message” then you will spend your unbooked time or after hour time to return the calls. Getting a hold of new clients can take up a lot of your valuable time!

What are you really making per hour if you include all the time you spend with clients and then on the phone checking your messages and returning calls?

Why not give your clients another option?

In your answering machine message, give them your website address and let them know they can book online! This will save you time as now the clients information is entered into your online calendar and all you need to do is confirm the appointment freeing up YOUR valuable time.

What could be better than that?

Where Are Your Clients??

This weekend I had an interesting talk with some of my friends regarding calling a business versus emailing them.

In my group of friends, most of us are 20(ish) to 30(ish) and most of us sit in front of a computer at work the majority of our day. Not all of us have a phone in our cubicle/office space however there is a phone located in a central spot in the office.

While all of us know we should us our lunch breaks to make personal calls, our lunch breaks are usually for going out for walks, group lunches or to pick up some last minute groceries for supper tonight.

When we think of booking a massage, most of us go on the internet to book online or email the therapist directly.

Why?

One: many will claim we are the generation of online communication over phone. Many of my friends will agree that it’s easier when you are having a busy day to simply go online and book an appointment rather than go over to the office phone and be put on hold or get an answering machine message all while your co-workers know what your doing.

Two: Others in the group said it’s simply doing it quickly before you forget. You know how it is. You have 10 things you want to do but then someone comes to talk to you, a big file comes on your desk and next thing you know, you simply forgot. With online booking, you can book your one appointment every 3 or 4 weeks and it’s done!

Think of how many of YOUR clients sit in front of their computers.
How many do you think have a phone on their desk?
How many of your clients use the internet DAILY versus the yellow pages?

Are you online ?

Marketing Your Massage Practice’s Website – Part Two

In our last post we talked about some effective ways you can market your Massage manEdger website using offline tools and techniques.

Now let’s explore some simple things that you can do to market your Massage manEdger website using on-line tools.

On-line Marketing Suggestions

• Add your website address to your email signature so that it appears at the bottom of every email you or members of your staff send. This is easily done once only and then it appears on all your emails, which come from your massage business.
• Trade website links with other professional websites in your community – physicians, coffee shops, restaurants, florists, senior community housing providers, etc. You can even add a “Community Links” page to your site, where you reciprocate web links with other businesses in your area.
• Consider creating an email newsletter for your practice, to provide your clients with value-added “between treatment” care techniques and to promote your services. Make sure to include a link to your website in the communique.
• Participate regularly in relevant on-line community discussion groups to offer relevant answers to massage therapy and general well-being inquiries. This will help you build a reputation for your practice. Don’t just post advertisements about yourself and your practice, become a member of the on-line community. This will greatly increase your practice’s reputation and visibility.
• When you’ve made a significant change or addition to your website, do a special emailing to your clientele announcing the new addition.

In conclusion, effective marketing of your website should include both offline and on-line techniques. The key is to get the word out there about your Massage manEdger website and it’s convienent on-line appointment request tool.

Marketing Your Practice’s Website – Part One

Marketing your Massage manEdger website is as important as having one. After all, how will you get existing and prospective clients to visit your site to request appointments with you if they don’t know it exists?

Contrary to popular belief, many people who visit your website will do so because of something they have read on paper, on a referral partner’s site, or via an email; not because they are looking for it via a search engine. That doesn’t mean search engines are not important; however many of the people who visit your website via search engines may not be in your local market – they may simply be researching a topic that relates to massage therapy.

There are many effective ways to market your Massage manEdger website both on-line and offline.

Here are some ideas that are worth while considering…

Offline Marketing Suggestions

Offline marketing of your Massage manEdger website will likely be more important to you and your practice then on-line marketing of your site. Here are some simple, effective and inexpensive ways to get exposure for your website.

Be sure to get your own custom domain name for your Massage manEdger website. Something that is easy for your clients (and potential clients) to remember – for example www.yourpractice.com. If they are able to easily remember it, they are more likely to pass it on to other!

We will handle all the details needed to acquire the domain for you .

Add your website address to all of your practice’s literature (business cards, letterhead, newsletters, fax cover sheets, printed ads, yellow pages, etc.) right next to your practice’s street address and telephone number.

Change your practice’s voice-mail message to include your website address. “… Be sure to visit my website at www.yourpractice.com, to book a massage appointment with me.” This not only make your clients (and potential clients) aware of your site, it also tells them they you accept booking requests on-line! It will also reduce the number of voice-mail messages you receive from those who simply what to know when they can book an appointment with you.

Note: This is an important issue which we will explore further in a future post.

Send an email and/or letter (postcard) to all your past and current clients announcing your new website and make sure you mention that they can now book appointments with you on-line 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Print your website address on all promotional gifts that you give away like pens, calendars, note pads, T-shirts, etc.

Put your website address in the back window of your car. This can be very effective and can be professionally stenciled onto the window very inexpensively.

Place a sign with your website address on it in the window of your practice.

If you write an article for a trade publication or community newsletter, be sure to include your practice’s website address with your name and bio(s) at the beginning and/or end of the article.

As you can see, all of these promotions are done independent of the search engines and the Internet. The idea is to simply tell everyone you know that you have a website for your practice – give them some business cards, with your website address on them, to pass along to others. Don’t completely rely on potential clients to find your website on their own through on-line search tools.

In our next post we will talk about things that you can do on-line to promote your website.

First Impressions

A lot of you put up a picture of yourself to introduce yourself to your clients. This is a wonderful idea!! This lets new and old clients know what you look like and helps them feel more comfortable around you.

But what happens when you rush and take a picture of yourself after a long word day?

You don’t need to pay for a professional photographer if your budget doesn’t allow for it, but do keep the following items in mind before snapping that picture

• Take the picture in your environment, such as next to your massage table or against a plain wall or with summer coming up go outside!
• Check your hair, make-up and make sure your well rested
• smile! relax! But most of all – have fun!! This will come across in your picture the most.

Stand Out Site

This site caught our team’s eye as a site that is consistent and professional looking

We love the simple clean and effective home page that gives your clients the immediate reaction of happiness and relaxation

Great job Revitalize Massage Therapy Clinic!

Great Image Sites

Looking to spruce up your site? Wanting to find just the right picture? Try these sites – but do check the terms for any images before use:

• Everystockphoto.com
• Imageafter.com
• Stardust Images from NASA
• StockXchng

Rememeber – you can adjust the size of the images using our previous post on image software!

Get your site on top!

There are some tricks we’d like to share with you to get your site listed on search engines and at the top of the list!! How??

First – decide what search words you really want to be found under. What kind of audience you are really going for? Do you want people from other countries finding your site or are you really focused on new clients in your community?

Words like “massage” is a broad search term all by its self – however “Saskatoon Massage Therapist” is more focused to those people looking for a masseuse in Saskatoon.

What’s next – create a page that talks about:

• Your company Name
• Your city name
• massage therapy and type of massage

Putting it all together:

Next you will want to let the search engines know about your great site!! If you need a hand, of course our team is happy to help!