Referral Marketing – A Case Study

Jane’s Story

This is the short story of a massage therapist named Jane Doe who dared to market her business, and her Massage manEdger website.

Jane was a recent graduate of a very good Massage Therapy School; she had just opened her massage practice, and had acquired a web presence using the Massage manEdger system. She had a few regular clients but needed more to be successful.

To attract new clients she needed a marketing strategy that would generate results and would fit her limited budget. She decided to give referral marketing a try.

First, she determined that she would specialize in the General Wellbeing / Relaxation, Sports, Pregnancy and  Infant massage market areas. She decided to target the relaxation market first, as she felt it had a broader audience.

The next step was to make a list of her existing personal and business contacts in the relaxation market; which including her current clients, her hairdresser, manicurist, florist, a local coffee shop and a local video store. Generally, it was a list of people she knew she would be comfortable approaching in person and by email.

Jane then made personal visits to each business owner to let them know more about her business and to tell them about her new Massage manEdger website. Jane asked each of them for their contact information and specifically for their email address. This information was then added to her Massage manEdger contact database.

She followed up each meeting with an email message. The message thanked the business owner for their time, it restated her service offerings and included a link to her website. The emailing task was simple using the Massage manEdger communication tools. She made use of the �Email Group� feature and separated her contacts into logical groups (business, client, and friend), so that she could send separate, targeted messages to each group.

This simple step gained Jane a number of new clients. She was pleased to discover that her local florist, hairdresser and coffee shop offered to display her business cards in their shops in exchange for a mention their services on her website. Jane was starting to see how referral marketing worked.

Jane also tracked her referral business. When new clients booked appointments using her Massage manEdger website, Jane always asked them how they came to hear about her.  When they had been referred, she made sure that she sent a personal email to thank the referrer.

She continued to use her Massage manEdger email function to send periodic follow up emails to her contacts to announce special offers, new services and to remind them of her website’s on-line appointment booking feature.

Wanting and needing more business Jane set out to repeat the process for her two other target markets. Her contact lists included:

• For the Pregnancy Market – maternity fashion stores, prenatal specialists, medical doctors, pediatric clinics, postnatal fitness centers, etc.
• For the Sports Market – local sports clubs / teams (soccer, baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey, etc.), retail sports stores, fitness centres, etc.

Fast forward six months…

Jane’s marketing efforts are paying off.  Although a number of her contacts were not interested in referral marketing, Jane found that many were interested.  Jane received dozens of new clients as a result. These new clients were happy with her services and began spreading the word about Jane to their friends and family.

Jane discovered that marketing her massage practice can now be done with very little effort. Her, now established, referral network is easily managed with her Massage manEdger contact database / communication tools. She recognizes the value of her Massage manEdger system and acknowledges that without it, potential clients would have trouble finding out about her practice, qualifications, and specialties.  Her clients love it too, especially the convienence of her online appointment book!

The power of the Internet, coupled with Massage manEdger’s business tools is now indispensable to Jane’s massage therapy business.

Remember, a lot of your marketing efforts can be done with very little investment, when you combine the right tools with creativity, determination and desire.