Avoiding the Client Drop-Off Over The Holiday Season In Your Massage Therapy Business

Last week we talked about gift certificates and how they should really work for your massage therapy business at this time of year. This week we’re going to discuss an overall strategy for getting more clients in your massage therapy business at Christmas time…or should I say keeping more clients…

One thing you notice at this time of year is that your new clients and your old clients don’t come for massage therapy at all.

But I want to introduce a new thought right now, and that is looking at your client records as a whole. You may find that in total you have 50 clients in your massage therapy business, or 100 clients that you’ve seen over the past two years, lets say. If you think about it, each one of those 100 clients has come to you after an internal decision to have massage therapy with someone, then after thinking about it, they picked you. They may have had the opportunity to choose another therapist but they didn’t, they choose you.

Okay, you’re probably thinking “cut to the chase Amy!”

Okay here goes: You have 100 people who have chosen you as the person they want to come and see to make them feel better, more relaxed, reduced back pain, via massage therapy. So why is that? If you were to ring some of those people up and let them know you are seeking feedback about their massage therapy treatment and why they choose you, you will get some valuable information.

Not only that, you can call some of them up that have not been for a while. The phone call will not only give you feedback, but it will give you a chance to remind them about you again and you can even offer to send them something in the mail, perhaps one of your special offers or gift certificates.

When you do call them, don’t worry about feeling like you are trying to “get” something from them because its not like that at all. What you are doing is simply asking for feedback and while you are at it, helping them further by telling about something that will benefit them. So it’s a win/win. Great for them and great for you.

And if you'd like to know exclusive secrets to continually getting clients and keeping them coming back then click on this link for a complete list of all my ebooks:

www.massagetherapysuccess.com/allebookscatelogue.htm

Next Week; "Avoiding the Client Drop-Off Over The Holiday Season" Part Six.

Till next week!

Amy Roberts

www.massagetherapysuccess.com

www.massagetherapymarketingsuccess.com

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About the Author: Amy Roberts has been actively involved with the massage therapy industry since 1994. Amy writes for the American Massage Therapy Association once a month in a regular column of their Ezine. She has taught her massage marketing methods to hundreds of massage therapists internationally and locally.

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Avoiding the Client Drop-Off Over The Holiday Season In Your Massage Therapy Business

Did you know Christmas is only a few weeks away? That’s good news, because not only do we all get to eat, drink, be merry and hang out with our loved ones, the quiet season goes away and we, as Massage Therapists become busy again.

The next tip in this series is to promote those gift certificates in your massage therapy business. Gift certificates are a great idea as a Christmas present for your massage therapy client’s loved ones (or for your client’s partners to buy them one) and in January they get redeemed.

Or they should get redeemed.

The key to getting gift certificates to work for you at this time of year is the time on the certificate. A lot of massage therapists I have coached have put either an open ended date on the certificate, or a 6 month time for example. As an experienced Massage Therapist I find this to be ineffective. Massage therapy Clients will forget if there is too much time to redeem the certificate. They may be all enthused at the start but once you don’t hear from them after a month, two months three months, six months later you start to get the hint that they are not coming back. Or what sometimes happens in your massage therapy business is that they have a week to go before the certificate expires and they ring up for an extension on the time because they are panicking that they will have paid for nothing….it’s just not good for business.

To put it bluntly if a client does not book for a massage therapy treatement after 6 months then rings up asking for an extension they are not the client you want to have.

As an experienced Therapist I find that any gift certificate sold in December must have a 30 day expiry. This makes sure that clients come back in a reasonable amount of time. And you simply must stipulate the expiry date. Most Therapists are old softies and if a client flutters their eye lashes and asks for an extension of time in their sweetest voice we tend to say “aww, alright then, you can have another two months.” We fall for it every time. I’m not talking about one every occasionally for a very good reason, I’m talking about sticking to your guns.

This isn’t a good strategy for business, especially at this time of year.

So make sure you promote those gift certificates to all your clients. Send out a small note or letter with a Christmas card if you have to letting them know about the certificates. And also let them know about your “Book 5, get one free” special offer only available over Christmas…or whatever you decided to do.


Next Week; "Avoiding the Client Drop-Off Over The Holiday Season" Part Five

Till next week!

Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapysuccess.com
www.massagetherapymarketingsuccess.com


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About the Author: Amy Roberts has been actively involved with the massage therapy industry since 1994. Amy writes for the American Massage Therapy Association once a month in a regular column of their Ezine. She has taught her massage marketing methods to hundreds of massage therapists internationally and locally.
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How To Avoid The Client Drop Off Over The Holiday Season

Not long ago I talked about Consistency in marketing your massage therapy business to prepare for the holiday season. I hope you applied some of the methods.

This week I want to talk about one other important thing to help avoid the client drop off at this time of year in your massage therapy business. I’ve spoken about it before but I really think I need to bring it up again.

A bid secret to avoiding client numbers dropping off in your massage therapy business is pre-emption. In pre-emption your seasonal fluctuations you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor. And with before you can apply pre-emption you will need to understand how your clients think and thats a huge bonus for your massage therapy business.

Not only does pre-emption prepare you for seasonal fluctuations but it tells you when you should advertise, when you should send out material to your clients, when you should follow up and what to follow up with.

Clients are busy at this time of year. Well, most of them seem to be getting things done before they go away for the much needed break in January. But what you can do through pre-emption is become familiar with their spending patterns and learn what makes them tick.

This is a very underestimated thing to do in your massage therapy business and it should be done.

It’s a very basic strategy but has excellent outcomes. So right now, start pre-empting January. Start putting together some ideas on what you can do to contact all your clients before the January holiday time comes. Right now start getting together some letters or emails telling clients about gift vouchers, or, gift certificates as you guys in the US call them. The important thing here is to remind them about you.

The only way you can successfully work this is via pre-emption. So get cracking, start putting those letters or emails together and remind people about you.


Next week "Avoiding the Client Drop-Off Over
The Holiday Season" Part Four.

Till next week!

Amy Roberts




About the Author: Amy Roberts has been actively involved with the massage therapy industry since 1994. Amy writes for the American Massage Therapy Association once a month in a regular column of their Ezine. She has taught her massage marketing methods to hundreds of massage therapists internationally and locally.
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