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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