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Mass discounting massage services … Where do you stand?
Personally, I feel the last thing independent practices need to be doing is discounting their services to the point where clients are conditioned to look for a coupon when wanting a massage.
Mass discounting can be a slippery slope for an individual massage practice and the industry as a whole.
What's your opinion?
Views: 486
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Shawn Maria Brinza on
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its important for us as therapists to make massage available to everyone. There are a lot of people out there that just cant afford regular massage and if they don't get a deal it doesn't happen for them. I think we all need to give whatever it takes to make an impact on our society. Every single person you help will bring you business tenfold. A good therapist is not as easy to find as you might think. If you show them that massage works, they will be back.
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Permalink Reply by Relax & Rejuvenate on
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I am happy to make massage available to everyone, but my pesky employees like getting paid the same rate for a massage, regardless of my customer's ability to pay.
If everyone I helped brought me business back 10x, I would only have needed one customer 10 years ago and I would now have the riches of Bill Gates.
Both are nice platitudes, but I don't see how either or sustainable or realistic
Shawn Maria Brinza said:its important for us as therapists to make massage available to everyone. There are a lot of people out there that just cant afford regular massage and if they don't get a deal it doesn't happen for them. I think we all need to give whatever it takes to make an impact on our society. Every single person you help will bring you business tenfold. A good therapist is not as easy to find as you might think. If you show them that massage works, they will be back.
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Today got an email from the folks at SpaWeek asking us to sign up for the Fall Cheap-skate-athon.
They had the gall to ask for $1,000 to sign up for a premium listing so that we can offer treatments at a money-losing $50. Now there is a formula for success!
50% discounts can work wonders for a business, just not the spa/salon business
Works great for restuarants -- food is 20% of less than the cost, labor costs are very low (customers pay the waitstaff through their tips, employers pay less than $3/hour to highly tipped staff) and if the diners buy alcohol (not subject to the discount) the restuarant ends up with a tidy profit on the meal.
If SpaWeek could guarantee 90% of these clients would spend $50+ on products (the spa equivalent of alcohol in a restuarant) then I MIGHT consider participating.
But certainly not with a $1,000 listing fee
Just say NO to SPA WEEK!
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Permalink Reply by Norm Green - My Receptionist on
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Chew on this ...
http://fohboh.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1411008%3ABlogPost%3A186024
This is a great blog on couponing in the restuarant biz. Do yourself a favor and take five minutes to read it. The general message applies to all businesses.
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It's not really an advertising expense if it takes up your capacity to generate full price clients -- big opportunity cost there as well
Rick Morgan said:Result of Mass Discount Offer so Far: Offer ran July 9th
We went with Living Social- they had better terms than Groupon and could work with the dates I wanted.
We offer a 30 minute massage for half price- normally $60. now $30. we got $18/coupon sold. One per customer limit. I am paying the therapist the full $18 ($3 less than normal). If someone wants to upgrade, they pay the difference of a 30 vs 60 min massage. When they upgrade, the therapist makes a full commission and the massage center clears a few dollars.
We decided to do this to bring in a lot of new clients during the summer when our numbers tend to go up and down a lot as well as help bring in the numbers so I could bring on a new therapist without hurting the others. The hope is that a least 20% come back a couple times or become regulars.
We sold 626 coupons- brings in a little over $11K
We only received 12 phone calls about the sale the day of the sale. Attribute that to a clear cut offer and a great website
Our website had 1100 hits in two days 928 the first day.
The day after the offer ended, we took bookings for15 clients.
For the week after the offer we schedule 45 sessions- 10 of which are upgrades-22% ( we have capped the number of coupons to 10 per day.
Things we learned so far:
1. If you have a good website, you won't get overwhelmed with phone calls
2. Definitely cap the number you are willing to take per day or you might irritate regulars.
3. Get regulars booked ahead of time, at least 30-60 days out.
4. Limit the number a person can redeem to 1 per person or new clients only- the goal is repeats at regular prices.
5. Make sure you can handle the work load.
6. Price point: I studied the offers over the last 6 months and the numbers sold. It didn't matter to much what the %discount was as long as it was greater than 40% but price was important. Items between $20 and $30 tended to sell twice to four times as many coupons as ones over $40. I saw a lot of massages or spa services offered for $49 but they usually sold less than 200. Ones in the $25-$30 ranged tended to sell over 500 units, sometimes over 1000.
7. Don't think of this as a discount. Think in terms of advertising costs. I willingly spend $20-$25 to get a new client. While the clinic doesn't make much on this, we don't lose any as long as we schedule accordingly. Most importantly, we get over 600 new people in the door and have a chance to "experience" us. Even if they are "discount" shoppers, as long as they have a great experience, they can possibly spread the word to less discount minded people.
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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Keffer on
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Since I have started working for myself and not a massage place I can run things my way which I like but you have to be careful with doing too many discounts. I offer $10 off the first vist of either a Swedish or Deep Tissue. Then after that it's regular price and I make sure I tell them it's $40 for the first visit and every visit after that is $50, for Swedish for example. In the Michigan market where I am at $50 is our going rate. Now in the county above me the place I work charged $80 and we were soldly booked. So it does depend on the area. I am getting ready to do the Motor City Groupon kind of program that is being sponsored by the radio stations. Same concept as groupon but with the radio stations running the daily deals. It's that time of year where I am slow so I figure I'll try it if it doesn't work then I won't do it again but it's worth a try right?
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I did spaweek one time and that was pure craziness. I did 7 to 8 back to back hot rock massages. By the end of the week I needed a massage myself. It's not worth the wear and tear on your body. Plus we only got a return of 5% on massage clients. So not worth it. A $1,000 list fee? haha their funny.
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