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Deal of the Day on Your Massage Website

Good morning, everyone!

It seems the hot new way to market ones massage business is to use Groupon, Living Social...even locally here in Las Vegas we have several others. Channel 8 news has their 'Daily Deal,' there's another couple deals that I can't recall at the moment, but I'm sure you get my point ;)

Why not do this on your own massage website??

Here's an example of what I posted on my own massage website:

Las Vegas Massage Therapist Kris Kelley

Each week I'll change this...such as next week may be deep tissue, or hot stone therapy or an athletic enhancing sports massage.

As you can see with this current one, I'm providing Swedish massage, yet here's the important point: I'm tying this into EVERYONE who lives in Las Vegas. How so? It's going to be HOT here in the desert, very soon. We've been fortunate to have an actual spring this year, as last year at this time it was 110 already! (It IS June.) Well, we will ALL have to deal with this heat as it's a big deal here. The question is, what's going on in YOUR community that you can tie-in to your massage business?

A couple of points here...

First, and the most important point, you can use these to target a specific market. Use creative wording in explaining the massage or the massage package. The 'Performance Enhancing Sports Massage Package.' 'Cold Stone Therapy For Those Hot Summer Days!' 'The Ultimate Back, Neck and Shoulder Massage Package For All Weekend Warriors!' See what I mean?

Second, you can discount, yet you don't have to cut your prices by 50% like the Groupon's want you to do. Set your own prices, yet here's another important point, set a Cut-Off DATE that they have to schedule with you by. I run mine for a week, Wednesday to Wednesday to allow the weekenders to participate as well, and they don't feel 'rushed'. You can do daily deals as well.

Another important point is that by adding and changing the content on your website, the search engines will see this, and may rank you higher if you have the correct keywords, etc., etc. You MUST give clients and perspective clients REASONS TO KEEP VISITING YOUR WEBSITE! When they do this the search engines notice the increased activity as well and rank you higher.

Already have a full schedule? Create this for 'new or first time clients only.' Be careful with this though. Your current clients are your most loyal clients and you always want to take care of them, FIRST. Don't allow them to think they are being left out. If a current client sees your 'new clients only' deal and contacts your to receive the same offer, always give it to them. This builds better rapport between you and them as well. You can say to them, "Hi Sue! You would like the same offer I'm giving the new clients? Well, this is for new clients, but Ok. You are such a great client of mine I'll include you in this deal as well." I don't want to sound condescending, yet we do want our current clients to feel special. Everyone loves that!

Ok, I'm out of time. I'm sure there are more points I could make about this but I have to run.

Let me ask you...What do YOU think about this? Have you tried it? Does it work for you??

Kris

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Angela Lind on June 10, 2011 at 11:46am

I prefer just offering a discounted rate for a very limited time ONCE IN A WHILE.. not every week!! let's say, I offer $50/hr for swedish massage ONLY for 4 days. Monday to Thursday. And to EVERYBODY, either new customers or regular clients, actually, I would let my regular clients know this immediately. Or actually, instead of giving this special to everybody, I can just offer this special to my regular clients! so they can really feel special! and the rest of the people that haven't tried me, now want to do it because they want to become my regular clients and eventually get those specials! :)

Permalink Reply by Sandra Winston on June 10, 2011 at 1:51pm

Thanks Kris for the ideas. I have used specials with sucess, adding them to one's website is a good idea.

Sandi

Permalink Reply by Angela Lind on June 10, 2011 at 3:03pm

Again, I think is a good idea that you are running discounts directly through your website and eliminating the middle man (like groupon, living social, and actually spaboom or giftcardcafe). Is a good idea if you run the special to be redeemed in a very specific time for very limited time only (when you are mostly slow). But I don't think is a good idea to be offering a different discount every week. Constant discounting led customers to expect standard discount or coupon rates rather than be willing to pay full price.

If the therapist has a lot of regulars, I think is better to actually run a special ONLY to regular clients, not to new clients. And of course, promote it everywhere: website, facebook, yelp, twitter, etc. Clients will feel really special and rewarded to be regular clients, they will be so happy that they will start to talk about that to other people, a way to get referrals and do marketing by word-of-mouth. So is a win-win: your regulars will be happy to keep coming back, and you will get referrals and new clients that would like to become regulars and be treated in the same way.

Permalink Reply by Las Vegas Massage In Summerlin on June 10, 2011 at 3:09pm

Hi Angela!

To each their own ;) Please note that this is a good client attracting method. When I'm performing outcall massage making $90.00 per hour and my schedule is full, sure, I'll not be doing this. Again, if you schedule is pretty full, great! Unfortunately, most aren't. I'm just attempting to spur some ideas on attracting clients and getting ones massage web page found.

Kris

Permalink Reply by Angela Lind on June 10, 2011 at 3:32pm

I support your idea Kris, definitely! much better than offering discounts through groupon and those deal sites, and much better than working at McMassage franchises for only $15/hr! Is much better offering the same prices but all of it goes to your pocket! :)

Permalink Reply by Las Vegas Massage In Summerlin on June 10, 2011 at 3:33pm

Ah heck, I forgot to mention the main point, that being, you can change this to whatever you want. It doesn't always have to be a 'discounted' massage. Perhaps 'add value' to current massages and create massage packages, or extend to a 90 minute massage for the same price. There's a ton of things we can do!

Another point, and it seems we all blend these together, is that there's a big difference between 'attracting' clients and 're-booking' existing clients.

This is for attracting clients.

Permalink Reply by Stephanie Keffer on June 29, 2011 at 9:24pm

Hi Kris,

Great idea. After the 4th that week I am dead on the books this might be something to entice people. Though i would post it on my FB page because more people go there then my website.