Massage Marketing -Make your words sell

Learning how to write and talk about your massage practice is one of the biggest challenges for massage therapists. Most just want to do massage and don’t want to or think that they can create websites and marketing materials for their massage practice. The thing is that without doing some of these things to promote your massage practice, you won’t have any people to give those massages too! Marketing is just a very simple matter of telling people what you do and what massage can do so they can decide if it is for them.

One of the best things I have ever read on the whole topic of marketing is “Make Your Words Sell”. It is a free Ebook put out by Ken Evoy of Site build it! It is quite a long ebook but well worth the read. Every section I read I couldn’t wait to implement some of the things on my websites.

The biggest revelation I got from the ebook is about using the benefits of massage and learning to create a sales message from those benefits. OK you are cringing with the word sales in there… You don’t want to be a pushy sales person. You don’t have to be. Sales is just learning to get what you want and what you wand most likely is a massage practice that is booked solid for a few months in advance.

Here is a standard list of the benefits of massage taken from massagetherapy.com.

• Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion.
• Assist with shorter, easier labor for expectant mothers and shorten maternity hospital stays.
• Ease medication dependence.
• Enhance immunity by stimulating lymph flow—the body’s natural defense system.
• Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.
• Help athletes of any level prepare for, and recover from, strenuous workouts.
• Improve the condition of the body’s largest organ—the skin.
• Increase joint flexibility.
• Lessen depression and anxiety.
• Promote tissue regeneration, reducing scar tissue and stretch marks.
• Pump oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs, improving circulation.
• Reduce postsurgery adhesions and swelling.
• Reduce spasms and cramping.
• Relax and soften injured, tired, and overused muscles.
• Release endorphins—amino acids that work as the body’s natural painkiller.
• Relieve migraine pain.

Well their list of the benefits of massage is a little better than most but they still are not really getting to what the real benefits of massage are.

Let’s take them one by one:

“Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion”…… So What? Who cares? Why would anyone want to improve range of motion?

Only someone with low back pain would care about relieving it. Actually most people in pain use the reasoning…it will go away soon - or I am just getting old so I have to live with it. Not many people know anything about how the range of motion can influence back pain or even know why they need their rom improved. I would guess that many don’t even know that their rom is limited.

Why do people want to be out of pain? To be more productive. To be happier. To enjoy their families more.

That is the true benefit of reducing back pain and increasing the range of motion.

So when you get down to the real benefit of massage you can talk about that in your writing for your website, brochures and other marketing materials.

“Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.” So What???
What would it mean for them?  Why would they want their muscles stretched or exercised?

The thing is you have to find out what the benefits of YOUR massage services are - not just these standard benefits.  What makes your massage stand out from everyone elses?  Why do people come to you in the first place.

You can read more about how to Make your words sell and to turn the benefits of massage into selling points for your massage practice.

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Massage Therapy Job Center

One of the most popular sections on my website is the massage therapy job center where people can get more information on how to find or create their ideal massage job.

I am also working on an Ebook on the same topic that will have much more information. One thing I am starting to see from interviewing massage therapists who go out and get jobs is that they just think of it as that - a job even though they love doing the massage part.

It seems that what you think about work and jobs is created at a very early age from watching parents or primary caretakers. We take on these beliefs about work without ever questioning them.

Jobs just like anything else really are a great learning environment to discover more about your unconscious unmet needs of childhood. We project our unmet needs on significant others and this also includes money and jobs.

One of the things that comes up often is the idea that people feel entitled to being taken care of in a job. They look for job security and think that just by showing up and doing what they are asked to do that they will find job security. Part of the problem becomes that you will start feeling resentful of what you are being asked to do unless you really love doing what it is that they ask you to do.

At a job you give up your own needs and aspirations to become a part of someone else’s dreams and aspirations. In order to feel whole people need to be connected to their own dreams and aspirations. Finding a place to work that you can share that dream is an important part of finding a massage therapy job but most people just take what they can find rather than finding what they want to take.

What do you want in a job in massage? Why do you want to work for someone else’s dream? What are your beliefs about work and finding a job? What do you expect from a massage employer?

Answering some of these questions will help give me more insights for my Ebook so please feel free to comment truthfully or email me if you don’t want to post things here.

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Massage Therapy Training

One of the controversies in the massage profession is over the number of hours of education that is required to be a successful massage therapist. I am sure I have written about this before but can’t find where so here I go again.

Most states have some kind of licensing requirements in place or if you are in CA each city has various requirements making it a nightmare to work as a massage therapist in that state. I think the states that do require licensing have a minimum of 500 hours of massage school training. Some go to 1000 hours of training. How much is really needed to be able to give a great massage and also be successful as a massage therapist are really two different issues. To be a successful massage therapist you could be giving people the worst massage of their life but if you are educating them or just being present with them, they may become regular clients no matter how good or bad your massage is. A good massage is also very subjective. What is good for some is a nightmare for others.

To run a successful massage business all you need to do is be a good business person. Massage schools really teach you very little about that.

Is 500 hours of massage training really necessary? I personally don’t think it is required to start giving massage. Can 500 hours of training and more enhance your skills as a massage therapist? Yes definitely. I think what happens when people hear me saying that you only need 100 hours of massage training is that they feel threatened that I am saying that their many hours of education isn’t worth anything or isn’t helping them to be a more successful massage therapist.

I for one started out in massage in 1987 after 250 of massage school. Many of my friends have even less than that and are still in business too. Many of the newer massage therapists can’t seem to make it even after all of that training. I have talked with many who are afraid to do massage for fear of doing something wrong or fear of getting physically injured doing massage.

Keith Grant in his white paper on “Issues in Massage Governance”(pdf) also talks about this controversy stating that 100 hours of massage school is enough to start in the massage profession and that people also learn better in smaller chunks of training. People often get into overload mode after more than 100 hours of training. The other thing is that the number of hours of training needed has never really been researched. After I became a massage therapist with 250 hours of training the next year it was increased to 500 hours with no reasons why or no formal inquiry into how much was needed. The number was just arbitrarily picked out of a hat ( or should I say massage school.) Keith also points out that the increase in the number of hours of training is related to the fact that massage schools could get more grant and loan funding for their students if there were a higher number of hours of training.

I think people who have more hours of training feel threatened or feel concerned about how much they have struggled to start a business even with the 500+ hours of training. I wonder if it it more training and training overload that is actually causing them to have such issues.

So how much education is needed to be successful in the massage profession? Today after reading about the success of “Massage Envy” I would say none. Go get a degree in business and open up a massage franchise and hire all those poor students who have just paid all of their money to go to school just to get a job paying $12 an hour.

But seriously, the number needed is really more about what you need personally to be successful. Do you need more training and time to integrate the material and practice? How much time do you have to put into it? How much time do you have before you need to be working? What are your learning styles?

If you are not a massage therapist yet and are thinking about becoming one you can find out more in my Ebook “The Massage Therapy Career Guide - The truth about becoming a massage therapist available at www.massagetherapycareers.com

If you are already a massage therapist - how many hours of education do you have? How successful is your business currently? What more do you need to know or wish you had known?

(Posting on blogs are a good way to get back links to your website which is what will help you in getting your site found by Google and other search engines.)

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