May 11th, 2008 Julie Onofrio
One of the challenges of being a massage therapist is that you have to wear many hats. You are the massage therapist, the website designer, the bookkeeper, the janitor, the marketing and networking supervisor. You have to combine all of these skills and create a successful massage business.
One of the things I see a lot of and am even guilty of myself are websites or other marketing material that is supposed to be promoting your services and it turns out it is really all about you - you have this degree, credential, skill, experience or whatever it is. You offer this service, you do this… The vital thing that is missing is connecting with the reader (potential client). What they want to know is what is in it for them! People are only interested in themselves and how it will affect their lives or solve the problem that they are having.
Most people don’t really know the difference between swedish massage or cranio-sacral therapy. They don’t care how long you have been doing massage. They don’t know what the names of all the muscles are and don’t care if it is their splenius that is causing their neck pain or not. They only care about how it will help them feel better.
So how do you take what you do - massage- and what you know ( from massage school as well as life experiences) and create sales copy that doesn’t sound like a used car sales man but gets you what you want - new clients!
The first step as outlined in this free Ebook “Make Your words Sell” by Ken Evoy is is to get into the shoes of your reader/target. Who are they? What do they want for themselves? What do they value most? And here is the part that massage therapists cringe over- who can afford your services? Massage therapists in general want to just be able to provide massage for everyone and even seem to be drawn to people who can’t afford massage. The best way to be able to provide massage to this population is to focus on finding those who can afford you and make enough money so that you can do something like set up a clinic for low income families. Trying to work on these people without having your basic needs - enough money to pay the bills, take the vacations that you want, save for retirement - is a sure way to end up in burnout.
Another thing to become aware of is learning to talk about the benefits of massage in a way that people understand. How does ‘increasing circulation’ apply to someone who is in pain or has a herniated disc? Massage relaxes muscles but who really cares - how does a tight muscle cause pain?
These are just a few of the many things you can do for your website and brochures. In order to create effective marketing materials you need to either hire a sales/marketing person to write your ads or website for you or study and learn about it. One of the best sources are the Free Ebooks from Site Build it! You don’t need to have a SBI! website even and all of the principles can really be applied to any marketing pieces. You can learn more in the free Ebook “Make Your words Sell” by Ken Evoy. I am just reading it now so will be sharing more as I get through it. It is a few hundred pages and it used to cost $30 but it is now free for anyone to learn from.
Posted in Building Your Practice, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist, Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »
May 5th, 2008 Julie Onofrio
No other webhosting company helps you create a website that gets results - gets the site to the top of the search engines and gets the reader to make the ‘most wanted response’ -whether it is to click on an ad, buy an ebook, buy an affiliate product or sell your services.
Site Build it! is different and the focus is all about results. They even keep track of what SBI! sites are getting results and have a running list of sites that are in the top 1%. This year I made it to that list with my site www.massagetherapycareers.com !
My clinic site is also moving up quickly in the search engines since I started working on it more a few months ago when I became more committed to getting out of working with insurance companies. There is a guy who I know locally who always was in the top listings who was a programmer in his past career and now my site is right up there on the first page of google results. I am also writing more content for that site to help educate readers about just what it is that massage does. I had a new client last week who never had a massage before in her life who came in and said after reading my website, I was the one she wanted for her first session! My focus is about writing more than just the standard benefits of massage - which by the way I just found out - the big basic benefit that can be found on most everyone’s website or brochure - ‘Massage increases circulation’ - is not a scientifically proven benefit! There is no research that supports that claim as I learned from Tracy Walton who is a prominent massage researcher. This makes having a website even more essential so that you can start talking about what massage really does and how it affects your clients and what you think it is that massage really does. By providing more content about these things you can create a regular following of clients. If you are unsure what to write about just start thinking about what you tell people on the phone or on the table about what that ‘knot’ is in their back or how that muscle contraction affects their posture and over all health.
My focus since last fall has just been creating content, getting links, adding to the look and feel of the site, using Content 2.0 to get readers to help me create pages and it has all paid off. I now am being found for the keywords ‘massage therapy’ and ‘massage therapist’ right up there with massagetherapy.com (ABMP’s website) I am getting an average of 400 visitors a day who are making on average 750 visits - which means people keep coming back.
What other company do you know that focuses on helping you get results? Now you can do the same and start out at a reduced rate when you take advantage of the buy one (for $299 for the year subscription)-get the second one for $100 Mother’s Day Sale - the first time they are offering this for Mother’s Day. So many Mom’s want to work at home to be with their families more while making a financial contribution to the family.
For massage therapists it is a great way to create a website for your massage practice and get a second site to develop into an online business where you can supplement your massage income so you don’t have to always feel so much pressure. It can free you up to do what you do best- doing massage.
Working at home is also becoming more important because of the challenges we are faced with concerning our environment and economy. As the price of gas increases and more families are affected by the housing crisis, it is more imperative to have additional sources of income. Working from home a few days a week can reduce the carbon emissions and the amount of gas being used by the country dramatically.
What you get with a subscription is really the blueprint for taking your massage business online or a business plan for creating an online business.
And anytime you order a Site Build it! business building and webhosting system through one of the links in this blog or through one of my websites, I will invite you to my private SBI! coaching Group at Yahoo! where you will get my support and insights in building a website. Just email me after you purchase your sites.
Posted in Websites for Massage therapists | 1 Comment »
April 27th, 2008 Julie Onofrio
One of the things about having a website that works is about creating an additional source of income. Since I started talking about making money with Google Adsense, I have seen many massage therapists with Adsense ads on their home page as well as many other pages. There are pros and cons of having these on your site. The ads actually take visitors (potential clients) away from your site to others sites and most like those who are your competition. The thing is that you won’t be a match for everyone and Ken Evoy of Site Build it! recommends that you use the ads to make money from every visitor. I put a few on my clinic site last year but they never really did anything. I also didn’t have much traffic (under 50 people a day) because I wasn’t promoting my massage practice. To make Google Adsense work for you, you will have to test various ad formats and placement of ads and also test what pages work the best. I do think that putting ads on pages that are just general articles about massage could be beneficial, but I also think that it will work best when you have a few hundred visitors a day.
The other way to make money with your website while you are busy doing massage is to sell products through an affiliate program. Affiliate programs are programs that you can promote for others and make money by promoting their products. I use Amazon.com to promote a few massage products that I have found to work well for myself and clients like Traumeel homeopathic gel for inflammation, the Theracane for home massage treatments and a few highly recommended books on health and health related topics.
To find other affiliate programs to participate in just do a search for ‘massage affiliate programs’.
The best product to promote are ones that you have used yourself. The best way to promote products is to write about how you use them and how they have helped you and/or your clients. I don’t promote things that I haven’t used or tried myself for the most part.
Some of my best affiliate programs are the Emotional Freedom Technique, The Science of Getting Rich, The Science of Being Well and a Vision Improvement program and Site Build it! While I don’t make tons of money from one program, I do make a little with each program and added together it still isn’t tons but it helps keep me going.
To learn more about making money with affiliate programs you can read this Free Ebook- “Affiliate Masters Course” from Ken Evoy of Site Build it! and apply the principles to any website.
Posted in Building Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist, Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2008 Julie Onofrio
The two best ways to get the clients you need to keep your massage business booming are getting referrals from current clients, physicians and other health care providers and Search Engine Optimization for your website.
Getting referrals from others is about learning to ask for what you need. Lynn Grodzki of Private Practice Success speaks of it this way:
But in a small business, letting other people know about your business needs is a necessary interaction. As business people, we need a way to communicate our legitimate business needs, such as our need for referrals (the life blood of our business), in a way that matches our sensibilities and ethics.
The best way for people to find a massage therapist is to go on referrals from their friends, neighbors, coworkers, physicians and other health care providers - or just about anyone. There seems to be some hesitancy with massage therapists to ask for referrals from clients or others because they don’t want to be seen as being salesey or pushy yet they continue to say they don’t have enough clients to make ends meet. There are a few ways you can go about getting referrals from clients such as creating an incentive program for people to refer to you - like if they refer 3 people or something like that they would get a free half hour massage. I think that works for some, but I actually think the best way to get referrals for your massage business is to just do the best massage of your life with each client. When people go back to work or home or wherever they are off to and are feeling their best- it will show and they will be talking about how good they do feel. That is the best kind of referral.
Getting physicians or other health care providers to refer to you requires that you build a reputation for yourself. The best way is to actually find a someone that you would want to go to yourself or refer others to. You don’t just want any old person referring to you. You need to get referrals from people who understand and match your values and philosophy on healing otherwise there will be too many possibilities for misunderstandings. I used to get referrals from a chiropractor who wanted people to come in 2x a day -5 days a week. I just didn’t agree with this type of service. He only did it with people who were in car accidents who had insurance companies with open pockets waiting to pay him. I would tell people that they just have to go by what they feel and most would want to leave his care causing some difficulties between us. So it is important to find someone who works in a similar manner to you. Would you send your mother to this person or would you go yourself? That is the litmus test.
Also once you find someone you trust - go to them for care. This is the best way to find out more about what they do and tell them about what you do. Actually you may not even have to tell them anything more than you are a massage therapist down the street from them. This is the way I build most of my practice when I first started. I started seeing a chiropractor and the next thing I know his whole family was coming to me and then he started referring all his patients.
The key to asking for what you want is to build relationships with others just based on wanting to create a relationship -not just about asking for referrals.
The other way to get a constant stream of clients is by having a website that gets you new clients every week. That means you have to have one that search engines find and that people click on. To do this you need to create pages that are optimized for the search engines using the most popular keywords (most likely some variation of ‘massage, your city’). To create a page that is optimized you also have to know how to create file names with the keywords as well as metatags -descriptions and keywords. I have a page on my website about formatting pages to help you get an idea of what it is about.
Some other ways of getting your site found are to just create as many pages as you can writing about what you do. Have a separate page for each technique to explain it in detail and share your experiences with this technique or method. Share why you trained in it and what you feel you can do with it. The more content the better for search engines and your readers.
Getting others to link to your site also helps create traffic. There are many ways to do this but the first thing is to get health care providers that you refer to to link to your site by first giving a link to them! I have written more about creating links on my website www.workless-playmore.com
Keeping yourself focused on what you can do for yourself and your practice rather than just complaining that you don’t have enough clients is to keep focused on these two things. What can you do today to take one step towards getting a referral or building a website? If you don’t have the money for a website makes me wonder just how committed you are to being successful.
I of course use and recommend Site Build it! for webhosting because it is much more than just a webhost. It takes you through a process of thinking about your business and creating a plan for success. While I have talked about SBI! extensively in all of my websites and forums, it can be very overwhelming. It took me 2 years of hearing about it before I took the leap and created my first site. I did start out with a free webhost and then moved up to Front Page. It wasn’t as scary taking the leap to SBI! So even if you can’t start with an SBI! site start with what you can do. Create a free site or use another template driven site. Do whatever you have to do. You can start with this Free Manual from SBI! about taking your Service Business online and apply it in any way you can.
I also am available to help you create a website for your massage practice. I charge $600 for an 8 page website (in addition to the $299 hosting fee with SBI!)which is more than half of what you would be charged by a SBI! webmaster. The reason why I am charging so much less is that I know the massage business and I want massage therapists to be successful and be able to get the clients that they need.
Posted in Building Your Practice, Starting Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist, Websites for Massage therapists | 1 Comment »
April 16th, 2008 Julie Onofrio
Have ever wished you had invested in Microsoft 1979? or wished that you bought $500 worth of Wal-Mart Shares in 1970?
How about a recent example?
If you bought Google stock at $85/share during it’s IPO in 2004 you would have made an 800% profit in just three years!
Google is just getting started. They pay their publishers billions of dollars each month.
I just read those interesting questions and facts on joelcomm.com. He is one of the big Adsense gurus and I read his Adsense secrets last fall and immediately doubled my click through rate on my Google Adsense Ads on my sites. His latest version just came out and I could resist buying it especially since it was only $9.95. I highly recommend it if you are serious about developing a business online to make you residual income. At that price it is well worth it.
Of course he got me by then taking me to a page offering his full program for only a mere $500. Well I am sure it is good information and there is a lot of it - Cd’s and Manuals and such. I took a look at some of the content and it really didn’t look much better than what SiteBuild it! already offers through their webhosting program which includes the website and all of the tools that is needed to get your site found.
If you don’t know about Google adsense and Site Build it! yet, you might want to get serious about it so you are not kicking yourself for not getting into it now like I am about those shares in Microsoft that I never bought!
Google Adsense is what pays me more than half of my income and it is the majority of my income from my websites. The way it all works is I can put Googles ads on my sites. These ads come from Google’s adwords program which is how advertisers set up ads to be put on Google. Well you can put those same ads on your website - but it can’t just be any website. It has to be on a topic that is in demand - one that people want to know about or have. Finding that out is what Site Build it! is all about. Their Brainstorm it! software that comes with their package will help you research a site concept along with ways to make money.
Now most of you who are reading this are massage therapists - what would you create a site on? Anything that interests you and that you know a lot about. There are many massage related topics that I have talked about before on here . I also have a list of ebook ideas which can be turned into a site concept to promote which are listed on my website www.workless-playmore.com
This isn’t a get rich scheme. You will have to work about 6 hours a week for about a year and even more if you want to make more.
Google adsense is what has made the difference between me being a struggling massage therapist and being a successful one. I now get to write about massage and help educate the public about massage and help move the profession ahead.
If you don’t have time to start and make a site, you can also hire webmasters directly from SiteBuildit! to help you brainstorm and create your site. It will cost you about $1500 and about $50 a month from and that includes creating the first 10 pages. You can hire them to keep creating pages for I think it is $100 a page. When you are hiring a SBI! webmaster, you are getting someone who has taken a test and has proven themselves to be proficient using SBI! Most of them have created about 10 sites for themselves and many for others.
Or you can hire me for about half the price. I am not as skilled as those certified webmasters, but I have been around enough and done enough sites of my own and for others that I can give you a good running start. I personally have 4 SBI sites one of them being www.massagetherapycareers.com which is on the first page of Google for the keywords ‘massage therapy’ and ‘massage therapist’ - no small feat to do! When you hire me, you will also get to join my exclusive online mentoring group ( a $50 a month value) where I will help you learn SBI! yourself so you can continue creating pages. An adsense monetized site takes lots of pages (500) and lots of traffic (at least 500 people a day and preferably a few thousand like I get on my site www.thebodyworker.com) The prices that I have mentioned here are for when you purchase an SBI! site through one of my affiliate links so it includes your affiliate fee (yes you can do that too and make money reselling SBI! websites.)
So if you are ready…Get your SBI! website and let me know what I can do for you!
Posted in Money issues, Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »
