The Benefits of Massage
One of the most common things for massage therapists to put on their brochures or websites are a list of the many benefits of massage. I also wrote about the benefits of massage on my website www.thebodyworker.com
Personally, I am tired of hearing about the benefits of massage and would like to see massage therapists take this topic to the next level. What do you think that a potential client thinks when they read lists of all of these things? Try putting yourself in your clients shoes -knowing nothing about the body, health or how your muscles work. Massage school has a way of making us forget what it is like to not know anything about muscles or the body. It is the curse of knowledge that is talked about in a book called “Made to SticK“. “We start to forget what it is like to not know what we know.” Like the other day when I got my massage from a local massage therapist who doesn’t know I am a massage therapist started talking about some obscure muscles and calling them by name. A regular person would not know what he is talking about.
What are clients looking for when they are looking for a massage therapist? Someone who can tell them what the benefits of massage are? What someone is usually looking for is a solution to their problem which is usually back pain or some other pain, disease or condition. They don’t really care if massage increases their circulation or relaxes their muscles. Most do not understand the connection between the body and the mind.
The thing is that in order to really educate a client about the benefits of massage, you have to provide much more information than just a list of the benefits of massage. One of the best on the web is Paul Ingram of Vancouver WA and his website saveyourself.ca
His website has over 150 articles that point to research on how massage does help pain or various conditions.
I also just started a page on my other site www.massagetherapycareers.com to collect users experiences of what they think the benefits of massage are or to share their pages on their website about the benefits of massage.
So how do you write or communicate to potential clients what the benefits of massage really are. Following the outline in the book Made to Stick mentioned above:
* Simplicity: the idea must be stripped to its core, and the most important concepts should jump out.
What would you tell someone about massage or what you do if you only had 20 seconds to do so ( or some people call this their elevator speech and give themselves 90 seconds.)
* Unexpectedness: the idea must destroy preconceived notions about something. This forces people to stop, think, and remember.
What are people’s preconceived notions about massage? That it is a luxury. That it is for ‘happy endings’. That it is to expensive. That they don’t need it to take care of themselves.
They are also tired of hearing about the benefits of massage. Do something really different to make your practice stand out. Break a pattern that is seen in the massage profession to be different.
* Concreteness: avoid statistics, use real-world analogies to help people understand complex ideas. Something that is concrete can be examined with your senses.
You can still use statistics but make them understandable.
* Credibility: if people don’t trust you, they’ll ignore you. In some cases, they will be openly hostile, which means they’ll actively try to dispute your message!
* Emotional: information makes people think, but emotion makes them act. Appeal to emotional needs, sometimes even way up on Maslow’s hierarchy.
* Stories: telling a story [gets] people into paying closer attention, and feeling more connected. Remember the Jared Subway commercials?
So how can we make massage more appealing and educate consumers about massage and met them where they are at?
What are the real benefits of massage?
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