For a complementary therapist, whether reflexologist, hypnotherapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist or other, to succeed in private practice requires a good helping of marketing skills. It is no good being the most effective nutritionist or Bowen technique practitioner in the world if you dont tell the world that you exist.
Your business, and you should view your therapy practice as a business, will succeed or fail depending on your therapy skills and ability to market yourself. For financial reasons many therapists have to rely on their own judgements with regards to what they need to do to attract clients.
The newly qualified therapist full of excitement and energy and keen to get going quickly may be tempted to buy their clients. Often throwing money at marketing leads to disappointing results. Advertising in newspapers, magazines, numerous editions of yellow pages, journals, local directories, doctors surgeries, appointment cards, radio and TV without informed ideas can be waste of money. Advertising should be researched and approached in the thorough way that you would apply to your therapy clients.
It is vital to maintain a note of how a client heard about you. It is the only way to know whether an advertisement or marketing campaign has been effective. It is therefore crucial to observe what the other massage therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, iridologists and other therapists in your area are doing. If they place a regular advert in a particular place then there is very chance that it is working for them and could work for you. Never use an exact duplicate of their format. You will succeed more often by being original. Consider what extra value you could offer to prospective clients that would make your competitors seem second best.
In order to keep a steady stream of enquires coming in you should market your practice every week. That means every week. If you stop marketing when you are experiencing a feast of clients then you will soon experience a famine. Some marketing methods require a longer lead-time to get a response, may be weeks or months. Others can be very rewarding very quickly and literally within hours. If you continue to market your practice every week you give yourself what every therapist craves: a steady stream of new clients week after week.
Make a decision about how much of your therapy fees you are going to spend on marketing and stick to it. This can be your budget which you will need to get the most value from.
When paying for an advertisement anywhere, do remember to haggle over the cost. You should never accept the first price you are given. Newspapers do find it difficult at times to fill the space they have. Ask your newspaper or magazine to inform you when they have late space. This is advertising space that they have not been able to fill and where they are grateful to sell it at all. They will normally offer a large discount to anyone who can provide advertising copy quickly, so have yours ready.
Alternatively you can always achieve better coverage without paying a penny. When you read your local newspaper always look out for any stories that could allow you to incorporate a therapy slant. From Local Dietician Helps School Kids Concentration to Massage Therapist Eases Footballers Strains. Make sure that any feature incorporates details of target groups that you can help, such as people with phobias, muscle strains and injuries, low confidence, weight problems, stress etc and of course details of how you can be contacted.
To Conclude: -
(i)Maintain records of how your clients found you.
(ii)Continue those marketing methods that are effective.
(iii)Stop or amend marketing that doesnt work in a reasonable period of time.
(iv)Always negotiate over price: tell them you have a limited budget and need a better deal than that!
(v)Look out for local news that you can add a therapy twist to.
(vi)Keep marketing your practice every week.
If you follow the ideas and add to them, as your marketing experience grows you will soon enjoy confidence and security in your business and therapy practice.
One group of professionals you may consider adding to you network are licensed massage therapist or LMT's. It is a good idea to know a few massage therapists because you will have patients ask you who you recommend from time to time. Your patient will be very thankful if you refer them to a good LMT, especially if they were going to resort to a blind attempt of finding someone credible by using the phone book. If your philosophy is sound, you should not be intimidated by massage therapists and understand that what you do is very different. You should also be able to explain these differences. Unfortunately sometimes the general public may not know the difference between massage therapist and chiropractors. That's fine; this can be another opportunity to educate your patients.
Your first necessity is to come into contact with a reputable massage therapist. Introduce yourself to as many as possible throughout your town or area of practice. Many will offer you a tour of their facility and sometimes even a free massage. Take them up on the free massage if offered. This will give you a chance to see how good they are at what they do and give you more time to work on your new network relationship by visiting with them. When you are visiting with these LMT's you are interviewing them at the same time. They are probably interviewing you also. Ask yourself questions like, ?is this someone I would trust with my patient?, ?could I see myself becoming a client of this person?? They need to have a respectable facility, reasonable fees and a philosophy that is somewhat close to your own. The last thing you want to do is refer a patient to a bad business that does not share your same philosophy. This could jeopardize your relationship with your patient.
I recommend you have about 4 to 5 massage therapist that you have built a rapport with. They need to be spread out in your area of practice for two reasons. First your patients do not want to drive all over town to get to your recommended LMT. Second this gives you a spread out area to receive your referrals from. Once you have your 4 to 5 LMT's you can trust and refer to, you also have 4 to 5 LMT's referring to your business. As always it is a good idea to keep in contact with each of them periodically to maintain your network.
When you refer a patient to a LMT, call them and let them know you sent that patient over to their business. Do no be afraid to put light pressure on them to refer you a patient or two when the timing is right.
Occasionally LMT's will want to barter with you. You may want to do the same. It is your decision. This may be the chance you are looking for to build your network relationship even stronger.
A great way that I have found to start the referral process with LMT's and build my practice at the same time is to offer a monthly special. For example, in the month of July refer a friend or family member to our office and receive a free 30 minute massage from a licensed massage therapist. Post signs in your office, have your receptionist tell patients and tell them yourself. This inspires patients to refer people to your office and at the same time allows you to start the referral process with your network of LMT's. Run the special only once every few months. This puts a since of urgency to your patients to receive their free massage. The only down side is you pay for the 30 minute massage. This is a small price to pay to add a new patient to your growing practice, and some massage therapist will give you discounts for your paid referrals. Again, it's a win, win, win situation for everyone involved.
Both Steve Harold & Dr. Ryan Marshall are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Steve Harold has sinced written about articles on various topics from Family, Self Confidence and Massage. Steven HaroldAuthor of Marketing for Complementary Therapists . Steve Harold's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.
Dr. Ryan Marshall has sinced written about articles on various topics from Massage. Dr. Ryan Marshall is a and a member of the American Chiropractic Association.. Dr. Ryan Marshall's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.