What Is Binge Marketing and Why You Should Never Fall Victim to It…
Don’t do it!
Don’t do binge marketing. I see this all too often where therapists suddenly find that their appointment book is looking a little light and figure they had better do some marketing. It was illustrated in an email I received today where the therapist mentioned that “Marketing may be important to me in a FEW WEEKS.”
The unfortunate part is this is an attitude that is widely shared. It’s not an isolated occurrence.
Where I see Binge Marketing in a big way is immediately before holidays like Christmas. I get panicked emails from BodyworkBiz newsletters subscribers asking, “How can I sell lots of gift certificates?” or “What can I do for a promotion for this holiday?”
The thing is, marketing is not something you just do in a few weeks to fix a slow practice. That’s like pulling out a Band Aid from the medicine cabinet to fix a gushing chest wound.
If your practice is not at the level you want it to be, I can almost guarantee that it’s not a techniques issue. You are probably very talented. Your massage does not suck. Taking another techniques class as a way to help your practice is a mistake.
If your practice is not at the level you want it to be, I can almost guarantee that it’s a marketing issue. You didn’t get 500 hours of practical business training in massage school. Your marketing probably sucks. Learning simple ways to incorporate ongoing marketing activities into your practice is the smart thing to do.
I’m not trying to insult anyone. I’m just tired of seeing talented therapists barely scraping by. I’m tired of seeing fantastic therapists leaving the profession because they can’t make a go at it. It’s painful for me to watch great therapists hit the ground, kamikaze style.
So I beg of you, don’t fall into to binge marketing mindset. Binge marketing might keep your business alive, but in the long term it just is not the answer for a satisfying and sustainable practice.
So what’s a therapist to do?
Start by learning more about marketing. If you do not have a highly successful business, then invest at least twice as much time, money and energy in your marketing education as you do in advancing your massage skills.
You can study with me or you can study with someone who you resonate more strongly with. Whatever you decide, make sure that the marketing person you work with is highly experienced and has not just personal success, but is able to translate that success to others with a proven marketing strategy.
For example, before I released the 60 Clients in 60 Days program, I tested the ideas on groups of massage therapists to make sure the strategy worked on a broad range of practices. It allowed me to create pretty much a foolproof strategy. You can read about the successes of the participants here. This is just one of many pages of success stories illustrating what happens when things are done right.
More recently, I’ve turned my attention to web marketing because it’s an important area, but one where most therapists are extremely weak. I have a great deal of expertise to share. Not only do I do large scale web projects like World Massage Conference, the largest event in the history of massage, but I’ve personally developed over 100 websites for massage therapists of which over 95% ended up on the first page of Google within weeks.
For this reason, I developed the Web Marketing MBA program that will pretty much allow someone to learn how to master web marketing. It’s not a binge marketing solution. In fact, the ten sessions are spread over almost a five month period to help encourage sustainability in your practice. I’d like to see you helping people through your hands on skills for the long run. I want you to be successful by taking regular action over the long term in a way that’s practical and doable. I welcome you to take advantage of this valuable and low cost resource:
http://www.bodyworkbiz.com/webmarketing
Whether you decide to join me or not, I want to do whatever I can to discourage you from doing any more binge marketing. Don’t do it. Learn some solid strategies that work and incorporate them into your daily practice to develop a strong sustainable practice that will allow you to benefit increasing numbers of people.
That’s all my ranting for today,
Eric Brown, Grand Massage Poobah
http://www.bodyworkbiz.com
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So when I came across a manual called “Press Release Power” by Paul Clifford a press release specialist with Rave Press, I contacted him and made arrangements to get it to you at a very special price.
Google Places is one of the easiest ways to get your site found at the top of Google rankings. And it just keeps getting more and more interesting. Now Google is rolling out descriptive words for your business within the listing. These are taken from sources all across the web, such as reviews, web pages and other online references, and they can help people quickly identify the characteristics that make a particular place unique.