Massage Business Cards With Muscle, Part 1

When you were starting your massage business, getting your
massage therapy business card printed was probably the first
thing you did After all, a business card really defines you as
a business person If you’ve got a card then you must have a
business
But despite all the love and attention massage therapists give
their business cards, I have to say that I’ve never felt that
they’re all that useful I’ve never been a big fan of business
cards
I never spent a whole lot of time, energy or money on developing
cards for my massage practice Of course, I had cards printed
and they looked professional, but I never really gave them much
regard I never used them
They sat on my shelf at work, mostly collecting dust I
certainly would never carry them with me
I just didn’t feel that they were a useful marketing tool I
knew lots of massage therapists with absolutely gorgeous
business cards But that didn’t seem to prevent them from a fate
of sitting in their offices twiddling their thumbs waiting for
clients to come knocking My cards were mediocre looking and
largely unused and I always had a full slate of clients
My views changed, however, after a massage business event with
some key people in the massage industry
Last year, as the Director of BodyworkBizcom, the busiest
massage website on the net, I was invited to participate in a
round table discussion The other participants were people who I
would consider icons in the massage therapy industry: Cherie
Sohnen-Moe, the author of Business Mastery; Steve Capellini, the
respected spa massage expert and the author of Massage for
Dummies; Cliff Korn, Editor of Massage Today and Monica
Roseberry, author of Marketing Massage
I felt privileged to be at the same table with these people We
each shared our thoughts about marketing and building a massage
practice Monica, in particular, seemed to be passionately
attached to the idea of using business cards Frankly, I didn’t
get it
But that event made me think about business cards more And it
occurred to me that there was a good reason I didn’t like
massage business cards
Most massage therapist business cards are just too darn wimpy
You can give out lots of business cards, but for the most part
they don’t do a whole lot of work for you They are completely
passive tools They certainly are not educational nor are they
motivational For all intents and purposes, they are simply
scraps of paper (albeit nice scraps) with your phone number
should someone be miraculously inspired to call for an
appointment
That’s wimpy!
I’ve never been a fan of that kind of passive marketing -
waiting around for someone to maybe do something someday, like
pick up the phone to make an appointment
I like direct marketing It’s a more active style of marketing
It’s marketing that’s designed to get people to make a decision
If I have some contact with a potential customer, I want them to
TAKE ACTION NOW
Let’s get real No matter how well intentioned a person is, if
they don’t take action now, they are not likely going to get
results Let’s say you want to lose weight, for example If you
don’t toss the chips in the trashcan and take a walk now, it’s
not likely going to happen tomorrow
Same with massage Someone may be sore, achy, stressed, but if
they don’t book an appointment now or at least take a step in
that direction, it’s not likely going to happen
I don’t want to take a marketing approach that gives someone the
opportunity to think about it later Because we’re all savvy
enough to know that “later” almost always means “never”
So how do you create a massage therapy business card that makes
someone want to pick up the phone and call you now?
That’s what we’ll look at in Part 2 of this article

Tags | business, card, cards, collecting, energy, marketing, massage, mastery, monica, person, practice, result, roseberry, therapists, therapy