Tips for Attracting Clients to Your Massage Therapy Practice

Once you start your massage practice you will need to build your client base.

There are many ways to learn how to get more massage clients, create effective massage therapy advertising, and put together massage therapy advertisements.

Amy Roberts has taught many therapists how to grow a thriving practice over the past few years. The following article provides some keen insights and actions you can take to grow your practice.

Massage Therapy: Client Benefits

One thing many therapists miss when beginning to network their practice is that massage therapy clients are usually not seeking a massage as much as they are seeking out a solution.

Massage therapy, simply stated, is actually a solution-based modality.

Let me explain. In order to learn how to get massage clients, a therapist first needs to have a solid understanding of client buying psychology.

In other words, understand why your clients choose massage therapy in the first place and, in particular, your massage therapy business. For every massage therapy business in the western world, this is the most important principle you can learn when starting your massage business.

Client Buying Psychology

A simple and specific process to boosting your business is understanding why people come to massage therapists in the first place.

Your massage clients decide to book a massage with you after they have thought through and received answers to a series of questions (often internal answers from what they perceive).

This is your potential clients’ process that helps them determine if they feel secure in scheduling a massage therapy session. They need to feel a connection with you that provides them safety on several different levels: emotional, physical, and financial.

During the first conversation with you, they are checking off a mental checklist as one by one each answer is discovered. It’s up to you to influence them as positively as you can in this initial interview.

Yes, interview! When a potential client has their initial contact, they are in a sense interviewing you to determine if their needs will be met and if you can provide a solution to their health and wellness needs.

The Art of Positive Advertising

Before putting your advertising together, you must get into your clients’ head space, then use your advertising to answer questions they are asking.

For example, most clients’ mental checklists includes questions like:

• Is the therapist a well-balanced, secure individual that I can feel comfortable with?
• Does the therapist look competent in personality and in skill?
• Will I feel comfortable in their presence?
• Will I get my problem solved?
• Will I get good value for money?

It’s not enough to graduate from Massage College, decorate your clinic room, and hope for the best. I don’t know if that strategy has ever brought a massage therapist many clients. People will not flock to your massage practice just because you are a therapist in their area. I know because that’s what I did. But I quickly discovered this was not the way to open a practice or do business. Creating positive advertising materials is really quite important.

Qualifications Don’t Speak for Themselves

Another innocent mistake that massage therapy practitioners tend to make is to rely solely on qualifications to attract clients.

Qualifications are not the sole reason that a client will book a treatment. Relying on your qualifications alone to attract a client and answer their mental checklist does not provide enough assurances for people that you are the best choice for a massage therapist.

Most clients do not know what  a massage therapist’s qualifications mean to them personally. Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely need to have your qualifications clearly displayed, but your qualification is not the information to use solely as  your massage advertising.

This is why you must also include in your  massage business advertisement materials that you address client problems. And when you are engaged in person-to-person dialogue, be sure and explain how you can offer a solution to the problem they are experiencing in the way they will feel comfortable.

When you follow these simple guidelines, your potential clients will instantly schedule a massage and your practice will grow much more quickly.

Read additional > Massage Business Coaching Articles by Amy Roberts