What does your voice mail say

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Did you know a voicemail is a perfect way to market yourself. Here is a sample greeting from my voicemail.

You have reached Jessica Weagle and the office of Deep Relief Massage Therapy. If you are calling to book an appointment or to purchase a gift certificate please go to my website www.deepreliefmassagetherapy.com and there you will find the book now and instant gift certificate link in the top right hand column of my website.

Don’t forget stop by my Deep Relief Massage Therapy Facebook page for a chance to enter for a chance to win a free one hour massage.

Otherwise please leave me a message and I will return your call as soon as I can.

So what does your voicemail say? Use you voicemail as a chance to let clients know about specials you maybe running. Remind them to buy a gift certificate for Mother’s Day, etc.

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You have a website so now what?

You have just spent a lot of time and energy on creating a website, and hopefully it is not a free one, now what? How do you get the word out about your website and you don’t have any money to pay for SEO and paid per click ads.

I have built my massage practice on free and very low cost marketing. First check out my post If it’s free then it’s for me post. There is a growing list of places to post your website for free.

First thing first you need to see if your site is indexed by Google. You do this by putting your web address in Google search. In most cases it takes about 48 hours for Google to find you. Now you need to get Google to really like you.

Lets talk about pictures. How you name your pictures is very important. Google uses how you name your pictures as a way to bring traffic for your site

Let’s take this picture as an example.

A bad name for this picture is massage1

A better name is Upper Back Pain

A potential client could Google Upper Back Pain and this photo will show up in their search with a link to my site.

Get a site map. You can generate a free site map here. This will take awhile so be patient. Save the site map on your computer and upload it to your file manager on your website server.

RSS Feed is just another tool to let the search engines know about you. You can generate a RSS Feed for a website or a blog here. Once you get your RSS Feed you will need to let the search engines know you have updated your site by a Ping. Use the check all on the Ping. This also takes awhile.

You will also need a Google account to get Meta tags. Web Master Tools is where you get your meta tags for your site and you also submit your site map here also.

Here are some important don’ts

1) A flash site is bad even though they look pretty,

They don’t show up on smart phones.

2) No key word stuffing

3) No white out key words,

Meaning you hide keys words on your site that are the

Same color as you back ground.

 

Also take the time to have a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter Account. Facebook and Twitter is just another way to get the word out about your site.

So there you have it how I get clients on my table without spending a dime.

The experts say you need a blog

The internet marketing experts say you need a blog for your website. I don’t know about you but the idea of having to write a blog for my site seemed like such a painful idea. It took me about a year to come up with a plan to have a blog for my site.

Than one day it came to me while I was in the shower. I need to have other people write my blog for me. But who, and what about?

My gut told me my blog needs to be other health/wellness providers in my area, Central Mass. I pass out the names of other professionals all the time why not give them a chance to brag about their services/products on my site.

Meet the Experts

The best part is this blog doesn’t require me to use extra brains cells.

On a side note Nutritional Response Testing has brought me the most search engine traffic.

So there you have it a perfect way for me to have a blog for my site.

WOW. Thank You !

I spend a lot of time on the internet. I am always reading blogs on forums, networking on FaceBook and so on.

My favorite site to be on is Bodywork Online. Everything  you could need to know about the massage profession is on this site.  In one of the many threads one of the members was asking about insurance providers other than AMTA and ABMP. At the time I had just heard about Massage Magazine was starting to offer insurance so I posted the link to the information. A few of the other members thanked my for the information and bought it because it covered the services they where looking for.

Now fast forward to this past week Massage Magazine was doing searches on Bodywork Online and saw the information that I had posted about their insurance and they called me to say Thank You for passing the word along and they asked me to swap links with them, which I though was really nice to take the time to give me a call. Massage Magazine gets 2 big thumbs up in my book! And when I need to renew my insurance I will be switching to them because they took time to say Thank You.

Potpie Girl

For about a year now I have been wanting my site to make me money while I was sleeping. I have been fascinated with affiliated marketing. I tried a few things and nothing really gained any traction. So I put that idea to rest till another massage therapist suggested Potpie Girl.

Jennifer teaches you how to make money on the site Squidoo. However the tools she suggest apply to blogs and web site also. And the best part is all the suggestions she give in her EBook are FREE !

So here is how I plan on making Squidoo work for me. I just made a lens about A Mother’s Day Massage. If you check out the link you will see I gave suggestions for tools a person can use to be able to give a massage at home. And every time a person buys anything from one of the many links, I make money.

Here is another lens I did about Your Computer and Your Back Pain.

Now I can link these lenses to my website Deep Relief Massage Therapy and this blog and I am on my way to some exposure! The important thing is the content in your lens should be similar to the content in your blog and or website.

 

Check out some more lenses I have done

Homeopathic Cold Treatments

Homeopathic Skin Care

 

And another tool to use is ClickBank . You can search multiple vendors on this site for product to promote, there are many massage product by the way, and they also have on of the highest commissions. And you can also ad ClickBank Links to your Squidoo lens. And the ClickBank links fit nicely in your blog and or website as long as what your are promoting goes with the flow of your site.

 

Another thing I want to mention. If you do buy Potpie Girls EBook. Don’t quite your day job. Jennifer writes in her book that you need to plan on a year before you start to make some good money. I think Jennifer has some great tools in her book that help you bring more organic traffic to your site without PCP Ads aka pay per click ads.

Even if you are not looking to have your site make you money. I think Jennifer’s ebook is a handy little tool to get your site and or blog more exposure without having to pay on SEO company.

GROUPON has got it right

GROUPON has finally made it to Worcester, MA. When I first opened my current office, August 2009, I contacted GROUPON to run a deal with them. So here is a copy of an email they sent me back in September 2009

Jessica,

Thanks for contacting Groupon!

Since we only feature one business a day, our schedule is carefully constructed to highlight a variety of business types, locations, sizes, and price-points. At this time, we don’t see an opportunity to feature your business.

We have your information on file, and if it’s OK with you, we’ll be in touch if an opportunity arises in the future.

After doing my homework I found a local company The Local Deal . The Local Deal works the same way as Groupon. I had moved on from from the idea that Groupon would like to do business with me. Then my phone rings in November of 2011. The rep from Groupon informs in they will be coming to Worcester, MA. in December and they want to feature a business just like mine. I quickly informed the rep about their past email and I wasn’t interested in doing business with them.

Since November 2010 Groupon has call me 2 more times wanting to know if I have changed my mind. After the third phone call I decided to get that chip off my shoulder and listen to what they had to say. I must say after talking to a rep I am impressed with how they do business. I learned Groupon is by invite only most of the time. And Groupon does a lot of homework about the business they want to feature on their site.

My rep informs me after going over my site checking out the services I offer, mapping out my location and reading all the reviews about me on the internet. They really wanted my business! And kudos to the rep he already had a creative deal ready to talk to me about. And I love people who can think outside the box. Granted after sleeping on it the first deal wasn’t going to work for me. So the next day the 2 of us put our heads together and came up with a better deal.

My deal has not been featured yet it is still a work in progress, but my experience with Groupon has been good so far and they are very willing to come up with better deals for your business so it give you a better chance to get repeat business.

I need to see that in writing

This week seems to be one of those weeks where all the telemarketers have been coming out of the wood work. There was one call that struck a nerve with me.

It was for a women’s in small business group. So the women on the other end of the phone is asking me all kinds of questions about my business and what I do to make my community a better place etc… Now the reason I stayed on the phone was because I was told that it was free to join. So all this time I am thinking I am going to be joining a free group. Let’s call the women on the other end of the phone Joy.

Now Joy goes on to tell me all about the wonderful services this group has to offer me like networking with other women in my area that have a small business webinars, discounts to large retailers and of course accesses to view their full website.

While Joy is telling me all these great offers the group has to offer my business  the light bulb went off in my head and I realized that this group is not FREE. You have to be a paid member. Then Joy tells me the different levels of memberships and how much each cost. And that’s when I stopped her and said. I need to see all this stuff you are telling me in writing before I shell out large sums of money!

And do you know what Joy’s answer to me was ” We are not a marketing firm so we don’t have this information in writing”  What the hell kind of answer is that? That was pretty much the end of the call.

But it did get me thinking about my own business and gaining potential clients trust.

1) Don’t do the sneak attack and say something is free when it is really not even close.

2) Have everything clearly in writing. In my case services I offer, prices, etc.

Bad, bad, bad business practice on the part of this women’s in business group. Not only do they not have my money but they have also lost my trust as a business.

Goals for 2011

During my Christmas break I was very proactive and I got my taxes done for the year. And I was pleased to see what my business made for the year, but where did that money go? It burnt a whole in my pocket. So in 2011 I am going to work really hard to be more mindful about my money. And it is the little things that add up that I really don’t need like buying 2 coffee’s at Dunkin’s or buying things at Walmart that are on sale. I need to stay away from the clearance section.

Even opening my emails is a problem groupon, buywithme, thelocaldeal and coupme have me on their list. So I am just deleting them. If I don’t see it I won’t want to buy it.

I am also going to make more of an effort to be more social. I need to get out and have more fun in my life and make some new friends. I really want to join the Holistic Mom’s Network, but I need to rebook a client so I can go to the once a month meetings. I have also started taking horseback riding lessons again. It feels great to be apart of a barn community again.

As part of me getting involved with the horses again I am starting to promote massage therapy for horse back riders. Part of my goal for my business for 2011 is to cater to horse people.

So here it is my 2011 goals. I am hoping by writing them down I am going to be more likely to stick to my goals. Feel free to check in to make sure I am staying on track.

Referrals are Gifts

I had the pleasure of hearing an interview with

Anne Ross and Irene Diamond. The interview was about how to build a practice and how to make $1500 a week. This 10 year veteran is always looking for fresh new ideas on how to bring my practice to the next level. I couldn’t resist it was a FREE CALL and took just an hour of my time.

Most of the topics that very covered are things I am already doing in my practice and are working. But what struck me was at the end of the call another caller ask about referrals and how they are not getting referrals from other professional. So it got me thinking how does one get referrals? What is that magic sauce that makes referrals for you?

When I am looking for another professional to send referrals too I put on my consumer hat. I seek out a chiropractor, for example, that I would like to treat me. Two big things I look for are price and service. I need a chiropractor I can afford and is offering the type of adjustment I am looking for. Experience has taught me that if I can afford the treatment and I am getting good results from the chiropractor than my massage clients tend to have the same experience.

Once I have picked the chiropractor I would like to send referrals to I just ask them to give me a large stack of cards. I never ask them to send me business, WHY? Because a I look at a referral as a gift and when you give a gift you do it because you want to and you never expect anything in return. When I took the pressure off of looking for something in return I was getting more referrals from other professionals.

 

My Most Popular Package

The most popular package I sell in my office is Unlimited Massages for One Month. I often share this idea with other therapists and I feel like I am getting a lot of eye rolling. I have been selling this package for a year, so I will share my experience.

The price of the package is between a one hour and a hour and a half massage. The price is low enough to be a great deal but high enough where not just anyone is going to buy. The package expires one month after the date of purchase and all massages must be pre booked for the month. What most clients book are 2- 60 min. massages a week or 1 – 90 min. massage a week.

I only offer 5 of this package for sale during the month. And I have never had a client take advantage of this package. It is the opposite that happens clients book their massages and either forget or the cancel at the last minuet. It is no different when people buy a gym membership and never use its full value.

Have fun with the idea and let me know how it is working in your practice