Welcome to the BodyworkBiz practice-building newsletter - designed to help you build the practice of your dreams.

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You'll find yourself referring to the information in these newsletters over and over again as you build your practice. Print out each email, pour yourself a beverage and grab a pen to highlight important concepts and to jot down some ideas. Are you on the sofa yet? Let's begin.

Education-Based Marketing

A lot of massage professionals mistakenly think that marketing is selling. So they avoid it like the plague.

But marketing is for the most part about educating prospective customers (and your existing customers - we certainly can't forget about them) about your services and the benefit they can get from using them.

You don't have to be aggressive or pushy to market your services, but you do have to communicate with prospective customers. You have to give them what they want: information and advice, and avoid what they don't want...a sales pitch.

This educational approach to marketing is an extremely effective way of attracting highly qualified clients into your practice. It positions you as an expert in your community or in your market. It helps people to understand you and your services and works towards building a relationship and building trust.

Look for every possible opportunity to give away information. Where do you find those opportunities?

Well, when we break it down, if you want to educate prospects, there are really only two ways to do it: You can write or you can speak.

You have to do one of those things to let people know about your services. Let me point out just a few of the countless opportunities to educate people through the written word.

Newsletters

This is one of my favorite. Send newsletters to existing clients. I'd suggest mailing your clients a newsletter on a bimonthly or quarterly basis. Have them available in your waiting area, reception desk, or literature rack.

Of course, the electronic version of a newsletter, an ezine, is a really inexpensive and effective way to educate your clients and prospective clients as well.

Why am I such a big fan of newsletters?

Because clients have no idea as to what you really do. They don't know how much training you've had or the incredible scope of your abilities.

Have you ever had a client ask you if you treat headaches? Or injuries?

Doh!

Use the newsletters as a way to educate clients about the range of conditions you treat. I would suggest that you focus your writing on one particular problem that you treat. You can do this by writing generally about the topic, but what is even more effective is telling a success story. Without revealing your client's identity, talk about their problem before they came to see you in as much detail as possible, then outline briefly what you did to help. Most importantly, highlight the benefits they received: how the chronic pain they had for three years vanished, or how they are now able to get on the floor and wrestle with their kids, or how they've had a full night's sleep for the first time in years.

Stories are much more memorable than facts. Not only will a good story help them appreciate how they can benefit from using your services, but it's an easier way for them to communicate the benefits of seeing you to their friends, family and colleagues.

What if you don't have time to put a newsletter together? To make the job of creating a newsletter incredibly easy - I mean really, really, really simple - use the newsletters at BodyworkBiz. They give you the professional image you deserve and cost next to nothing. You'll find information here:

Within the next couple of weeks, there will be some great changes to the BodyworkBiz client education newsletters. You'll soon have access to nine new client education newsletters. With these new releases, you'll get four versions that you can use in any way you like. With the PDF version (this is what currently exists), you'll be able to fill in your contact details into a form and immediately have a fully formatted and professionally designed newsletter personalized with your information. However with the release of the new issues, you'll also get Microsoft Word and Publisher versions so you can personalize to your heart's content. And if you produce an ezine, we'll have text available - simply cut, paste and email. You'll love the flexibility to use these new newsletters in the ways you feel are best suited for growing your practice. We'll let you know the minute these are released.

If you've already purchased one or all of the newsletters, we'll provide you with easy access to all four versions of the issues you currently own.

Advertisements

Use your ads to educate. Instead of shouting, "Buy my services! Buy my services!" in your ads, why not provide prospective clients with some useful information? It's a big leap for someone reading an ad to pick up the phone, call you and commit to spending $60 (or whatever you charge) to come into your office. Why on earth would they trust you enough to want to be in a small closed room with YOU while you touch them? They don't know you from Adam. And they probably don't really understand what you do.

How do you educate people with small ads? You don't have to turn your ads into articles, but you can ask them to call you for a fr>ee report or a complimentary subscription to your newsletter or ezine. For example, your ad might read like this, "Research shows that massage is two times more effective than chiropractic in reducing back pain. To find out if your back pain is the type that can benefit from massage, call 000-1234 for a free self-assessment report."

In this case, you can highlight recent research in your complimentary report, have a short interactive questionnaire and tell them a little more about yourself.

Articles

Submit articles to community papers, local "alternative" publications and newsletters or trade publications produced by associations in your market. Make sure the articles are not self-serving. Provide valuable content that readers will find both interesting and educational. Focus on your areas of expertise. People love “how to” articles or stories with practical tips that they can easily use. Be sure to weave mentions of the benefits of massage throughout the text.

Need a story idea? Try this: How many endings can you put on this headline?

"Ten easy ways to                          "

Just fill in the blank and write your story by outlining your tips. It doesn't have to be exactly ten. Five tips or six tips are just fine.

Websites

"Massage is the therapeutic manipulation of the soft tissues of the body for..."

Yuck! Who's going to read that? But that's the kind of writing I see regularly as I check out various massage sites.

Websites have so much potential and are so badly written and designed.

I've been very successful on the web. BodyworkBiz became one of the most highly visited massage websites on the Internet within a year of launch, even beating out the AMTA website for traffic volume. My other websites have been big hits too.

Want to know some of my secrets to success on the web? Too bad. I haven't had time to write that e-course yet. ;o) But if you are in the least bit interested, then pick up the e-book:

It summarizes most of the secrets that have made my websites so successful. And it's only ten bucks! It's a bargain. It outlines in a basic way how to construct an effective website, but more importantly, it has some really valuable lessons on writing effectively. It's fun to read and makes the process really simple. (Hey! That sounds kinda like a BodyworkBiz course, doesn't it?) Get it just for the "how to write" sections. It's terrific.

A side note for those of you who are interested in developments here at BodyworkBiz:

The book I mention above makes reference to a website building service. About a year and a half ago, I asked the BodyworkBiz R&D Team to give me some feedback on a website service I was thinking of developing. It would make building a website incredibly simple and easily accessible to any massage professional. Not only that, but it would be developed in a way that would attract visitors and make you some moohlah.

We'll, I've had a programmer working on it over these past 18 months and it just may be ready by the spring. I can't wait to show you how to build your business through the web.

And while that's being developed, I'm doing a little test with one of the Marketing Tips subscribers. We are launching a website for her massage therapy practice this week and we're going to use it as a testing ground. We'll share some of the results with you over the coming months and to show you exactly how effective a website can be.

While I'm giving recommendations around writing, I'd also recommend another e-book called Make Your Words Sell by the same publisher. Although the focus is on writing for the web, it's one of the best books I've ever read on writing compelling sales copy. I use the lessons I've learned in that book not just for website stuff, but for direct sales letters, advertisements, my e-courses. It's even changed the way I talk to potential clients on the phone.

If you can mentally get past the frequent references to the web and look at the underlying principles, you'll transform the way you write. You will no doubt see dramatic changes in the effectiveness of your writing. (By the way, in case you need help connecting the dots, effectiveness = more sales).

So there you go. Four opportunities for educating people through the written word and some practical suggestions for each method. Now get busy and get writing.

All the best,

Eric Brown, Director
www.BodyworkBiz.com

PS. Besides the two regularly scheduled issues this month, we'll be sending a couple of other announcements to you. Look out for them.