The Secret Truth About Advertising Your Massage Business in the Newspaper

By Amy Roberts

I was also saying that just because it’s the “newspaper” doesn’t mean you are going to get any clients. I was not putting down newspaper advertising in general. As a matter of fact I’ve had the majority of success with newspaper advertising. And if you’ve tried any direct mail that’s worked then you’ll love this article.

Okay, so now you’re probably confused. I’ll clarify it for you.

If you’ve had any luck with direct marketing at all, even brochures and flyers come under that banner too, then you’re in for a treat. And if you understand the direct mail principles then you’ll be pleased to know that you can really learn to make newspaper advertising pay off. Basically what this means is that if your brochures or fliers have worked well in the past the newspaper advertising might be something you want to try.

Before I launch into this, you’ve got to know one thing. Your entire massage marketing newspaper campaign hinges on the fact that you have identified that people who love massage therapy indeed read that paper and that you know the words to use to keep them interested in your ad.

If you have had success with your brochures then you really don’t have to write your newspaper ad a second time. It’s easy, you see your ad is already done. All you have to do is format the brochure so it works to run in the paper.

This is the part when some massage Therapists say to me “But I’m not a marketing person, I’m a Massage Therapist.”

Wrong.

Any Massage Therapist who works for themselves and is responsible for getting their own clients must train themselves to become a marketing person, otherwise how will you get clients?

Back to the point…

Okay newspaper advertising….did you know you can get a half page, or quarter page newspaper advertising piece for free? It’s true. Some newspaper will publish what they call a Press Release. Another word for it is an Editorial. This is when a newsworthy story about something worth publishing comes their way.

And if it’s a weekly or daily paper it usually happens pretty quickly. You can send in your Press Release and then by the end of the week it’s gone to print and by the start of next week you’re starting to get people ringing to book in.

And you can see your results fast too. Sine you taking appointments over the phone, you can often tell whether or not you have done a great move with the Editorial the very same day it appears in the paper! And, even if your potential clients can only respond by email, it will still only be a few days before you have the answer.

So this begs the question, if massage therapist are getting a pretty good response with their brochures and flyers why won’t they investigate the newspaper as an option? Well to be honest, its because they don’t know how. And going to someone to help them with this strategy is pretty daunting, not to mention darn expensive. Most advertising reps have no idea of how a massage practice works, how massages therapist think or how they want to be seen in the public eye. Sometimes they’ll put any ole rubbish in the paper if you let them.

Okay so listen up because I’ve got another important thing to tell you. It involves your newspaper advertising rep. (Who has no idea about marketing, they are just there to sell you space so do yourself a favour and decline when they offer to “help” you with your ad. ) when it comes to running ads in the newspaper for a massage practice it all comes down to position.

You’ve heard me go on and on about getting specific in marketing your massage practice. Well that’s great, you can get as specific as you like but it ain’t gonna matter one iota if no-one sees your ad. A lot of newspapers are a few hundred pages long. A community newspaper may only be 100 pages or 50 pages, but really, you can still get lost in amongst all the other hundreds of ads in there.

Now here’s another very important, massage-practice-saving piece of advice that you are going to want to print out and stick it on your wall. If you ask your friendly newspaper rep where you should go in the paper, 10 times out of ten he’ll say “Oh, for massage you could go in the natural therapy section.”

He or she may tell you to get a right hand page position as far to the front as possible. Not bad, but its not 100% accurate. But I wouldn’t put my house on it.

The main thing here is that as soon as newspaper readers sit down to have a good look at the paper, they usually divide the paper into sections. You know what I mean. One person will just be more interested in the sports section; another will be interested in the cooking and wine section, another in the vacation and travel section. And if someone’s only interested gossip they will look for the gossip columns.

The point I want you to remember is that no one reads the paper from back to front. (Except if they are on an international flight from Australia to teach at a massage marketing workshop and they are bored and have 10 hours to kill!)

Think about it. Do you read the entire 100-400 page newspaper from back to front? No of course not! Simply because you don’t have an interest in every single thing in the paper. Not many of us human beings even glances at more than two or three sections. So what’s that mean for us therapists trying to build our practices?

It means that you need to go at the front of the paper. I know, I’ve tested this. I was on page 5, 7 and 9 and got great responses. Then on page 19 I got no calls at all. And that particular newspaper was only 75 pages long. Maximum readership is at the front. But on saying that, there seems to be good placing at the very back of the newspaper too. (I know it sounds bizarre doesn’t it?)

The secret to this phenomenon is really not a mystery at all. It’s pretty simple really. You see people usually look at each section, even for a minute. I didn’t say they read each section I said “look at”, which means glance at, or skim through briefly. They may either glance at the section to give it to someone who IS interested in that section for example. And while they are looking at the sections they do not want, they have to look at the front of that section.

And while they get a fleeting look and just happen to see an amazing headline with a beautiful advertisement they might just have their curiosity aroused.

And this person (if you’ve done your target market research correctly) might just be in the process for looking for massage therapy.
They may just read your editorial with the eye- catching headline with a ton of benefits just to see what this is about. If those first few lines are really good, then the they’ll likely read the next few sentences, and the next and the next.

So in a nutshell, your job, if you like, is to get your potential client to see your advert. I’ll reiterate this again because I want you to understand it.
The first job in marketing that you have is to get your potential clients to SEE your advert, not READ your advert. Just make sure they see it!

Think of it this way. Let’s just say the newspaper has a section on health. There’s a stack of information about the latest cream that removes cellulite to Physical therapies. Everyone who has an interest in health will see your advert. However, if you had your advert in the front or back, it will also be seen by the majority of people who read that paper. You’ll get the most people seeing your advert at either the front of the back of the newspaper.

Okay so that’s enough for this week. I don’t want to overload you. But next week, don’t miss out on the next article. I’ll be telling you exactly how to get a very high response rate with your newspaper ad.

Amy Roberts

This article was posted by Amy Roberts

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http://www.massagetherapysuccess.com

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