Simply advertising your “buy one, get one free” at your front desk will limit the cards to be seen (and purchased) to only current customers (and the mailman). You’ve got to cross-promote.  Cross-promotion is the art and science of strategically sending your message out into the universe via various channels. Although everyone in your target audience is seeking the soothing and stress-relieving services of a massage therapist, not everyone monitors their Facebook account daily, reads their emails consistently, or visits your website regularly. Here’s some great platforms to consider (and include) when cross-promoting:

Send your message in an email.

Since you’re already having your current portfolio of clients share their email address with you when they fill out the initial form for your files during their first visit to your practice, use emailing as a way to promote your new event, product, or service to already-established customers.  Within the email you can advertise the new promotion via a coupon, a letter, a link to your website, captivating content, a short (and snappy) sentence, or a coupon.  However you decide to add the information to the email you are sending out, make sure there is a Call to Action at the end of it. Whether it’s to “learn more” about the promotion, or to receive an additional special simply (and only) by clicking the Call to Action, you must include something for the reader to do by a certain deadline ~ otherwise, it’s just another read email lost in the proverbial folder of “old emails” that never get read again.

Send your message in a newsletter.

In addition to including a feature article about yourself or a new staff member, information about your practice hours, and whatever other interesting and engaging components you’d like to include in your snail-mailed and/or e-newsletter, also include your latest promotion.  You can design it so that it looks like an advertisement in a daily newspaper or you can do a whole article about it.

Send your message in a blog.

Since you won’t include all the details about your promotion in an email or a tweet, a link back to your website should lead the reader to a well-written blog detailing the event, product, or service.  At the end of the blog, the reader should easily be able to “share” the information about the cool promotion with his/her friends and family members via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and/or the other countless social media platforms that can immediately make a message go viral.

Send your message in a video.

Creating a clever video is a great way not only to market your promotion, but also to increase its chances of reaching more people. The more creative or unique it is, the more it will get forwarded and shared via online platforms. Even if the viewer isn’t necessarily interested in your particular services today, he/she may still want to forward it on to his/her circle of friends simply because it has such a heart-warming message, an unexpected ending, or a funny twist.

Send your message in your website.

Of all the different platforms you have created to market your business, your website is the one component that can easily and regularly attract new customers.  They don’t have to be on your emailing list to read about your products, services, and specials; they don’t have to be a current customer to discover you’re offering half off your services for the next month!  Keep your website updated, fresh, and full of scintillating content to keep your new and your potential clients coming back for more info!

Send your message in a bottle.

Literally.  Instead of snail mailing postcards or newsletters to advertise a particular new product or service, why not do something really remarkable and send the message in a bottle?  You can create a clever message, roll it up in a scroll, stick it in an approved-for-mailing plastic bottle, and mail it out to a specific target audience ~ perhaps other business owners in your community.  In addition to promoting the product or service, the end of the message (the Call to Action) might read something like “bring this bottle in so we can top it off with something sparkling” and then when the potential new client comes in, you can give him/her a string of battery-operated little twinkling lights to put in the bottle and keep as a relaxing nightlight!

Whether you want to promote your recently-published book “Zen and the Art of Message Therapy” or you have a cool gift card, an additional therapy service, or a new location to advertise, marketing that new aspect of your massage therapy practice can only be done truly effectively if you strive to reach both your current customers and potential clients through multiple and distinctly-different promotional platforms.

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