How To Create A Massage Marketing Plan On A Budget

How to Create a Massage Therapy Marketing Plan On A Budget

You have the touch, and your clients love you. That’s sure to get you some word of mouth advertising. However, that alone may not be enough to grow your business to the size you want it to be. If you want to reach a broader audience, you need a plan. Read on to learn how to create a marketing plan and budget for massage therapists.

Once you have all the massage therapy equipment and skills you need to start your business, the next step is to get the word out. Regardless of how long you’ve been in business, you’re going to need to consistently market yourself to continue to grow.

The best way to remain consistent is to create a massage marketing plan. Marketing requires a regular investment of time and money. So, you’ll need to create a budget for your marketing plan too. Once you have all that in place, you can choose a handful of massage marketing strategies to implement.

Let’s get started!

Start By Creating A Budget

Before you create a marketing plan, you first need to create a marketing budget. Marketing your massage therapy business takes time and money. So, first you need to figure out how much of each you can spend each month.

A lot of massage therapists don’t have a huge budget to spend on marketing, and that’s ok. There are a lot of free forms of marketing. Free forms of marketing are great options for massage therapists who have more time than money. That said, marketing strategies that don’t cost much often require a bigger time investment.

If you’re doing well and money isn’t an issue, there are several services you can buy to save you time. High priced advertising and marketing strategies are usually best suited for bigger or well established clinics.

Create A Budget Buy

1. Write down how much time you can spend each week on marketing. Then multiply that by 4 for a monthly time allowance.
2. Write down how much money you can spend each month on marketing.

For example: I can spend 7 hours and $80 a month on marketing my massage business.

Create A Marketing Plan With These Strategies
‍

Now you’re ready to choose a few strategies to implement in your massage marketing plan. There are no rules on how many strategies you include. The main thing to consider is what you can realistically do consistently. 

 Here are some options to consider.

• Website - The initial set up can take a few hours, but after that, there’s little to no time investment required. When it comes to building a massage therapy website, you have everything from free options (like a facebook page) to a custom built website. 

• Monthly time investment: 0
• Monthly cost: ~$20

• Email marketing - There are a variety of platforms you can use to send out email marketing campaigns. Price will be dictated by how much automation and custom templates you get.

• Monthly time investment:  2-3 hours
• Monthly cost:   $0-$100

• Social media - Participating on social media is free, but you’ll need to post a few times a week for it to be worth your effort.

• Monthly time investment:  5-10 hours
• Monthly cost:  $0

• Networking - Getting involved in your community and regularly participating in local events can take some time. This strategy is often free and rewarding.

• Monthly time investment: 4-8 hours
• Monthly cost:  $0

• Blogging - Creating content for your blog requires a significant time investment, but it’s a free way to grow your audience.

• Monthly time investment: 4-6 hours
• Monthly cost:  $0

• Paid Advertising - You can buy your way onto google searches or show up on people's news feed if you want to save time.

• Monthly time investment: 30-60 minutes
• Monthly cost:  $250+

• Referrals - Connecting with other healthcare providers or creating a referral rewards program for your clients doesn’t require much time or money. 

• Monthly time investment: 1 hour
• Monthly cost: $0
  

Sample Marketing Plan & Budget For Massage Therapists

In this example, the massage therapist has a little money to spend on the essentials. She knows it’s essential to have a website to showcase her services and a way to keep in touch with clients.  

She already has a website that she pays an annual fee for. Almost all her new clients visit her website. She only updates it once a quarter, so there’s not much she has to do to maintain it. 

Email marketing is a big part of her marketing plan because she read on hubspot that email is one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness. 

She uses ClinicSense to manage her practice, and that includes email marketing campaigns. All her online scheduling and client contact info is in the same place; so it’s easy to send out weekly availability email campaigns. 

She creates a monthly newsletter to keep her clients updated on new services, trends and sales. In her newsletter, she always reminds people of her referral rewards program. She also makes sure to mention the rewards program at the end of each massage session.

Client referrals are the best, but she’d like to also get referrals from other wellness professionals. So, she makes a point to keep in touch with the chiropractor down the street. Plus she joined a meetup group for local business owners. She meets with them once a month.

Social media is the most time consuming thing in her marketing plan, but she’s streamlined her process. She posts on Facebook and Instagram 3 times a week. She creates all her posts on Monday, and schedules them to post on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Every day, she spends 15 minutes of her lunch break responding to comments and getting involved in Facebook groups.

Her total investment is 7 hours and $80 each month.

Marketing StrategyTime in hoursCost   Referral rewards program 0 $0   Networking 1 $0   Website 0 $20   Email marketing 2 $60   Social media 4 $0   Total7$80

Your Marketing Plan

Your own massage marketing plan may have a different budget. Choose a combination that works for you, your budget and your abilities. 

You may have to experiment a little to figure out the best strategy. Stick with your chosen plan for at least three months, and monitor the results. At the end of that time period, if something is under performing, adjust your strategy.

Much like massage, the effects of marketing are often cumulative. That means you may not see a big increase in sales right away, but over time, the results of your efforts will be compounded.