Biggest Marketing Flop

[debijs]

What have you tried to market your business that turned into the biggest flop?For me it was free gift certificates.  Having several teachers in my family I thought I would show some support to the schools so I mailed 2-3 free certificates with a nice cover letter to each school principle in the district.  This is a small town area so not too many schools.  Sent out over 40 certificates with 6 month expiration dates.  I had 2 redeemed, one phone call and one visit.  

 

[Jim Vf]

I had "$10 off 1st massage" coupons printed up and did chair massage at an employee health fair at a casino in Tunica, MS.  Chair massage on approx. 250 employees plus the coupons yielded me 3 phone calls, 2 appointments, one of which was a no show.  Major flop!  

 

[AhManDuh]

Biggest Marketing Flop

Advertising in the local newspaper, NO calls!

 

[milfordbum]

Biggest Marketing Flop

i also advertised in the local paper...NO responses. i spent a few dollars, made my own "$10.oo off " coupons, made a few hundred bucks. did better marketing on my own!! the paper is a hassle, once you advertise, they hound you all the time. i did invest in a static cling for my car. although it looks very professional,not one client has said thats where they got my number from.

 

[Sondra]

Biggest Marketing Flop

Gator'2 out of 40 is not bad.You must rember that Advertising/Marketing takes time. The more you can build up your name the better your advertising will work. Giving away free sessions will never hurt you. In my pretherapist life I was the Director of a college in which we spent $50,000 - $80,000 a quarter on advertising. Any time we could closean average of more that 15% of our leads we were happy.TV/Radio we would do a high perceneforum.xxxe, but direct mailing we would do a low perceneforum.xxxe, but we did them both. Do every thing your can think of, keep track of what works and what does not.I just did seated massage at a big Tent sale at one of the Auto Dealerships on Friday. Gave short seated sessions for $5.00. Passed out a lot of business cards and worked on a lot of people. A small perceneforum.xxxe of them should come in for full sessions. If i get 1 or 2 of them to become regular clients it was worth the time.

 

[alvinyprime]

5 % return isn't bad.  When I was a manager of a pizzeria in another life we would "doorhang".  We expected around 5% and usually got about 8% that weekend.My best marketing tool is current clients.  Every client who refers a new client can get $10.....they can bank them and even get a free massage.I have a small number of clients and they were all referred by a small group of colleagues from my day job.My first attempt to get them was FREE 30 minute massage.......failed.  People just wanted free massage and had no intention of coming back.  With the number of massages I can give so limited, this just burned my butt.  I also think there is some set number fo times a potential client has to see your ad for them to take notice.Robyn

 

[charles_soler]

The 5% return would be understandable if I had mailed out randomly the free certs.  Figured the principal would hand them out to those who were interested in receiving work.  Figured I would see closer to 50% that way.  

 

[elenelie]

Oh man, I'm sorry I read it too fast.Ok, you had a targeted audience....hmmm, I'm stumped.  I thought after reading again that yes indeed I would expect the Principal to hand them out.Sorry.Robyn

 

[Muhammad Body of Dog]

The biggest flop is going to health fairs to give free chair massage and hand out $10 off coupons.  Have done this for years only because you have to be an invited guest to these health fairs and I do not want to get off their invite list.  I hate going to them, because people love their free chair massage, getting them to come to the office is another story.  These people can afford massage too.  They live in a very upscale active retirement community.  The very best way I have gained new clients is by word of mouth from my current clients.  One client referred 3 new people to me, in one week.  One of them is my clients chiropractor and she does not have a therapist in her office.  The chiropracter is seeing me today and has already referred one of her patients to me.  If you give a massage that's better than the average, go out of your way to take exceptional care of your clients and are a real people person, you should never have to spend a dime on advertising.  I have never paid for advertising in my 4 years as a therapist and I probably never will.

 

[LIFE]

Biggest Marketing Flop

The biggest flop is going to health fairs to give free chair massage and hand out $10 off coupons.  Have done this for years only because you have to be an invited guest to these health fairs and I do not want to get off their invite list.

I whole-heartedly agree. I went to one health fair and gave around 70-80 free 5-10 minute chair massages. At the time, I was starting my internship the next week, only $25 for a one-hour relaxation massage. Out of all those people, most were doctors, lawyers, chiropractors, etc., I had one client, a computer programmer, come to my school and get two intern massages from me. Now that I am charging only $40/hour (the going rate in my area), not a single one of them has called. I contacted that computer programmer, and he says he plans to come to my new office and schedule, he's just 'busy at the moment'. I am not sure if I'll ever do that again, it was a waste of time and energy.

On a good note, one of the chiropractors that came up and got one of my massages on the chair is now the man that I rent office space from. It's a huge office, and I only pay $300/month! He's also become my friend, so the health fair turned out worthwhile in retrospect.

EDIT: I've also tried hundreds of flyers, and have not had a single reply.

 

[Trebor]

Health fairs can be tough.  I do two a year.  One is for my wife's office and they have five MTs come and do chair work.  They pre-schedule your day with breaks included every hour.  I know I won't get much return on this because of the distance (25 miles) but I do it for my wife.  The other is at a big potato plant, yes I am in Idaho, that won't see a big return for my time.  Most of us go to health fairs, break out the chair and go to work.  How many other vendors ply their trade for the entire time?  Wouldn't it be better to pair off with someone and while one works the other interacts with the visitors to answer questions and help educate everyone about what we do and how it works?  

 

[Tressa Marie]

Gator, I can totally relate.  I went to a health fair last year at my son's middle school.  I worked my fanny off from start to finish.  Several people even commented on the fact that I was doing all the work, and everyone else got to sit at their tables and just talk to people.  Ironicly, the people I was working on were not the type to spend money on massage.  (some of them were even children)  But I did get a few new clients out of it.  One was the school principal and his wife and the librarian and the school nurse.  So it was'nt completely futile.  Next time I will bring another therapist with me so we can take turns.  I enjoy talking to people as much as working on them.

 

[Soupy]

I worked a health fair last year.  I took my chair with me and set up a table for brochures and business cards, etc.  There was another massage therapist there offering chair massage also, so I decided to focus not on giving free massage (which has never been my favorite thing to do anyway) and instead focus on talking to people and selling gift certificates (I had my manual credit card imprinter with me).  I was there for 3 hours and sold two certificates...definitely more money than I would have made giving away free massage.  In addition to that, I did get some calls too from the brochures and business cards I handed out...all told, I think I made about $400 directly from the health fair and I've since gotten some referals from those people too.  It was definitely worthwhile.

 

[Wing]

My biggest flop was, surprisingly, offering a half hour free with first visit.  I actually got fewer calls than before, and not the kind I wanted.  Of those fewer calls, I got many more "perve" callers (I found it interesting that they would call for happy endings after I reduced my prices...LOL) than I ever had before.  I also got more out of towners that would never come back for full price.  Very few turned out to be long term repeat business for me.My business went up again when I took that out of my ad and updated it a little with a new and better picture and more simple wording.

 

[soccerfreak]

I see a lot of people dragging their chairs to health fairs.  I drug my table to the health fair last fall and did the dreaded FREE massage, but to the neck area.  I got several bookings and gift certs.  I have also done (oh, not again) FREE foot massages at health fairs with the same results.Scav

 

[asambrano752]

my biggest marketing flops were advertising with the website of our news stations and the big board at the YMCA where the schedule information is .. $700 and never a call!

doing the huge mailer with the chamber didn't work for me either.

 

[Courtney]

my flop was an ad in the yellow pages. i'm so glad that year is over and done with. i'll never pay another penny to be in the phone book!

 

[Sylar- Goodbye for now.]

Yeah, $2400 spent on the phone book to gain 4 clients that only came once was not really money well spent.

 

[The Grappler]

Free chair massage rarely works.

BUT...when you charge for the massage, you dramatically increase the quality of people you can market to. These are generally people that appreciate massage enough to pay for it in the first place, thus eliminating many of those that are "only doing it because it is free".

Big ads in the phone book generally have a low ROI for our industry. They work, don't get me wrong (most of the time) but with our prices being what they are, we have to do SOOOOOOOO many massages to make it up. You may find you get just as good (maybe better) just going with a bold listing.

Mailers can go either way, but the general rule is they (mail-ees) have to see your mailer 3x's before they will "remember" it. Don't expect a huge return the first time.

As for the school- I do the same thing with my daughter's school. Each time I get one or two (I change the offers each time), but I go in to it not expecting much - I am looking for name recognition. It is free advertising, it establishes trust, as well as a sense of good will - they always seem to appreciate the fact I am offering a discount to school staff "only" - whether they take me up on it or not. I don't know about you, but I will take all the good will karma I can get, even if it is the kind that doesn't require anything more than an offer...they are the ones that chose not to use it.

Don't give up..but don't waste big dollars either. keep it simple, and as cheap as possible. Advertisers will have you believe that you have to establish a look that impresses clients. While there is some truth to that, I would much rather have more clients impressed with me on the table than a whole bunch of non-clients that are impressed with my ad (but don't call anyway). I have paid what I felt was a lot of money on very nice ads and not a single person came from it. I have also done a very cheap ad in a coupon clipping paper and got great results. What works for one may not work for another. There are way too many factors that effect the outcome. It's all trial and error.

Think of it as a game: "What is the cheapest way to get the most clients". The winner is you!

 

[Dracomet]

Yep, Me too

I've done the whole free chair massages at health fair things too ~ with the same no or limited number of results. I now keep my focus on my target market and direct my advertising efforts towards them. I don't bother with a phone book ad. I had limited success with newspaper ads. And, have had the greatest number of success with my web site.