Here’s another great question, this time from Becky…

It’s been another busy week for me this week. I’m preparing for a fantastic live event that I will tell you all about as soon as I’ve finalised the details. It’s really exciting and I can’t wait. I’ll email you with the details as soon as I’ve got them because it’s so great you’re going to want to put this date in your diary straight away!

In the meantime, Becky sent through a great question this week so I thought I’d share it with you. It’s quite a common problem… how do you promote your services without discounting?

PS… Do you have any questions of your own? If so, please do send them through and I’ll do my best to include them in a future issue!

Becky’s question

Rebecca
Hello! I am probably going to join up today, however, I have a question that you may wish to use, if so, feel free.
You have mentioned that we shouldn’t give our services away. I have a new “far infrared” massage bed that I’ve added to my practice, and I’m unsure of how to market it most effectively. Do I give a first session free - 15 minutes? Do I put a coupon in my newsletter?? Part of the issue is that the makers of this product give away a month for free - unlimited use. I am not planning to do this, their focus is to sell machines, mine is for therapy. However, I am at a loss with how to proceed. They charge $25.00 a session and $150.00 a month after the free month. I am about 1 hour away from the nearest “sales” store, and I suspect that people would use the bed more on a weekly basis than on a daily one, but I’m not sure. We are open 4 days a week, and not here for evening hours. One of the questions I always have when I type up my newsletter is what to offer on special! I usually tie it in with the body of the newsletter somehow. Not too many people are taking me up on the coupons, but I am hearing
that people love the newsletter and copy it and take it to work with them. Still waiting on those bookings though!!

Well, I thought I’d get your advice and I must say I really have found your ideas very beneficial for my practice. I am starting to get reviews on the newsletter, and I love the idea of a “CD” that I can send with clients….. I have so much info to give after the first visit, that they either don’t remember it or don’t read the handouts I give. My intakes are 2-3 hours long, and that’s a long time to hold someone’s attention and also educate at the same time!

I really appreciate all you offer at such a great price. It really is of great value.

Also if you have any other ideas on how to get people to book in that you haven’t seen in a while, I’d be grateful!
Take care
Becky Rupert, ND

My response

Dear Becky,

Thank you for your email. It’s great to hear from people personally! I’ll definitely share this with everyone on the next newsletter as its a great question…

It’s no secret that I’m a big advocate of not discounting and charging full price as I genuinely believe great service should be rewarded. However there are all sorts of ways to do ‘freebie’ type promotions and ‘added value ‘or ‘gift with purchase’ type promotions which can bring in both new and existing clients while still ensuring the client values the service being given.

If you’ve got very little or no cost to the use of the massage bed you could definitely look at doing a ‘first session free’ promotion. If you sign up you’ll learn all about how to do a successful freebie promotion in the first Masterclass. It goes through step-by-step exactly what to do and you even get a template that I’ve used in my own businesses and have found to work wonders.

The main thing I’ve always found with freebie-type promotions is that if I just do a flyer or a poster about something clients just see the word free and very few of them rebook. However if I format the offer as a voucher and physically give out vouchers rather than flyers, then the clients tend to see the voucher as an object of value and they therefore then value it and are more likely to rebook.

Think about when you’ve received a voucher for something from a friend or family member. Did you spend it? Did you place value on it in your mind? Probably yes. You don’t know whether they paid to get the voucher or not yet you still spent it and you still placed real financial value on it.

The same thing happens if you create vouchers to give out in your business. It might be for a service like the massage beds that doesn’t cost you much but if you put on it ‘Valued at $25′ the client will value it at $25. There’s of course all sorts of other things you need to do as well but to create a voucher for your freebie promotion rather than a flyer or poster is a great start.

Great news about your newsletter and its fantastic that your clients are printing them out! I bet they are also forwarding it to friends and family so you might want to put something on there like ‘Been forwarded this email? Subscribe for yourself here…’.

There are still a few free Masterclass Courses left as signup bonuses for the VIP Membership so if you join, you can learn all the steps to how I set up my freebie promotions so they attract new clients but still made a profit.

Keep up the great work. It sounds like this is going to be an amazing year for you!

Best wishes,
Rebecca