My good friend emailed me yesterday and asked me why he was giving away all his massage at a discounted price and still not getting the influx of clients he'd hoped for. I was concerned about this.

Why? It's simple.

Discounts don't work as a marketing strategy.

Sure, they may attract a very, very small amount of clients to you SOMETIMES, but discounting your service, without the client knowing the benefit, is an ineffective way to generate new clients. You see, people want benefit.

Instead of pushing the discount, push the benefit, and what you will do to make sure they get the best massage possible. Discount isn't very powerful. Benefit is.

When you advertise, always advertise what your treatment does for them, how it helps them, what problems you can get rid or, what benefits you can introduce. Educate through benefit. Forget discount as a "hook" it never works solely on it's own.

People come to you in the first place because of a benefit that it gives them. Not because you discount the price.

IN fact, I know of cases whereby Therapists have discounted their services and had the opposite response. They've either attracted the wrong type of client, or people expect a discount all the time. And you can't do that because you're in business.

They want to know how your massage is going to make a positive difference in their lives. They don't care about 10% off your massage if they have no idea if it's going to help them or not.

They want to know that that shoulder that's been killing them for 5 years will regain pain-free movement again after your treatment. The woman across the street doesn't care about 10% off, she wants to know if it's going to make her lower back better during pregnancy after a few sessions with you. The old man in the house next door doesn't care about 10% off his massage, he cares about gaining mobility in his arthritic hands so her can write to his grand daughter, because he doesn't have email.

Let's look here at what they want: Pain-free movement, improved lower back during pregnancy and mobility in joints in hands.

And even yourself....If you got a flyer in the mail about 10% off a massage, and you didn't really know about massage, would you care? Really? No. Why? Because you are not interested in discounts, you want to know that paying good money for something, regardless of discount is going to benefit your life. If I see a flyer about massage I look to see if the Therapists knows how to get rid of my shoulder pain, back ache or headaches, or whatever my problem is. If that person can give me a pain free existence where I regain mobility so I can live my life without discomfort then 10% discount is irrelevant to me. I would be happy to pay a 30% increase if I am really wanting my pain to go away.

Our clients are not price orientated.

Okay if your massage was $170 per hour then they may ask why, but you get the idea of what I'm saying here.

When you're in pain, as most of our clients are, they want to know that YOU ARE THE person that can help them get a better range of movement in their back so that they can play sport with their son again. They want their headaches gone every time that time of the month comes so they can go to work and function properly, and they want to know that their aching feet will disappear so that can run again without pain......from YOUR MASSAGE.

Think of it this way. YOU know how good you are but they don't. So tell them. Tell them what you can do for them, how you do it and how they will feel afterwards.

I'm not saying they don't work, I'm saying they don't work on their own without the client first knowing the benefit. Therapists get into using discounts As THE thing to attract clients and many feel disappointed.

I'm not saying don't do special offers or bulk discounts, I'm saying that Discounts as a sole marketing strategy, will 9 times out of 10 fall short.