Walk these six paths and win new business!

When you're just starting out, there are so many ways of promoting your business that it's hard to know which ones will give you the best return on your investment.

Before you even think about parting with a penny of your hard earned cash, consider these six ideas and make sure you watch out for these three pitfalls...

Six paths to winning new business...

1. Your local paper
A great way to get your business into the local area would be to contact your local paper, and explain what you do – ask if they would be interested in doing an article on a treatment that you offer. You could even offer the journalist a free treatment so that they can talk about it first hand. This is a cost effective way of getting your business noticed by a wide range of people.
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You could link up with National Awareness days, such as National No Smoking day if you are a hypnotherapist, or National Stress Awareness day if you are a complementary therapist.
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2. Networking
Look for local groups of therapists that meet regularly, or websites that allow therapists to speak to each other – there are plenty out there to choose from. Get to know other therapists in your area, this way you can share ideas and experiences such as what marketing works well and what doesn’t.

3. Referrals
If you are providing your clients with a good service, they will often tell their friends about you and you can earn extra business from them.
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Look to offer incentives for your clients to do this, such as discounted introductory offers – when a client refers someone to you for a treatment your existing client gets their next session half price. This way your existing client will come back, and you have the opportunity to convince the new client of the value of your service. Remember – don’t be afraid to ask - word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective form of marketing available.
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4. Local businesses
Contact local businesses to see if they would be interested in offering treatments to their staff.

For example, you could offer to come in and spend an hour there giving any staff member who wanted it a small five minute sample treatment for free.
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Take along a list of treatments you do, along with price & time guides in the form of a leaflet. And it goes without saying that you must make sure that the leaflet looks good, as a poor design/look can actively damage your business.
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Hand out your leaflet to staff who try out your treatment as well as those who don’t. Remember, even if only one person enjoys the treatment then that is a good result, as they will tell colleagues how good it was and that can often encourage others to call.
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5. Leaflets
A powerful leaflet can do a lot to enhance your business. After all, if people don't know about you, how can they buy from you? However, you should also know that a poor quality leaflet can put people off contacting you, as you will come across as unprofessional.
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Shop around for quotes for producing leaflets, and always ask to see samples – one thing to remember is that cheapest is not always the best option.

It's useful to ask yourself a few questions before producing a leaflet. For example, do you need 2,000 leaflets that are printed on coloured paper and just black writing, or should you get 200 high quality, glossy looking leaflets?
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Will you really use 2,000 leaflets effectively, or will you just leave them wherever you can? It can be better to have smaller numbers, as this will make you think more carefully about the best places to put them. And with lower numbers, you will be able to produce better quality leaflets as you'll have more money in your budget for design.

6. Internet Directories
This can be a useful way of advertising your business for free and there are many sites which offer a ‘find a therapist’ facility for the public. Some come with free membership and a basic listing for your business, so why not make the most of them?
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If you can get your business listed on as many directories as possible, then you stand more chance of being found.

But beware the directories that try to pull you into paying an annual subscription. Make sure that what they are offering really is worth the money before you decide to pay.
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One thing you should certainly check is how well the directory shows up in the major search engines. Try keying in the name of one of your treatments and your town or city (e.g. ‘reflexology birmingham’) into a search engine and see which directories are on the first page of results. Repeat this with some other relevant search terms and see which sites regularly show up.

Three things you really must watch out for...

1. Scams
Watch out for companies that contact you trying to sell you advertising. If this really is something that you want to do, make sure you research the company first.

For example, if they are offering to advertise your services in a doctor’s surgery, contact the surgery first to see if they are doing this, and also where possible ask them directly about what the advertising is and who will see it? Once you have this information you are in a much better position to decide whether or not it is worth the money.

If you’re still in any doubt, try speaking to other therapists to see how they advertise.

2. Keeping records
Remember to keep records of all your client names and addresses! This forms your database of potential business abd will help you target your budget better. For example, instead of paying for 500 flyers to post through letter boxes, only to get no reply, when you target clients on your database, you know that they're already intereted in you and what you have to offer - which means that your strike rate will be much higher.
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Offer discounts to try to get them to come back – remember, it is much harder and more expensive to gain a new client than it is to keep an existing one.

Remember that you must ask permission to contact the client when you first see them regarding promotions in order to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.

3. Tracking success
Whatever you do to market your business, you don’t want to be wasting your money! The great thing with a small business is that it’s really easy for you to tell what’s working and what isn’t - and it doesn’t take a lot of complex work.

All you have to do is keep a note of every piece of marketing you do and how much it costs you. Then, when you start to get calls, make sure that you ask every customer how they heard of you. When a customer comes to you as a result of some marketing activity, keep a log of how much they spend with you over, say, a year.

Then for each piece of marketing activity, compare the money you have made with what it cost you to do that piece of marketing.
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Anything which costs more money than it generated is a bad investment!

To work out your return on investment (ROI), divide the money generated from your appointments by the cost of the piece of marketing which they responded to, then multiply by 100 (to give you a percentage).
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For example, if a £60 Yellow Pages listing brought in one customer who had 4 appointments in a year at £30 each, and another who had 5 appointments at £30 each you would generate £270 income. £270 divided by £60 x 100 = 450% return on investment.

The secret to success is simple – keep doing what works well (and maybe even more of it where possible) and stop doing the things that don’t work!