I had a great question posted on the “Ask Eileen” page:

Dear Eileen, I keep seeing ads for the MMMEasy [Massage Marketing Made Easy] kit from Karen Dimmick. I can’t find anyone on the various professional groups I’m on who have used this kit; most say it sounds like a scam. I’ve noticed that she comments on your blog; do you know Karen, and either way do you have an opinion of the product?

I’ve about 70% convinced myself to try it, but any input you have would be helpful. (Schools should have a few hours on marketing, don’cha think?)

Thanks,
Beth

Geez, Beth, your question is beautifully timed. I’ve been wrestling with how to bring more information to readers about massage / bodywork marketing providers. It’s tough. I want to be fair to you and to the providers. Your questions gave me a great idea for a solution. We’ll get to that later, though.

To answer your questions, I do not know Karen herself. I know she writes well and has good information in her articles which are all over the web. Also, a brief web search shows that she is part of a couple professional groups. From this, I presume she has a clue at the very least.

Is it a scam? I don’t think so. I do think you need to find out all you can to see if Karen’s — or any marketing provider’s — service is what you need.

Karen aside, my immediate thoughts about online massage therapy / bodywork marketing providers in general are:

  1. They feel they have experienced success in their practice / business and have decided to move the focus of their practice to helping other bodyworkers. This is a time-consuming job and they deserve recompense for their efforts and experience.
  2. They have to walk a fine line. On one hand they have to tantalize you with encouraging information so you can see the benefit of paying for their services. On the other hand, they need to keep “the good stuff” under wraps so their competition and potential clients won’t make off with their “product.”
  3. Many of their web sites are no-frills. The sites are designed to be tightly focused on making the potential client a paying client. I think a lot of us find these designs off-putting but I can’t say why exactly. Perhaps because it’s 180˚ from how bodyworkers design their sites and think about communicating with their clients.

I don’t have a pro/con stance on massage marketing service providers. I do think that people who feel they need some marketing help and motivation can find them beneficial — when they pick the one that’s right for them.

Most marketing sites offer some sort of free whitepaper containing several tried and true suggestions. This gives you an idea how the marketing provider thinks and whether you’d like to work with them. But what is offered in the package you pay for?

Being given one-size-fits-all “expert advice” isn’t going to help your practice. Before you choose a marketing service, you need to be very clear on what you need and what you expect. Will they help you create a marketing campaign for your practice? Will they help craft your message for your business cards, postcards, newsletters or ads? Will they respond supportively when a campaign doesn’t work the way you hoped (it happens)? There are many questions, which brings me to …

My solution!: You post questions for massage marketing service providers on this entry. After a some questions are posted, I’ll email the blog link to as many providers as I can. We’ll let the providers speak for themselves. If response is sluggish, I’ll pick out a couple-few providers and interview them myself.

Ready? Go!

All my best,
Eileen

PS: Yes, Beth, MT schools should have at least a semester on business building. I don’t know why some schools don’t. It’s essential that you know how the arm bone is connected to the shoulder bone but if you don’t know how to connect your publicity money to your clients, your skills go to waste.