Virtually everyone is making buy one get one free offers.

Restaurants, shoe stores, bookstores… it’s hard not to find a “Buy one, get one free” offer.   Oh, sure, you don’t see such ads for medical practices, auto dealers, and massage therapists. It’s understandable why MDs, ill at ease about advertising, aren’t running such specials.  But massage therapists?  There’s no good reason why they’re not.

For a few hundred dollars worth of advertising, a number of LMTs employing this strategy received ongoing clients—some of whom might be worth many thousands of dollars during the course of their relationships with these therapists.  To make this promotion successful require the new client to receive that free session within a week of the first.

Consider the advantages of the offer: 

1. New people experience your work for half the price they normally would, particularly appealing during a recession.  

2. New clients pay full price for their first massage from you, which is psychologically important for you.

3. New clients get two massages from you in two weeks.

4. The second massage is free.  Human nature being what it is, the tendency to feel obligated to the therapist might inspire the client to book a third massage.

The peaceful state that accompanies a massage is far more subtle than a sloppy Big Mac or an eventual sweaty pair of Nikes, each of which can also be purchased on a buy-one-get-one-free basis, so some LMTs might feel odd compared to such multinational giants.  But for a massage therapist to be associated with the two most prominent logos in marketing history can only be a good thing.