Spa marketing advice?

[dmchest]

I am a massage therapist/ esthetician and if I do not start to revenue some business I and my children are going to be out on the streets. I have tried the following things, but nothing seems to be getting the people in the front door:

*Facebook page that I post deals on weekly (up to 68 likes and have been telling everyone to go like us on fb) if you would like to go like me http://www.facebook.com/spainthecityindy

*I am up to 160 email addresses and counting and do weekly email blasts of deals we are offering (this gets me a couple clients coming in each time, but still they only want to come for the deals I guess some business is better than none)

*Have walked around to all the hotels downtown and passed out menus monthly

*pass out flyers outside my building (one of my problems is that our salon/spa is hidden on the 5th floor of a building and most people do not even know that we are here)

*we have a sidewalk sign out in front of the building

*I have implemented a referral program

*We ran an ad on living social and only sold 45 massages

Please all the advice anyone can give would be much appreciated. I am poor and cannot afford to do anything that costs money.

[Shaun Baird]

Hi there dmchest, sorry to hear of the situation

You need to get new interest so here's some ideas which i think might help.

1: Contact deal websites such as groupon and ask for a meeting with one of their sales representatives.
if they can fix up a deal with you, you'll be offering cut price discounts for X number of people who visit your premises on XYZ date(s).
2: try to get some free advertising in your local newsaper and/or radio, so come up with a deal that will also mean you do something for charity or your local community, or simply see if you can raise some money (from the proceeds of some sales) to benefit a local person who needs some help. Lots of people like to support worthy ideas.
3: Move premises as soon as you can - just an option - you really need to get people passing by your "window".
4: if people in the street below can see your window (even if 5 floors up) think of an advertisement that can be seen form down below... so why not a bright colored background and big bold letters saying professional massage therapist for example.
5: Set up a website using Wordpress and write to it regularly.
6: Set up a twitter account and LinedIn account and for extra growth and post to those too.
7: Create some short 30 second slide-show based videos and put them on youtube

The social stuff shown above will ave a good impact - when using twiter etc you can and must link back to either your website or your facebook page.

Good luck... it's a blip in the road so you need a big transformation to turn the page and enjoy your dreams again Nobody is going to do it for you though so it's time to roll up those sleeves!

Shaun