Great Causes
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Great Experiences

by Carolee Boyles and Mark Diss

Massage therapy is a unique business because therapists offer physical relief from pain and stress. That distinctive professional element brings with it some opportunities that other businesses don't have. Here's one big opportunity: If you provide massage to a cause, you'll benefit the cause - and you may increase your own clientele as well.

In 2000 the Jackson Institute, a philanthropic organization that works with research and grant proposals for nonprofits in Washington, D.C., conducted a survey of 1,000 respondents. Researchers found that when customers were given a choice of purchasing a product or service from a company that did charitable service or one that did not, 78 percent of respondents said they would prefer to do business with the company involved with charities.

Use discretion
Of course, in some volunteer situations it's just not appropriate to market yourself in any way.

"Anyone who is helping stressed, tired and anxious emergency-response people needs to concentrate on offering relief, not commercials for their business," says Paul Rouse, Ph.D., a behavioral psychologist with the Damar Management Group, who consults with medical professionals and service people to build their practices. "Helping others during a crisis is not the time to do commercials."

But even at those events, just the fact that you're there, offering your skills selflessly, can generate a measure of public recognition.

"Certainly you shouldn't ever become involved in any service project or charitable cause just to get some sort of business boost from that endeavor," says Marc Shehey, M.D., Ph.D., director of development for the New England Arthritis Foundation. "On the other side of that statement, however, is the fact that we as an organization recognize that our donors deserve any recognition we can give them. If their involvement results in some positive publicity or an increase in business, then we're glad that happened for them."

Making the most of a worthy cause
There are plenty of volunteer and outreach events where you can engage in subtle marketing.

"We're always willing to take our skills and donate them to worthy causes," says Dillon Deering of MassagePlus, which is part of a chiropractic practice in Orlando, Florida. "One of our favorite events is the All Children's Hospital Telethon. We go to the studio and to one of the hospitals and give chair massages to hospital staff and to volunteers. It's really gratifying to see how pleased these people are to get this service from us. Even people who are a little reserved about having any type of massage [tell] us how much better they feel after one of our therapists has worked their magic."

Many massage therapists spend time and their own money providing massage therapy for a wide variety of charitable causes. But few of them claim any credit for what they do.

"It doesn't surprise me that professionals are reluctant to step up and claim credit for being involved in charitable causes," Rouse says. "However, there are ways that they can use their charitable service to help their business without demeaning the service they've donated."

Once you've committed to participating in an event, get in touch with the event coordinator, Rouse recommends.  Most of the time this will also be an employee or long-term volunteer who's in charge of working with vendors and companies providing donations. The event coordinator will probably be the person handling media and advertising. Give her your brochure and a short corporate biography that includes the education and experience of the massage therapists who will be working at the event.

Next, evaluate what you'll be doing at the event. If you'll do seated massage, be sure you're readily accessible to clients. Avoid using full-body massage tables; they tend to intimidate people at public events, and you don't want anything to keep people from approaching you. The more people who see what you're doing, the more potential positive publicity you'll have. 

Garner publicity
Whether or not you take the next step of garnering publicity for your practice depends on the type of event at which you're volunteering your time and skills. If you're working on emergency responders at the site of a disaster or on hospital staff, you won't proceed to the next step.

However, if you're working at a health fair, a sporting event such as a marathon, or something similar, make sure that you or someone from your staff takes pictures of the setup, the event, and of you and/or your therapists working. Be sure that the charity's or event's name or logo appears in the photos. Then after the event is over, send a news release to your local newspapers; pictures help get your news release printed. Or save the photos and use them next year in your pre-event news release when the same occasion rolls around again.

If the event has a festive atmosphere, don't be shy about taking pictures or trying to generate additional potential client names for your database.

"One of our local hospitals sponsors a community health fair," Deering says. "We give chair massages to people who sign up for a drawing for a free therapeutic massage. We collect those names for our database."

You can use a lot of techniques to collect names at events, including drawings, newsletter signups and business-card collection. All the process requires is an organized and deliberate plan. Many events let the public notice who you are and what you do, subtly and effectively generating positive publicity for your practice. Once the event is over, you can send a handwritten thank-you note containing your business card or a magnetized business card; it's an effective reminder to potential clients that doesn't smack of advertising.

Massage therapists Don McKeel and Larry Jackson work with an orthopedic practice in Largo, Florida; they've become masters of subtle marketing.

"We're always trying to find ways to get out the word that we operate as full-time massage therapists inside a respected orthopedic practice," McKeel says. "We volunteer to be a part of the phone bank for our local Public Broadcasting System television station. When we do, we make sure that our practice's logo and name are in front of us, and that along with the firefighters and unions we get our practice mentioned by the host at the top of every hour."

McKeel and Jackson also volunteer at a semiannual SPCA event. "We help out in the adoption tent, and always have our practice's logo and our business cards out so people will know who we are," Jackson says. "I can tell you that of the 100 or so cards we have out on any given day, by the end of the day none are left."

Marketing your practice through involvement with nonprofit and charitable causes requires tact, finesse and delicacy. At the same time, ignoring the publicity opportunity that your involvement brings you is bad business. As the Jackson Institute survey showed so clearly, people are more inclined to use the services of a professional who commits to service and charitable activities than one who doesn't. That fact alone should be enough for any serious massage therapist to involve himself in some kind of community service.

Professional massage therapists bring special skills to the table every day. You deliver relief from stress and pain and make stiff muscles and joints move more freely. Offering those skills to a charity as a gift is a noble thing. And when you do, it's in both the charity's and your best interest to let the community know in the most gentle and tasteful way possible that you and your practice support that charity with your time and your talents.

Mark Diss, Ph.D., is the general manager for Phalanx Media Group, a full-service media and marketing firm in Tampa, Florida. His writing credits include Big Rock Sportsman and Shooting Industry.

Carolee Boyles is creative director of the Phalanx Media Group. Her writing credits include Selling Power, Shooting Sports Retailer, Shooting Industry, Big Rock Sportsman, CBA Marketplace and Pad.