Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/97768
your best year ever June July Why toot your own horn to get noticed when others will do it for you? Public relations (PR) includes a whole range of activities that allow you to connect with people, including charity work, donations, public speaking, special events, writing, and more. It's a powerful way to raise awareness about your practice. ABMP's EveryBody Deserves a Massage Week runs July 14–20, 2013, and this event provides an excellent opportunity to get media coverage. You'll find it's surprisingly easy. This month you'll run your event for EveryBody Deserves a Massage Week. Send out your press release to the editors of the media outlets you've identified about 10 days before the event and follow up by phone. Send a newsletter to your clients to announce the event. Ask them to participate if appropriate, or at least share the news with their friends. Our next stop on our practice-building road trip is Google+ Local, along with some other important online review sites. If you search for massage in your city in Google, you'll almost always see special local listings appearing at the very top of the page. This is one of the easiest ways to get your site found. And it's completely free! To get found at the top in the local results, you need to first claim and fill out your listing. Generate Some PR Here's what you need to do: • Decide what you can do for the weeklong event. For example: * Donate a percentage of each massage session to a charity. * Ask clients to bring a can of food for a local food bank to each massage. * Create special offers for a target group: firefighters, nurses, students, teachers, or veterans. * Offer free on-site massage for employees at local businesses: animal shelters, food banks, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. * Offer free chair massage "samples" in public venues, such as community events, parks, shopping malls, and workplaces. * Massage a radio DJ on the air during the stressful workday commute times. * Try something really different, like a flash mob massage with other practitioners. • If necessary, make contact with appropriate organizations about the idea and brainstorm how you can both promote the event. • Get the contact details for editors at local media outlets. Prepare a press release that answers the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of your event, but don't send it yet. • Complete any other necessary tasks in preparation for the event, like gathering equipment and supplies, printing, scheduling, etc. 62 massage & bodywork january/february 2013 Get Local Listings and Reviews Here's what you need to do: • Go to Google Places at www.google.com/places and log in with your existing Google account information (i.e., your Gmail address and password) or create a free account. • Click the "Get started now" button and you'll be prompted to enter your business phone number so Google can check to see if you already have a listing or not. • Create or edit your listing. Just fill out the form as completely as possible. Use search terms that people may use in the description field. Upload pictures of your business and a video if you have one. The ranking of your listing depends on a variety of factors, primarily the distance from the identified location, the relevance of your listing (does your listing and website contain the words searched for?), and the prominence of your website and listing (are there references to your business on other sites and are you getting reviews?). The number of reviews clients submit to these sites will determine how often your listing gets clicked, so every time you see a new client, send her an email with a link to your listing and ask her to leave her feedback. Do the same for existing clients. Then, make sure you follow up to thank them when they do endorse you. There are other important local review sites you'll want to be listed on for maximum exposure. These include Yelp, Bing Local, and Yahoo Local.