Shiatsudo Blog

The Shiatsu Society has its own publication called the Shiatsu Society News.  It is distributed to everyone who is a paid-up member of the society, and according to the publication itself, it has a circulation of about 2000.  I’m not sure if you can buy it anywhere - I doubt it, and I’ve never seen it on sale.  I don’t expect the Shiatsu Society News would be of any interest to anyone outside of the shiatsu world anyway.

It is a nice, glossy magazine that comes out quarterly and usually features some articles on shiatsu and related topics, a Letters section, a bit of advertising…..the usual sort of thing.  My wife had a book review published in it a while ago that I published ages ago on my old blog.  I’ll repost it here soon.

The most recent issue has an article called “Attracting Clients: What Really Works?”,  which obviously caught my eye.  Marketing is not really my strong point.  My wife is better in this department and a while ago, sent out a questionnaire to some of her clients to find out why some clients who really enjoyed their shiatsu never rebooked a shiatsu treatment.  She followed up and noted that one client “just put shiatsu on the backburner for a while”.  Finally, she noted the results from the feedback she got.

Back to the Shiatsu Society News article - which interviewed several shiatsu practitioners and asked them what marketing and promotion techniques worked best for them and what didn’t work.

The Best List includes general networking and word-of-mouth, taster sessions, having a good flier or postcard that describes what shiatsu is.  The Worst List includes paid adverts, listings in directories (because people don’t really look up “shiatsu” per se) and the piece de resistance: referrals from The Shiatsu Society - of the four practitioners interviewed, only one practitioner had had a referral from the Society…..in 10 years of membership!  That’s pretty sad.  I myself have never had a client referred to me from the Shiatsu Society; and I begin to wonder what the role of the Society is……

Any Shiatsu practitioners out there have a “best of” and “worst of” marketing list?  Any other practitioners have better results from referrals from the Shiatsu Society?  Any clients feel like commenting on what they found most effective and least effective?  I would love to hear about it; drop me a comment.

Tags:Marketing, Shiatsu, shiatsu society