How Elements Massage® Handles Digital Marketing on the Enterprise Level To Benefit Franchisees

From fine-tuned business models to robust franchisee networks, the benefits of joining a franchise system are clear. 

But the Elements Massage® brand goes above and beyond what’s expected of a franchisor—especially when it comes to digital marketing. 

The Elements Massage brand takes care of all the legwork at the enterprise level, with all monthly individual studio marketing contributions invested directly back into that studio’s own efforts. With pay-per-click advertising, organic social media support, personalized email campaigns and massage therapist recruitment, Elements takes the headache out of digital marketing, allowing franchisees to focus on running their studios.

Geotargeted Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Around 80% of each studio’s monthly marketing contribution goes toward pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to drive traffic to studios’ websites via search engines. The remaining 20% is generally applied to Facebook advertisement and Yelp management.

The Elements Massage brand’s approach to PPC is a highly targeted one. “In general, we target a three- to five-mile radius around the studio, but we also take an even more targeted approach by working with owners to identify areas which we should definitely target, and areas where we would be wasting dollars, such as highways or non-residential areas,” said Kirsten Helgeland, Vice President of Marketing Operations at Elements Massage. “We also create Member Maps by looking to see where current members are coming from, then finding more people who demographically look like them in nearby areas.”

The Elements Massage brand’s digital marketing team does a deep dive into individual studio spending and opportunities on a quarterly basis. “Many of our franchisees will opt to spend a little more money in order to capture a greater portion of their audience than competitors can,” said Helgeland. “We also test PPC on different platforms. We recently found that there are some areas in which we can capture an audience using Bing, not Google, as antiquated as that sounds.”

Organic Social Media and Personalized Email Campaigns

The Elements Massage brand also offers franchisees support in organic social media marketing—which is unpaid, as opposed to PPC—as well as cost-effective personalized marketing through email. The brand regularly creates content to supply studio owners with assets they can post on their own localized Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

“There are big opportunities in organic social marketing,” said Helgeland. “On both the brand and studio levels, we are always posting relevant content to followers to keep them engaged. The more engaged they stay with us, the more they will remember the benefits of massage and come into our studios to continue the two-way conversation.”

Personalized email marketing is a natural fit for the Elements Massage brand strategy. “We personalize every experience from lead generation to the in-studio experience to the after-studio experience,” said Helgeland. “We have an email database of all our clients, whether they are members or nonmembers, and we send automated emails to audiences we create.”

These audiences are created based on the behaviors logged by the franchise system. “Someone who hasn’t been to a studio for 45 days will get an email reminding them to book a massage. If they still don’t come in after 75 or 120 days, they receive more emails with different content,” said Helgeland. “We are seeing great success in getting people to come back in, as well as reaching out to nonmembers to remind them of the benefits of regular massage—we see them convert from a client to an actual member.”

Massage Therapist Recruitment

Helgeland said what Elements Massage franchisees are currently most excited about are the brand’s massage therapist recruitment initiatives.

“There’s a lot of competition out there for recruiting quality massage therapists; it’s one of the biggest challenges in the industry,” explained Helgeland. “We are an excellent employer and we do a great job at retaining therapists—we just need more of them.”

 

The new, highly targeted digital advertising initiative for therapist recruitment will launch systemwide on September 1, 2019, after months of testing. 

“This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we are doing to better help studios address their specific business needs,” said Helgeland. “Some need more new client trials because they have availability in their schedules. Others have no availability in their schedules and they need massage therapists. We are working really hard to continue down that path of being innovative and proactive.”

A Valuable Benefit for Individual Franchisees

This digital marketing package at the corporate level helps studios maximize the benefits of the Elements Massage franchise system with the most cost-effective solution possible. 

“If a studio worked with a marketing agency with a comparable amount of knowledge to receive the level of service we provide at the enterprise level, it would both be extremely expensive and take up a lot of their time,” said Helgeland. “We are trying to ease that burden so they can stay highly focused on running studios and managing massage therapists.”

All that’s left to do at the local level is to get out in the community and spread the word. “We give the advice and the tools franchisees need to cross-promote with other local businesses,” said Helgeland. “Our owners will set up chair massages at local office buildings, man booths at farmers markets or other events and hold fundraisers for nearby schools. In the end, every studio is a local small business and we think it’s important franchisees stay engaged in that way.”

With a single-unit investment range between $225,350 and $374,350*, the Elements Massage franchise was recently named one of the Top 10 Best Franchises to Buy in the medium investment category by Forbes. To learn more, visit https://elementsfranchise.com.

*As stated in the March 13, 2019 Federal Disclosure Document, as amended June 28, 2019.

 Elements Therapeutic Massage, LLC. 9780 S. Meridian Blvd, Suite 400 Englewood, CO 80112

This information is not intended as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for information purposes only. Currently, the following states regulate the offer and sale of franchises: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. If you are a resident of one of these states, we will not offer you a franchise unless and until we have complied with applicable pre-sale registration and disclosure requirements in your jurisdiction. MN File No. F-5517. This advertisement is not an offering. An offering can only be made by a prospectus filed first with the Department of Law of the State of New York. Such filing does not constitute approval by the Department of Law.  Each Elements Massage® studio is independently owned and operated. Elements Massage® and The Elements Way® are registered trademarks of Elements Therapeutic Massage, LLC