Local Marketing and Referral Programs for Massage Envy
Rebuilding a franchise location’s team and bookings after a competitor took both
TL;DR
- Problem
- A competitor had taken most of the franchise’s staff and customers.
- What we did
- We rebuilt the team through local recruiting, brought customers back with referrals and search ads, and tracked progress in weekly dashboards.
- Result
- In six months the team grew from one employee to 25 and revenue returned to 80% of its prior level.
- Industry
- Wellness franchise
- Timeline
- Six months
- Engagement
- Prior in-house work at Massage Envy
- Tools & channels
- Search adsCompetitor conquest adsReferral cardsBooking dashboards
1 to 25
Team rebuilt
80%
Prior revenue restored
The location needed staff and customers back
A competitor poached most of the franchise’s therapists and many of its clients. Filling the calendar wouldn’t help without people to serve the appointments, so the location had to rebuild staff and demand at the same time.
Rebuild capacity alongside local demand
A small local team recruited therapists and built relationships with nearby communities. A referral program rewarded customers for bringing in new clients, using therapists’ business cards as a personal touch, and search ads, including ads shown on searches for the competitor, reached people already looking.
Weekly dashboards built from booking exports showed service hours, upsell and re-engagement opportunities, so the owner could see where to focus.
Four parts of the recovery
- 01
Recruit locally
Rebuild the therapist team through local outreach and relationships with nearby communities.
- 02
Customer referrals
Reward customers for bringing in new clients, with therapists’ business cards as a personal touch.
- 03
Search and conquest ads
Reach regional searchers, including people searching for the competitor.
- 04
Weekly dashboards
Turn booking exports into views of service hours, upsell and re-engagement opportunities.
Capacity and demand recovered together
Recruiting rebuilt the capacity to serve bookings while referrals and search brought demand back, and the dashboards kept both in view. Neither half would have worked alone: ads without therapists would have produced appointments the location couldn’t keep.
How to read these numbers
The recovery combined recruiting, training, referrals, paid search and operational reporting, so it can’t be attributed to any single channel. Figures come from a historical franchise report.
Services used:Customer referral programs
