|
| |
| | | |
|
| MINIMUM GUIDELINES |
- What are your minimum guidelines to list a day spa, spa hotel, and destination spa?
- I host Home Spa Parties. Does that count as a day spa?
| | LISTING CONTENT | How often may I edit my listing?
- Essential changes, such as changing a telephone number, address, or URL, or eliminating a service you no longer offer, will be done as often as required.
- Your listings are intended to be static for the one year listing period.
- Listings are usually updated and refreshed each renewal period, but specific and non-essential modifications to refresh basic text overviews should be requested at the time the listing is renewed.
- Return to Top
How do I edit my member listing?
- For essential modifications, please use our contact form, and describe the modification required, including providing the desired text change. If the modification is approved, and, requires that we contact you or handle attachments, we'll respond via email as soon as
possible.
- There is no log-in which permits our members to self-edit our website content. We handle the editing ourselves for two reasons. First, you've paid us for a service, and we will render that service on your behalf, rather than collecting your fee and then requiring you to do the work, yourselves. Second, it permits us
to review and approve the text before it is published. We try to catch grammatical and spelling errors for you, and most importantly, we filter out banned words and our personal dislike -- superlatives. We won't permit our members to describe their massage therapists as "the best in the state" (unless there is a bonafide award to that effect, see "prohibited
content" below) or to add graphics which are not appropriate or relevant to the listing.
- Return to Top
Can you add my email address and fax number to my listing?
- We do not publish email links as we cannot control spam bots from harvesting the addresses from our site and bombarding you with junk mail. Further, many spam-bots "spoof" our address and make it appear as if we are sending the email, when we are not. The best defense is simply not to provide email address links.
- We no longer publish, and are in the process of removing, fax numbers. We've determined our readers don't use our directory to find fax numbers, which just decrease available word count. If we can add one more sentence of information about your spa, by taking away the fax number, it's to your benefit. If your
own website has a complete "contact us" page which makes it easy to reach you, by phone, fax, address, email, we think that's the best use of this information.
- Return to Top
Can I request a different font to match my website?
- All listings are prepared using Arial Sans Serif 10 to present a uniform appearance and ease in formatting throughout our site. The font color is either black or white, depending on the color scheme of the listing. We do not use custom fonts or colors for text, although, we sometimes can incorporate a font into
a logo if we are requested to create a logo (logo fee applies).
- Return to Top
Can I add additional locations?
- The general rule is one fee, one spa, one location.
- A single listing, with one fee, will reference one (1) location.
- If your day spa has multiple locations, and you are providing us with a Parent URL which lists multiple locations, you must list each of those locations, and group rate discount applies.
Can you make a logo for my spa?
- Yes. We will quote a nominal fee for basic logos and provide you with several samples for your review, upon request. We have access to talented designers, as well, and we are happy to make referrals on your behalf.
May I list my spa if I don't have a website? Can I use my Facebook page?
- Yes.
- We do strongly recommend you create, at a minimum, a single web page on a free web host/server so that your future clients have a means to click through and read basic information, and, to help them make a decision when choosing between your spa, and your competitor's spa. That said, many day spas do not yet have
websites, or do not wish to devote the time or resources to creating a website.
- We have created and published websites for Day Spas using various FREE WEBSITE programs. A one time webmaster fee of $250.00 applies (which is solely for our time in creating your site). The website itself is free, the hosting is free, and you will control and edit the content on your own, as often as you wish,
once it has been created.
- We have linked to MySpace and Facebook accounts, although we don't feel this is ideal.
- Return to Top
Can I list my Media and Press Awards?
- We may share some, but not all, "media awards" in your listing.
- We do not publish awards or content which are sponsored by certain primary competitors in the online spa directory market because our own awards and content are censored from those sites, and consequently, we must do the same.
- We do post MOST recognized mainstream media awards to your listing provided space is available, and, in our discretion.
- We will not reference any "award" unless there is a documented and dated source for the award.
- For instance, we will add "Voted Best Day Spa in NYC by Time Out Magazine, September 2011" but we will not add generic claims like "Reader's Choice", "Best in the City", "AAA Rated" or "5 Star" unless they are associated with recognized, published sources with judging criteria (e.g.,
Mobil, Zagat, etc), and then, we may elect not to do so, in our sole discretion.
- While we agree many of our spa members are indeed worthy of 5 stars, until we have personally verified this information, or have access to published judging criteria, we prefer not to use "puff phrases."
- What reasons may prevent us from listing a "Reader's Choice" type award?
- We do not typically list awards given by competing online spa directories or review sites. Our competitors specifically exclude reference to our reviews or awards on their sites, and we do not always list their reviews or awards on ours. Other reader review services, including Yelp and CitySearch, do not permit our
spa members to list awards or reviews from our site, and must respond in a similar fashion.
- We do not typically list awards which are more than three (3) years old *if* the award has been subsequently awarded to other facilities. For instance, we would not reference "Reader's Choice Best Day Spa in Miami 2003, 2004, 2005" on your listing, if the award was given to other facilities in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
It may suggest to our readers that while your spa facility used to be ranked a top spa, it has not been considered one for many subsequent years, and this is counter-productive to referencing the award in the first place. See below.
- Return to Top
What listing content is prohibited?
- We do not include or publish the following prohibited terms or information in a listing, graphic, or logo:
- Menu Prices. Many of our listings are published for more than a year, and service and program prices are adjusted on a more frequent basis. Adding prices would require an undue amount of updating and/or result in listings which are quickly out of date or misleading.
- Telephone numbers in a large font size or other "billboard looking" style incorporated into a logo.
- Animated Graphics or Banners. Exceptions will be made for very high quality, understated logos in our sole discretion. As of this date (2011) we only have one animated client logo on our entire website. We highly discourage animated graphics and banners.
- Certain Stock Photographs which are in wide use by spa owners and thus end up being overly repetitive on our website.
- Superlatives. "Best Massage in Town", "World Class" and similar self-judged superlatives. If mainstream media bestows that description -- terrific! Let us know.
- "Award Winning" without accompanying data (a reference to the award, year, and giver of the award) (see more detailed description, above).
- Sexually themed descriptions and/or obvious double entendres.
- Recreational Drug themed descriptions, e.g., "Get Stoned at the Hot Stone Spa."
- Poor quality or stolen graphics, graphics which are modified to give a false impression. or graphics which are misleading. For instance, we rejected graphics from a day spa in a shopping mall, which requested we post graphics of roman baths from a historic resort facility in Italy "because the bath water in Rome is
similar to ours."
- Multiple Internal Links.
- We will link to ONE link on your website -- your home page, or, in the case of a resort with a spa, to the spa page of a master website, if you prefer. We do not link to multiple categories, such as body treatment pages, skincare pages, massage pages, promotional pages, etc.
- Disparaging Remarks about competitors, e.g. "We are the only true spa in town, avoid going to our spa neighbor who has a lot of employee turnover." (This is an actual excerpt from a rejected application).
- Additional data or graphics we deem objectionable, of low quality, or off topic, in our sole discretion.
- Return to Top
| | ACCOUNT SERVICES |
- Minimum Listing Period
- All member listings on SpaIndex.com are for a minimum one-year (12 month) period.
- Lesser periods for "seasonal spa resorts" open a portion of the calendar year will be considered on a case-by-case basis, however, our listing fees are competitively priced and are intended for an annual period.
- We recommend you keep your listing published during closed seasonal periods, so that our readers may continue to click through and evaluate your property as a potential destination, when you are in-season.
- During your off-season, you are welcome to provide us with content to link to your spa facility. Consider some spa tips, or better yet, recipes for spa cuisine. Let our readers read your content and cook your healthy meals.
- Payment Plans
- All members listings are valued at a monthly rate (the "monthly rate") and invoiced on a quarterly basis (the "invoicing interval") each January, April, July, and October.
- Pro rata adjustments are made for members joining in the middle of a quarter.
- Members have the option to pre-pay a listing for the entire calendar year at a savings.
- Day Spa listings prepaid for 12 months are discounted by fifteen (15) percent.
- Stay Spa listings prepaid for 12 months are discounted by twenty (20) percent.
- Destination Spa listings prepaid for 12 months are discounted by twenty-five (25) percent.
- Payment Methods
- Credit Cards
- GoogleCheckout
- GoogleCheckout invoices will be generated for those members outside of the United States who do not have USA based credit cards
- PayPal
- USA-based members: PayPal accepted
- Members outside of the United States: PayPal accepted
- Checks
- First time / new members: Checks Not Accepted
- Renewing / recurring members: Checks Accepted from US Accounts
- Members outside of the United States: Checks Not Accepted
- Late Fees and Returned Check Charges
- If a member listing is published (visible to the public on the page of your choice), the member has been invoiced for a renewal, no cancellation has been received, and the invoice remains unpaid after 30 days, we reluctantly add a 1.5% monthly late fee for invoices remaining unpaid. Failure to remit payment when due does not constitute
cancellation, and fees and late charges will continue to accrue.
- If a check tendered by a member in payment of a listing fee is returned unpaid due to "insufficient funds" or other reasons, we reinvoice based on the following costs:
- Full Invoiced Amount
- PLUS $32.00 charge assessed by our banking institution
- PLUS $150.00 webmaster republication fee if the listing is removed, archived, and republished
- Cancellation
- If you receive an invoice to renew your listing, and you elect not to renew, email us at members (at) spaindex (dot) com and indicate the name of your facility, location, and your desire to terminate a listing.
- Failure to pay an invoice by the renewal date does NOT automatically cancel a listing. You are responsible for any fees due for any period post-expiration of your listing, until you inform us you do not wish to renew or, until we terminate the listing of our own accord.
- We do not give refunds except under rare circumstances. If you have sold your spa, closed your spa, or otherwise wish to remove your listing from our directory, you may do so at any time by contacting us. While a spa may elect not to renew, once listed, or may have a reason for terminating a listing, with one exception,
we do not rebate unused listing fees. The one exception would be on those rare instances when we elect to terminate a listing of our own accord for reasons other than violations of our terms of service. For instance, humanitarian reasons, our inability to service a particular property or region, or a professional courtesy for a long-time member who has
retired or sold a spa, or natural disasters in our sole discretion.
- Causes for Termination by SpaIndex.com
- Submitting a false positive review about your spa (falsifying a reader review)
- Submitting a false negative review about a competing spa (falsifying a reader review)
- Account issues (returned checks or consistently late payments)
- Inability to contact (changed phone number, changed address, bad email address, bad URL)
- Multiple complaints from readers which cannot be resolved with the spa
- Multiple complaints from the community (shuttering doors without notice, not honoring bonafide gift certificates, not honoring authorized SpaFlyer Offers)
- Activities outside of the law
- Activities outside of the accepted standards of care in the spa industry
- Inability to agree on listing content
- Providing false content for a listing
- Unreasonable requests for modifications to static listings
- Theft of content from competitors' websites
- Inappropriate website content
- Conviction of crimes affecting the public, particularly spa guests
- Group Rate Discounts and Policies
- Return to Top
|
| MEMBER BADGES |
|
|
| MEMBER PROMOTIONS |
- How do I list a spa package or special promotion I'm having at my spa?
- Stay Spa members (Inns, Hotels, Resorts and Destination Spas) may use our submission form to submit seasonal and holiday specials.
- Spa specials must be valid at least 90 days. Shorter periods will be considered for
Special Events (e.g., speakers, holiday weekends, theme weekends.)
- Please submit your specials with as much advance notice / lead time as possible, preferably
at least 30 days in advance so that we have time to update our website before the special begins.
- Day Spa member promotions are limited to SpaFlyer vouchers or Annual Open House type events. Seasonal or monthly specials are not listed for Day Spas.
- What promotions may I list?
- Seasonal spa specials of at least 90 days in duration, holiday events, open house events, and special speakers or presentations, rate cut specials, giveaways, and sweepstakes.
- The special, promotion, package, or event MUST have an associated spa component, such as:
- Discounted spa service
- Included spa service
- Health or Wellness Component
- Health or Wellness Event, Speaker, or Activity
- How do I get my resort spa special "featured" on your home page or in the site shared borders?
- Destination Spas
- Destination Spa members are entitled to one "featured" special on our home page, and one "featured special" on our site-wide shared border, each annual listing period. These features are generally run simultaneously, but we may elect to run them separately at two different times per year in our discretion, or
upon request if space is available.
- Additional specials may be featured in our sole discretion when space is available.
- Stay Spas (Inns, Hotels and Resorts)
- A featured spa presentation or featured special is quoted and paid separate and apart from the annual listing fee.
- How do I get my special event tweeted or blogged?
- We randomly tweet and blog spa specials from our collection of specials. The best or most popular specials are selected, but we generally get around to all of them in a calendar year. We may also tweet or blog a "group of specials" (e.g., Texas S pa Specials) and link to our entire page of specials for that
region, so that all members listed on that page benefit from the blog post or tweet.
- How do I get my SpaFlyer Voucher tweeted, blogged, or featured?
- SpaFlyer Vouchers offered by Day Spas or Stay Spas are automatically tweeted and/or rotated and shared throughout our website on a random schedule set by us. If your spa is offering a SpaFlyer voucher on our website, it will automatically be included in this schedule without request.
- Requests for a "bump" (new tweet or advancing in the schedule) will be considered for particularly valuable offers.
- Add us to your newsletter! We read them all and frequently cull specials from our members' newsletters and press releases without request. Add "members (at) spaindex (dot) com" to your email distribution list for any specials and promotions.
- Return to Top
|
| SPAFLYERS |
- What is a SpaFlyer Coupon or Voucher?
- A "coupon" or offer designed to be viewed, printed, and redeemed by our readers, at your spa, for discounted spa services or other benefits you offer. They are usually, but not always, directed to "First Time Guests" and thus, only redeemed ONCE per person or family.
- The minimum value is set at 15% day spas but you may specify terms and restrictions (i.e., days of the week, certain services excluded, etc).
- Current vouchers on our website for less than 15% exist due to a Grandfathering Clause which permitted long-time members to carry forward older vouchers of a lesser value. These vouchers will eventually be changed to our minimum value.
- The duration is equal to the listing period -- one year.
- The offer must be static (unchanged) during the valid period.
- The Voucher is not a gift certificate. You do NOT send the voucher to us. Keep it for your records. We take no commission, and pay no incentives associated with the voucher. You keep 100% of the income associated with the voucher, less the amount of the discount you authorized.
- You may have up to three (3) offers at any given time (we recommend they be for different types of services (skincare, body care, massage or other) -or- one offer for new/first time guests, and one offer for returning, loyal guests.
- I'm already a listed member. How can I add a SpaFlyer Offer?
- I'm already participating in a coupon program like Groupon and LivingSocial. Will you tweet or promote those?
- Why should I offer a SpaFlyer Voucher and how does it different from a gift card or a Groupon?
- There is no fee to associate a SpaFlyer Voucher with your listing -- it is one of the many tools we use to market and attract attention to your spa.
- Unlike gift cards sold by other spa directories, you pay us no commissions.
- Unlike Groupon and LivingSocial, you pay us no commissions.
- We market the offers aggressively on our family of websites, on Twitter, our blog, via email and RSS feeds, and via purchased ads (at our expense) on third party websites and search engines.
- Your listing will receive more exposure with a SpaFlyer coupon.
- There is no delayed income. You do not need to send us SpaFlyers in order to be paid for the services you've already provided to your guests.
- There is no "crush" of members redeeming SpaFlyers. Because they are valid through the annual listing period, expect a gentle and steady flow of new and returning guests, rather than a crush of coupon-purchases who all want to be serviced as soon as the "deal" has been completed, and
before you've been paid.
- Your guests download and print SpaFlyers at will. They do not "purchase" them and thus there is no issue with expiration dates for a previously-purchased product, lost gift cards, lost groupons and such. They can print the SpaFlyer anytime they wish, and, provided they redeem it within the
terms you specify, there is no "drama" created by lost, stolen, or missing vouchers.
- You can set the terms and restrictions necessary to most efficiently use SpaFlyer vouchers, provided those restrictions are within reason.
- How many SpaFlyers can I have?
- You may have up to 3 offers but remember, they must be valid for the entire listing period. You cannot change them randomly or seasonally. Make them interesting!
- While at least one offer must be for a minimum value of 15%, you may have others of lesser value. For that reason, it's considerate if you consider offering something for returning guests, as well.
- What if I need to delete or cancel a SpaFlyer?
- From time to time it becomes necessary to delete a SpaFlyer Offer. Staff members leave, the menu of treatments change, or economics make it difficult to continue to honor the Offers.
- We would prefer you not delete the offers if possible, because we market them aggressively, place them on third party websites, purchase advertising for them, and more. It's difficult and time-consuming to "pull them back" and "unpublish." It is far easier for us to change the offer to a new staff
person or to provide for a different type of service if the spa menu has changed.
- If you feel it is absolutely necessary to cancel the offer, please use our contact form and give us the details so we can assist you fairly and professionally, without jeopardizing your listing.
- We reserve the right to cancel both the SpaFlyer Offer and the Member Spa Directory listing if we feel the reason for cancellation of the SpaFlyer offer is capricious, insincere, not urgent, or in bad faith.
- Denial of service to a guest properly tendering a SpaFlyer Offer reflects poorly on our brand. We do not refund unused listing fees in this event, and, the spa is banned and may not relist at a later time.
- We also reserve the right to cancel the SpaFlyer Offer and the Member Spa Directory Listing if we feel the SpaFlyer Offer was not honored in good faith, or, we discover from a guest that a spa has turned away a guest attempting to redeem an authorized SpaFlyer coupon, or has "changed the terms" upon
presentation, or "bait and switched" the guest to a different service or different offer.
- Denial of service to a guest properly tendering a SpaFlyer Offer reflects poorly on our brand. We do not refund unused listing fees in this event, and, the spa is banned and may not relist at a later time.
- Return to Top
|
| CLICKS, TRAFFIC AND STATISTICS |
- What are my click-through statistics from my listing(s) on your website?
- We do not sell click-through campaigns or cost-per-click advertisements.
- Member listings on our website are a time-based directory product.
- We do not track individual clicks or link popularity on your behalf. We do not provide you with reports. We prefer to keep our listings competitively priced, by not diverting our budget to either the expense of sophisticated software to track individual listings (link popularity), or, the overhead associated with
paying our webmasters to generate and share reports with our more than 7000 members. It would essentially require full-time staff members to keep up with that degree of reporting, and, the information is usually available to our own members, at no cost, from their own website tools or marketing analysts.
- While we do track our most popular pages, search terms, unique visitors, and page views, we do so for our internal use.
- We will, however, use a unique click-through code which members provide to us, which enables members to track your inbound visitors from our site.
- We require our professional marketing clients and partners provide us with encoded URLs which generate reports on the receiving end, so that those clients and partners may compile their own productivity reports for analysis.
- Return to Top
|
|
CONTACT:
- What is your telephone number?
- We communicate via email whenever possible to keep a paper trail, and, because it permits multiple staff persons to read and respond as needed. Our staff is located throughout the United States and our phone service routes calls to one central message center. For that reason, callers will always get our voice
mail exchange, and not a live operator. As there is no time-savings to leaving a voicemail message over an email message, we prefer email. For those members who prefer to do so, you may leave telephone messages for us toll-free at 877-832-6169. Please understand telephone messages are seldom returned on the same day. EMAIL is faster!
- Mailing Address is Spa Index Media, LLC, 1511 M Sycamore, Suite 104, Hercules, CA 94547.
- FAX is 707-598-7653
- Return to Top
- Useful email addresses:
- Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer
- Kevin McClain
- Kevin (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- Executor Editor, Chief Operating Officer
- Kristina Fitzhugh
- Kristina (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- Membership Services, Assistant to Ms. Fitzhugh
- Karen Stanley
- Members (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- Social Media Specialist
- Sally Bradshaw
- Sally (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- Newsletter Marketing
- Gina Black
- Newsletter (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- Billing and Accounts
- Betty Woolever Black
- Billing (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
- IT Services
- Jack and Thom
- info (at) SpaIndex (dot) com
|
|
MEMBER BADGES |
|
TEXT LINK |
Member of SpaIndex.Com
Guide to day spas, stay spas, and wellness travel; Spa Specials, Coupons, Spa at Home tips and ideas, recipes, spa events, and more.
|
|
STANDARD MEMBER LOGO |
 |
The default link back is "www.spaindex.com", however, we recommend and encourage our members to link the press images / member icons back to the actual page where your spa listing appears, to increase the popularity of the actual page where the listing appears. Linking back to your specific geographic page will improve the search engine optimization, Google page rank, and Yahoo page rank, for that page, which in turn means more exposure for that page, and in turn your spa listing, in search engine results.
|
|
GREEN SPA MEMBER LOGO |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chateau Eza, a Luxury Boutique Spa Hotel on the Côte d'Azur, French Riviera |
|
|
|
Silverado Resort, with a 16,000 square foot luxury Roman-inspired Spa in
Napa, California |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
New Year, New You, New York. The Never Diet Again: Welcoming Weight Loss and Wellness at Mohonk Mountain House
2012 Dates: April 27-29 and November 2-4 |
|
|
|
Teens and Young Women’s Healthy Weight Loss Program. For teen and young women aged 17 to 27 years, grappling with the unique challenges that affect their age group. Green Mountain at Fox Run, Vermont. |
|
|
|
Change the Way You Think and You'll Change Your Life. Structure House of Durham, North Carolina, offers weight loss programs from 7 days to 28 days which provide a wealth of health information, nutrition education, activities, and tools to deal with the triggers causing overeating. SpaIndex readers save 20% off program costs. |
|
|
|
Go Off The Grid for one intensive week at a luxury bootcamp in California. Gain physical endurance, shed unwanted pounds, tone up and detoxify in a healthy and sustainable way at The Ranch at Live Oak, Malibu. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Paradise Point Scallops with Kumquat Glaze and Celeriac Puree |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SpaFlyer day spa coupons
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
