The Holidays are here and it is a great time to think about selling gift certificates and promoting your massage practice.
There are many templates and pre-made massage therapy gift certificates available or you can just make your own with word processing programs.
Each gift certificate should have on it a blank place for the name, amount of the gift certificate in hours and any expiration dates if they are allowed.
You should also set up a gift certificate page on your website and allow users to pay with paypal or google checkout and get their address to mail out gift certificates. I sold many gift certificates for my regular clients from out of town friends and relatives.
Gift certificates may or may not have expiration dates on them. Here is a list of the various states and their regulations regarding gift certificate expiration dates.
You will need a method for keeping track of the gift certificates you sell by either putting some sort of numbering system on them or just getting the persons name and keeping a list of them and who you sold certificates to.
You will also decide if you want to offer a special offer to encourage people to get them -like selling 3 and getting an half hour free, getting $10 off of each when you buy 5, or something. It isn’t necessary to do this. Some think it sells more. I sometimes think that offering such specials devalues our work.
The thing about selling gift certificates is that many do not get redeemed because the people who are giving them are usually trying to give them to people who are not regular massage people. Most give gifts to others that they would really rather have for themselves. I once had someone who came in to redeem a gift certificate who was so ornery and did not really want to be there and had never had a massage before. She didn’t want to fill out the intake form or do anything. It was only for a half hour massage. I got her on the table and she hardly said a word the whole time. At the end she was so very thankful.
I also had another person who got a gift certificate and he had never had a massage before. He brought a book with him to read while he was on the table ( I am not joking!) I am not sure if he enjoyed it or not but he never did come back.
Bosses will also get gift certificates for their employees. I had a guy one year who bought a few thousand dollars worth and gave about 5 each all to his employees. Some of those people never came in and they ended up buying them from each other. Most employees would rather have the cash at Christmas time unless they are already massage regulars.
There are those who do enjoy getting massage gift certificates.
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I want to thank you for the fabulous resource you provide! I had no idea that it was illegal to put an expiration date on a gift certificate in my state, and in fact, it never would have occurred to me to check!
I just wanted to say thanks for all the information, all the way from Wales, UK! It’s great that there’s a site that i can come to whenever i’m trying to find a new marketing plan, or wondering whats the best way to go about something. It really has been very helpful. Thanks again,
Tirza
Thanks very much!
And if you are going to invest in a website using Site Build it! Wait until a few weeks before Christmas when they have their buy one and get one free sale! You can keep both or give one away or spit it with someone.
Julie
Hey there thank you for all the information you put out there!!! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, I am about to start my own business and I have been reading all your information coming my way, I believe I am going to buy the website program you promote as well anyway thank you again