When someone hears the words “massage gift certificate,” they might think of Mother’s Day gift baskets, stocking stuffers for the holidays, or pamper-my-loved-ones treats for special occasions.
No matter what image they have in mind, they all feel excitement and a desire to be the giver—or the recipient—of this gift.
When you own your own massage business, gift certificates are great business-building tools, and they create a great avenue to bring in new clients. It is also a pretty standard practice to offer gift certificates.
Quite honestly, most people just expect them to be part of your massage therapy business service.
However, offering the option to purchase a massage gift certificate from your business brings up several areas of consideration for you.
In fact, you may have to look into creating some new business options to implement selling gift certificates.
Regardless of how you approach this option, this needs to be a streamlined process for you to be successful.
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Selling Massage Gift Certificates
In today’s world, you will need to figure out how to be able to sell your certificates in two ways:
- In-office
If you share rental space that has a full-time receptionist, this option helps you substantially with in-office gift certificate sales.
- On-line
If you are not in a group office setting or have a secretary, you will need to look at ways to sell gift certificates on-line.
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Online Options: Provide Ease of Purchase
The most common issue with selling gift certificates as a massage therapist is that if you are self-employed you are typically not available in person to sell gift certificates to the general public when they want to purchase them. Leaving your room during sessions to sell is not a professional option.
How, then, do you go about creating the option for gift certificate sales when you are not available?
There are several affordable, single-person, office-management systems for massage therapists that handle on-line scheduling, notes, product sales and gift certificate sales all in one. This is most likely your best route to creating an on-line gift certificate sales option.
Most sites have the option for the purchaser to download a custom, printable gift certificate directly after the completed sale and some also allow the purchaser to request for you to mail a hard copy to them.
I already know what you are thinking. There is one thing I hear repeatedly from my on-line students and that is how they struggle with computer skills.
In this profession, since we are not required to use a computer to give a massage it is so easy to fall behind in the computer skills. Unfortunately, not keeping up to date with computer skills can put you at a disadvantage for the needs of your business.
It is more important than ever, especially if you want to be competitive in business, to use modern equipment and digital practices in a modern massage practice.
Setting up your company with on-line services is typically easier to do using a computer. Even utilizing a Facebook business page as a sales tool is more difficult because there are settings that are much harder to find when using only a device such as a phone or tablet.
If you have struggled in the past with figuring out how to set up on-line business options, it may be time to invest in a small laptop or a home computer to manage these types of business needs.
From the client’s perspective, click-to-buy options are the norm. Most people expect to be able to get online and purchase what they need in the comfort of their own home.
Some people do not want to make a special trip to your office to buy a massage gift certificate, especially if you are unavailable to assist them with that purchase when they are there.
Online options are becoming essential for any business but particularly for a sole proprietor-type massage therapy business if you wish to sell gift certificates.
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Printed Options: The Look and Feel of the Gift Certificate
The person buying the gift certificate wants this purchase to look like a gift. The gift certificate will be given to someone who is a potential client. You want to invoke a sense of trust in the person it was given to and how your sales piece looks can help or hinder that trust.
If you are using a printed gift certificate, this certificate needs to be a professional looking marketing piece. Print it on a heavier cardstock, and include your business card when you put it in an envelope.
Taking the time to create a sales piece that is an experience to receive and open up can increase the rate that someone schedules with you that first time.
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Discounted Vs. Bundled Services
A massage gift certificate is often bought for a holiday or special occasion. Because of this, customers will be looking for a sale, discount or incentive.
You have a couple of options for marketing here. A price discount is not your only option for increasing sales for gift certificates. This really becomes a matter of how you sell your service and what it says to the person reading your sales material.
Instead of just offering a discounted price for your regular massage service, look at bundling a regular service with a new service such as hot stones or aromatherapy, and offer a “Gift Certificate Special” that is the actual value or just slightly lower than what you normally price it for.
This pre-bundled option is the special, the incentive.
If you already offer massage at a specific rate and have a menu of option for the client to ask for add-ons, bundled options give clients or potential clients the opportunity to try out your other services.
This helps in the gift sales area but also gets your clients to try out new or different options that you offer to help increase your earning potential per session.
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Handling Money from Gift Certificate Transactions
One of the tools I teach in my business classes is what to do with money received from gift certificate sales.
The best thing to do is put that money into your business savings account and only withdraw it as the gift certificate is redeemed. After six to 12 months, if you have money left over from unredeemed gift certificates, then you can use that toward a business need you may have such as new sheets, updated office equipment or paying off debt.
However, when “extra” money gets deposited into your bank account from gift certificate sales and is left in your regular account, that money commonly gets spent as surplus when it actually is not.
The downside to handling your money this way is that when the gift certificate is finally redeemed, you have already spent your income from it. This means that at the end of the week, your take home wage is lower because the money received from that appointment was spent in advance.
The feeling you get is that you are working hard and not making enough money, struggling to make your budget for that month. The most common thing that therapists do is try to schedule even more massages to make up the difference which can result in fatigue, overuse syndromes, and injury.
As therapists, we are typically limited to a certain number of massages we can physically perform each week.
Make sure you handle these sales transactions in a way that supports you physically and financially.
Get Started Today!
With the holiday sales season just around the corner, today is a good day to start looking at new print and on-line options for selling gift certificates for your business.
It’s also the perfect time to freshen up your gift certificate sales piece and to start putting together your holiday marketing plan.
Thoughtful and well-planned-out marketing strategies, including massage gift certificate sales, are always the best way to run and manage your business for success.
About the Author:
Amy Radford, LMT, BCTMB, has been a massage therapist and educator for more than 22 years. She is the owner and developer of Pain Patterns and Solutions Seminars CE courses. She is a National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork-approved CE provider, and she has authored several books, including Finding Success for the Massage Therapist Who Wants to Succeed. She wrote “Build Trust With Your Massage Therapy Intake Form” for massagemag.com.
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