BABY MASSAGE How to advertise?

[leasianna]

Hi all,
I recently qualified as a baby massage instructor. I'm itching to get started and have booked out my first venue for the course. Problem.....I only have one person booked on the course so far, and I need at least 2 to cover expenses. What do I do? Where do I advertise? Any baby massage instructors out there????? Want to share your tips and advice? Is it possible for me to run around 3 classes a week or is that just unrealistic? I need some advice please. Thanks.
Lea

[Angelic Light]

How about advertising at mother and baby groups, breastfeeding support groups, doctors surgeries, local supermarkets, newsagents and any other place that mums or dads go with their babies? I would have suggested baby clinics too, but at our baby clinic, some of the Health Visitors are trained in baby massage and do classes for mums. Although maybe where you stay, this may not be the case.... I am waiting to hear from my HV about starting a baby massage class. Cant wait, it should be fun... I already massage my 6 month old, but it will be nice to learn some professional strokes.

Good luck with your classes xxxxxxxx

[poppyfields]

I did a lot of baby massage classes between 2000 and 2005, it has now died a death because all the health visitors, midwives and sure start are training their staff up and of course, people get their classes for free.

I used to put ads in the surgery (my local one was great for that) and all the local chemists. in some of the surgeries that wouldn't display a poster I made up some information booklets and asked if they would keep them, which most of them did.
Local spars/corner shops too.

I found it very time consuming arranging people, as you have to pay for the room rental and some pay otherwise its not worth doing.

One thing that I did too was try and encourage the people who have booked on to arrange the classes with other mums in their own homes. you then save a lot on room hire and they hostess tends to provide tea/coffee. You can then pick your equipment up and leave them to having a nice chin wag.

I'll pm you my old website address that I spent ages on when I first started out. It features a diary of a baby massage course.

If you have any other questions please fire away. I still do the baby massage but on a 1 to 1 basis where they come to my therapy rooms for tuition.

[**TJG**]

Hi
I have just spoken to my local community centre and they are putting an ad in our local guardian newspaper of me advertising and it is free!! I have a poster from www.touchneeds.com really cheap you can get either colour or black and white A3 size. I photocopied it and put details on the poster - and they community centre have given me a date and a time slot from 10 - 11am and they are going to drum up some business for me. So I do not have to do anything until the class starts and I have asked for a minumu of 7 mums. This covers the hire of the room - £7 for the hour and if they want to get coffees and tea there is a small kitchen - and I have offered a small tub of massage oil in with the price. Total classes 4 = £2 per person. So that is 7 x £20 = £140 for 4 hours!! I only live 1 mile from the venue.

My tip - get the community centre or similar to put a poster up and use their name and number for mums and dads etc to call them so they take on the work for you. They offered to do it for me so I dont feel so guilty them doing it. They are benefitting from me paying for the room and also the mums paying for snacks and using other facilities there. I am even allowed to promote it by coming to the baby weigh in sessions and toddler groups - how kind and I am very lucky - I appreciate not all areas are like this but if you scout around you will find something - and word will get around.

My other tip - get the group gathered together for a registration and then they can pay up front then if they do not turn up due to illness etc you have not missed out and at least you can pay for the room you have booked.

Dont forget to speak to a local paper or radio station and offer say 5 sessions free to the first 5 viewers/readers/listeners....word will spread that way.

Best of luck x

[Patchouli]

Originally Posted by daisychain

I did a lot of baby massage classes between 2000 and 2005, it has now died a death because all the health visitors, midwives and sure start are training their staff up and of course, people get their classes for free.

I used to put ads in the surgery (my local one was great for that) and all the local chemists. in some of the surgeries that wouldn't display a poster I made up some information booklets and asked if they would keep them, which most of them did.
Local spars/corner shops too.

I found it very time consuming arranging people, as you have to pay for the room rental and some pay otherwise its not worth doing.

One thing that I did too was try and encourage the people who have booked on to arrange the classes with other mums in their own homes. you then save a lot on room hire and they hostess tends to provide tea/coffee. You can then pick your equipment up and leave them to having a nice chin wag.

I'll pm you my old website address that I spent ages on when I first started out. It features a diary of a baby massage course.

If you have any other questions please fire away. I still do the baby massage but on a 1 to 1 basis where they come to my therapy rooms for tuition.

What happened to Daisy re health visitors etc also happened to me.

I contacted our local hv to ask her to let young mums know I was about only for the hv to do the exact same course as me 10 month later and she has direct access to the young mums.....so....no more baby massage for me