Payment for Baby Massage

[FireFly Angel]

I qualified as a baby massage instructor about 4 years ago, and I get referals from the local health visitor, who does like a short taster session with new Mums at about 4 months. It's just amazed me over the past 4 years that I've really struggled to get parents to pay for this tution and I am lucky if I can charge £5. People just don't want to pay, and I wondered what experiences other therapists have had? There has been a couple of therepists in my area doing it for free, so I've heard! How can I competite with that?


I was thinking of doing a course in baby reflexology in the next couple of years, but I see therapists charge parents £60 for 3 sessions.

I love doing baby massage in small groups or with indiviuals, any advice would be gratefully received.

Ta.

FireFly Angel

[Paul Crick]

offer to massage the baby for free if the parent pays you for their own massage ;-)

[Sarah7]

How about doing a taster at a pre-natal/NCT/Bumps & Babies type meeting? You can then give out your details and say you are taking bookings there and then. Explain fully the benefits to mother, father and baby, make them really believe that it's of huge benefit to them all and explain how popular your sessions are (expand the truth a bit!). My friend goes to a group once a week and is happy to pay.

[BumpandBeyond]

I get most of my business from prenatal yoga classes. I rent the yoga studio and do demos for the mums pre birth. I also put posters anywhere I can and I know a few of the public health nurses in my area which helps.

Are there any yoga studios near you? As Sarah7 mentioned are there any Bumps and Babies groups near you.

I'm very lucky and sometimes can have two 4 week courses on the go - I only take 4 mums per class and I charge 100 euros which the mums can claim back fully from their insurance. I don't make a fortune, but I make enough to cover my rent and get my supplies. I know I'd make more money if I took in more mums but I've only be a CIMI for a year and still don't feel experienced enough to manage bigger classes.

[lsmorgan]

Get involved with your local NCT antenatal teachers. I don't teach BM where I live now as all the local health visitors already offer classes for free at the baby clinics, so it wouldn't be worth my while. But when I was in London, I taught regular classes by working in a complementary therapy clinic and by giving a stack of flyers to the local NCT teachers to give to the people in their classes (antenatal teachers give out all sorts of leaflets so I doubt they'll mind doing this for you). Because they're already paying for the antenatal classes they're happy to pay for the BM classes too.

One thing I never did though was let them pay on a class by class basis. I charged £50 for a 6 week course of one hour classes. I found that when I charged them per class, they were more likely to miss classes, whereas when I got them to pay the lot in advance of the first class, people were more likely to come to the whole course.

Hope that helps
Lynne

[mrsjkn]

As a mum (and therapist) I think the problem with charging is when on maternity leave you really dont have much spare cash and there are so many free activities to do with babies.
I did massage classes with both my babies when they were 4-6 months old, these were free and run by local Health Visitors. If your local NHS runs them then I dont think you will get many parents to pay for classes.

[maychang]

target the yummy mummies, the ones that have disposable income.
Write free articles for the NCT magazines with your contact details at the bottom.
Offer free talks/demos at your local parentcraft lessons.

I offer private one to ones as I gave up a long time ago at arranging group sessions, as I am now in competition with the local health centres that supply them for free.

I know certain mums would rather have their own session than attend a sure start or health visitor run class.

Think of your marketing and go for high end.

[urbankneads]

Hi I agree with Maychang I have been running baby massage (and baby yoga) classes for 5 years and until recently the local health centres also offered free massage classes.

It's true that some mums would rather pay than go to something free. I also found the health centres only took babies under 12 weeks old so if the mums missed that they missed out. The classes were also just for first time mums so second time around mums didn't get to go.

I found there were still enough mums to come for me to run 2 -3 massage sessions a week and up to 4 yoga sessions (in one area, I just work out of one centre). As the others have said, get the mums to book for a course of sessions rather than per class.

If you create value people will be happy to pay. I had people come from all over, not just the local area as they wanted their baby to benefit. Make sure you emphasise you are a relaxed, friendly, non-judgmental class as that means a lot to new parents. Remember mums are coming along to meet other new mums and for their own benefit too.

I made my website a real resource for parents and babies local to me and I think that really helped too. Good luck and make sure you charge your worth!