Over 700 of you completed the BABTAC Annual Members' Survey this year - the largest response ever! We're busy working through each answer to every question, and we'll publish the results in the January/February 2017 issue of Vitality magazine and right here on our blog.
In the meantime here's a selection of your questions and requests from this year's survey, along with answers.
To jump straight to the answer for a specific question, just click on the title in the list below
Benefits & awards
- I didn’t know what benefits I received as part of my BABTAC membership, or where to find out more about them
- Benefits could be more varied
- I didn’t know I could enter the awards
Business advice, marketing & promotion
- Help & advice for mobile/home therapists & business tips in Vitality magazine
- Advice for people who want to start their own business
- Advice on sourcing new clients
- More promotional material to let people know you’re insured with BABTAC
- Logo for promotion
Vitality
Renewal reminder, further education & trade shows
- A reminder that I need to renew
- More education at all levels
- A beauty show at the NEC rather than Manchester
I didn’t know what benefits I received as part of my BABTAC membership, or where to find out more about them
Website
You can find details about the variety of benefits available to BABTAC members in the following locations on our website:
BABTAC Benefits |
Renew with BABTAC |
Join BABTAC |
Insurance |
You can access all these pages without even signing in to your account!
If you sign in to your account on Babtac.com, you’ll find further information about benefits, from discounts on products and services, to marketing advice and business tools, in the following locations:
We send a bi-monthly email newsletter to all BABTAC members who have given permission to be contacted via email. The content of this newsletter varies, but generally contains the latest industry and BABTAC news, details of your available benefits, and exclusive partner discounts and special offers. We also send exclusive special offer emails on behalf of our suppliers directly to members who have given permission to be contacted via email.
Not receiving our emails? Check your junk folder and make sure that you have opted in to receive email communication from us. You can do this by signing in to your account on Babtac.com, clicking on your name in the top right hand corner, and checking your ‘Opt out of direct marketing?’ status on the right hand side below your membership details. Alternatively, call our membership team on 01452 623110 and they can sort this out for you!
Paperwork
When you join BABTAC you will receive a Welcome Pack in the post which contains (amongst other important documents, including your Terms of Business, Good Practice Guide and certificate) a letter confirming your membership and letting you know that ‘Being part of the family means so much more than just market leading insurance!’
On this letter you’ll find details of ‘Other membership benefits’ included in your membership fee, which include:
- Bi-monthly copies of Vitality magazine (a copy of which will also be included in your Welcome Pack)
- The opportunity to enter the annual BABTAC & CIBTAC awards for free
- Access to a range of member-only benefits, details of which can be found here: Benefits by BABTAC
- Industry advice on Babtac.com
Benefits could be more varied
To celebrate BABTAC & CIBTAC's 40th anniversary in 2017 we'll be revealing a selection of fantastic new benefits exclusively for BABTAC members. Keep an eye out for more on this coming soon...
For the time being you can take advantage of a wide range of benefits as part of your membership, including:
Discounts on:
- Gym membership at over 2,000 locations across the UK
- New and used cars, including Vauxhall, Fiat and Mercedes-Benz
- Top UK attractions, including Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures
- Apple products, including iPhones and iPads
- Restaurants across the UK
- Cinema tickets
- Eye care at Vision Express
- Holidays, cruises, hotels, flights and airport parking
- Home insurance, life insurance, medical insurance, travel insurance and income protection
- Legal advice, financial advice and advice on self-employed tax returns
Business tips & promotion:
You can advertise your business for free in our 'Locate your nearest BABTAC salon' finder on our website. To list your business, call our membership team on 01452 623110.
You'll find a range of articles in your free copy of Vitality magazine (worth £30 per year) helping you to promote and run your business, increase your clientele and expand your offering. For a list of recent articles, click here.
BABTAC members can enter the illustrious annual BABTAC & CIBTAC awards free of charge. Entering the awards is a great way to promote yourself to clients. To find out more, visit our Awards page.
One BABTAC member specifically asked for discounts on gym membership and Sea Life centres. These are already included in your BABTAC member benefits, see here for details of gym membership discount and here for details of Sea Life discount!
I didn’t know I could enter the awards
The annual BABTAC & CIBTAC awards are open to all BABTAC members and CIBTAC centres to enter free of charge!
You’ll find more about the awards here, along with further details under the ‘Awards’ tab on our website.
A reminder that I need to renew
When your membership is due for renewal we will remind you with a letter sent to the address you provided to us when you joined/renewed.
This year we have also implemented a renewal reminder email programme, which will send you an email reminding you that your membership is due for renewal soon and explaining how you can renew. If you’ve not received this email this may be because:
- Your membership isn’t yet due for renewal
- You haven’t provided an email address
- The email address we have on file for you is invalid
- You have asked not to receive email communication from us, either by opting out when joining BABTAC, or by changing the ‘Opt out of direct marketing?’ status on your account on Babtac.com. Click here to find out how to change this.
- You have asked us to stop sending you emails by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe from this email’ link at the bottom of each email we send, or marking our emails as ‘Junk’
We have also recently implemented a telephone renewal reminder programme. If you are due for renewal, one of our membership team will contact you via telephone to remind you and ask you if you would like to renew over the phone. If you’ve not received a telephone call to remind you that your membership is due for renewal this may be because:
- Your membership isn’t yet due for renewal
- The contact number we have on file for you is invalid
- We could not reach you via telephone (you were not available or did not answer)
- Our membership advisors were experiencing an unusually high volume of incoming calls from members so we were unable to make outgoing renewal reminder calls
Remember: Even if you didn’t receive an email or a telephone reminder, we always post a reminder letter to you, so make sure your contact details are up to date and accurate. Check them by signing in to your account on Babtac.com or call our membership team on 01452 623110
Help & advice for mobile/home therapists & business tips in Vitality
Vitality
Each issue of Vitality magazine features a business section with a range of advice, tips and help for businesses of all sizes. Some of these articles may be more applicable to mobile therapists than larger salons, and vice versa, however we aim to offer a broad range of advice to help with businesses of all sizes.
Here is a selection from 2016:
- Nail trends and how you can market them to increase your clientele (p.48)
- Marketing tips and advice (p.51)
- Help and advice on expanding, selling or buying a business (p.56)
- How the living wage affects salons (p.60)
- Make-up treatments and how you can market them to increase your clientele (p.41)
- Setting up in business (p.51)
- Content marketing and how you can make the most of it to promote your business (p.54)
- Compliance advice from Balens (p.57)
- Income protection (p.62)
- Waxing treatments and how you can market them to increase your clientele (p.50)
- Updating your website to boost your business and make the most of your online space (p.53)
- Compliance advice on patch testing (p.56)
- Setting up in business – the importance of market research (p.59)
- Massage treatments and how you can market them to increase your clientele (p.49)
- Beating the stereotypes associated with being a mobile therapist or small salon (p.52)
- Compliance advice regarding consent for minors (p.56)
- Setting up in business – how to create a business plan (p.59)
- Marketing your business in the festive season (p.45)
- Setting up in business – developing relationships with suppliers (p.53)
- Compliance advice regarding treating patients with cancer (p.58)
- Creating a digital presence on a budget (part of the cover feature ‘Beauty in the Digital Era’ (p.41)
Blog
You’ll also find a tips, help and advice on a range of topics, from how to use social media to promote your business to how to stand out from the competition, right here on our blog!
Website
For further tips, help and advice on marketing your business, see the Marketing Advice section of our website, or the Business Tools section for some handy free templates!
I’d like a digital copy of Vitality magazine
You can access a digital copy of Vitality magazine (as well as a variety of past issues) right here on our website!
If you no longer wish to receive a physical copy of Vitality sent to you via post, just let us know by changing your ‘Receive Vitality Magazine?’ status, which can be found by logging in to your account on Babtac.com. Click here to find out how to do this. Alternatively, call our membership team on 01452 623110 and let them know you no longer wish to receive Vitality in the post.
Advice on sourcing new clients
We want to help you to be as successful as possible, that’s why we feature a range of tips, help and advice on marketing and running your business and increasing your clientele in each issue of Vitality magazine.
For a list of where to find these articles in each Vitality issue, click here!
You’ll also find a variety of helpful blog posts on our website, along with Marketing Advice and Business Tools.
Advice for people who want to start their own business
Throughout this year we have run a ‘Setting up in business’ feature in Vitality magazine. You can find a digital copy of each past issue here, and here’s a list of where you can find each feature in each issue:
- Mar/Apr - Setting up in business (p.51)
- May/Jun - Setting up in business – the importance of market research (p.59)
- Jul/Aug - Setting up in business – how to create a business plan (p.59)
- Sep/Oct - Setting up in business – developing relationships with suppliers (p.53)
More education at all levels
BABTAC encourages members to continue to expand their skills, knowledge and experience within the industry and to choose high-quality, approved training providers for their education.
We provide a list of training dates in each issue of Vitality magazine, as well as in the Accreditation section on our website.
You can also find beauty training courses and centres near you by using our dedicated Find Beauty Training website.
Our sister organisation CIBTAC (Confederation of International Beauty Therapy & Cosmetology) has over 140 training centres internationally, including four in the UK, which provide a range of industry qualifications from levels 2-4. The new CIBTAC website is currently under construction, but you can still access the current CIBTAC website for further information on available courses.
More promotional material to let people know you’re insured with BABTAC 
When you join BABTAC you will receive a BABTAC badge to wear on your uniform, a ‘Qualified, Verified & Insured’ window sticker and an A4 certificate to proudly display to your clients.
We also allow members to use the BABTAC logo to promote themselves and their business online or in print. You can download the logo at the bottom of the Marketing Advice page on our website.
Members feature each month in Vitality – one page with lots of little stories about what members have been doing
Every issue of Vitality features a ‘Members News’ section, a ‘Your Say’ section and an ‘I Believe In’ section, which contain stories, updates, news and product reviews from BABTAC members. Each issue we ask our members to write to us with information for a chance to be featured in the next issue.
We also send an email out to all our members who have opted in to receive email communication from us asking for your say on a range of topics, from industry news to your favourite products.
If you’d like to feature in the next issue of Vitality magazine, or have a topic you want us to discuss, email us at vitality@babtac.com, Tweet us @BABTAC, Facebook us /BABTACofficial or call us on 01452 623110 (option 4 for Vitality).
Logo for promotion
We allow members to use the BABTAC logo to promote themselves and their business online or in print. You can download the logo at the bottom of our Marketing Advice page.
A beauty show at the NEC rather than Manchester
To see what beauty shows are taking place at the NEC, see the NEC website.