It isn’t easy starting a business. Large investments of money and time are required, along with your opportunity cost of potentially working elsewhere. New challenges, fickle customers, and crowded markets must be dealt with every day, and this daily grind requires the right planning along with steady execution.
We here at Signpost have dedicated ourselves to doing everything we can to help your salon be successful through effective and simple marketing. We understand what your top priorities are, and that is why we want to help make your marketing effective and simple, through providing you with the only marketing platform that all small businesses need. Don’t you believe us? Keeping reading to learn more about the culture of our company and how we are always fighting for Small Businesses in everything we do.
If you are involved in the beauty industry then you soon discover that it isn’t easy promoting your salon. Whether you happen to be a tanning salon, hair salon or beauty salon, it is critical that you maximize your marketing efforts both offline and online in order to stay ahead of the competition. To get started, just follow our simple steps below for effectively promoting your salon.
Get Found
The first thing you need is to ensure that your business can be found by customers. To make that happen, do the following.
Build a Website: Begin with the basics. When a prospective customer is looking online for a salon that is located in your local area, and you don’t have a website for your business, then you are in a deep hole already. You should have a visually appealing website that provides relevant and current information including contacting information, locations, images, and prices. As an added bonus, include special keywords so that your website will rank higher in the search engine results than your competitors.
Get Your Business Listed In Web Directors: After your website is set up, make sure to list your business in all of the leading directories, including Mapquest, Yellow Pages, Bing, Yahoo, Yelp and more. Since you have created a website already, you will be able to link back to it so consumers can check out your website and see how great you are. When you list your business in the directors it also helps consumers find your business through other avenues and can help your website rank higher in the search results as well. As an added bonus, become a verified merchant and include enhanced content on as many directory sites as you can.
Get Social Media Business Pages Created: Social media is fun to play with, but it can be a very valuable business tool as well. Being with the main three: Google+, Twitter and Facebook, and then move on to Tumblr and Instagram after you have the first three mastered. Social media can help you reach a huge untapped pool of prospective customers and help you connect with them better in the future. As an added bonus, your QR Code or URL can be included on your business flyers and cards or signs inside of your store, so that everybody knows where you are available online.
Locate Local Allies: After your web strategy is complete, go search for some local allies and team up with them, such as the nearby gym. Are you searching for a fantastic new look this summer? Nothing beats a brand new haircut to go with your new beach body. How about a full body, 60-minute massage after your intense workout? Keep flyers and business cards at the local gym and let them do the same thing at your salon for cross promotions. As an added bonus, place a call-to-action on all of your flyers, to ensure that people take advantage of what you are offering.
Obtain Customers
The next thing that you need to do is convert prospective customers into paid ones. Here is what you can do to turn window shoppers into brand new paying customers for your salon.
Use Call-To-Actions: Web directories, your business website, Facebook page, flyers, handouts and local newspapers – wherever your business can be features should have a call-to-action included. A call-to-action can range from a small discount on the customer’s next visit to a cut-out coupon or “call today for your free consultation!” Having small offers is a great way to make your business stand out from the competition and also ensure that potential customers are converted into paid ones. As an added bonus, provide an extra incentive for referring family and friends.
Run a Daily Deal Promotion: If you are searching for faster traction to promote your salon, how about trying out a daily deal? A Daily Deal is when you partner with another website to promote your offer on a larger scale. You need to offer higher discounts than your other small incentives since customers will pay for your deal on the spot. However, it should be worth the investment when you start to see your business boom. If you don’t want to partner with anyone, you could run your own daily deal, through your social media pages, website and email list.
Run a Raffle or Contest: Now that your social media pages and website are set up, it will be easy for you to run competitions, raffles, or contests for free swag. That will let you engage with your existing customers and broaden your customer base as well. Encourage those that follow you already to share your competition with all of their followers and friends by providing them with an incentive such as an extra entry into your raffle or 20% off on their next visit. As an added bonus, collect all of the email addresses from your submissions so they can be re-marketed to later on.
Leverage Word-of-Mouth: You can encourage word-of-mouth not only through social media and contests but also incentivize your current customers to bring in their friends and family by offering them with a referral discount. You could offer a free service to anyone how brings a friend in. That will make your current customers happy, and grow your business at the same time. You don’t have to be the only one who promotes your salon – your customers can help promote it too!
Get Repeat Customers
Salon marketing is not just for getting new clients; it is also important that your salon is promoted to your existing customers also according to Dore Aesthetics. It is nice when customers come into your salon once, but generating repeat business is key to growing your business over the long run.
Email Marketing: Email is the most effective way to keep in touch with your current customers. Everybody has an email address and nearly everybody checks their email every day. In order to effectively promote your salon, make sure to create a strong subject line using eye-catching words such as “limited time offer” and “sale.” Be sure to collect emails each time somebody steps inside your salon, and also ensure that you will be able to re-market to them in the future. As an added bonus, an email client such as MailChimp can be used for managing your email list and measuring the success of your campaigns.
Social Media: Although Email Marketing is excellent for one-way messages, for two-way conversations with customers, Social Media is perfect. Post relevant content such as testimonials, news updates, videos, and pictures and also be sure to always respond to customer comments. As an added bonus, track your metrics on social media to see the growth of your pages and what customers are interacting with the most.
Text Message Marketing: Also called SMS Marketing – is probably the most underrated of all marketing methods. Texting makes things easy yet effective, and you can have coupons appear directly in the pockets of your customers. You just need to collect your customers’ cell phone numbers when they come in and let them know you just use it to send special offers out. As an added bonus, you can send out a second offer to give to a friend in order to jumpstart your marketing campaigns.
Get A Blog Started: You can use a blog to help promote your salon. It can help you keep in touch with your customers and also help to increase your search result rankings. Post relevant and fun articles such as beauty and health tips, new services, or interesting success stories and fun testimonials. As an added bonus, your blog posts can be shared on your social media accounts and you can also encourage your followers to share them to spread them even further.
Effective salon marketing requires you to have a detailed plan and then to rigorously execute that plan. You are falling behind if you aren’t moving forward. The most important thing that you need to keep in mind is there is lots of competition, so you need to make sure that you always provide customers a good reason to try out your business and lots of ore reasons for them to keep returning. If you are able to create a welcoming in-store culture where your business feels more like home, then customers will look forward to returning!