11 May
The beauty industry has always been a profitable one. Hair and beauty businesses are now seeing an increase in the men’s world as well. It is not anymore just the ladies who invest in good hairstyles and other beauty products. Since the demand is high, the competition is also at its peak in this business.
Salons need to have a strong marketing strategy to attract customers to their business. It is necessary to stand out among the other salons. In this article we go through marketing ideas that can boost the hair and beauty business, such as Loyalty Programs, Special Offers, Engagement via SMS, Referrals, Birthday treats, Social Media Promotions, making use of a robust customer relationship management system, etc.
Towards the end of this article, we also have a surprise testimonial of one of our customers’ who will share more about how they made use of these strategies to overcome the business downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Let’s get into the details of these:
1. Loyalty Program
The customers are the reason why the business runs successfully. Loyal clients are the ones you want to retain and therefore it is important to appreciate their loyalty. One great way of doing so is the loyalty program. Offer special discounts to the returning customers, inform them about new products before the official release, or hand out free merchandise on special occasions.
Know all about Consumer Loyalty programs here.
2. Special Offers
Right special offers at the right time can help increase the footfall dramatically. What you want to offer depends on your objective, and what results you want to achieve from these offers.
For example, if your objective is to get more return visits from your existing customers, you can run a member-only promotion. If your objective is to expand your customer base by acquiring more new customers, you can have a special one-time offer for new customers only.
You can play around with the special offers such as complimentary head massage, or facial, or 3 services at the price of 2. You can also offer a package that includes a haircut, pedicure, manicure, etc. During the off-peak times of the year, you can entice customers with special gifts or some extra hours of foot massage.
3. Engagement via SMS
It is a great technique to involve people in your promotional campaigns. Keep the customers notified about discounts, new products, new services, and other exciting offers via SMS. The response rate is close to 50% for SMS marketing which makes it an effective strategy even in the era of social media.
4. Refer a friend
This is an effective way to retain loyal customers and also gain new ones. Customers who refer their friends and family to your salon can be rewarded with some discounts or points that can be redeemed. When the reference comes from a close one, people trust and do visit the salon in most cases. Therefore, referral programs are a smart way to get new customers via your trusted customers.
5. Birthday Treat
The majority of the people tend to go for self-grooming on and around their birthdays. Just a simple birthday wish from you will keep your brand in their minds. This is an excellent chance to bring smiles to the faces of your loyal and loving customers. This way, the customers feel valued and return to the business.
If it’s trouble for you to manually keep track and send wishes, you can use a CRM system to automate the process.
6. Promote on Social Media
Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms are great for branding your business, and directly connecting with your customers. You can post information and pictures that your target audience would find appealing.
Social media is the best visual medium to showcase your work and makeover stories. Pictures engage 120% more than text-only posts. In today’s time, it’s a very high chance that your customers will visit your social media page before visiting your salon. Hence, treat your social media page as a mini-website, keep it updated and very engaging.
*Bonus Tip: You can create special offers for the customers visiting your social media page for the first time. You can link this offer to a QR code that the visitors can scan, and come down to your salon to redeem it. (You can thank us later)
Check out Advocado’s features to see how can you implement this.
7. Customer Relationship Management
For the beauty industry, it’s very important to know your customers and their choices of products and services. A good CRM system will help you record all your customer’s information and will tell you more about their likes and dislikes.
Imagine your precious customer walks in, and you greet them with their name. You know which treatment they did last time, and based on their choices you propose what can they do next. This will be so powerful, that your customer wouldn’t want to go away from you.
Case Study: 99Percent Hair Studio
We are very humbled to share the story and testimonial of our precious customer, 99Percent Hair Studio. When the government announced Circuit Breaker back in March 2020, all the hair and beauty salons were closed and out of operation. 99Percent hair studio made a very smart move by selling ‘Special Offers’ via Advocado.
This was a win-win for everyone:
- 99Percent Hair Studio’s Customers: They got pre-booked their beauty services with their favourite brand at discounted prices
- 99Percent Hair Studio’s Staff: They were happy as they made extra sales, despite the pandemic, and could provide for their families.
- 99Percent Hair Studio: Not only they were able to keep their staff meaningfully engaged during the Circuit Breaker, but they were fully booked as soon as the businesses were permitted to re-open.
This is a testimonial in their own words:
Conclusion
We understand that it gets overwhelming to run your salon business and keep up with the marketing and promotions at the same time. The key here is to delegate and automate. Most of the strategies shared above can be automated with the right technology and systems.
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