The main thing to understand when building your salon business is that you need to continuously work to attract new clients and keep current clients. The following tips will help you market your salon services correctly and effectively.
Help Clients Book Easily Online
You don't need to manage phone calls and book hairstyling clients the old-fashioned way. However, you’d be wise to minimize this time-intensive activity as much as possible. Use software that allows clients to easily book appointments without taking up any of your or your staff’s time.
Use Hair Holiday Promos
Stay on top of all holidays so you can focus your marketing efforts around them. Some specific holidays to pay attention to are:
- Mother's Day
- Valentine's Day
- New Year's Promos
- National Hair Extensions Day
- Hair Designer's Day
- National Blonde's Day
- Kiss a Brunette Day
Use these events to promote services such as:
- Texturizing
- All-natural hair smoothing
- Sugar hair removal
- Wedding upstyles
- Threading
- Ombre hair color
Set up a Selfie Station
In today’s social media age, you need to provide your clients a fun way to take advantage their social profiles. Set up a selfie station in your salon so clients can take pictures and post to social media in the midst of their initial excitement. This creates a swarm of social media activity and attracts new clients into your salon. Make sure your salon name, phone number and hashtags are in the background of each shot.
Get Your Salon Into the Review Sites
Most of your newest clients will come into your salon after searching online. The majority of local searches end up on Yelp. You should not only make your listing there a great one, but you should consider advertising, too.
Yelp for Business Owners always gives $300 in ad credits after claiming your free Yelp business profile. Use those advertising credits to advertise and pick up more clients from the posting.
Use Sponsorships
Embed yourself and your salon into the community. One great idea is to sponsor a local fashion show. See if you can exchange a brochure advertisement for your services. Call the local news and see if you can secure an interview spot to spur a public relations campaign for the event.
Use Paid Ads
Facebook ads are an excellent choice for a paid advertising campaign. One type of ad that’s especially effective is a Facebook Lead Ad. You can use a Lead Ad to target local prospects and capture their names and email addresses. Use these ads to provide a large discount on a specific service. You’ll generate immediate foot traffic into your salon. You can also market to all these ad-generated leads long term because you have their email addresses.
Give Clients a Birthday Discount
Make use of collected email addresses and send out an automated campaign that offers a birthday discount. This requires thinking ahead to request client birthdays when they sign up for email communications with you. Your email software should allow you to automatically send clients their discount when their birthdays roll around. Who doesn’t want to come in and look beautiful on their birthday?
Establish a Referral Program
You need referrals to continue expanding your reach. Why not give your clients a bonus for helping you out in this way? Shoot them a note when they refer a friend and give them $10 or $15 off their next visit.
Use the above tips to market your salon the right way.
