Salon Marketing.
Marketing is the process by which salons advertise their services to potential clients. It is an integrated process through which salons create value for clients and build strong client relationships in order to capture a financial reward from clients in return.
Salon Marketing is used to create the client, satisfy the client and to keep the client . With the client as the focus of salon activities it can be concluded that salon marketing management is one of the major components of salon business management.
Without wanting to confuse matters Salon Marketing is harder today then ever before due to increased competition from a larger number of high grade cut-and-blow salons because the shampoo and set brigade has evolved out of our society and switched to cut-and-blow.
However, due to the way that society and technology has evolved the "process" of Salon Marketing is easier today than ever before for those salons who are lucky enough to understand why and there are huge rewards waiting for those salons who know how to leverage this knowledge and take action.
Online Salon Marketing
Traditional Salon Marketing (advertising) is generally intrusive and impersonal with promotional messages being imposed largely on an audience who is not interested and does not care about you or your salon.
Conversely online Salon Marketing focuses on an audience of "evolved" consumers whom are actively searching for your service in your area, so all you need to do is be found by them and then communicate with them.
The glory days of the yellow pages, direct junk mail and newspaper advertising are fast disappearing because both consumers and advertisers are switching to online marketing methods including,
websites, email marketing and social networking.
Salons who are not already deeply involved in Online Salon Marketing because they don't know how or don't have a dynamic website capable of supporting Online Salon Marketing or because they still rely on traditional Salon Marketing methods now is the time to review your salon business development plan because you really do have to be in-it-to-win-it.
Client Retention
What's your client retention like? Has it altered lately? If your client list is growing and if your client retention is getting better then I'll bet that you're leveraging your client email database and taking full advantage of Salon Website and Salon Email Marketing.
Consumers (your clients) have evolved and so have the methods we use to communicate with them and this evolution is a good thing because it has the potential to reduce Salon Marketing costs and increase the return on Salon Marketing investment.
Consumers have also changed the way that they shop for and research products and services, instead of picking up the local paper or the yellow pages they type phrases like "hairdresser in hornchurch" into Google and more clients than you think are doing this and divorcing their usual salon as they find great offers online.
Client retention has taken a beating from a great many salons because they are not frequently communicating with their clients outside of their normal salon visit; and increasingly this will cost those salon dearly.
New Client Attraction
A good website optimised to deliver local "search traffic" is a veritable new client magnet and will return a high proportion of viable website visitors who have been searching online for salon services in your locality.
Providing that the website is is of high quality as explained here in Salon Website Goals, the website will collect a steady stream of new client prospect details for you to follow up on. ALSO many visitors will become immediate clients as they take advantage of your new client promotions and your multiple calls-to-action.
When the consumer types "hairdresser in bradford" into Google, they are possibly just doodling to see what is available however when they find a website that says something like "register to win a luxury cut and colour" or register and receive a free £20.00 voucher off your first service, they register hoping to win the freebie.
Once the salon has collected that consumers name and email address they receive periodic Marketing emails offering enticements. Clients often leave their normal salon when they receive a worthwhile offer.
Client Satisfaction and Loyalty
Salon Email Marketing is also used to satisfy existing clients and to keep them loyal to your salon by sending regular, meaningful email communications keeping them hooked and loyal with Birthday Promotions Seasonal Offers, Family Discounts, Colour Sales, and informative monthly newsletters.
How do Salons Engage in Successful Online Marketing
Dynamic Salon Website:
All online Salon Marketing is centred around a high quality Salon Website, so this is the starting point. If you already have a website but it does not generate any traffic or any new business please ask us to carry out a Website Health Check and we will review your website for you. (£60.00) (Free to registered members).
If you do not currently have a Salon Website please review the rest of our Salon Website Design section, before asking us to give you a Salon Website Quotation.
Website Lead Generation:
A Salon Website is not much use if it does not represent the quality of your salon and it is not much use if it was designed and built without lead generation and collection software built in.
Full Column Salon Websites can be fitted with lead generation software that collect visitor name's and email address's and then stores their details in a database for marketing purposes. We can also add your existing client details to this database and organise monthly newsletters and promotions.
Attention Grabbing New Client Promotions:
When visitors land on your website you only have seven seconds to impress them enough to stay, then they need to see an attention grabbing statement EG: "Win a Luxury Hair Makeover Worth £180.00" to entice them to read on and take action. Research shows that visitors that stay on a website for two minutes+ will become clients if your "call-to-action" and or subsequent Salon Marketing emails match what they were searching for.
Regular, High Quality, Permission Based Salon Email Marketing:
UK regulations state that you must have a recipients permission to send them marketing emails, by virtue of them "signing-up" on your website, you have gained their permission and they will expect to receive emails.
If you DO NOT have Salon Management Software installed in the salon or only have a small number of client email addresses we recommend that you engage our services to collect and manage your salon email database and monthly Salon Email Marketing Campaigns.
If you DO have a leading client management system such as i-Salon or Shortcuts, etc, we strongly recommend that you that you sign up to a more sophisticated Salon Email Marketing package from:
SalonEmailMarketing.com or at least speak to us first before making any decisions.
Social Networking Campaigns - Linked in and out from your Salon Website:
Social Networking on platforms such as Twitter and FaceBook are great for driving viable traffic to your website and they are also great for for generating in-bound links to your website which helps with the all important Google Page Rank.
Just be sure that when you join social networking groups that you join consumer groups and not hairdressing or beauty forums, there is no business advantage spending hours chatting to potential competitors.
Salon Marketing Summary:
Building a credible Salon Online Marketing Strategy can not be achieved overnight, it takes time and patience but it must be built with expert technical knowledge and guidance. Full Column can supply the Website and the Salon Email Marketing software etc, and if you Join the Salon Managers Academy you will learn all there is to know about building online credibility that pays dividends. So if you are Serious about Salon Marketing, why not give us a call.