Beauty Salon Marketing

We’ve had a flood of enquiries recently from beauty salons and beauty clinics wanting us to build a better website for them. As we wrote in our white paper Getting Through the Credit Crunch - How to Recession Proof your Salon, in difficult times it is important to focus your marketing budget on the areas where you can get the best return and where you can measure the results of your advertising. For many salon owners that means that internet marketing is becoming one of the most important parts of their salon marketing plan.

Your salon website can become the hub of your marketing activity, you should show your website address clearly in all your salon posters and leaflets. It is available 24/7 for potential customers, and if you combine it with email marketing you have an extremely cost-effective way to get your latest salon promotions and offers to your customers and prospective customers.

But it is not enough just to build a great website, and keep it updated with fresh information and offers. If your website doesn’t appear in the first page of the search engine results when customers search for local services like yours, even the best website is useless. That’s why a large part of the work we do when we build a salon website is focussed on what internet marketers call “search engine optimization” (or SEO for short).

But if you can’t afford a service like ours (and we’re not cheap!) how can you get started with Search Engine Optimization for your salon website? There is a lot of information out there, much of it contradictory, much of it outdated, and some of it just plain wrong! Fortunately, Google themselves recently published a guide to SEO for beginners - Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (link to PDF). In the introduction, they say -

This document first began as an effort to help teams within Google, but we thought it’d be just as useful to webmasters that are new to the topic of search engine optimization and wish to improve their sites’ interaction with both users and search engines. Although this guide won’t tell you any secrets that’ll automatically rank your site first for queries in Google (sorry!), following the best practices outlined below will make it easier for search engines to both crawl and index your content.

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results. You’re likely already familiar with many of the topics in this guide, because they’re essential ingredients for any webpage, but you may not be making the most out of them.

There’s 22 pages of excellent suggestions to improve your salon website, from the very basic to some “slightly techie” stuff that may be beyond a beginner. But if you work your way through and implement the suggestions that you understand, you’ll have made a great start. You’ll also find some useful tips in the Related Articles listed below.

And if you would rather leave it to the experts and would like us to design your salon website, send an email inquiry to martin@beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk

Related articles on the Beauty Salon Marketing website -

• Internet Salon Marketing - 10 reasons to use Facebook
• Salon Internet Marketing - Google submit your content
• Salon Internet Marketing - Where does Google find reviews?
• Salon Websites - ranking factors for Google UK
• Salon Internet Marketing - Why Google rankings matter

Are you looking for a new idea for a salon Christmas promotion? Perhaps you want to run a salon open day, or open evening, but need a “hook” to make it more interesting?

What about running a Swishing Party, in your salon, for your customers?

Swishing is in the news. In the UK the BBC ran a series of programmes on the subject, hosted by former model Twiggy. And as it looks more likely that the Credit Crunch will turn into a recession, your customers will be looking for ways to save money, but still wanting a new outfit for the Christmas Party season.

So what is “Swishing”? The website Swishing.org describes it as “ethical fashion and clothes swapping” -

The Art of Swishing involves getting your friends together to swap gorgeous clothes and party at the same time. Every lady must bring at least one good quality, clean item of clothing, or an accessory, that she’d feel proud to hand on.

The BBC has a news report (and video of a Swishing Party), click here to read it. They say -

Want a new outfit but loath to splash out when every penny counts? A swishing party is a swap shop for the smart set.

Swishing is a growing trend, where a gaggle of fashion-loving women get together, feast on nibbles, guzzle wine and swap their clothes. Eco-fabulous recycling at its best.

Lucy (Shea) adds although women love to shop, many feel guilty about splashing out on new clothes.

“Swishing parties are particularly significant in the current economic climate - why spend £100 on a new pair of shoes when you can come to a swishing party and get them for free? And, the best thing is you can have some glasses of wine, nibbles and make new friends who like you love fashion.”

If you want to run a Christmas Swishing Party (or any other time of the year) you can find the “rules” and examples of invitations to donwload on the Swishing website’s You Swish page. And remember to add your event to their calendar.

You’ll need to decide how much to promote your salon and its services during the event. Perhaps it’s enough that you are hosting the event in your salon - people will see your leaflets and posters around the place. Or perhaps you want to go for more active salon marketing. You, or your staff, could be on hand offering free makeup and hair styling tips to match the new outfits. Or you could give out free samples of your retail products… or offer makeovers… raffles… goodie-bags… free consultations.

Related articles on the Beauty Salon Marketing website -

• Salon Marketing - How to get free publicity
• Quick Tip - How to do discounts or vouchers
• Do you let retail sales walk out of your salon?
• How not to sell gift certificates… and secret shoppers
• Salon Promotions - Increase results from your leaflet drop

Are you thinking of setting up a beauty salon, or setting up a hair salon? Wondering if the Credit Crunch or recession makes this a good time to be starting a beauty salon?

Jonathan Jay, founder of business growth consultancy SuccessTrack, believes that an economic downturn is the best time to start a new business venture. He’s so convinced that he’s running a free seminar in London for people thinking of starting a business - StartUp Now UK

Jay gives 7 reasons why this is a good time to be starting a business, most of which could apply to setting up a salon if you apply the thinking to a local level -

1. The nervous will be getting out of your way - there is less competition from other start-ups.

2. The ‘top dog’ in any industry is often so weighed down in administration and tradition they will struggle and make cutbacks. You can enter markets the big companies can’t afford to market to any more.

3. The job market will be flooded with talented people made redundant by struggling businesses. These people have the fire in their belly to work with you to be the next market leader.

4. Commercial rents are lower and you can pick up good property bargains.

5. While everyone else is moaning about how bad everything is, you have the opportunity to build your own empire and then everyone will say, “How did that happen?”

6. Excellent sales and marketing always wins and if you focus on these two areas of your business and don’t get your attention diverted by other details you will come out of any recession stronger as a result.

7. Get used to not using credit and build a strong business out of cash flow; negotiate harder and get discounts wherever possible; if you can make it happen in lean times you will be the winner in better times.

(If you want tried and tested ideas to improve your marketing during a recession, watch out for a new product we are launching soon. Join our newsletter, using the box at the top right of this page, to be informed as soon as it launches!)

If you are starting a salon, we have some articles here on Beauty Salon Marketing that you may find useful -

• Starting a salon - What to name your salon
• Salon Business Plan - Free business plan templates
• Salons for Sale - Business for sale websites
• Selling or Buying a Salon - What is your salon worth?
• Beauty Salon Logos, Hair Salon Logos - free logo design templates
• Beauty Salon Logos - find design ideas for your salon logos
• Salon Advertising - Free stock photos for websites, posters, leaflets
• Recommended site - Online colour scheme generator
• Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics
• Salon Websites - 3 steps to protect your domain name
• Recommended Resource - Salon Geek forum

OK, this is a little “off-topic” but in these times of Credit Crunch or recession, we’re all looking for ways to save money, whether it’s in your salon business or on a personal level. We recently came across an interesting page on Facebook, for a service that helps you to save money on your online purchases, by publishing the current “discount voucher codes” that many online retailers are using to promote their products -

Discount Voucher Codes

What Are Voucher Codes?

Voucher Codes consist of a special alpha-numerical code and are a great way to save money on your online purchases at many UK retailers. They are also known as promo codes and discount codes.

How Long Are The Codes Valid?

The codes often have a short expiry date as set by the retailer for use in various promotions. Please check the dates listed as all codes vary. Add this page to you Facebook and check back before making any online purchases as more codes are being issued and updated daily!

How Do I Use The Codes?

The codes are usually entered at checkout of your order. If there are any known differences we will notify you of these at the main Voucher Codes site. Please note that most voucher codes are case sensitive so please write your code down correctly.

Whether you’re shopping for essentials, or a little luxury item to cheer you up in these gloomy times, it’s worth checking to see if you can save your self some money with a discount voucher code!