Beauty Salon Marketing

From Martin Smith, founder of Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Little things make a big difference. That is true in marriage, parenting and in selling beauty services! All too often as the owners of Beauty Salons we get caught up in the ‘thick’ of ‘thin things’ and we lose touch with what really drives success in our business. In this article I will discuss the eight little sins that stop Beauty Salon owners from really growing their business.

Sin 1 - Working ‘in’ your business instead of ‘on’ your business

All too often Beauty Salon owners spend their time in the ‘putting out fires’ business. Rather than working ‘on’ the business they spend their time working ‘in’ the business. Owners should spend more time working on the business of doing things such as ‘planning and marketing’, which have a higher long-term payoff.

This point was clearly explained in Dr. Covey’s popular book 7 Habits for Highly Effective People. In his famous ‘Time Management Matrix’ the author emphasizes that too many business owners spend their time doing ‘urgent - but not important’ activities when they should be spending their time on ‘non-urgent, but important’ activities.

Non-urgent - but important activities, such as planning and marketing, generate continued and sustainable long-term growth.

Sin 2 - Failing To Create And Use A Marketing Plan

Studies have shown that small businesses that create and consistently use marketing plans experience an average of 30% higher sales than their competitors. Wouldn’t every Beauty Salon owner like to increase their sales by 30%?

Here are a few tips to help salon owners create a marketing plan.

Tip 1. Start the plan by studying and documenting the specific reasons why customers buy from your salon.

Tip 2. Create a message that focuses entirely on the results from tip1.

Tip 3. Break the plan down into mini plans such as ‘referral marketing plan’, ‘advertising plan’, ‘newsletter plan’ and so on.

Tip 4. Hold a weekly meeting to review the plan.

Sin 3 - Failing to implement systems

A system is a business process that generates predictable, consistent and replicable results day after day. To see a good (?) example of a working system, visit a fast food franchise like McDonalds. Notice how they do the same things the same way every time.

Unfortunately, most salon owners never take time to ’systematize’ their business. This results in duplication, waste, chaos and ultimately lost sales. Sin 1 is partly to blame for not getting around to creating and implementing systems.

The ironic thing is that most Beauty Salon owners have systems for just about everything they do but they do not document them and train their employees to use them. I like the acronym:

S - Save

Y - Yourself

S - Stress

T - Time

E - Energy and

M - Money

Sin 4 - Forgetting To Market To Your Current Customers

Like it or not, Beauty Salon owners are not that different from many other businesses. This is reflected in the 80/20 Rule. This rule states that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. Just think about that for a second. This means that 80% of your client base generates less than 20% of total revenues. (I know, I’ve crunched the figures enough times to know that this is the case)

Now think where you spend most of your advertising and promotional budget. I’ll bet it’s spent on attempting to attract new customers. What a waste!

Try turning this around. Spend 80% of your promotional spend on existing customers and only 20% on new ones. Now I know what you’re going to say is that without new customers my salon will die. True. But you can use your existing customers to generate your new customers.

Therefore, your marketing plan should include customer appreciation events, newsletters, direct mail offers all designed to stimulate repeat business and bringing in new business. In addition every Beauty Salon should implement systems for generating customer referrals.

Sin 5 - Not Testing And Tracking Your Marketing Efforts

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted - the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

I can’t remember who said this but the sentiment is so true. There is nothing worse than spending money on a marketing campaign and not knowing if it worked. It is even worse when a business continues to spend money on a marketing campaign they think is working, but really is not.

The only way to invest in your marketing efforts with confidence is to test a campaign, track it and measure your results. The Salon owner can easily achieve this with a little foresight. For example coupons on press ads, coded vouchers in mailers and so on. By collecting this information each Salon owner will know exactly what works and what doesn’t.

Sin 6 - ‘Spraying And Praying’

Far too many Beauty Salon owners use media to ’spray’ their message and then ‘pray’ that enough people see or hear the message to make it worth the investment.

Instead of spraying and praying find out who is buying your treatments and market to people just like them. If your current average client is 45 years old, is married, lives in postcode district XX… then market to people like them. Your response rate will go up and your cost per sale will go down when your business starts to target this market.

Sin 7 - One Product Only Clients

I’ve worked with enough Salons to recognise these clients. They only take one of the products on offer from the salon. Why is this? In the main it’s because no one has offered them anything else! Why is it, when you’ve got the undivided attention of a client in the treatment room or indeed on the phone, you don’t try to encourage them to take another treatment? Further, as you’ve already got their details and know that they only have treatment X, write to them and offer a special deal on treatment Y. For the most part, it’s money that is lying on the floor that just needs to be picked up!

Sin 8 - Not Differentiating Your Beauty Salon

Did you know that your prospects receive, on average, over 3,000 marketing impressions per day! With all that clutter that your salon has to deal with how do you make your salon stand out?

How do you differentiate your business in a way that separates you from the competition? Is it with adverts that say ‘best prices’, ‘biggest selection of treatments’, ’superior service’ or even worse ’special discounts’ (Urgh!) Have a look - everyone else is saying the same thing! Beauty Salon owners need to differentiate their business in a way that stands out from the crowd and gets noticed.

A simple way to do this is to keep a close eye on the marketing that really captures your attention and make a note of it. Then borrow and modify those strategies and ideas to create your own unique and compelling message.

Conclusion

It is true that the majority of Beauty Salon owners are committing one or more of these sins. But your salon can repent and improve. My challenge to Salon owners is to take one or two of these sins and to focus on improving them. When your salon has those covered, move onto others and overcome them. Business success usually results from commitment to making the small improvements over time.

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