Beauty Salon Marketing

Several of our Salon Marketing Toolkit owners have reported that they are getting good results (customer enquiries, or clicks to their salon website) from their listing on the Brownbook.net directory. And recently, Search Engine Optimisation expert Greg Sterling noted that they are expanding their services into the US market (and wrote a follow-up article with more details).

So we asked Brownbook to tell us more about how their service works, and how salon owners could use it to advertise their salon on the internet. The following article was written by their Marketing Manager, Sarah Warren -

The importance of online marketing to a salon marketing plan - and how Brownbook.net can help

People buy, sell, advertise, entertain, communicate and search for information and answers using the internet. With over 1 billion people able to access the internet and online advertising spend reaching £2,812.6 million in 2007 it is not an area to be missed out on by businesses.

Brownbook.net is a free online business directory that anyone can edit. Brownbook.net enables local businesses such as beauty salons to have a presence on the internet by offering every business a free listing enabling them to compete with companies many times their size. The directory works as you would expect, displaying all the contact details of businesses, but with the added bonus of word-of-mouth reviews and testimonials. Furthermore, a business listing can be enhanced by adding pictures, videos, rich text description, highlighting and priority search results listings.

Having an online presence is imperative in today’s internet world. That’s all well and good for companies with huge marketing budgets, and internet geniuses, but for smaller companies who perhaps have limited resources, internet marketing can seem like a minefield. Brownbook.net recognised a need for local businesses to be able to promote themselves on the internet easily and at a low cost.
Brownbook helps your online marketing strategy in the following ways:

• Provides you with an advertising platform
• Improves your ranking on major search engines
• Helps spread word of mouth and gather testimonials

Brownbook - an advertising platform

Free advertising

Brownbook is for anyone and everyone. Your business listing in Brownbook.net is free and lets anyone find you on Brownbook.net as well as the major search engines. We also actively promote Brownbook and therefore all the businesses listed.

Brownbook as a Salon Marketing tool

We all want to get the best ROI (Return on Investment) from our marketing spend; Brownbook.net lets you showcase your business with photos and videos, a detailed text description, as well as priority in search results and highlighted listings for a whole year for about the cost of a box of pens.

Here are a few examples of businesses that are doing just that:

• Emy Lou Photography
• LipSense at Temecula Lipstick Company
• Dick Bobnick Illustration

Salon SEO - Search Engine Optimization

If you have your own salon website then SEO is important for helping you get found by the major search engines when people type in keywords.

You can improve your ranking in major search engines by listing in Brownbook. Brownbook business listings are well optimized for all the major search engines, which means you’ll get found more easily by potential customers. You can even add your salon website address so people can find out even more about your business there.

Here’s a tip
Be sure to have relevant location tags and business tags on your Brownbook listing as these are two of the factors that major search engines use when they are indexing our site. The keywords that potential customers might use to look for your service will be the keywords that search engines look for. For example your tags might include: beauty salon, treatments, manicure, and pedicure. Check out Cinnamon Beauty listing to see how they’ve tagged their business.

Word of mouth

People prefer to buy products and services based on recommendations from others.

• According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents. (Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”)
• 94% of UK online researchers use online customer reviews. (JupiterResearch / Bazaarvoice, January 2008)
• 71% of online shoppers read reviews, making it the most widely read consumer-generated content. (Forrester)

People can review and invite other people to review any business for free on Brownbook. Smart businesses are using the Internet to power-up their reputations and spread word of mouth to win new customers. Add your salon business to Brownbook.net and you will be notified of any reviews written about your business. This is a simple means to receive and promote positive word of mouth and gather customer testimonials. You can also invite people to review you which will further build up your reputation. Lastly, receiving reviews like this also provides you with instant customer feedback and valuable information which will help you to understand and communicate with your customers.

Tip - Encourage your customers to review your salon business on Brownbook.net, and use Brownbook.net to gather and promote your customer reviews to new prospects.

Useful links -

Register
Add a business

Written by Sarah Warren.
Marketing Manager for Brownbook.net
Contact Sarah Warren on +44 (0)208 1235 466 or email sarah[AT]brownbook[DOT]net