Whether you’re out to make a name for yourself, looking to attract a fresh supply of clients or are getting the word out about your latest hair treatment, coming up with a hair salon marketing plan is essential in order to see positive results. Your highlights and updos might be out of this world and your customer service top-notch, but without getting the hang of marketing, then who’s to know? Your posts on Facebook or your best friend might help to promote your brand, but let’s be honest, this won’t necessarily bolster your numbers. What you need are effective and time-tested hair salon advertising strategies - which you can find right under this paragraph!
Posting content on your social media feeds isn’t going to attract new clients - at least not a significant number of them. And what about your closest clients? Surely they will actively promote your business, right? To some extent of course, but without proper incentives, they might call it quits after recommending your business to their closest family members. Here’s a secret - these strategies are in fact effective, but when used at the right time and in the right ways.
If you’re looking for new ways on how to advertise a hair salon, start with social media ads and local partnerships. Unlike social media posts, ads actually attract potential clients to your page and eventually your business. They use your promotional materials to target people in your area based on age, gender and interests. Local partnerships on the other hand involve you working with other business entities in your area in order to promote one another, either with the use of business cards or flyers.
Now, if you’re looking to promote a treatment or product to clients, you can also bring your marketing ideas for hairstylists to life via less-common mediums, including live videos on social media, before and after shots on your stories and SMS/email newsletters. Live videos of you treating a client and using a product is a great way to demonstrate how they work and why clients ought to make a purchase. Before and after shots are definitely eye-catching, especially if your customers don’t have time to watch a live foiling session. As for SMS/email newsletters, they’re by far the most effective at marketing your latest treatments and products to clients. Text messages alone have a 99% open rate, and there’s no spam box for that! But sending each client a text by hand about your latest treatments or products will definitely take time, even if you copy and paste each message. To expedite the process, use Booksy, hair salon software, which allows you to not only send bulk SMS and emails, but also lets you filter your customer list - more on that here.
If you’re looking for ways on how to promote a hair salon, get creative! Make social media ads with creative headlines or an entertaining picture or video in order to catch the attention of your viewers. The best part is you can take various directions with this, including:
Humour: give clients a laugh when they notice your ad! Try headlines such as “We have the best coffee in town, but you should also try one of our hair treatments” or “Fixing bed heads and cowlicks here”.
Professionalism: is your hair business highly-rated? Does it have a unique point of difference? These are decision-making factors that can influence whether or not clients visit your business - consider promoting these in your ads in order to pique the interests of your potential clients.
User-generated content: perhaps you already have a significant following, but are actively looking to gain more clients? If so, promoting your top reviews, as well as before and after pictures in your ads would be a great way to do so, but make sure to ask clients for their consent.
Your menu items: do you offer one-of-a-kind treatments or products in your place of business? Getting the word out about them is a great idea to grab the attention of new clients, especially if your treatments follow the latest hair trends or you utilise renowned and professional-grade products.
Who would you most likely buy something from, a salesperson, or a close family member or friend? Obviously the latter. Now take marketing into consideration. Sure, your campaigns do attract new clients, however, you’ve got an untapped resource that could significantly bolster your number of new clients and sales. That’s right, when we’re talking about the most effective hair salon marketing tips, the one that takes the podium is customer loyalty.
When a client is loyal to your business, they don’t require much incentive in order to promote it. In fact, seeing their favourite business prosper is all the motivation they need to get the word out about your salon. However, there is a trick to maintain and even increase this loyalty - why not offer a free product or a discount voucher for each new client they bring to your business? If customers have their eyes set on a specific prize, they are even more likely to refer their friends and family to your salon.
Marketing isn’t just about posting on social media and keeping your fingers crossed that you get new clients and increase sales. You need to get creative with what mediums you use for marketing and the content of your campaigns. A “come here, buy this” strategy isn’t going to get you anywhere. Most importantly, you need the right tools to effectively get the word out about your business, products or treatments - and that’s where Booksy comes in. Schedule bulk marketing messages to clients, encouraging them to make a purchase, or tempt them with your rewards in order to gain more new customers. Either way, Booksy is the go-to salon system to make it all quick and easy. Keen to revamp your marketing? Sign up with Booksy for free today!