If you play your cards right, Valentine’s Day can be an impressively fruitful day for your health & beauty business. Although people like to complain about this holiday, calling it a festival of artificial overconsumption, the statistics are indisputable - year by year, we spend more and more on Valentine’s Day and the trend shows no sign of stopping. An average UK citizen spends almost £40 to celebrate the 14th of February, and there is no denying that health & beauty services are not only one of the most popular gift ideas but also a tool many people use to get ready for this special day.
This is why if you are an owner of a beauty salon, barbershop or lash studio, you should definitely spend some time planning your Valentine’s Day marketing campaign. Fortunately, you have us - and we have just the guide to help you develop your strategy and best tips to encourage more bookings and boost your revenue this year!
Let’s begin with some theory before we jump into practice. What is with Valentine’s Day that makes it such a profitable time for the industry? It’s important for you to understand the mechanism behind it - “cracking the code” of how people think and what drives their behaviour allows you to find the best tone of voice and target the proper audience when running your marketing campaigns.
So, how does it work? Well, even people who declare they are immune to Valentine’s Day craze start to feel the need to show appreciation to their loved ones. Sometimes it’s pure peer pressure, sometimes it’s a genuine drive to do something nice (“well, it’s still a good occasion to do so”) and sometimes even a twisted desire to do something in spite of it (“screw romance, I’m gonna order your big Valentine’s Day pizza for couples and eat it all myself”). Regardless of the motivation, the effect remains the same - consumption. As a service provider, all you need to do is simply push the right buttons. Which smoothly leads us to…
In marketing, “targeting” is a strategy that involves dividing your intended audience into groups linked by some relevant factor, in order to reach each one of them with a more personalized message.
Mind that these groups will vary depending on the occasion - sometimes you may want to group your audience by their age (for example when promoting your anti-ageing treatments), the other time it’s the gender that is relevant (for example when you are planning a campaign for Women’s Day). On Valentine’s Day, it’s very useful to group your audience by their circumstances and intended behaviour.
To put it simply, for Valentine’s Day you want to target:
You can see where this is going. Although the occasion remains the same, the tone of voice, the timing and promoted services will vary in each of these cases!
Now that we understand all the nitty-gritty, let’s focus on each specific campaign.
It’s the campaign that strictly requires starting before Valentine’s Day approaches - at least one week, perfect would be two. Your target is people who want to prepare themselves for their dates - which gives you a wonderfully wide spectrum of services you can promote. After all, getting “date ready” may include anything from a new hairstyle to a full body wax!
Your tone of voice should be lighthearted and joyful, though be careful not to sound too pushy - you cannot suggest that your potential clients must change something in their appearance, but rather that an appointment at your salon will give them a confidence boost for their date night.
For the medium, your social media channels (mainly Facebook and Instagram) paired with SMS marketing will do the job beautifully. If you are using Booksy then definitely utilise the Message Blast feature - this way you can easily target the right audience and launch the campaign with just a few clicks!
If you want to lure some lovebirds to your business, you must first prepare some special offers for them. It does not have to be anything complicated - not every salon can afford equipment for specials such as couple massages, but you can always simply add a nice discount on treatments booked for two people at once.
How to encourage couples to book their Valentine’s Day appointment with you? Emphasize the experience - the trick is to make it sounds alluring. “Share the experience of getting pampered with your loved one and set the mood for the rest of the day at our spa” is a much more enticing message than just “spa treatments for couples at a discount”!
Again, SMS marketing and your social media channels will be perfect to spread the word.
This one will engage your biggest audience group and similar to the “get ready” campaign will allow you to promote a wide range of services. Furthermore, a big advantage here is that you can run it whenever you want, even literally last-minute - after all, many people search for gifts at the eleventh hour!
As for the tone of voice, go for a “let us guide you to a gift that will make your partner fall in love with you all over again” kind of message, and, as the time passes, turn more towards “Still no idea for the Valentine’s Day gif? Let us help you!” sort of tone.
For this one, you want to engage your social media channels the most. It’s a good idea to prepare a “gift guide” for your followers on Instagram and Facebook - you can even record a short video to spice things up a little! However, text messages are a must too.
Finally, the campaign that targets the group we oftentimes forget about - consumers that either do not have that special someone to celebrate Valentine’s Day with or simply prefer to indulge in some self-love instead. Again, this one allows you to advertise a wide range of treatments, however, you should definitely focus on those that bring pleasant experiences and initial gratification - so services like a foot massage, deep hair conditioning or lash extensions (as opposed to, for example, laser treatments or waxing).
It’s especially important to choose the right tone of voice here - make sure you are not patronising your audience, making it sound like you pity them. It’s an immediate failure! Instead, show your existing and potential clients that you support their choice to self-indulge and communicate a willingness to spoil them as much as possible.
To promote this campaign, focus on text messages - they are the most intimate form of marketing medium and thanks to them you can address the receiver in a very appealing, friendly way.
As you can see, knowing your target audience and understanding their habits is the key to success. And there is no better tool to help you gather and utilise useful data than professional salon management software. Booksy allows you to centralize client information, keep it safe, and use for super effective marketing campaigns. Try the system today and see how much it change the way you do business!
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