Why Black Friday works for the hair & beauty industry

When we hear “Black Friday”, the first thing that comes to mind are discounts and long lines in stores and shopping centres. Although this is true for the most part, businesses that take advantage of this annual event make a substantial profit - so if it works for them, why shouldn’t it work for your salon or spa?  Most salons and spas focus their efforts primarily on the Holidays, since this is the busiest time of the year, however, creating Black Friday promos or events can also be beneficial for the business. Before you begin applying discounts to your range of products and services, create a goal which you would like to fulfil. Do you want to sell most of your unused stock? Looking to increase sales of a particular service? Interested in gaining more customers or growing brand awareness? These are just some of the benefits that you can gain from running a Black Friday campaign.

Making more room on your shelves

Most retail businesses take advantage of Black Friday to clear their shelves of older or less-popular products. Instead of tossing them out, businesses offer irresistible offers that clients love - and your salon or spa should be doing the same! Every beauty business has that one ageing bottle of hair conditioner, facial cream or massage oil tucked in the far end of the shelf or storage room. But what if you have a whole case of unused products that are not flying off the shelves like you expected? For this situation, Black Friday is the perfect solution! Compile a list of less-popular products that you would like off of your shelves and try some of these offers:

• A “BOGO” (buy one, get one free) offer - this is a classic marketing tactic that is effective to an extent.
• Gift bags - prepare free gift bags for clients that spend a specific amount of money at your salon. Load up the bag with your products, business card, and a coupon for their next purchase at the salon.

Treatments your clients will LOVE!

For salons and spas that focus less on retail and more on providing services, Black Friday can still be very beneficial. Promote services that are less popular, or better yet, add a twist to your more popular services - try these ideas out:

• Funny Black Friday ideas - change treatment names to fit the theme of discounts, such as “Black Friday balayage”, “half off highlights”, or “discount dermal fillers”, to give customers a good laugh!
• Link services - for treatments that do not sell as often, pair them up with others - a client that books a Black Friday Balayage will receive a free trim.
• Drawings - create a competition and every client that has booked a service is entered. The prize should be a 50% discount on a popular treatment, redeemable during the slow period in January/February. Offering a discount on a popular service will encourage clients to make purchases to enter the drawing.
• Service packs and gift cards - Black Friday is the perfect time to do gift shopping for the Holidays, and what makes for a better stocking stuffer than a gift card? By selling them at a discount, regular clients readily purchase them, and they gift them to friends and family, who will eventually become your customers. You can use Booksy management system to let clients purchase them online.

Growing your brand awareness

Black Friday is the opportune time to promote your variety of products and services, but did you know that it is also an ideal time to grow your customer list and improve brand awareness? However, in order to do so, you need to create a well-thought-out plan. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Focus on loyal customers - loyal clients who regularly visit your business are worth their weight in gold. Encourage them to bring friends and family to your salon or spa for Black Friday. In doing so, gift them with an attractive present or even a regular discount - this, in turn, ties them to your business for longer.
• Hosting events - nothing brings regular and new clients together like an event you host yourself, and for Black Friday, the ideas are endless! Host an event and create a lively atmosphere, where clients can enter competitions and giveaways - additionally, you might want to consider hosting it on-site or on social media - both work effectively in grabbing the client’s attention.
• Go local - visit your local cafe or restaurant and invite their staff to take advantage of your Black Friday offers. It would be wise to ask them if you could leave your leaflets or business cards for potential customers to grab.

Advertising

Your Black Friday is now officially planned out! You have your discounts ready, gift bags prepared and vouchers printed - the question is, how do you begin advertising? Most business owners turn to social media - from posting event details on Facebook, to creating an Insta story, these methods are by far the most popular among hair and beauty specialists. However, not everyone may spot your post or story, especially if their newsfeed is flooded by other content. To avoid such complications, getting in direct contact with customers is key, and Booksy’s Message Blasts feature lets you do just that. Send clients information on your upcoming specials and make sure your message has a Black Friday email subject line, in order to pique their interest. Inform clients of your Black Friday specials or events and send coupon codes via direct message, in either SMS or email format. For the more tech-savvy business owner, creating Instagram and Facebook ads would also work well in catching the attention of would-be clients. Boost your Black Friday activities with Booksy!