Everyone loves the onset of the summer season, but it’s tough to beat the euphoria we’re seeing in 2021. With COVID-19 vaccinations rolling out and stay-at-home orders coming to an end, consumers are enjoying the ability to get back to “business as usual” in a big way.
Foot traffic at retail stores is growing once more, and spending habits are transitioning from products to experiential services. Air travel, dining out, and hotel accommodation are all on the up, which spells a great opportunity for hairstylists and beauty businesses.
With life now getting back to normal, the demand for hair styling and beauty treatments is set to skyrocket. So, how can you take advantage of all this pent-up demand?
Check out this list of 21 salon marketing ideas, or more specifically, summer marketing ideas that are sure to get your clients excited about getting ready for this season.
As the digital front door to your salon for prospective clients, it’s important to keep your website up to date with all your current seasonal offerings.
Larchmont Sanctuary Spa has created a dedicated “seasonal specials” tab to put a spotlight on its latest summer offerings, which helps to keep its clients engaged and interested:
Google is home to 5.6 billion searches per day. As a salon or spa, you should definitely have a Google My Business listing. But you’ll receive the biggest benefits by tweaking your listing to better match search intent.
One tip is to encourage your clients — particularly those who’ve recently purchased a summer-centric service — to write online business reviews. Aside from beefing up your listing with social proof, the content and keywords of your clients’ reviews will be indexed by Google and help you show up for relevant searches.
So, if someone in the area types in “spray tanning” and those keywords is mentioned in recent reviews, you stand a better chance of getting in front of your customers.
We can see this in action in the Google My Business listing of It’s Always Summer, a beauty and tanning salon in California. The business has a number of recent reviews containing the keywords “spray tan” and this has undoubtedly helped the business be more visible in search results.
Salon partnerships are a fantastic way to form closer relationships with local businesses. They also help to address other pain points that your customer may be having.
For example, partnering with a nearby cafe that sells iced drinks is a fun summer marketing idea that’s sure to be attractive to clients on a hot summer’s day.
The summer is a busy time for clients, with kids off school and family vacations. On June 13th, the TSA screened 2 million airport passengers — the highest since March 2020
That’s why it’s even more important to stay on your client’s radar via email marketing. For example, you could send out an email with your top five tips on how to protect hair during the summer months. This enables you to keep offering your customers value, even when they’re not around to come into your salon.
Salon pop-ups are a good marketing strategy for reaching potential clients who haven’t come across your business before. When executed well, pop-ups bring your brand into a fresh space that allows you to experiment with different offerings.
L’Oreal’s StudioPro pop-up welcomed customers with complementary styling services, new products, and a branded photo booth allowing people to post straight to social media. Not only are consumers introduced to new services; they also become advocates for the brand.
Running a spa or salon business is a masterclass in administration; booking and rescheduling appointments, sending confirmation emails, asking for client feedback. If your booking software isn’t up to scratch, this has a significant impact on your productivity.
Booksy’s salon scheduling software enables you to take these manual tasks off your staff’s shoulders, so they can focus on high-level tasks — like marketing your business. Customers can embrace a self-service philosophy by booking appointments for themselves, a major advantage with a busy summer ahead.
Booksy also has several features to help your marketing efforts, including integrations with Instagram, Facebook, Google My Business, and more.
Your customer’ needs are going to change throughout the year. That’s why you should be prepping some new promotional deals that address common summer anxieties.
Prickly, untanned skin anyone? Sugar Cove, a business that specializes in sugaring hair removal, spray tanning, and skincare has done a great job at using the summer season to promote its services and deals, such as its free underarm sugaring promo last Memorial Day.
Co-marketing campaigns help you to augment your offerings as a business and strengthen your value proposition. There are multiple ways of doing this, such as by partnering with another hair and beauty business or another kind of business entirely.
In this example, hair salon French Revolv partnered with a newly-opened Park Hyatt to offer clients the chance to go in the draw for an all-inclusive night away. As a well-known luxury hotel, this campaign also helps gives French Revolv a sense of exclusivity.
In-salon events are a great way for clients to re-acquaint themselves with your offerings, especially if you’ve fallen out of touch due to the pandemic. What better way to celebrate the end of stay-at-home restrictions than by bringing out the champagne?
Mod Hair is advertising “the new night out” where clients can meet up with friends in its in-salon bar whilst also getting their hair done. It’s a great way of positioning their brand not just as a salon, but as the ultimate relaxing destination.
Maintaining key marketing channels like email marketing and social media is incredibly time-consuming, especially without the right tools to support you.
Marketing automation software allows your salon to streamline these activities by removing the need for active involvement. 30% of business owners say that the biggest benefit of marketing automation for them is saving time. This allows you to focus on more important activities this summer, like re-establishing relationships with your client.
If you offer a wide range of services, consider curating a summer spa or salon menu consisting of the most relevant offerings for the season. Take a look at this excellent example from Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa, which launched a “Summer of Spa Specials” for a limited time.
Sharing your clients’ own content is a great idea at any time of year, but will have significant value this summer. Many clients haven’t set foot in spas or nail salons in months due to COVID-19 restrictions. Turning up for that first appointment has never been more exciting — or shareable!
Frilly Lilly is encouraging its clients to share their experiences on Instagram for their “guest stories” reel. It makes for a fun and uplifting content after such a difficult year and helps to generate referrals and persuade clients to book their own little escape.
Social media contests are one the best ways to drum up excitement and interest. As well as helping to increase engagement on your social channels, you can also leverage contests to encourage clients to follow your brand, tag their friends, or tell you what they love most about your high-quality services.
It’s a good idea to choose summer-specific services that your clients are more likely to get excited about at this time of year, such as pedicures or blowouts, as shown here by Dylan Keith Salon.
Today’s consumers like to support businesses that care about more than just profits. In fact, 46% of consumers pay close attention to a brand’s social responsibility efforts when buying a product or service.
Whatever cause you choose to support, make sure that it’s something that your business is passionate about and can truly get behind; this means your customers can too.
Glendale Salon Spa has launched both a giveaway and a charity donation program to Charity Water, allowing salon customers to be in to win great prizes while also donating to a good cause.
Video content is a rising star in the world of marketing. 51% of marketing professionals say that video is the content with the greatest ROI, with explainer videos ranking as the most popular at 72%.
This opens up all kinds of opportunities for salons to showcase their expertise to clients and provide even greater value. A summer-specific video series featuring your stylists’ top tips is a brilliant way to stay relevant and on the pulse of your client’s needs. Hair influencer Alex Gaboury is a great example of the kinds of content you could create.
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It’s not possible to refresh your entire salon, but you can invest in some marketing materials that evoke the warmth and relaxation of the summer. This helps to enhance the customer experience and keep your clients coming back for those quintessential summer vibes.
For example, you could design some summer-friendly tissue paper to wrap your salon or spa products for that extra deluxe feel. The tropical print above is a great example from Tones of Eve.
Paid ads are a great strategy to hook in prospective clients who are searching for specific services. These are the people who are further along the path to booking an appointment, and so are much easier to convert.
This season, whether you’re running traditional ads, Facebook advertising, or Google search ads, make sure that the messaging that you’re promoting corresponds with trending or popular styling services that help to give your beauty salon a competitive edge. HairSalon.com demonstrates this below with a dedicated ad for balayage at a generous 20% off:
As a salon or spa, you likely stock a variety of different personal care products to generate retail sales. The summer is the perfect time to pull out those summer-friendly products and give them a plug to clients during appointments and through your marketing channels. Lush has done a great job of promoting their Sea Spray Hair Mist for the ultimate beachy look:
A hair and beauty business is nothing without its team of technicians and hairstylists. Yet it’s all too common for these crucial people to fall into the background. With establishments opening up again, now is the perfect time to re-introduce your team to your clients and explain what they can do for them.
Power Hair has created an engaging series on its Instagram feed where every hairstylist receives a dedicated post about their work history and specialist services. It’s a great way to attract new clients who are still sussing out your suitability as a service provider.
As such a dynamic and fast-moving industry, it’s your job as a service provider in the hair and beauty industry to keep up with what consumers want. This could mean introducing new services or spotlighting existing offerings that are currently trending.
As a key marketing channel, your Instagram bio is a valuable space to promote your hottest summer services right alongside your website and contact details.
After all the disruption and tragedy that occurred over the past year, the summer is the perfect time to thank your customers who’ve stuck with you through thick and thin.
Consider offering your most loyal customers a gift card, or even throwing open your doors for an in-salon party. If nothing else, a heartfelt social media post or email is one of the best ways to build a stronger personal connection with clients. Trust us; they’ll appreciate it.
We hope that these business tips and summer promotion ideas have given your hair and beauty business plenty of inspiration for how you can turn your summer season into a goldmine of valuable content and happy clients. After such a tough year for small businesses across industries, now is the time to make hay while the sun shines (literally in this case!) With these top tips in your arsenal, you’ll be well on your way to record revenue.
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