11 Strategies on How To Make A Jolly Good Profit This Festive Season.

11 Strategies on How To Make A Jolly Good Profit This Festive Season.

by | Nov 5, 2014 | Client Attraction and Retention, Increasing Profit, Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing, Staff Management, Recruitment and Retention

Christmas!  Love it or hate it, it turns up on your doorstep every 12 months and turns your life into one big stress-fest.

Every client you’ve seen over the past 12 months seems to want an appointment in the 2 weeks prior to the arrival of Saint Nick, and of course, you try to fit everyone in with a smile, multiple cans of Red Bull, and a few after salon drinkies to restore your calm.

In other words…chaos reigns supreme!

However, there are 2 distinct categories of chaos; profitable and not profitable.  And let’s face it, most of us would prefer profitable if we’re going to put ourselves through the stress machine.

So, how do you go about making sure that you not only survive the festive season but also come out at the other end with hair intact and money in the bank?

Well, success lies in good preparation and follow-through, and by implementing some common-sense strategies, you can come out of the festive season with a smile and some hard earned profits.

Below is a list of 11 common-sense strategies that you can implement, to improve your Christmas revenue.

 

Profit Strategy #1

Start your marketing in early November.  All the major retail stores are gearing up to grab as many pre-Christmas dollars as early as possible.  This means that if you don’t too, you’ll miss out on opportunities to sell gift-wrapped products and Gift Vouchers. Beat those department stores at their own game, and get prepared early.

Profit Strategy #2

Be like a boy scout and always be prepared. You can’t sell what you don’t have, so take advantage of supplier’s special offers if they have them.  This will generally allow you to sell gift-packed products to your clients at great prices.

Also, make sure you have a plentiful supply of Gift Vouchers on hand, so you don’t run out at a critical time.

Profit Strategy #3

Make sure your Gift Vouchers look like a gift.  When a client buys a Gift Voucher from your salon, they want to buy a total solution.  The way you can make this happen, is to make sure your Gift Vouchers are beautifully presented, and ready to be given as a gift by your client.  Beautiful, festive presentation is a must if you are going to provide the ‘total solution’ for your clients. Consider using boxes, gift bows and ribbons to create something amazing.

Profit Strategy #4

Incentivise your Gift Voucher Sales to boost revenue. Give you clients the answer to ‘What’s in it for me if I buy a voucher from your salon?’ Run a promotion whereby your clients go into the draw to win something each time they purchase a voucher from your salon.  It may well be just the reason they buy from you and not the department store down the road.

Profit Strategy #5

Incentivise your team members to sell more Gift Vouchers.  Everyone needs a bit of extra money after Christmas, so run a team promotion to reward your top Gift Voucher Salesperson. Make it FUN.

Profit Strategy #6

Make it easy for clients to buy your Gift Vouchers.  Create a small menu of festive packages comprised of pampering services that your clients will love to give to friends and family.  Vary the price points so that you cater for all budgets.

When a client comes looking to buy a voucher, give them your menu of special packages to choose from.  It makes their life just so much easier when you do this for them, and you are more likely to make a better, bigger sale if you sell a package rather than a service.

Profit Strategy #7

Make sure your clients know that you have Gift Vouchers available.  Let them know by displaying in-salon signage, send an email blast, include it in your newsletter and if you have an app, send it via that also.  Put it on your front window or A-frame outside.  You can’t sell a secret, so let your clients know what you have to offer.

Profit Strategy #8

Don’t offer discounted services during your busy period in December.  Now is not the time to run a loss-producing promotion.  You will be busy enough tending to your regular clients. You deserve to get full price for all your services during this busy time.

Profit Strategy #9

Make sure your clients are all re-booked for the quiet time after Christmas.  For some salons this is in January and others in Feb.  You can achieve this by giving your clients a little gift from your salon of a low value salon voucher redeemable only during your quiet time the following year.  You can adjust the value of your gift depending upon the financial value of the client to your salon.

You can also create some after-Christmas promotional packages that will tempt your clients to treat themselves to some much needed me-time during your normally quiet period.

Profit Strategy #10

Early in the new year is a terrible time for cash-flow in most salons.  You still have to pay out wages and all your regular expenses but get very little back as those Gift Certificates come streaming through your doors.  Don’t just shake your head and accept the inevitable.  Prepare your team and teach them how to add-on and up-sell to these clients.  Your goal should be to sell every Gift Certificate client something extra, whether it be an additional service or a  retail product.  Let your team members know what you expect from them.

Profit Strategy #11

Have a retail promotion after Christmas.  If you’re making a 100% markup on your retail range then you are making 50 cents in every dollar sold in profit.  You can afford to take less profit in exchange for getting retail greater sales during this period.  Buy 1 and get one 1/2 price works well, and still leaves you with a 50% markup of 33 cents in every dollar sold.

So, if you want this Christmas to be your best money earner yet, with less financial stress in the New Year, then consider implementing these 11 simple strategies into your salon this year.

 

5 Essential Actions to Create Client Loyalty and Generate Return Business in Your Salon

5 Essential Actions to Create Client Loyalty and Generate Return Business in Your Salon

by | Sep 7, 2014 | Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

–Salons that can achieve client loyalty will always be streets ahead of their competitors in terms of client retention, and given that it’s 91% cheaper to retain a client than to find a new one, this is something worth striving for. Creating the perfect relationship with a client starts from the minute they first hear about you, and continues on indefinitely.

Creating client loyalty is a process and one that every salon can work towards achieving. It’s not about having the flashiest premises, the newest equipment or the cheapest services. It’s about what you do that makes your client feel great about themselves when they’re in your salon and after they leave.

Here are 5 essential actions you can take to create loyalty to your salon.

 

1. Make your first impression your best impression.

You’ve heard it before. How many opportunities do you get to make a fantastic first impression? Only one so make the first visit to your salon the absolute best for your prospective client!

Action Steps
• Answer your phone in a professional manner and avoid letting your caller wait past 3 rings for you to pick up. Put a smile on your face, the caller can hear the difference a smile makes. Identify the salon, yourself and ask how you can help them. Speak clearly.
• Create the best possible impression of your salon from the outside so that as your prospective clients approach, they will be impressed with what they see. Always keep your windows and doors smudge and clutter free, the footpath area swept and clear of litter and ensure your signage looks fresh and is easy to read.
• Train your therapists to treat each client that comes into your salon like they are their own personal client. Ensure each of your team acknowledges every client that they encounter in your salon.
• Your reception area will reflect on the rest of your salon, so make certain it is clean, uncluttered and professionally presented.
• Clients expect a professional environment when they enter your salon. Train your team on salon etiquette to ensure that they act, speak and appear so as to reflect your desired image.
• Nothing else matters if the client receives a substandard treatment. Make certain your team are well trained and fully up to date with all the treatments you are offering.
• Re-booking your clients is a must. All of your team MUST be offering this service to your clients so that they feel that their patronage of your salon matters to you.
• Every new client should receive a follow-up letter to thank them for choosing you and to encourage them to return to your salon.

All of these things will contribute to making a great first impression on your clients.  Now is the time to look at each of these areas in greater detail to see how you can make them even better, and give your clients the best possible impression of your salon from the very beginning.

Step outside your role as the salon owner, and review every aspect of your business from a new client’s perspective. Note what needs to be changed and start improving your business straight away.

 

2. Understand what your clients want from you.

Every client is an individual and as such will have different “wants” from your salon. No one is a mind reader and so the only way you can know for sure what each individual client wants from you and your salon is to spend time asking them the right questions about their needs.

By investing a small amount of time consulting with your clients before each service is delivered, you can gain a better understanding of what they require from you.  This ensures that if they weren’t one 100% happy at their last visit, you can make things right, and avoid losing them to your competitors.

Research shows that 95% of clients who aren’t happy with their treatments, simply won’t tell you and 70% of them will go elsewhere. This situation can easily be avoided by making time for quality communication at each visit.

Client consultation is not something that should be done only when the client first comes to you. Make time for a brief consultation before every service, and you’ll see the benefits for both you and your client.

Action Steps:
• Brainstorm with your team to generate a list of good questions that each team member can use during their follow-up consultations.
• From this, create a set of questions that you believe will allow your clients to communicate their wants and possible disappointments with you.
• Role-play them with your team to ensure that they’re comfortable in using this process with all of their clients.

3. Deliver outstanding service consistently.

Creating consistency in your service delivery is vital if you are going to generate client loyalty in your salon.

Your clients deserve the very best you can provide for them and be assured that if they do not receive it, there’re plenty of other salons willing to do so.

Competition in the beauty industry is high, and more and more salons seem to be popping up in suburbs all over the country.

Consistency involves ensuring that your team delivers the same service in terms of quality and procedure, every time the client comes into your salon. The random addition of discretionary services may seem like you’re giving your clients a bonus, but in fact, they can actually cause your clients to be disappointed when you don’t have the time to provide them.

Action Steps:
• Develop set procedure guidelines for every service your salon provides.
• Ensure each of your staff members is trained to deliver exactly what is in that procedure – no more and no less. This way every staff member is delivering the same service to every client, and you can rest assured that you know what is going on in every treatment room.
• Retrain your staff on service procedures, and ensure that they understand why it’s so important to deliver consistency to their clients.

4. Invite your clients back.

Clients need to know that you value them and would like them to return to your salon. Offering to re-book your clients is one of the most straightforward ways to achieve this. By letting your clients know that you’re keen to help them to achieve their desired outcomes and would like to see them on a regular basis, you’re telling them that you care about what’s important to them.

Every client should be offered a re-booking before leaving your salon, and it should be a consistent part of the service your salon offers. The bonus for the salon is that clients who are re-booked before leaving the salon will return 50% more often than those who are not re-booked, and that will have a very positive impact on your profitability.

Another simple yet effective way to invite your clients back is to send them a welcome letter from your salon after their first visit, thanking them for choosing you to look after their needs. You can include a small gift voucher for them to use on their next visit to ensure they return.

By getting your clients to return for a second and third visit, you’re increasing the likelihood of retaining them by providing an opportunity to “settle in” and feel comfortable with you and your staff. A small gift voucher is a very small price to pay to increase the likelihood of retaining a client.

Statistics tell us that if you can get a client to return to your salon for a second and third visit, you have increased the likelihood of retention from around 25% to a whopping 70%.

Action Steps:
• Train your staff not only how to re-book and pre-book their clients, but also about the positive results it will produce for the client, the salon and for them personally.
• Develop a client welcome letter, and include a special offer to encourage the client to return to your salon.

 

5. Reward client loyalty.

Everyone likes to be rewarded for their loyalty. Loyalty programs work beautifully, and you only have to look at large corporations like Qantas and Woolworths to see just how effective they can be.

A good loyalty program should be a win-win situation for your client and your salon. Not only does your client get the opportunity to get something for “free”, but the real bonus is that they have had to show your salon consistent loyalty to get it.

Loyalty programs vary depending on the market they’re operating in, but by keeping it simple to operate and easy for the client to achieve their reward, you’ll have a successful program.

The days when clients were loyal to just one salon are long gone. If you want your clients to be loyal to just you, you not only have to provide them with outstanding service and treatments, but you also have to give them an additional reason to stay. New salons are always opening and if you want to keep those hard-won clients, you must use proactive strategies to do so.

Action Steps:
• Determine how you would like to reward your clients, and undertake a loyalty program today.
• Train your staff on how the program will work.
• Let your clients know that you’re going to reward their loyalty with something that they’ll want and enjoy.

 

Is Your Professional Image on Social Media Affecting Your Salon?

Is Your Professional Image on Social Media Affecting Your Salon?

by | Jul 14, 2014 | Client Attraction and Retention, Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

Salon owners are often heard to comment “My clients don’t treat me like I’m a professional“. This is an interesting comment because it’s made with the assumption that the problem lies with the clients.

Let me assure you – it doesn’t.

If your clients are disrespectful towards you, are not treating you like a professional and you want to know why then one important place to start looking is at the message you’re sending out to the world via social media.

I spend several hours per week reading the posts of many salon owners, and sometimes I’m simply gobsmacked by how inappropriate those posts are in relation to their desired professional image.  Posts and images that should be reserved for only personal and close friends are being shared with salon clients.

This is a BIG MISTAKE.

While it’s good to have a friendly relationship with your clients, they simply don’t need to know about the intimate details of your private life. They should be kept away from posts that may upset them – mistreated animals or people may be something you’re passionate about, but when you expose these posts to clients, it can make them very uncomfortable, and they may even choose to unlike your page to be free of them.

If you’ve already ventured into this territory, then here’s what you need to do to get back on track with your social media image…

~ First, you must have separate pages for your personal posts and your business posts. If you’re running your business from a personal page, you also run the risk of Facebook closing it down, so now is a good time to get your business page up and running.

~ Next, think about what you are trying to achieve with your business posts. I believe that you should use them as marketing messages to help grow your business. This means posts that add value to your clients’ lives based on the services you offer.

~ Plan your social media posts for your business carefully.  Entertain and educate your clients so that they’ll be happy to read what you post.  Let them know when you’re having a special promotion, or if you have a last minute vacancy.  Post informative articles relating to your industry that will educate them.  Add interesting images to grab their attention.  Have competitions to keep them interested.  All of these things will boost your professional image and allow you to keep your personal life personal.

Remember, people absorb the image of yourself you let them see. If you want that image to be professional, then that is the image you must work on portraying with every post.

No exceptions.

Salon Newsletters – Your Friend or Foe?

Salon Newsletters – Your Friend or Foe?

by | Jun 24, 2014 | Client Attraction and Retention, Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

Most salon and spa owners agree that they should do a salon newsletter and that they should do it more often.  The thing is, sometimes they’re not sure why, how or what to say, so they end up doing nothing.

If you think about what it takes to write a great newsletter, you have to ask yourself, “Is it really worth the time and effort it’s going to take me? Am I going to get anything back for my efforts?”  The truth is that is may be a fantastic tool in your marketing toolkit, or it may be a serious waste of your time.

What I’d like to do in this article is help you to get clear about why great salon newsletters need to be part of your marketing plan, and how bad newsletters can be forever eliminated.

 

Why is regular communication so important?

First, let’s look at why your newsletters are so important. 

If you think about all the salons that are out there in your area trying to poach your clients, you’ll begin to understand why it’s vital to stay in touch with your clients on a regular basis.

Keeping them informed and interested in how your salon can continue to help them solve their beauty problems is a fantastic way to cement your relationship with them. 

If your salon is the only one that they’re not hearing from, then there could be a chance that they could be lured away to try the services offered by one of your competitors.

 

How is the best way to deliver your newsletter?

Now let’s look at the best way to deliver your newsletter. 

The easiest and best way, of course, is to deliver your newsletter either via email or even through your salon app. 

This way you get to remove the high cost of printing and snail mail, plus your clients get immediate access to your fantastic information. 

The downside to this is that emails are very easily deleted and that unsubscribe button can be very tempting if the content is of little interest to your client. 

Some salons also find it worthwhile to print off some hard copies to keep in their reception areas for new clients who aren’t yet in their database.

 

How often should you send a newsletter to your clients?

Another how that needs an answer is how often should I send a newsletter to my clients.  

Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or just now and then.  Which is best? 

The only answer to this is that it really depends on how much great information you have to share that your clients really want to hear. 

For instance, if you have your own salon app, you might want to contact your clients daily with updates about available appointments or last minute specials.  This is pretty easy to do because it’s not very time consuming, and you can prepare and send it out in just a few minutes. 

A worthwhile newsletter takes much longer to prepare and so it’s not feasible to do quite as often.  Years back a quarterly or seasonal newsletter was the done thing, but times have changed and so has the need for more contact.

Only making contact every three months could allow other salons to lure your clients away, so to avoid this you need to send out quality information at least once per month. 

When you do this you have a good chance of staying uppermost in the minds of your clients.

 

What information should you include?

Well, the first rule of thumb when it comes to content is that it must benefit your clients in some way. 

A newsletter that’s nothing but a salon sales pitch will quickly find its way into the trash. 

If you’re not sure what to write, then consider what your clients would like to learn more about.  If the weather is cold and the major problem your clients are facing is dehydration, then share some good information about how they can care for their dehydrated skin more effectively between salon visits. 

Be generous with your knowledge to show your clients that you actually care about their well-being.  Once you’ve done this, you can offer some suggestions about what salon treatments they could have or retail products they could use to alleviate their dry winter skin.

Stop thinking about what you want to sell to your clients and start thinking about what your clients want to know more about. 

Consider ways you can help them to overcome a current issue. 

You may be concerned that if you give too much information away that they won’t need your services as often, but that won’t be the case. 

By highlighting the need to care for their skin, you will actually trigger the idea to have a professional service more often.

 

So, to answer the question posted in the heading of this article, I believe that a quality newsletter that is focused on benefiting your client (rather than benefiting just you) is truly a marketing friend.

It’s a well known saying that people do business with those they know, like and trust, and if you can strengthen these things by staying in touch with your clients on a regular basis and providing them with worthwhile information and tips, then you are achieving one of the most difficult things in any business and that is good client retention.

8 Solid Tips To Pump Up Your Website’s Performance

8 Solid Tips To Pump Up Your Website’s Performance

by | Apr 22, 2014 | Salon and Spa Business Performance, Salon and Spa Marketing

Your website should be your premium marketing tool for attracting new clients into your salon or spa, but often this isn’t the case and you end up missing out on many opportunities to grow your business because of it.

The fact is that websites can no longer be the basic brochure type structure that everyone started out with many years ago.

Today, your website needs to be created and maintained in such a way that it gets found by the search engines such as Google.

If your website is not turning up on the first page after a search, chances are you are losing business to your 1st-page competitors.

This means action needs to be taken if you want to seriously grow your salon or spa.

Now, I’m not an expert on websites or search engine optimisation, but I know someone who is, so I asked  Glenn Heaton what he saw as the essential components of a well optimised website.

But first, let me explain about search engine optimisation, how it affects the way your website gets ranked, and in turn how this impacts on your business.

Good SEO ensures your website gets ranked on the first page after an internet search using keywords by the person searching.  This is very important because it’s how potential new clients find your website. 

Good SEO means more people finding you, and this in turn means more people coming to your business.  So that’s the “why” behind having good SEO.

The how is a little more complicated, and you can go from doing some of it yourself (if you have a website where you can access the back-end) right through to paying an expert to do it for you. 

However, after speaking to Glenn, it seems that there’s not just the once off website makeover to consider, as fresh regular content is also an important aspect of good SEO. 

Google and it’s counterparts want to find the freshest and most up-to-date material for it’s customers and websites that show they are doing this tend to rank highly on the list front page sites.

 

So let’s take a look at what Glenn says is essential for optimising your website and as a result, gaining more new clients:

#1. Create a blog for your website where you can add short and informative articles each fortnight.

#2. The page titles on each page of your website should include a keyword, including the location of your salon or spa.

#3. The page titles should be different for each page. For instance if the page is about facials he recommends that the title should include both the spa name and something along the lines of  “rejuvenating facials from Beautiful You in Top Ryde, Sydney”.

# 4.  The image filenames should include a keyword.  For example: rejuvenating-facial-from-dayspa-name-top-ryde.jpg

#5.  Your images should also have ‘alt’ tags completed with keywords.

#6. ALL the pages on your website should have anchor links to other pages of the site with keywords:

eg… Looking for anti-aging skin treatments in Top Ryde? Click here.

#7. Keywords should be used in the headlines of each page text (h1 or h2 tags).

#8. Keywords should be used throughout the copy on the site.

 

A little while back, Glenn and I co-hosted a webinar on the  topic of  what makes a website great, and if you’d like to listen to what Glenn had to say about this, you can click on this link to take you to the recording.

So, if you’ve been a little complacent about your website, now is the perfect time to kick start it all over again.

Your website might just need a few tweaks to get it back on track and make it the best marketing tool for your salon or spa.

Are You Communicating Often Enough With Your Salon and Spa Clients?

Are You Communicating Often Enough With Your Salon and Spa Clients?

by | Oct 6, 2013 | Client Attraction and Retention, Salon and Spa Marketing

Have you ever lost clients from your salon or spa? 

It happens, and it sucks – big time. 

But are you partly responsible for this loss?  Are you doing what it takes to retain your valuable clients? 

Are you doing everything right and staying in touch regularly?

Regular communication these days is a must-do.

The days when you could rely on a quarterly seasonal newsletter to keep in touch are done and dusted. 

If you wait three months to talk to your clients, you could be in for a big surprise, because over a three-month period your clients can easily be wooed away from you and into the welcoming arms of a competitor. 

Three months gives that competitor a healthy period of time in which to cement the relationship with their new client (the one who used to come to your salon).

So how often should you touch base with your clients?

Well, that depends on what you have to say to them. 

At a minimum, your clients should be receiving a quality and informative communication from you at least once per month. 

This is the very least you should be doing.

On top of this, with social media such as Facebook at your fingertips, you can be tweaking your message and adding value to your clients every day. 

Many times over actually. 

And of course, now the every salon and spa can have their own App, you can deliver important marketing messages into the hands of your clients as you wish or need to.

But today, we’re going to take a closer look at creating a winning newsletter.

To get started, let’s take a closer look at what you need to offer in your newsletter to ensure that your clients are always eager to receive them in their inbox, and are quivering with delight at what awaits them.

 

Creating the perfect newsletter for your salon or spa.

Here are my five simple must follow rules to ensure your newsletter gets read.

The first rule when sending an email newsletter is to make your subject line compelling, plus get it past the spam filters of your clients. 

This means leaving out spammy words that will send your email directly to the junk mail.  It’s hard enough to get your emails opened without that happening.

The second rule is to make the information in your newsletter relevant to your clients. 

By this I mean it has to matter to them. 

It has to have benefits for your client. 

It has to be something that your clients will find fascinating to read.

Don’t fall into the trap of talking about what matters most to you.  Boring!  Think about what your clients want to know, do your research, and give them something worth reading.

The third rule is don’t overload them with too much information at once. 

A grand total of three topics in one newsletter is enough. Tons actually. Any more than this then they will most likely stop reading half way through and click the delete button or toss it into the round filing bin beside their desk.

The fourth rule is to add some nice, relevant pictures.  People love pictures, and if they’re interesting it will encourage your clients to begin reading – well at least the first few lines.

To keep them reading, you need to give them a good reason such as great articles and spectacular offers.

The fifth rule is to make sure they take action. 

It’s pointless telling them all about your super offer if you don’t ask them to make a booking. 

Tell them what you want them to do – Ring us today on 12 333 444 to book your appointment/redeem your special gift/lock in this deal.

 

Staying in touch regularly with your clients will give you the edge over your competitors. 

You must keep gently reminding your clients why you are the best choice for them, and give them good reasons to keep coming back to your salon or spa, rather than trying out the new one down the street.