Almost every (good) salon has one - a loyalty programme. BUT how many actually work at putting money IN your till?

What happens at the moment -

You’ve got a loyalty programme. Let’s say the client has a card. Each time they have a facial the card is stamped. By the time they get to their, say 10th, facial they qualify for a FREE facial. Sounds familiar?

Here’s the rub though. That facial they’re not paying for is money that is NOT going into your till. Because they’d have paid for it anyway right? There is the sound of cash NOT being put into your till.

Also, are they really that excited about their FREE facial? Ask yourself, would you be? Probably not!

There just HAS to be a better way

Of course there has. And this is what the savvy salon owners do. The programme works in exactly the same way BUT instead of the client getting their usual treatment FREE they get a treatment the salon owner wants to give them FREE, worth £XX. Why? Because there is just a chance that the client will love the new treatment sooo much that they’ll want to book AND pay for another one next time!

Plus, getting a mystery FREE treatment worth £XX sounds far more exciting than merely getting their usual treatment FREE doesn’t it?

Or, do it another way. Each time they get 10 stamps on their card they get a £10 voucher (For treatments over £35) to give to their friend for FREE. These can be saved up and given away at Christmas time. So each friend now comes in and has the capability of becoming a client. Kerching! You can almost hear the cash going INTO your till.

Plus this is a way that your client can be saving towards Christmas. How great does that sound? Certainly better than a free facial.

Now, lets get trixy

If you really want to turbo charge those salon loyalty cards, do this. Make the target 12 treatments. BUT when you first had the card over to the client make sure the first two slots are already filled in. And say something like:

“Here is your loyalty card. Each time you have a treatment we’ll give your card a stamp. When you reach 12 stamps you’ll qualify for (whatever you’re going to give away). And, just to get you going, we’ve given you the first two stamps FREE.”

So, in essence, the scheme works in exactly the same way as before. I.e. the client still needs 10 treatments to qualify BUT you’ve given them a head start! This works well on two levels.

Firstly you’re seen as generous. After all you’ve given them two stamps on their card for nothing! But what have these stamps cost you? Nothing! This is a great example of adding massive value to the client at little or no cost to you!

Secondly studies have shown that loyalty schemes where you give the client a head start are far more likely to be completed than those without! Truly a win-win situation.

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Marketing - Salon loyalty programmes

But, in these times of spiralling compensation claims, what types insurance do you actually need? Further, which ones could you actually do without?

In no particular order of importance, and with apologies for any situations omitted, the insurance cover should include -

• Accidental failure of any supplies - water, gas or electric. Obviously failure of any of these supplies could effectively close you down*
• Accidental failure of telephone lines - imagine the amount of business you’d lose without your phone!
  Cover for contents and stock - imagine the cost of replacing everything inside your salon. This should also include coverage for seasonal increases in stock
• Public and employer’s liability insurance - probably THE major coverage you’ll need
• Compensation for court appearances - courts can take their time over making decisions. That time means lost revenue.
• Stolen or lost keys compensation - employees (or even you!) can walk off with the keys or lose them. This element protects you from this.
• Movement of stock and/or contents cover - particularly if you’re mobile
• Full exhibition cover - if you regularly do exhibitions you’ll need cover for both you and the delegates
• Beauty/hairdressing treatment liability cover - just in case everything goes very horribly wrong
• Fully comprehensive money cover - you don’t want to see your hard earned takings being taken without cover

Plus you’ll probably want some kind of 24 hour call centre help lines whether this is legal or crisis support. As well as the all important monthly payment by instalments.

For a great UK insurance quote click here

You may find that the insurance you’re offered covers all of the above and more. Or even that you can have a ‘pick and mix’ approach to your insurance. Either way, what is important is that you do have hair salon insurance or beauty salon insurance.

* Back in the 1970’s my mum ran a hair salon from home. When the electricity power cuts came it should have closed her salon. But, being ever inventive, she made a hair drying ‘room’ with a gas heater, clothes-horse and large towels. As the gas heater had no flue (you didn’t need one in those days) how she never killed anyone is a mystery!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Beauty Salon Insurance or Hair Salon Insurance

Do You Struggle with No Shows?

For any salon owner a ‘no show’ can be really debilitating. After all, that hour slot that you thought was filled and is now empty will now never be turned into cash. It is lost, forever.

But how can you make sure that this doesn’t happen to you? Luckily a great book,  “Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion” gives us two small, but important, techniques that could help.

Technique 1.

When the booking is made, probably at the counter, you’ll write an appointment card and give it to the client with the date and time of the appointment right? It happens all the time. What the authors of the book suggest is that you get the client to write out the card themselves. The reason being is that if they write the card themselves they’ll be far more likely to keep the appointment. Amazing but true!

Technique 2.

If the booking is made on the telephone, or indeed in person at the desk. Ensure that the following is said

“Most people, who find that they suddenly can’t make the appointment, will call us at their first opportunity to let us know. Should you find yourself in that position, you will ring us won’t you?”

This works on two levels. Firstly people want to be in the majority (on the whole) and the sentence ‘Most people’ helps them to join that group.

On the other level getting them to agree to the statement gives them a moral obligation to respond. An obligation that most will keep.

But, just in case you find yourself with no shows what can you do to fill the gap? One salon owner I was working with kept a list of potential people who could come at a moment’s notice. Should she have a no show she’d get the list out and start calling them, stopping once the vacancy was filled.

However, there is a slightly less cumbersome way of achieving the same aims. Maintain the same list BUT make it a list of mobile (cell phone) numbers. Then, when the vacancy arises text a message like:

“Stop press! Due to cancellation, treatment available at <<your Salon>> from 3-4pm. Massive 50% discount. First to text back gets the appointment. Reply NOW!”

I know which approach is the easiest, quickest, cheapest and most effective!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Management - How to stop “No Shows”

“The UK health and beauty market is set to grow by 2.7 per cent in 2009, despite the fact that the there has been a slight decline in the overall retail segment.
The figures prove the industry to be one of the most resilient during the current economic downturn, showing that growth is still possible despite the fact that many other segments are reporting plummeting sales figures.

Accordingly the market should be valued at £16.3bn (€18.84bn) by the end of the year, according to a new report from Research and Markets entitled UK Health & Beauty Retailers 2009.

The figures are particularly good when contrasted with an overall decline for retail sales figures in the UK of approximately 0.6 per cent, a figure that is largely accounted for by the significant economic downturn in the UK.”

Though cheaper supermarket “own brands” are taking some of the market share from established names like L’Oreal, the overall growth prediction is a good sign. And if your salon is not yet offering products or services for men, you may want to read this paragraph -

“…the men’s grooming segment is also tipped as having significant potential, with the report highlighting the fact that sales in this category increased by 7.5 per cent in 2008 to reach over £1bn.”

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

UK Health and Beauty Market to Grow in 2009

Some of her tips include (brief excerpts, read the full story on her blog) -

1. Let people finish what they have to say. Most interruptions are derailments, and as such, most interrupters are avoided.

2. Listen with the ear of your heart, not the pointed finger of your ego.Judgmental attitudes stop commutation before it starts.

3. Recognize employee contributions and ideas. According to Dilbert, most bosses will listen thoroughly to your input, thank you for your suggestions, and then do exactly what they planned all along.

4. Remain calm when confronted with different points of view. The word “emotion” comes from the Latin emotere, which means, “to disturb.”

This is just a quick tip, as we’re very busy building new websites for our customers - and looking at redesigning the Beauty Salon Marketing website too! As it has grown over the last year-and-a-half it has kinda outgrown its format and we need to add new sections with all the useful stuff we want to share with you.

If you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see included on this site (tips, articles, how-to’s and so on) please drop an email to martin@beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk Your feedback is always appreciated!

And remember to subscribe, using the box at the top-right of the page, so we can keep you up-to-date on all the latest news!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Management - How to keep your salon staff happy

The good news is that after 18 months of research into what makes a salon website perform well in Google and the other search engines, PLUS 6 months of testing and tweaking to find the best ways to convert more of those salon website visitors into paying customers… we now have a very successful formula that can be customised for any beauty salon website, hair salon website, or spa website. So…

Who Else Wants a Salon Website that Generates £100,000 PLUS in New Sales?

Sounds unreal doesn’t it? Let me repeat that, £100,000 in new sales over the next 12 months. That’s right £100,000 in sales to new clients over the next 12 months.

You might think that this figure is unachievable right? WRONG! We created a salon website for Diane Matthews that is forecast to do just that. £100,000 in sales to new clients over the next 12 months. WOW!

And so far it is very much on track. Over the winter months of January and February, in her own words, Diane has said that the website has generated at least £10,000 per month in new sales.

If the performance continues then £120,000 in extra sales should be easily achievable this year. No question.

Hear it for Yourself

You needn’t take my word for it either. We’ve recorded the latest teleseminar so that you can listen in. You can hear the exact tips and techniques you need to make sure your website does exactly the same.

Order your audio CD today and you’ll be able to listen to the full interview where Diane explains how she achieved this fantastic success… and our salon website creator, Jon Edwards, shares some of the techniques he used to achieve those figures.

All you have to do is to give me a call on 0114 263 1232 and I’ll ship you your own CD. And the best bit? It’s FREE. Or email martin@beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk

So grab your phone and call 0114 263 1232 today.

You’ll also be able to hear on the CD the full implications of having such a great website - apart from getting in great revenues.

Implications such as reducing other advertising expenditure. Why? Because it just isn’t necessary - making you even more profitable! Implications such as increasing the catchment area of your salon. You’re no longer confined to Yellow Pages catchment.

And much, much more. Order your CD now.

Do YOU want a similar salon website?

Would you like a similar performing website? A website that generates new clients and new revenues? Imagine what a difference this would make in your salon.

Well now you can! Using the goldmine of technical marketing prowess in the Essential Salon Owners Marketing Toolkit coupled to our own highly developed web skills you can have a killer website.

BUT …

Each website is skilfully crafted to gain maximum exposure in search engines. Each website is designed to effectively sell your treatments. (Diane Matthews experiences an 89% conversion rate from web enquiries)

As such we can only take on just 4 websites each month. The reason being is that it takes so much time to craft such highly performing salon websites.

Ensure that you secure your opportunity to have a highly performing salon or spa website. Make a no obligation call to 0114 263 1232. Or email martin@beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk

You never know you could be one of the lucky 4 salons to begin to develop a website with a £100,000 per year potential - whilst reducing spend on all other advertising. Call today on 0114 263 1232

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Websites - does £100,000 extra sales sound appealing?

On Monday 6th April, 2pm to 3pm UK time (9.00am - 10.00am EST in the USA) we will be sharing some secrets! After 12 months of intensive research, we recently completed our first salon website re-design for a customer. And within 5 weeks, the number of visitors to her website increased by 825%. Her phone is ringing off the hook, and she had to bring in extra staff to cope with all the new business… and we’re going to tell you how we did it.

Studies consistently show that more and more people are turning to the internet as their first source of information for local products and services. Potential customers are searching every day for services like yours - are they finding your website, or your competitors’ sites? As the recession bites, the big companies are switching more of their marketing budget online, to get more “bang for their buck”. But you don’t have to have millions of dollars to create an effective salon website, we’ll tell you how to use free and low-cost methods to make your phone ring.

In an average month, Google reports that -

• 201,000 people search online for “beauty salon” in the UK, 673,000 in the USA
• 201,000 people search for “hair salon” in the UK, 1,220,000 in the USA
• 2,740,000 people search for “spa” in the UK, 7,480,000 in the USA
• And then there are all the people who use other search engines, or directory-websites

And in this difficult economy, studies show that more people are researching online before deciding where to spend their hard-earned cash.

Whether you have a website already and want to know how to get better results from your investment, or whether you are just thinking about creating a salon website, this free teleseminar will help you to understand what makes a successful salon website, and what you can do (without needing to be a super-geek!) to get there.

To book your slot, please call Martin Smith on 0114 263 1232 and he’ll tell you the phone number to call on the day, and instructions. Alternatively (or if you are outside the UK) send him an email at martin@beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk Spaces on the teleseminar are limited, so please book early!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Free Teleseminar - Make more money from your Salon Website!

Along similar lines, CosmeticsDesign-Europe recently quoted a forecast from Mintel - “Anti-aging tipped to survive the recession unscathed” -

Mintel expects anti-aging creams to remain unblemished by the recession following years of market leading growth.

Anti-aging skincare sales in the US rose 13 percent to $1.6bn between 2006 and 2008, outpacing the general facial skincare, which was up 11 percent over the same period, according to Mintel.

This trend is expected to remain on track even as the economy struggles.

“Anti-aging won’t fall to the recession,” said Kat Fay, senior beauty and personal care product analyst at Mintel.

“Looking young is extremely important to many women, especially Baby Boomers, and it’s not an issue they’re willing to compromise on because of tightened budgets. Many women see anti-aging skincare as a reasonably priced investment in their appearance and well-being.”

Strong growth forecast despite recession

So even as income drops Mintel expects the anti-aging skincare market to grow some 20 percent at inflation-adjusted prices over the next five years….

Not only are new products coming onto the market but new more advanced ingredients are being incorporated into the latest launches.

“The latest launches are more detailed and scientific in their claims, ingredients and projected benefits,” added Fay.

Mintel highlighted sirtuins as one of the newest and most promising innovations in anti-aging.

Sirtuins are naturally occurring enzymes that are thought to boost cell longevity and therefore, provide anti-aging benefits.

Two new sirtuin-based products to find their way onto shelves include Natura Bissé’s premium skincare product, The Cure, and Estee Lauder’s new Time Zone Line and Wrinkle Reducing Crème.

It is often said that, in a recession, the top end of the market and the bottom end tend to be relatively un-affected. It’s the people in the middle who are worst hit!

Related Articles on Salon Marketing -

• Getting through the Credit Crunch - How to “Recession-Proof” your salon
• Salon Management - Recession proofing tips
• Credit Crunch Marketing - Recession beating strategies
• Salon retail products - predictions for 2009
• Salon Retail - Beauty Foods a growing market in 2009?
• Recession-Proof Marketing - test and measure

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Recession Marketing - Anti-aging recession-proof?

Docmail is a service we started using recently to send out our monthly newsletter to our Salon Marketing clients. You supply them with your mailing list and the document you want posting to that list (as a Word doc) and they do everything else for you… for less than the cost of a second-class stamp!

As they say on their website, it is saving us -

• Long periods of laser or ink jet printing
• Manually stuffing envelopes
• Franking or sticking on stamps
• Queuing at the local post office
• Buying and managing stocks of toner, stationery and envelopes

We’ve tested their service and found it very reliable (it is also used by several major banks). So, if you’re sending out lots of salon leaflets every month, we recommend trying out their service. Check out the Docmail website, and give them a try!

Post from: Beauty Salon Marketing UK

Salon Marketing - save money on salon mailings

Mobile phone firm O2 has quizzed some of its customer base and found that long-established firms agree on the importance of nine key areas:

1 - Get the basics right…

2 - Cut costs…

3 - Careful cash flow management…

4 - Spend on marketing

Despite recommending cost-cutting across most areas of the business, a need to remain competitive and visible is important. Marketing was one area seen as crucial to generating business during a period of downturn. Take advantage of the recession by negotiating better deals in areas such as advertising where cost of space has dropped or allocate spend to setting up or improving a website which is another cost-effective way of marketing your company. In an increasingly competitive arena, customers need to hear about your product so maintaining marketing spend is a must.

5 - Determination…

6 - Hold onto existing customers

As spending power diminishes existing customers were highlighted as the most common source of revenue growth during the last recession. Rather than putting all efforts behind winning new business, which is more cost and time heavy, identifying new business opportunities among existing customers led to successful organic growth and new revenue.

7 - Diversify your product and customer base

Looking at ways to adapt or broaden the appeal of a product may be a way of maintaining and growing your business. This may be through opportunities arising as a direct result of the economic climate or it could be re-looking at your business and adapting it for a different market. Firms should be alert and on the lookout for new ways to market their product in order to grow their customer base.

8 - Delivering excellent customer service

With existing customers recognised as the lifeblood for small businesses during a period of downturn, delivering excellent customer service was identified as essential by 9 out of 10 of the small businesses questioned. Being flexible and reliable to meet their requirements were cited as common methods to help keep current customers loyal as they tighten belts.

9 - Credit check customers…

You can find much more information, and detailed examples, of how to apply these strategies to your hair salon or beauty salon’s marketing in our new product - Crack the Credit Crunch, Ride Out the Recession.

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Salon Management - Recession proofing tips