10 Ways to Get More Customers for Your Beauty Salon
Despite your impeccable skills as a beautician or hair stylist, your salon isn’t receiving the foot traffic necessary to generate the profits you desire.
As a business owner, you’re always striving to be better — and as a beauty expert, you aim for perfection in everything you do. Therefore, even if your salon is performing quite well, you’re always seeking out new techniques that can help attract people to your business.
At Loopy Loyalty, we work extensively with hundreds of hair & nail stylists and beauty professionals. We’re more than happy to provide the following ten helpful tips that’ll help you attract customers to your salon:
1. Entice Customers One Instagram Post at a Time
In 2019, running a beauty salon without an Instagram account is akin to walking outside without shoes. You can do it, but why would you?
Your business is based entirely on aesthetics and visuals, and Instagram is a platform that exists solely because of those principles. The two go hand-in-hand.
The fact is, most salon owners have immersed themselves in the Instagram culture because it’s the best way to show off their eye-catching work.
Click here for a comprehensive guide on how to use Instagram for your beauty salon.
2. Establish a Community Presence
If you aren’t a commercialized, mainstream beauty salon, you don’t have the luxury of coasting off of brand recognition.
Though you do have the unique advantage of positioning yourself as a pillar in the community.
What does that mean exactly? For one, you can sponsor and volunteer during local events. Also, you can teach beauty and hairstyling classes at a local community center. After all, as a beautician or hairstylist, you possess a massively viable skill.
Passing on your useful knowledge is a way to give back to your surrounding community, to establish yourself as an expert, and to foster goodwill towards your business.
3. Cultivate a Loyal Customer Network by Doing the Little Things Right
It’s commonly known that you’ll receive 80% of your business from 20% of your client base.
While offering specials das its advantages, it’s your loyal customers that come to your salon without the special stipulations.
They’re the ones willing to pay regular prices, so they should be rewarded. Also, your most loyal clients will be the ones referring new people to your business and growing your list of regulars.
Make sure you earmark the people who keep returning to your store and offer them the perks they deserve. For instance, why not provide free hair-washes to your most regular clients?
Though, there’s a more specific way to promote customer loyalty…
4. Start a Digital Loyalty Program
At the end of the day, if you don’t digitize your loyalty program, customers will probably lose or forget their membership cards and fail to capitalize on the various opportunities. Plus, it’d be wasteful to print out a whack-load of individual cards.
Digital stamp card solutions like Loopy Loyalty’s ensure that customers can use their stamps while also providing an environmentally friendly solution.
Not sure how you should reward your clients with Loopy Loyalty’s platform? There’s plenty of options. For instance, you could give one stamp for every paid appointment, then reward customers with free highlights or a discounted treatment for every 10 stamps earned. You can even reward customers for buying products, referring friends or leaving an online review of your business.
5. Provide Online Video Seminars
Beauty and makeup tutorials on YouTube are a marketing force of nature, with 700 million beauty-related video views being generated monthly on the platform. Why not leverage this power and produce similar videos? Your current customers will provide more than enough video views to start, so just let them know about your channel when they visit your salon.
6. Offer Specials
Yes, cultivating loyal customers is the best way to ensure a sustainable beauty salon. However, at some point, you do need to attract new blood to your location. And one of the best ways to do so is by offering a limited time deal.
Furthermore, your current crop of customers will be more than happy to capitalize on your deal, while letting their friends know as well. You can inform your loyalty program customers of your specials with Loopy Loyalty’s push notification feature.
7. Ask for Google Reviews
We live in a day and age where Google Reviews reign supreme.
The vast majority of consumers read online reviews before visiting businesses. And when you receive positive reviews, it will significantly improve your online search results.
All you must do is make a point to ask each customer to leave a review.
Even if only one of every ten people ends up doing so, the number of reviews will begin to pile up, resulting in the exponential growth of your salon’s reputation and increased exposure online.
8. Offer Premium Services
Why not make a stay at your salon as pleasant as possible? It never hurt anybody to have an espresso machine so customers in wait can sip on a delicious beverage.
Or, you can establish a relationship with a nearby pastry business to ensure your customers have delicious snacks every time they visit your salon.
Though cross-promotional relationships go far beyond stocking up your salon with delicious treats for your clients…
9. Cross Promotion is Your Best Friend
Neighboring businesses are your one-way ticket to free advertising. Go around town to cafes, restaurants, clothing boutiques, and wherever else you can think and offer the owners something of value. It could be something as simple as a coupon.
In return, many of these establishments can hand out your marketing collateral (e.g., flyers or business cards) or share your business on their social media, for instance.
10. Keep Doing Incredible Work
Imagine you executed a Don Draper-like advertising and marketing strategy. And the whole town came to your salon — but you didn’t have the cosmetic artistry and skill to back it up.
At the end of the day, mastery of your skills wins the day. If your pedicures are on point and your hairstyling is transcendent, word will spread, and customers will be lined up for days, waiting for the best beauty services in town.
