A business owners’ greatest nightmare is to be forgettable. As a salon, spa, or barbershop owner, being your memorable, edgy and creative selves who excel at what you do is the key to making it in the industry and standing out from the crowd.
Making a lasting impression is one major way to cast your business into the success stratosphere. And we have a hot tip for you… One of the most essential tools in your marketing toolkit to craft this fab impression is email and SMS marketing. It’s marketing GOLD that will bring new clients through your door faster than you can say “yes please!”
How? Glad you asked!
1. Create strong relationships
It’s no surprise that the secret to making your business better than ever is to build and maintain strong, lasting relationships with clients. And that means both when they’re in and out of the salon. It can be so easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day and the clients you expect to visit that day, however it’s the ones who aren’t sitting in your chair that need the greatest love and attention… A little bit of nurturing so they can rebook and revisit in a breeze.
So how can you grab their attention when you’re not sitting face to face? Email and SMS marketing may not be the new whiz kid on the block when it comes to marketing channels, but boy they’re so effective. Why? Because you’re contacting your client DIRECTLY. Unlike other marketing channels, email and SMS marketing gives you the unique opportunity to be detailed with your segmentation and contact clients that need a specific, timely communication to in turn build those essential long-term relationships.
2. Start timely conversations
Catch a client at the right time, and they will be so much more likely to take action. For your business, timely messages should be sent for appointment acknowledgements and reminders, rebooking reminders, new clients welcomes, and even happy birthday and holiday messages.
Let’s take a look at rebooking reminders… Hello, imagine how useful this can be for your business! This segment of clients could be ones that haven’t visited in 3 months. Guess what? Using Shortcuts Marketing (our latest and greatest email and SMS marketing feature) you can set up an automated campaign to target these clients of yours and send them a “time to see you again” campaign. Clients that receive a targeted and timely campaign like this are going to be so much more likely to book an appointment.
3. Add personal flair
Have you ever received an email that has your name in the subject line or within the email itself? Piques your interest hey! The whole theory behind this tactic is it helps add that little bit of personal flavour that people connect with. People love to feel like they’re being spoken to directly – and this is one way to make them feel like they are.
Within Shortcuts Marketing, you can use the variety of merge fields, such as the first name field, to input your clients first name into the subject line of an email, or in the body copy of an email or text message for that little personal flair.
4. Promote yourself
When you can get direct and targeted with your marketing, you are presented with a valuable opportunity to push out special offers and promote your business to those who are most likely to take up your offer.
For example, using Shortcuts Marketing you can set up an automated birthday campaign that will send out an email and SMS to your clients on their birthday. If you wish, this can contain a special voucher or offer of your choosing for them to redeem within the salon at their next visit within their birthday month. Cha-ching!
5. Build your brand
Last, but certainly not least, email and SMS marketing are so super important to continue building your brand in the eyes of your guests. It’s another tool in the vast marketing channel toolbox which you can use to tell and reinforce your story.
If you’re looking to give your salon, spa or barbershop that extra spark of marketing magic, look no further than the most direct of direct marketing channels you can find: email + SMS. Shortcuts Marketing is full of all the effective marketing juju you could wish for, while keeping it so super-simple, to help your business really skyrocket and make that lasting impression with your guests.
