by Greg Milner | Nov 1, 2018 | Operations Manual, Salon Advertising Tips
Now with a 365-day DOUBLE your Money Back Guarantee!
332 Pages, Downloadable Templates, How-To Videos and More
SEE THE CONTENTS HERE
Revised, updated with new sections, Simple Salon Marketing Third Edition delivers up-to-date guides on all manner of marketing strategies for salon & spa owners all over the world.
New sections include:
- Are you ‘visible’ online – how to check your Google positioning
- What to do to boost your visibility
- Facebook advertising – the must haves to make sure your advertising dollar works
- The ‘Big Three’ of salon websites
- How to turn your website into a lead generating machine
- Chatbots – what they do, and do you need one?
Used, tested and proven by more than 4,400 salon and spa owners worldwide, Simple Salon Marketing is the Industry-Standard ‘how-to’ for direct response marketing for hair & beauty professionals who want marketing that WORKS – not just marketing that looks pretty!
“I used this very same toolkit to take my business from a struggling $2,000 a month to more than $17,000 a WEEK,” says Marnie Kallmeyer. “If you implement these strategies, you’ll be absolutely amazed at the results.”
Here’s how Marnie describes what happened when “the light went on…”
by Greg Milner | Feb 6, 2017 | Salon Advertising Tips
Most small business owners don’t have much of an idea of what exactly they expect out of an advertisement. Mostly they believe it is just informing the public about all the services that they offer.
While the purpose of most advertising is just that, there is a problem with this kind of advertising. They will be expecting their ads to do too much, to appeal to all possible prospects. And by doing so, it achieves nothing. Asking a single ad to do everything is asking too much of it.
A single ad should have one purpose, one job, one expected outcome, and nothing more. If you want to sell a particular kind of body treatment or hair service, only sell that service. Sell it hard, with a great offer, a terrific headline and a strong guarantee. Don’t simply fill your ad with a bullet-pointed list of everything you do. That’s not an ad, it’s an expensive business card. And nobody ever sold anything off a business card.
These kinds of ads are what are called SPORKS. Sporks – for those who are not sure – are tools that TRY TO BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYBODY! (They are a cross between a spoon and a fork. It tries to cover 2 bases and in the end it does a bad job of both.)
You have to learn how it is that you stand out from the sea of salons that exist. Only by having the right tools and the right mentors can you successfully change your salon from a “same as everyone else” salon, into a well defined, structured salon that is the expert in the field.

Advertising gone wrong
Here’s a typical beauty salon ad that tries to be all things to all people. It’d make an okay business card, but it’s not an ad.
So instead of saying in your advertisement something like “Call us for all beauty needs such as body treatments, pedicures, manicures, massages, nails, facials, blah blah blah…’ make your ad specific, make the offer very clear.
A word of warning: Most of the people who sell you advertising space or services are ignorant of this kind of advertising, and if they’re ignorant of it, they fear it, because it is so accountable.
Ad executives are not accustomed to this kind of accountability. In fact even the most pragmatic and hard headed businessman generally has very low expectations out of his ads. It’s basically the case of “Put it out there and hope for the best.”
Often, magazines have even refused to run ‘our’ kind of ad, because their main interest is producing a glossy publication that looks pretty to their readers, rather than accepting advertising that actually works for their advertisers, the people who actually pay the magazine’s bills.
Do you find this hard to believe, that ad agencies actually make ads that make their paper or magazine look better than actually trying to sell your product? Well here’s a link where you can check for yourself exactly what ad agencies are most interested in doing.
As the caption says “Ad agencies create advertisements to win awards, not to sell your product.”
There’s a big disconnect between what you expect of your ad, and what ad agencies want out of the ad that they create. Unless the both of you are thinking along the same lines, how are you going to get any mileage out of all the money that you spend on the advertisement?
As part of their on-going membership of Worldwide Salon Marketing, salon owners get one-on-one coaching, access to exclusive Members Only discussion forums on Facebook, plus 24/7 access to our Library of hundreds of done-for-you marketing & advertising templates, video tutorials, and much more. Many members have used these templates to create their own ads and have been taken aback by the response.
But many members have also hit a brick wall when trying to get one of these Direct Response ads published in their local newspaper, or a magazine. One salon owner even received a call from the owner of the newspaper, asking her if she knew what she was doing as her advertisement was very different from all the other ads that they were running and he was concerned that the ads were not going to work for her. While the interest he displayed in his client was commendable, his knowledge of advertising is woefully inadequate.
by Greg Milner | Feb 3, 2017 | Ads that Have Worked, Advertising Tips, Beating the Competition, Getting Salon Clients Quickly, Increasing Retail Sales, Salon Advertising Tips
No salon advertising, no matter how well written, is worth spending money on unless it has a great offer.
Take a look through the newspaper. It is astounding how many business owners have spent good money to buy expensive ad space, and filled it with nothing more than a big business card.
Unless you’re letting the reader know exactly what the offer is, most of them will just skip over the ad and the whole point of the advertisement is lost.
An offer is NOT discounting. In fact, discounting is a last resort, and does more damage than good in most cases. Discounting not only takes money out of your pocket, it trains your clients to expect it. If you’ve ever had a phone call from somebody asking when your next special discount is on, you’ll know what I mean.
In direct response marketing, an OFFER is best described as a deal where if they pick up the phone now and make an appointment they’ll get some added thing, or combination of things that they cannot get another time, or they can only get if they’re among the first 12 or 17 or 29 to call.

To give you an idea of the difference between a weak offer and a strong offer, we’ll take an analogy.
Let’s say two men are each selling a horse. One says to the horse buyer, “Here’s my horse, give me the money now and you can take the horse.”
The other one says “Don’t give me any money now. Take Bessie for a week, ride her as you wish, and after a week if you like Bessie, only then give me the money.”
Now, who do you think is going to make the sale?
The second seller hasn’t lost anything by taking the money a week later. Yet, he’ll probably be able to sell more horses at a higher price than the first seller simply because he’s making it seem like his offer is a good deal better than the other.
Typically, a good beauty industry offer would be built on an existing service you want to sell, combined with free add-ons that cost you little or nothing to provide, but which give massive perceived value to the customer.
Perceived value is when the value add-on is of little or no actual cost to you, but increases the value of the services offered to the person reading the ad. Saying “Hurry, $249 worth of beauty treatments for just $99 for the first 14 people to call” may be a little bit of a sleight of hand, but without offers like this, your marketing is dead in the water.
Packaging The Offer
Once you’ve crafted a great offer, you can then start getting a bit more sophisticated. Let’s say that until now all you’ve had is a price list. In my view a price list is a poor way to market your services, since it encourages people to price shop, like walking along the server in a cafeteria. Granted that everyone likes a good deal, but the meaning of the word deal itself means good VALUE. It does not necessarily mean lower prices.
Want to know why? If the only distinguishing factor about your salon is the price, then you become a commodity. Once people start perceiving you as a commodity you become replaceable and/or interchangeable.
Are your customers calling you and asking what the prices of certain services are? Are they complaining about the prices that you charge? If you see a long time regular after a few months and ask her why she hasn’t visited you and get “Oh I couldn’t get an appointment with you, so I went to the place around the corner and kind of just kept going there.”!
If this is happening to you then for sure, you’ve become a commodity to them, meaning that they can get what you give anywhere. It isn’t necessary for them to come to you.
The situation is not irretrievable though and there are a number of things you can do like revising your prices upward, or starting new services, or even prune your customer list.
During these difficult times when the economy is not doing too well, it is easy to fall into the trap of reducing prices. I am, however, fundamentally opposed to mere discounting as a way to increase sales.
The important thing therefore is to ensure that it is not price alone that is your distinguishing factor. In fact some of the best ads ever written didn’t even mention any product, far less its features or price. It appealed to the emotion of the reader.
This is a very important concept in marketing, that people do not make buying decisions based on reason.
According to US marketing guru Dan Kennedy, ‘under normal conditions, only 10% of customers always buy by price, their decisions governed by price, because they have no choice. This group is largely made up of “working poor”, low-wage working people with more mouths to feed than they can afford food for. Nothing wrong with them as people. A lot to admire – except the choices they make that keep them poor.
‘But no good reason to have them – or worse, seek them out as customers. Yet, strangely, most business owners focus 90% of their energy on price even while only 10% of customers decide based on price.
However, there are 20% who make most buying decisions with little weight given to price or cheapest price, and 5% who never consider price….’
So, which customers do you want? It is my contention that you get the customers you deserve.
Most buying decisions are based only on emotion.
If therefore you are appealing to the rational part of the human, you will never get as much response as if you appeal to the emotional part.
Just take a look at some of the ads that are listed here. The very first ad is the one placed by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the great Antarctic adventurer. It’s a very simple ad, does not have any pictures, does not promise anything other than negatives, and basically is one of the worst kind of ads that you can place according to advertising professionals.
Here’s what the ad said
Men wanted
For hazardous journey, small wages,
bitter cold, long months of complete darkness,
constant danger, safe return doubtful,
honour and recognition in case of success.
This ad came out on December 29, 1913 in the London Times and it brought in more than 5,000 applicants including three women.
On the face of it, this ad does not have the power to bring this kind of response, but if you understand what the ad is about, you’ll realize that it is a deliberate, well planned and brilliantly executed dare to every red-blooded male in the whole United Kingdom.
A good contemporary example would be the advertisement for Singapore Airlines. In a time of recession when airlines all over the world are cutting down on price in order to become more competitive, they are one of the few airlines that have not gotten into this race.
Cutting down on price or discounting as we have already discussed is not the right way to market your goods or services. Whatever you do, however much you try to cut your price, there will be someone somewhere who will undercut you.
The only sensible thing to do then, is to appeal to the emotion of the buyer. This is what Singapore Airlines have done brilliantly.
They use the ‘Singapore girl to show you visually, how you will be cosseted and cared for in their airliners. Rationally speaking, would you expect any less in any other airline? But none of the others have caught on to this and are paying for it with loss of business.
Yet by appealing to the emotion of the user, Singapore Airlines is able to maintain its pricing and show growth in profits at a time when many other airlines are looking for bailout plans.

What about the legendary ad for the Rolls Royce. It came out in 1958 and is sometimes referred to as the “Most famous headline in advertising history.” All it says is
“At 60 miles an hour, the loudest sound you can hear in the new Rolls Royce is the ticking of the clock.”
More than half a century has gone by and no other luxury car maker has managed to bring out an ad that even comes close to this.
All these advertisements have one thing in common; they give some sort of emotional benefit rather than a physical one and emotional trumps physical every time.
One way to stop people cafeteria shopping is to package your products and services, and re-brand them so that they cannot be compared apples to apples with your competitors.
For example, you might currently offer a cut and colour at a certain price. But if you value-add by listing all the nominally free services you provide as part of this cut and colour, you come up with a package that has enormous added value. And remember, there is no point doing this unless you are going to list the added extras, with their nominal value, in your marketing message.
You can then simply name this new package, re-brand it if you like, so that it’s called the ‘Scarlett Johanssen Glamour Make-Over’, or whatever. You can actually take the exact same package, give it a couple of tweaks, and call it something different, for example the ‘Meryl Streep Screen Goddess’ package, to appeal to a different demographic.
“How Do I Write Ads That Work?”
Writing ads that work – writing ads that find you actual clients, that’s the skill. And that’s all readily available, all so very easy to learn, tweak, and use whenever you want to turn on your “money” tap. I’ve compiled the Starter Pack, a 2-part manual that shows you exactly how to write an ad that brings in clients like a flood – and, ready-to-use marketing templates with it.
See, this will give you the exact tools, the exact SYSTEM used by thousands of salons and spas across the globe, making them money every single day.
And the best part? It’s all guaranteed.
SO. If you’re ready to start finding more clients, get ahead of your marketing and write ads that really work.
by Greg Milner | Jan 30, 2017 | Advertising Tips, Salon Advertising Tips, Salon Marketing Online
With more than 400 million users – Instagram is today, one of the leading platforms successfully helping business owners establish a name for themselves in the world of social media. Imagine having an audience of 400 million who can see the services and products you are offering? Sounds unbelievable, right? Well the truth is … it’s possible!
With so much of today’s business done online, it’s critical to remain active across all social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) – and especially, Instagram, as a business owner.
While it’s comparable to Facebook, Instagram is a mobile-photo sharing app which allows users to edit and post photos and videos – now even allowing its users to stream themselves live, similar to Facebook Live.
Signing Up
Creating an Instagram Account is easy and doesn’t take long. While Instagram can be accessed via desktop, Instagram is primarily a mobile app, so you have to download the application on your mobile before signing up. You can download the application from either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

By signing up to Instagram, you’ll let yourself be found by thousands of potential clients.
As a business owner, you will want to create a ‘business profile‘ instead of a personal account. The business account gives business owners, an insight to key information and analytics, which we will later discuss in this article. Before signing up to Instagram you will be asked to link your Facebook business page to your Instagram account. This way both of your accounts will be linked, making it easier to navigate from one platform to the other.
Once your accounts have been linked and your Instagram Account is created, you can now go the Profile Tab, located at the bottom right hand side, to Edit Profile. In this space you can do anything from change your name and username, change your profile photo, add a website users can visit and write a short 150 character biography other users will be able to view once they visit your business account.
TIP: To switch your account from a private or public account go to – Options Settings, located in the Profile Tab; top right-hand corner. To switch and activate a private account tap on the blue button to activate a private account. To make your account public, again – tap on the blue button to switch off the private setting and activate public account.

With Instagram for Business, you’ll be able to see who’s engaged with your profile.
Finding Your Way
Navigating on Instagram is relatively simple. The Home Button allows you to see posts from pages you may be interested in or accounts that you are currently following. The Home Button also allows you to see anything you may have previously posted. To the right of the Home Button is where you will find the Search Bar. The Search Bar allows you to find pages or people you are interested in.
Below the Search Bar you will find a display of photos and videos you can explore to see what other users are posting on Instagram. The Plus Button allows you to add any images or videos, directly from your camera roll or phone camera, you wish to post on your business page.
TIP: Instagram videos have now been extended from 15 seconds to 1 minute in duration. This is a great business tool to share with your followers and potential new customers. Think about how you can utilise video posts for your business? For example: As a salon owner you could upload a short video showing users and potential customers how to get the perfect blow dry, with a simple call to action!
Think about the trust people would have in you when you give them free lessons!
Creating Content
When creating content for any online platform, it is important to think about how you’ll be seen, and how people will remember what you post. Gone were the days where you’d post something and clients will come flocking to you. See it takes an average of 7 – 17 interactions with someone before they’ll buy from you.
And the good thing? If a user likes what you are posting, they will probably follow your page. This is positive news in the world of Instagram! Most people have less than 1,000 followers on Instagram, so they’ll take note of people who like their photos. If you like, and comment on people’s photos, this is a sure-fire way to grow your following.
Always remember the hashtags: adding hashtags to any of your photos or videos – for maximum exposure, before publicly posting them. For example: Images of makeup will usually have the hashtag #Instagrammakeup associated with them. Hashtags allow users to search and filter through different topics of interest via the online platform, making content and business easier to find
Interacting With People
A simple way of interact with other users on Instagram is by liking their photos and commenting on them. To like a photo, either double-tap on the image or tap on the heart-shaped button to like a post.
Commenting on a post is done by clicking on the Comment Button, located on the right hand side of the Like Button. To make your interaction more personal with other users, use the tagging @ symbol available. Start by typing the @ symbol, then type the user’s name you wish to tag in the comment box. After writing your comment simply tap the Post Button and the comment will be posted. By tagging a user, the person will automatically be notified they have been tagged in a comment, making your interaction with them more personal and intimate for future relations.
Insights and Analytics
As a business page on Instagram you are exposed to specific analytical insights and information. These statistics allow you to view the demographics and behavior of your followers, enabling you to create more relevant and timely content for your business page.
For example: Instagram Insights allow you to see what time most users are visiting your page. This information allows you to successfully allocate an appropriate time to post new content to your business page – which will attract more attention and traffic to your page.

All In All – Post Daily
If you’re not posting daily on Instagram, you’re losing potential business. The mass of people using Instagram daily is greater than Facebook, and almost as high as Snapchat. Instagram will surpass Facebook as the #1 go-to platform – in a matter of years.
The question is, what’re you doing about your Instagram?
by Greg Milner | Aug 12, 2016 | Ads that Have Worked, Advertising Tips, Ask the Experts, Blog, Salon Advertising Tips
Last week, I talked about what you need to know before you write any form of marketing material for your salon.
Now, I did promise I’d show you exactly how you can write an ad that turns your silent phone into a never-ending ringing-machine. This includes the 7 CRUCIAL elements to any successful salon marketing campaign.
Let’s dive in.
There are two types of popular marketing: branding, and direct response. This type of marketing I’ll be talking about is will be direct response.

Branding marketing works wonders for Apple and your local bank – but it’s a money guzzler for salons and spas.
As a salon owner, marketing can be VERY overwhelming, and it’s very easily a huge waste of money. That is, if you don’t do your marketing right. Time and time again, salon owners (and specifically, our members before they join any of our programs) will run branding ads, or ads promoting HUGEEEE discounts.
The thing is, “50% off an eyebrow wax,” or “50% a cut and color!” just doesn’t work. I’ve never been compelled to book in for a “discounted” service – have you?
Direct response marketing, put simply, creating adverts and offers that benefit the customer, NOT the salon or spa. Discounts work on the salon’s behalf – they get you in customers.
Direct response, however, ALWAYS will solve a client’s problem: whether it may be frizzy hair, long hair, hairy legs, cellulite, acne – whatever your service is, you solve a problem.
You already know the 3 elements you must figure out before you write any ad – and if you don’t, read them now, otherwise the following won’t make much sense.
Those 3 elements (you’ve gotta know what you’re selling, to whom, and why they should buy from you) are crucial for you to figure out these 7 must-have elements in ANY marketing campaign, especially for your salon.
They are –
- A headline: your salon name is a SHITTY HEADLINE.
- An offer: no, this isn’t discounting. DISCOUNTING IS EVIL!
- List benefits: what specific problems do you solve? Bumpy legs from shaving, frizzy hair?
- A guarantee: This is the most powerful, yet rarely, and so poorly used.
- Some proof: How can you prove what you say is true? How can you make your potential clients TRUST you?
- Scarcity: why should they call now to book?
- Call to action (CTA): what do they do next?
Phew. That’s a lot to take in.
See, 99% of salon marketing falls into the fatal, profit-grabbing trap of talking about their own business:
“Our clients have come to trust OUR experts… for OUR expertise…. our cutting-edge machines…..”
STOP. Just, stop. I was bored writing that sentence, and I’M A MARKETER!
Marketing that fails is bragging about your business. Marketing that makes money, always puts the client first. Always.
See, advertising is SALESMANSHIP IN PRINT.
Here’s an INCREDIBLE direct response ad – written from a manufacturer. It’s clearly been written by a copywriter – someone who’s job is to write marketing for a living – someone like me.

It has a headline that’s direct, and to the point. It’s job is to appeal one to those are interested, and to compel the intrigued readers into reading the ad.
Let’s dive in:
1. Headline
The headline here is straightforward, and bluntly put: it’s about making more money. They’re clearly targeting people who use Seal-It, either in their current business or as part of their hobby. By giving them this elusive idea that they can MAKE money from the products they use instantly intrigues them.
Read on.
2. Offer
They’re not selling a product itself through this ad, instead they’re creating a relationship with the interested reader. This is called lead generation advertising.
The offer here is to become a distributor of Seal-It, and to make money: they’ve made it clear: “Become a Seal-It Distributor and make money now!”
3. Benefits
Seal-It did it beautifully: a simple list, clearly stating the benefits… “unlimited earning potential,” “no franchise fees…” – they’ve already stated the solutions to a reader’s potential questions.
4. A guarantee: This is the most powerful, yet rarely, and so poorly used.
Although they don’t state a specific guarantee, the little yellow box stating who they can potentially sell Seal-It too, and the testimonial below the box replaces the guarantee.
5. Proof
They’ve added a clear testimonial – AND an image of the couple. Any form of testimonial will increase trust, and increase sales, but photos of the person whom the testimonial is from will increase sales even MORE.
After all, humans connect better with other humans.
6. Scarcity
Usually, in direct response marketing, you’ll have a limit on what you’re selling. That limit is in either time the offer is available, amount of appointments/quantity available, or anything that makes people **act now**.
After all, that’s what scarcity is designed to do: scarcity triggers the fear button that every human has.
7. Call to action (CTA)
They’ve made it clear: “Call now for your free information packet!”
Can’t get any clearer than that.
I’ll bet your first reaction of this ad was “there’s too much text in it! Nobody will read it!”
To the contrary, actually. The people who WILL read this ad are PRECISELY the only people the advertiser wants. That’s true for you, that’s true for ANY form or direct response advertising:

This is a real advert written by Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest marketing firms in the world. Click the ad to read the entire thing.
This is a real advert written by Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest marketing firms in the world. It’s long, about ten-times longer than the Seal-It ad above, yet, it’s one of their best converting ads of all time. Click the ad to read the entire thing.
This ad is not only written for their perfect client, but it covers ALL 7 elements. They’ve written the ad so well, that even I want to call Ogilvy – and I’m not even in the financial industry!
Here’s the thing: if people aren’t interested in what you have to sell, they won’t read a THING.
But if people ARE interested – they’ll read everything. They’ll soak EVERYTHING UP with a sponge.
And that’s the difference between brand advertising, and direct response advertising. You want to tap into your perfect client’s mind, and push their pain points. This is why you must figure out your perfect client before you write anything for your salon marketing.
Because if you don’t know what your perfect client wants, how can you sell anything to them?
Here’s an example of a direct response ad for the salon industry:

If you have wrinkles, dark-eyes or anything else that dermatitis cream solves – you bet you’d be reading that ad. Chances are, you’d be picking up that phone, too. And that’s what direct response marketing is designed to do:
Get people to pick up the phone and call you.
And to do that, you need to have an irresistible offer. Figure out what you’re going to sell, to whom, and why they should buy from you, and start writing your ad following the 7 elements above.
When your salon marketing is done right, the ad will be ringing: off the hook.
by Greg Milner | Aug 5, 2016 | Advertising Tips, Ask the Experts, Blog, Getting Salon Clients Quickly, Questions & Answers, Salon Advertising Tips
My technical gurus tell me that every month, hundreds of people around the world are going to Google and typing ‘how to market a beauty salon’.
It’s such a simple query, an obvious question, and I’m guessing that almost all of these people are searching for an equally simple ‘silver bullet’ answer. Well, here’s where I let you down; there isn’t one.
There is no ‘one’ answer. BUT…there is a three-part formula, and the formula starts with what I call ‘sales thinking’.
You’ve probably heard of what astrophysicists call the Big Bang Theory. They tell us that several billion years ago, the entire universe was started with a massive explosion, and everything developed from there. (yes, I know, a very unscientific explanation.)
Sales thinking is a bit like the Big Bang Theory. Nothing effective is going to happen until you get absolutely clear about this. Sales thinking has to happen long before you put pen to paper, long before you put up a post or an ad on Facebook, long before you hand over your credit card to Google for ads on their platform, long before you laboriously print thousands of mailbox flyers and get them delivered to every household in your area.
Here are the three ‘Big Bang’ things you need to decide on before you even start marketing your beauty salon:
- Target Market – Who are you trying to attract as customers and clients? What type of people are they, where do they live, what kind of jobs do they have, what age are they, who do they associate with, who else markets their products and services to these people?
- Your Message – what are you going to say to these people that is compelling, that is attractive, that gets them to pick up the phone and book an appointment, or buy whatever you’re selling online, or refer their friends and family to you. In other words, what’s your OFFER.
- The Media – now that you’ve determined your target market, and your compelling message to that target market, which forms of media are best suited to delivering that message to that target market?
In my experience, most owners of beauty salons do this all arse-backwards. They look at say, Facebook and decide “Heck, I’ll put up a post offering a discount.” And somehow, they’re massively disappointed when there’s no stampede of customers battering down their door.
They haven’t asked themselves the question, “What kind of customers do I want – and by extension, what kind of customers do I NOT want?” And then, they fail to craft an offer that’s entirely suited to that chosen market.
(Still with me? Good, because 90% of beauty salon owners will have given up by now, still searching for that easy, simple silver bullet.)
Let’s roll up our sleeves and do some more work (equals thinking!)
You essentially have TWO target markets in your current business.
TARGET MARKET #1
This is your existing list of current and past customers and clients. They already know you, they know your staff, they are familiar with you and your business, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how often they’ve interacted with you.
You know their names, their mobile phone numbers, and if you are doing your job properly, you have their physical addresses, their email addresses, the names of their husbands and children, certainly their date of birth, their likes and dislikes.
In other words, you know a LOT about them. And because you already know them, the offers you present to them are going to be (should be) different from the offers you present to the other target market;
TARGET MARKET #2
These are people you don’t know yet – in other words, your prospective customers.
How you find these people, how they find you, and what offers you present to them so that they become known to you, are entirely different from the clients you already know. And the media you use to reach out to these ‘unknown’ future customers is entirely different from the media you use to reach out to your existing clients.
It would be stupid to run a newspaper ad to present an offer to your existing clients, right? Equally, you can’t use email or SMS to reach your prospects, because you don’t yet have those contact details.
Let’s take your existing clients then. Which form of media should you use to reach out to them? EVERY FORM OF MEDIA YOU HAVE!
Let’s say you have empty appointment slots next week, and you need to fill ‘em fast. Most beauty salon owners think “Okay, well I’ll email ‘em with the offer.” Or “I’ll send out a text message.” Or “I’ll put up a post on Facebook…” Or, “I’ll send ‘em a cute letter in the mail.”
That’s valid, but incredibly limiting. Why not do ALL of that?
Only a small percentage of your clients will get your email (some will go to spam) and even fewer will actually open it. Facebook deliberately limits the number of people who see your posts. SMS gets to most people, but only a small percentage will act on it.
But if you use every available form of media to reach out to your existing list, you dramatically increase your chances of getting a profitable response.
And you should concentrate on marketing to your existing clients, before thinking about attracting new ones. A buyer is a buyer is a buyer. They’ve bought from you once or multiple times, they’ll keep buying from you if a) they like you, b) you’ve given them great value, and c) you keep offering them stuff.
Remember, it’s up to eight times more expensive to get a new customer that it is to sell to an existing customer. But every business loses existing customers, for many reasons. They move towns, they (inconveniently) die. Or they’re wooed by a competitor. Either way, every business needs a constant and steady supply of new blood.
Target Market #2 is an entirely different proposition.
These are people you don’t know, who don’t know you even exist. They have to be able to find you, and once they’ve found you, what they see has to be attractive enough for them to pick up the phone and call you.
Thanks to technology, it is now easier than ever before for people to find you. Forget the Yellow Pages. These days, the new Yellow Pages is Google. If they can’t find you when they do a Google search, they are as sure as hell going to find your competitors. And call them, not you.
(How they find you on Google is a subject that fills entire libraries, so this is not the place for that discussion. However, you can study this yourself in a series of four short videos we’ve created here.)
But relying on Google alone isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. US marketing guru Dan Kennedy puts it like this:
“One year, on vacation in Hawaii, I was relaxing at a beach, watching whales in the distance, when a fisherman, obviously a local, drove up in his pick-up truck. He got out with a dozen fishing rods. Not one. A dozen. He baited each hook, cast all the lines into the ocean, and set the rods in the sand. Intrigued, I wandered over and asked him for an explanation. “It’s simple,” he said. “I love fish but I hate fishin’. I like eatin’, not catchn’. So I cast out 12 lines. By sunset, some of them will have caught a fish. Never all of ’em. So if I only cast one or two I might go hungry. But 12 is enough so some always catch. Usually there’s enough for me and extras to sell to local restaurants. This way, I live the life I want.” The simple fellow had unwittingly put his finger on a powerful secret. The flaw in most businesses, that keeps them always in desperate need—which suppresses prices—is: too few lines cast in the ocean.”
It’s obvious – you’ve got to use as many forms of media as possible to reach that elusive target market.
And technology has made that easier too.
1. Facebook Advertising:
No, not simply posting offers in your timeline – actually paying for advertising on Facebook’s platform. But there needs to be some ‘sales thinking’ behind this too. And advertising on Facebook requires not just sales thinking, but some technical know-how too.
The sales thinking goes like this: what do you want the ad to do? What is your Most Wanted Response from people who see the ad? What ‘target audience’ do you want to see the ad? What part of your website do you want the ad to take them, and what is the offer on that web page?
If you aren’t confident about your skills with Facebook advertising, we have a specific Facebook Advertising campaign that’ll attract more clients and more bookings, just for beauty salons and hair salons. You can fill in the form over on My Social Salon to learn more.
2. Google Adwords:
Adwords is how Google makes 95% of its money. But, like Facebook advertising, it requires some knowledge and technical skills before you go blundering into it. Essentially, the same questions apply to Google ads as they do to Facebook: where do you want the ad to take people, which people do you want to see the ad, what is your offer etc.
2. Database building:
For every one person who picks up the phone after seeing and responding to you ad online, there will be 20, 50, a thousand who don’t pick up the phone. What are you going to do to capture their names and contact details to market to them later? For that, you need some kind of database or software program that can put a form on your website so people can fill it in, in exchange for some kind of free gift or downloadable widget.
Again, that requires some technical skills once the sales thinking has been sorted out.
Contact our office on +61-8-94439327 and we can walk you through that process.
3. Offline marketing:
Contrary to popular belief, offline marketing still works. In fact, works better than it ever did, simply because so few business owners are doing it these days. There’s a vacuum in people’s mailboxes.
Designed with proper Direct Response Marketing principles, a mailbox flyer can and does still work brilliantly, and very cost-effectively.
So do newspaper ads, radio advertising, billboards, and a dozen other offline marketing media – IF they’re done properly.
How to write an effective ad or flyer is another subject that fills seminars around the world, and isn’t the place for this essay.
BUT IF YOU SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PIECE, you’ll find the best marketing manual ever written for salons & spas, The Starter Pack, that gives you the essentials of direct response marketing – and much of applies to online marketing as well.
So they are some of the essentials – the Market, the Message, and the Media.
But there’s one CRUCIAL element overriding all of the above. I call it the CORNERSTONE of everything you do, the key that unlocks the door to the marketing vault. And that’s your
Unique Selling Proposition.
Scholars, marketing specialists and ad copywriters have been banging on about this for years. Somehow, you MUST find, discover, invent something that differentiates you completely from your competitors and rivals. Otherwise, you’re just another ‘me-too’ business among many me-too business.
History is littered with really outstanding USPs. Tom Monihan built a billion dollar business on the back of “Fresh hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed!”
FedEx’s USP neatly answered the uppermost question in the mind of every single customer wanting to get a package from A to B: “Absolutely, positively overnight.”
A strong, accountable guarantee is a great way to develop your USP, and make you stand out from your competitors. Most business owners flinch from offering a strong, unequivocal guarantee, instead watering it down with ‘weasel words’ like “to claim your guarantee, please turn up at midnight accompanied by both great-grandparents.”
You need something to make yourself stand out – something to make yourself be different. In a previous post, Josh Kallmeyer details what you need to know before you do any marketing for your beauty salon. You must know who your perfect client is, along with what you’re selling, and why they’d buy from you. After all – those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Become the 20% of salons that make it. Better yet – become the 1% of salons and spas who truly thrive. The 1% are the beauty salons who really make bank – and make a lot of it.
Once you have grasped how to market a beauty salon, you’re on your way.