by Greg Milner | Aug 26, 2016 | Blog, Website Marketing
Barely a day goes by that I don’t get an email from somebody – usually in the backblocks of India, Pakistan or the Philippines – promising to ‘get my website to the top of Google’.
If you run any kind of business, no doubt you get the same kind of emails. Y’know, those spam emails.
These emails last a nano-second in my in-box, before I hit the delete button. Here are just a few reasons why:
Reason #1: These people always start their pitch with “I’ve been studying your website and notice that it has big problems etc etc..”
If you’ve been studying my website, you would’ve noticed it has my phone number prominently displayed. If you want my business, call me on the damn phone. Don’t be lazy.
Reason #2: If you were any good at marketing yourself, and weren’t so damned lazy, you’d figure out that sending an email to somebody you’ve never met, from a company I’ve never heard of, expecting me to leap at your fabulous offer with open arms, is no way to start a business relationship.
Reason #3: if you’ve been studying my website, and you’re so observant, you’d know that we specialize in real, effective, manual-labor search engine optimization, for scores and scores of businesses all over the world. But you didn’t bother looking that hard, did you…you just fired off a lazy email, among thousands of similar emails, to thousands of small business owners, hoping that some of them will be so ill-informed, they’ll leap at your fantastic offer.
You may have picked up that this practice makes me a tad cranky. But I get positively livid when our own long-term members get the same kind of nonsense offers.
One Australian business owner who’s been a Member of Worldwide Salon Marketing for more than a decade called us this week after receiving one of these delightful offers, in this case from Canada. We’ve been driving this Member’s online advertising and organic search results for a long time, so she wanted to see our take on this company’s offer.
“It didn’t take long to do some research on this company,” says our Member Services manager, Peter Doman. “The reviews we found were scathing.”
“These guys are not to be trusted.
Its the same deal, telling you that they can guarantee first page rankings when in fact you are more likely to be blacklisted,” said one reviewer.
And…
“These guys didn’t even know a damn thing about SEO work or how to set up adwords… To top things off they didn’t even have the right ranking data from my website…
Poor form but it can sucker in the unsuspecting,” said another.
Once presented with this information, our Member wrote back:
“Thank you so, so much, Peter. Based on the reviews, I will give them a miss. Thank god once again for WSM.”
The lessons are clear.
1) There will always be somebody, somewhere, promising a lower price. But in all things, you get what you pay for, by and large.
2) If something sounds like it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
3) Do business with people you trust. They might not be perfect, they might not be the cheapest, they might not get it absolutely right, every time. But people you trust will likely trust you too, and will bend over backwards to put things right, as soon as possible.
by Greg Milner | Jul 18, 2016 | Advertising Tips, Blog, Getting Salon Clients Quickly, Salon Advertising Tips, Website Marketing
Marketing. It’s the only industry other than Hollywood that’s filled with 80% crap. When done right, it creates miracles. When wrong, it ruins bank accounts, businesses and reputations.
We’re living in a world where one tweet can make or break a business – and we’re living in a world where we can interact with almost any person, any business – at anytime, from anywhere. We’ve never had this level of interaction before. So why aren’t we using it more?
We see business after business reap in likes, comments, and shares on Facebook, we see business after business hit millions of followers on Twitter, and we see all those models posting selfies on Instagram, wondering how on earth they have 17,000 followers.
It’s all well and good for those businesses, but what about the small boutique day spas, the trichology centres, the hair salons, nail salons and beauty salons of everyday families? How do you breakthrough the clutter of social media and make REAL money?
How do you attract more clients than you’ve ever had before, and get them spending more money than they would anywhere else?
Do you have to have the most luxurious, most expensive salon? No.
You have to have irresistable offers – you’ve gotta have the marketing that works. Marketing that really works.
These 4 marketing ideas are all tried, all tested, and they’ve all been proven to work regardless of where you are, who you’re serving, and what you’re selling.
MARKETING IDEA #1: Facebook Sharing Competition
This idea has been used by several of our members, and I’ve personally set these up for them. Bodhi J – a boutique, luxury salon here in Perth – accomplished a Facebook giveaway/competition perfectly:
Here, they’re giving away a gift bag filled to the brim with their products, but to be entered in the competition, you must like their page, tag a friend, AND share the post. So not only are their likes going to increase, but anyone who gets tagged in the post by their friends will see Bodhi J, too. This entices MORE people to like – more people to share, and MORE people to pick up the phone and call.
Try this for yourself: come up with something you can giveaway… a service, a product – a mixture of both.
Get an image that will get people’s attention, and write a catchy offer (you can steal Bodhi J’s offer if you want inspiration). When you’ve posted the offer to your Facebook page, you can reach more people by boosting your post.
When you’re on your Facebook page, press “Boost Post” to pay Facebook for more people to see it.
Ideally, you can boost the post to two types of people:
1. People who already know you, and who already like your page
2. People who don’t know you, and don’t like your page
The results of a competition like this will vary from audience to audience, so it’s up to you. I personally prefer going for people who know you, because they’ll tag their friends who don’t know you. Free word of mouth! (well, almost)
To begin your competition, start with people who like your page. You can even try people who like your page and their friends.
Once you’ve picked who you want to boost the post to, hit publish. Within a few hours, the ad should be live.
What They Missed Out On:
A fun little way to build your Facebook page, and something Bodhi J should definitely use with those 1.4k likes is inviting the people who’ve liked your posts to like your page.
You can do this by going to any post on your Facebook page, and clicking the likes on your page:
When you’re in your Facebook page, you can invite people who like your posts to come and like your page.
See the little “Invite” button? You can now invite anyone who interacts with a Facebook post of yours to like your page. A pretty neat and free way to build your Facebook page.
MARKETING IDEA #2: “Rupert the Dog” Lost Clients Letter
How many times have you had a regular client just stop seeing you? How many times have you had a new client appear to her appointment, only to never see them again?
What if you could get them back again? And what if you could get them back on a REGULAR basis? Enter Rupert.
More referred to as a “Raise the Dead” letter – Rupert is used to bring back old clients.
This little puppy will bring you in a few extra thousand dollars by the end of the week if you do this right… the idea is simple: write a letter to your old clientele, from a dog’s perspective, expressing how you – the salon owner – are *very* upset that your client hasn’t come to see you in a while. Add an irresistable offer, enticing your old clientele to pick up the phone and call you – and you’re set.
It works. It’s adorable, effective, and who in their right mind wouldn’t react with an “awwww!”?
The idea is you export a list of names from your database (the software you use to book clients in) who haven’t seen you in, say, 3 months.. 6 months, 12 months… you get the idea. It doesn’t really matter how long – just make sure it’s not *too soon*.
Now, once you’ve sent the first the letter… the key here is to follow up. Follow up with those who didn’t respond, and keep following up. You’ll find more people will call you on the second, third, and fourth letters than the first.
Don’t just send one letter, and hope for the best.
Send multiple, and keep at it.
After all, you don’t quit after doing something once, do you?
MARKETING IDEA #3: Your Salon Window
Yes, I know – “why on Earth would I use my salon window for marketing?”
Good question.
Let’s say this ad was yours:
Placing ads like these in your salon window will increase your walk-in rate ten-fold.
Instead of paying a newspaper a few hundred dollars to run the ad, you could pay a printer $50 to print a large copy of it. Large enough for people who’re walking by your salon across the street can read the headline. Large enough for cars driving by to stop and read it.
Place that large ad in your window – and suddenly, you’re an advertising machine. Imagine if every mattress store had a large ad with the headline “Ten Things You Must Do to Get a Solid Night Sleep”… wouldn’t that make you stop and read it?
What about your salon?
“Ten Mistakes ALL Women Make With Their Hair,” (hairdressers)
“They Laughed at Me When I Went to Get My Lashes Done, But Only Gawked When a Man Asked Me Out to Dinner” (eyelash extensions)
“You Can Weigh 10 Kilograms Less – One Month from Today” (fat cavitation)
“Your One Chance for SMOOTH Legs That Men Can’t Resist” (IPL/beauty)
Have an irresistable offer in your ad, and you’re on your way.
MARKETING IDEA #4: Blank White Envelope Letter Box Drop
Yes. You read that right. Take any ad you’ve written (it could even be the one you’ve stuck in your front window), put it into a *BLANK* white envelope, and deliver them to a few streets around your salon.
“But a blank envelope, Greg?”
Yes, BLANK.
If you got home from work this evening, opened your mailbox and found a blank white envelope with no name, no address, no stamp… wouldn’t that be the *first* thing you’d open?
You bet it would be. That’s the type of attention you need to get with your marketing: it should be the first thing your potential clients open/read/watch. If it doesn’t get their attention, you’re screwed.
This flyer drop – this type of marketing – is incredibly effective to bring in new clients. And bringing in new clients is an absolute must.
All of these ideas can be used in any type of salon, any type of spa – regardless of who you serve, regardless of where you are, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in an English speaking country, or in the middle of Spain speaking only Spanish.
The only way you’ll be able to bring in new clients, and rescue your old clientele, is to do something about it. Marketing your salon doesn’t have to be perfect, and with time (and practice), you’ll get better.
by Greg Milner | Sep 9, 2015 | Online Marketing, Website Marketing
by Greg Milner, CEO Worldwide Salon Marketing
As the owner of a company which builds and maintains websites and online marketing systems for hundreds of salon & spa businesses, I get a LOT of questions thrown at me from salon & spa owners totally confused about what matters online.
And that’s understandable. Online marketing is part science, part alchemy, practised in a long, dark tunnel populated by geeks who communicate with each other – and with those who pay them – in convoluted technocrat-ese almost entirely incomprehensible to normal people.
I employ such people, and over the years have learned some of their language. So, in my role as interpreter, I offer the following, in plain English.
What’s Your ‘Most-Wanted Response’?
Okay, so you have a website. For many business owners, that’s where their ‘online marketing’ strategy starts and ends. And it’s a long, long way short of what’s required. You need to ask yourself some ‘non-techie’ questions, and have some clear-headed answers, to questions such as:
1) What’s your website for? If its purpose is purely to look nice and impress your customers, that’s fine. If its purpose is to attract customers, that’s a different story. There is absolutely zero point in spending money building a flash looking website your prospective customers can’t find in a Google search. (And don’t make the mistake of deluding yourself into thinking ‘they’ll easily find it when they search the name of my business.’ They’re not looking for the name of your business, they’re searching for the product or service you’re selling!)
That brings me to one of the darkest arts, SEO or ‘search engine optimization’. It’s largely a manual, tedious, time-consuming (therefore expensive) and highly-specialised process involving technical expertise and up-to-date knowledge. And Google’s rules change all the time. It’s like trying to change a wheel on a moving car.
(And a warning: if anybody approaches you and promises to ‘get you top ranking on Google, guaranteed’, run a mile. Nobody can guarantee that, except Google.)
2) Is your website mobile responsive? 90% of people these days use their smart phones to search for products and services. If they find your website and it’s not configured to fit a small phone screen, it’ll be too hard to read, and they’ll go elsewhere.
3) Can they easily find your phone number? Let’s face it, for most businesses, the most wanted response is an old-fashioned phone call. Yet when I visit many business websites, I gouge my own eyes out with a sharp spoon in frustration at trying to find the damn phone number. It’s often (stupidly) buried in the depths of a ‘Contact Us’ page. Put your phone number – preferably ‘hot’ so it’s click-to-call – right at the top of every page on your site. Don’t make it hard for people to call you.
4) What about all the people who visit the site and don’t pick up the phone? Unless you have a way of capturing their contact details so you can market to them later, you’re wasting an awful lot of hard-earned traffic. The best way is offering some kind of free download – a guide, special report, gift voucher, video or what have you – in exchange for their contact details. Even better, make sure those details go straight into your database, with an automated series of follow-up emails.
(Despite my constant nagging, a former Perth consulting client of mine continued to spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on TV advertising to drive traffic to his website, with absolutely no means of capturing the details of any of those potential customers. Dumb.)
In the real world, a website has only two basic uses: a) to sell stuff, and b) to capture leads and build your database.
That’s absolutely basic, Online Marketing 101 stuff. It’s the tip of a very large iceberg, involving the integration of social media, YouTube, database management, online advertising, mobile apps, SMS and more.
Resource: Many, many of our Member salons have websites designed, built, maintained and search engine optimised by WSM. To find out more, go to www.salon-website-design.com
by Greg Milner | May 28, 2015 | Online Marketing, Salon Marketing Online, Website Marketing
Play video below.
When Carolyn Evans bought an ordinary suburban salon in Brisbane a few years ago, she had no idea it would turn into an international consulting business with clients from all over the world.
But that’s the power of the internet – if you seek out the right help, and put it into action. Watch as Carolyn describes how – with help from Worldwide Salon Marketing director of online, George Slater – she not only turned her struggling salon around, but re-invented it completely in the process.
(Hint: before you watch, Google ‘hair health brisbane’ – Carolyn’s various websites and videos totally dominate her market, squeezing out all her competition.)
Attention Worldwide Salon Marketing members: watch the full interview here in the Members Only Million Dollar Resources Library.
Not yet a Member? Get instant access here to hundreds of marketing templates and how-to videos.
FOOTNOTE: In case you missed it, here’s a screenshot of a Google search for ‘hair health brisbane’ – every single listing bar one on Page 1 points to Carolyn’s business.
by Greg Milner | Sep 2, 2014 | Marketing Superstars, Online Marketing, Website Marketing
Glenda (3rd from right) and her team at Hair Today in Alice Springs
Alice Springs, Northern Territory, in the ‘dead heart’ of Australia. Think jackeroos, cattle, red dust and elderly tourists towing caravans. Hardly an ideal location, you’d think, for a thriving hair & beauty salon.
But they’re bred tough in the Northern Territory. When Janet Chisholm and her business partner Glenda started their salon from scratch four years ago, they knew they’d need some powerful, consistent and proven marketing strategies. Janet joined WSM’s My Social Salon marketing program, including the Toolkit, a new website, hundreds of done-for-you templates and more.
“We’re smashing it,” said Janet today in a video interview recorded via Skype from her cattle station homestead two hours drive north of Alice Springs. “We’ve just had our biggest week ever, saw no fewer than 345 clients, all our debts are paid off, we’ve got money in the bank, it’s really great!”
[cf]janet[/cf]
There’s nothing magical or ‘lucky’ about the success of Janet & Glenda’s salon. They had energy, talent and drive, and the willingness to seek out the right tools, training and guidance. And they didn’t rely on just one form of marketing to achieve the stellar results they’ve enjoyed in less than four years. Janet knew that in a town like Alice, with so much transient, seasonal traffic, they’d need to dominate online searches to attract casual traffic passing through town.
So the website built for them as part of their My Social Salon membership has become absolutely crucial. It now ranks at the top of searches for ‘hair salon alice springs’ and brings them a steady flow of bookings. But they don’t merely rely on Google and Facebook for their business. Hard copy mail, radio advertising, in-salon promotions, street-front posters…it takes a LOT to make a salon as successful as Hair Today.
(And who says country town businesses can’t be successful? They don’t get any more remote than Alice Springs!)
Check out the My Social Salon program here. (The membership program is capped – the only way any new salons get into the program is when another Member sells their business.)
by Greg Milner | Aug 19, 2013 | Email marketing, Featured, Newsletter marketing, Website Marketing
‘Everybody’ is rushing headlong into social media, Facebooking and Instagramming themselves into a lather of red-faced emotional excitement. It’s the bright shiny object, and the ‘experts’ are shouting at whomever will listen, “don’t bother with anything else, Facebook etc is where you need to be.”
Well, let’s get a little perspective here. Sometimes, you need to take a deep breath and look at things with a little of what I call ‘accurate thinking.’
Let’s take a quick look at what kinds of media are available for salon & spa owners to use in their marketing. I’ll lump Facebook, Google, email, Twitter, mobile phones and anything else you use a screen to look at as ‘Online’. (And I’ll include in that the ‘daily deals’, which are marketed exclusively online.)
Then there’s everything else. All that old-fashioned, dreary, clunky, ‘expensive’ stuff that suddenly is so Nineties, so last season; direct mail, print advertising, TV and radio, outdoor advertising – I’ll lump all that together and call it ‘Offline’.
Get hundreds of done-for-you salon marketing & advertising templates as a Member of Worldwide Salon Marketing here.
It seems pretty clear to me that salon & spa owners are increasingly falling in love with ‘online’, rushing to it like lemmings to the edge of the cliff. And in the mad rush, increasingly ignoring everything else. Email, social media, web marketing are the new Kings, relegating ‘traditional’ media as mere serfs and peasants.
Well, I’m here to tell ya, if that’s how you’re thinkin’, you’re missing opportunity. There IS validity in the argument that says “look around at what everybody else is doing, and do exactly the opposite. The herd, as Warren Buffett is fond of saying, is almost always wrong.
Victoria’s Secret mail 400 million catalogs a year. Hmmm, if online marketing’s so hot, why would they do that?
Here’s why you need to pay attention:
As more and more businesses abandon ‘old-fashioned’ media in favor of the siren call of online, seduced by it’s newness, it’s perceived cheapness, its ‘instant’ results, they’re unwittingly running into quicksand. The law of diminishing returns applies. You can double the power of a car’s engine, but the speed only increases by 30%, not 100%.
The more people rush to online, the more difficult it is to attract attention, to be heard above the ever-growing noise.
And suddenly, back in the ‘offline’ room, you can hear a whisper. Because nobody’s there. And that’s where opportunity lies, my friends.Think about this: your mailbox was once one of the few methods by which advertisers could reach you. Today, almost nobody sends marketing by direct mail any more.
And here’s the secret: those in the ‘almost nobody’ category are reaping the rewards of near-empty mailboxes.
According to the Direct Marketing Association of America, Victoria’s Secret ships more than 400 MILLION catalogs a year in the US alone – that’s 1.33 per person. And merchants across the US are sending a total of over 20 billion catalogs annually, a figure that’s increasing by 5% annually.
They’re doing it because
a) it works. And it’s working better and better, as it competes with fewer and fewer marketing messages directed at the consumer’s physical mailbox. The air in the mailbox is getting clearer and clearer.
b) They’ve figured out that ignoring direct mail would actually reduce the effect of the effort their putting in online.
The really smart businesses are increasing their use of old-fashioned media, not decreasing it. Victoria’s Secret sales generated by a combination of catalog-driving-to-online are increasing 10% annually, compared with only 4% annual increase in the company’s stores.
Is online really the ‘holy grail’? Not according to some of the world’s biggest ‘online’ companies. Google persistently uses hard copy to pitch its ad space. Hmmm. If Google can’t figure out how to market themselves using only online media, how are you doing?
Get hundreds of done-for-you salon marketing & advertising templates as a Member of Worldwide Salon Marketing here.
Price comparison website moneysupermarket.com has just hired a direct marketing company to manage its first hard-copy mail campaign. Huh? Now, hooda thunk it – why would an online company want to use old-fashioned, clunky letters ‘n stamps ‘n envelopes?
And as more and more email becomes pesky, direct mail becomes more welcomed. According to research by Pitney-Bowes (admittedly a direct mail specialist) more than half of people surveyed got annoyed by monthly emails. Only 23% found regular direct mail aggravating.
There are very good reasons we at WSM focus a large amount of time on creating more and more advertising and marketing templates for our member salons in a form designed to be used in good ole hard copy; print ads, posters, letters, mailbox flyers and more. Email and other forms of online marketing might be efficient. But nothing is as effective, as long-lasting as hard copy.
WSM member salons & spas can access literally hundreds of templates for all their advertising needs in the Members Only sealed section website here.
