[VIDEO] “Would you like snails with that facial Ma’am?” How this salon’s marketing went viral, and got millions of dollars worth of free publicity.
A facial with snail slime? It’s generated a fortune in free publicity for one Tokyo salon
I’ve been nagging salons and spas for years; “Find a Niche – or die.” If you continue to try to be all things to all people, you’ll never be anything of much value to anybody. Two examples of exactly that kind of ‘niche thinking’ leaped out at me from my newspaper this morning.
The first, from Japan, where one salon in central Tokyo has generated itself literally millions of dollars worth of publicity worldwide after a UK TV reporter tried out a new facial treatment – snail slime!
[cf]Snails[/cf]
As part of the salon’s “Celebrity Escargot Course” customers will get five minutes of snail therapy, along with massage and other facial treatments. The snails alone cost $106 – no doubt because they’re ‘organic’, surely a word that’s been re-invented as synonym for ‘expensive’.
The second example of clever niche salon marketing is from my own home town. Barber shops have been struggling for years against the rising tide of ‘unisex’ salons, but they’re fighting back – with the old-fashioned cut-throat razor.
As you’ll see from the article below (click to enlarge), these barber shops are – perhaps unwittingly, but fortunately – cashing in on the nostalgia market; a growing hankering for old-fashioned values, old-fashioned smells, ‘old’ technology – almost a revolt against the overwhelming glitz and bling of technology, speed, celebrity obsession and shiny new things.
So why am I telling you this? Hopefully, to get you thinking, planning, scheming, conniving, working to develop, exploit and cash in on your own niche, your own specialist area, your own small but lucrative area of expertise that can’t be found anywhere else, that can’t be commoditized.
One that can’t be compared on price alone with the me-too services offered by a dozen other salons within walking distance of your own.
NOTE: Niche products and niche marketing is the subject of an entire seminar session we’ll be conducting for Worldwide Salon Marketing member salons in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane later this year.
Worldwide Salon Marketing is THE place salon owners come to for expert advice, tools, strategies and done-for-you systems online and offline that make marketing your salon easy.
When you join WSM, you’re becoming a Member of the world’s most exclusive group of entrepreneurial salon & spa owners.
SPECIAL OFFER: Get the world famous Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit when you sign up for My Social Salon, the ONLY complete, done-for-you web, mobile and ‘traditional’ marketing system for hair & beauty salons.
Click here to watch the free video.
