NZ Salon Success: SMS Gets Maree Hoare of Red Hair 12 bookings in just 30 minutes!

Maree HoareIt’s less than 2 weeks in to 2014 and our Worldwide Salon Marketing members are already out of the blocks with a roar with emails and phone calls coming in to our office from excited salon owners telling us about their successful campaigns.

This morning I spoke on the phone with Maree Hoare, of Red Hair in Palmerston North.  Maree joined us just one month ago and has shown immediately what it takes to be a successful marketer of her business.

She hasn’t sat around waiting for the phone to ring, instead she’s got straight down to business, is creating her own success and taking complete control of her business.

When Maree opened her salon this morning she noticed some gaps in the booking system later in the week.  So armed with the tools she needed to fix that problem, she opened up her computer, visited the members only template website and found an SMS example that she could adapt for her own salon.

She sent the message out to just 400 people of her SMS list and within 30 minutes had no fewer than 12 bookings.

“With schools being on holiday it gets a bit quiet around this time of year in Palmerston North, I need to keep my team busy and so at this late stage it seemed a text message to my clients would be the quickest option to fill the gaps later in the week.  It took me a few minutes to put the message together from the examples on the website and then I sent it out and within minutes the phone was ringing hot! The system says the SMS’s are still being sent out so I am sure I will get even more calls than the dozen we have already had in the last half an hour.  But I am really happy with the result.”

The hair offer Maree sent out by text was for $79.  Given that a text will cost about 10c per message that’s a $40 cost for a return so far of $948.  I would call that a great return on investment.

And the message also saw at least 2 long lost clients make a booking in the salon.

Since joining WSM in December, Maree has already put in to action steps to help her work more as a marketer on her business.  Could you imagine earning $948 in 30 minutes if you were cutting someones hair or doing a facial?  Not likely unless you are the hairdresser to David Beckham.  So Maree is already seeing the value of her time spent marketing rather than being a technician cutting hair.

And in addition to Maree’s amazing SMS campaign she also launched her mini memberships last week which she has already sold 7 bringing in and extra $1400 in income.

A massive congrats to Maree for her great start to 2014 and we can’t wait to hear more from her as the year progresses.

For WSM members, you can see the SMS that Maree sent on our members only Facebook forum. Click her now to check it out.

If you are not a member of one of our WSM programs but want to kick start 2014 the way Maree has done then click here now to apply and one of our team will be on the phone to you immediately. Or call one of our worldwide offices to speak with someone now.

New Zealand 09 476 1592

Australia 08 9443 9327

USA & Canada 250 590 0449

 

Worldwide Salon Marketing Success Story at the NZ Beauty Awards 2013

Over the last 5 years since starting Worldwide Salon Marketing in New Zealand we have seen and heard many success stories from salons owners, some of whom prior to joining WSM have been close to closing their doors, and others that already have successful and established salons but just want to know how to improve their businesses even further and make more money.

It’s fantastic to be part of helping salons achieve great success and reach goals, so when that success is recognized by a third party its even more satisfying.

Which is exactly what happened to Margaret Walsh of Face & Body in Titirangi.

At the recent New Zealand Beauty Gala Awards at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland Margaret and her team at Face and Body in Titirangi, picked up the ‘Runner-up’ prize in the category for Marketing Excellence, an Award sponsored by Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ.

Face & Body_Mkting Excellence_RunnerUp

Worldwide Salon Marketing wants to congratulate Margaret for her achievement.  Marketing is always evolving and Margaret has shown that her salon has used a great blend of traditional media, whilst embracing new media like apps and social media.

WELL DONE MARGARET WALSH & THE TEAM AT FACE & BODY TITIRANGI!!!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF MARGARET WALSH

And I also want to extend a MASSIVE congratulations to the winner of Marketing Excellence, Nicola Quinn from Nicola Quinn Day Spa in Christchurch.

There’s a funny story behind this also.  Nicola is not a member of WSM, however I have always been an admirer of Nicola’s salon, even more so since the terrible things that have happened with the earthquakes in Christchurch over the last couple of years.

Whilst in Christchurch visiting some of our WSM members I popped in to say hello to Nicola who was unavailable.  So I left her a hand written note encouraging her to enter the Marketing Excellence award, which she obviously did.  When presenting her award on the night Nicola told me she still has my note, which I thought was great.

Nicola Quinn_Marketing_Winner

So a BIG CONGRATS to Nicola Quinn and her team at Nicola Quinn Day Spa.

Finally, Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ also co-sponsored the ‘Best New Business’ category to which we would like to congratulate Louise Dickinson of ‘Chrysalis’ in Browns Bay, Auckland.

Well done to ALL the finalists from the Team at Worldwide Salon Marketing!

Christopher and the Team at Worldwide Salon Marketing New Zealand help salon owners chase the dream of becoming more successful and profitable.  If you like the sound of that then click here to find out more – obligation FREE.  We have packages that can fit ALL salon types and sizes!

First Night of Unique Salon VIP Night ‘You Beauty Salon Tour’ A HUGE Success at Gloss Beauty in Matamata!

You Beauty Tour

The ‘You Beauty Salon Tour’ is underway and the first date at Gloss Beauty Boutique in Matamata was a HUGE success!

The VIP night saw customers of Gloss Beauty be entertained with live music (from me), makeup demos from Rachael D’Aguiar and they had the opportunity to purchase one-night only special offers.

Click here to check out a video of the night

Gloss Beauty took in over $3500 sales for the night, and we raised around $500 for Look Good Feel Better women’s cancer charity.  A great result all round!

And to add to that the event got some great FREE media coverage for Gloss Beauty in the regional paper the Waikato Times and also a more local paper called the Matamata Chronicle….Priceless!

Click this link to the Waikato Times article

And if that wasn’t enough, at least half a dozen customers of Gloss Beauty gave a glowing video testimonial, all raving about how amazing the salon is!!!  Check out some of them below…

Gloss Beauty Testimonial 1

Gloss Beauty Testimonial 2

Gloss Beauty Testimonial 3 

The You Beauty Salon Tour is about to get rolling again with dates this week in Auckland and Tauranga so be sure to check back later in the week for an update.

Or follow the Tour on Facebook or Twitter (links below)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/chrissandersmusic/

https://twitter.com/@salonapps

And if you want to be involved and help raise some money for Look Good Feel Better then simply download my debut EP from iTunes with all proceeds going to Look Good Feel Better throughout May.

https://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/home-away-from-home-ep/id274794920

EP Cover Artwork

Auckland and Tauranga here we come!

 

 

Salon & Spa Marketing – Pricing & Lessons from Picasso

Groundhog Day - waking up to the same/same every day

Groundhog Day – waking up to the same/same every day

Yesterday was Groundhog Day for me, right down to looking in the mirror and, if I squinted, Bill Murray was looking back at me.

The catalyst for this hallucination was (yet another) conversation with a salon owner terrified of putting her prices up. As she talked, I could feel the anxiety oozing down the phone.

“I can’t put my prices up,” she wailed. “I only put them up six months ago, my customers would leave in droves if I did it again…”

Well, what did they do the last time you put your prices up…did they leave in droves then?

“Well, no…but I just think I’d be too expensive…”

Oh dear.

Entire theses have been written about pricing, there are squadrons of professors who do nothing else but talk about it, analyze it, agonize over it.

But I’ll keep this simple, and put it in terms that any salon owner can understand. This is not about academic study, it’s about what works. So roll up your sleeves, and start thinking. Because buying product at wholesale, adding a margin, and using that as your only guide to pricing ain’t no salon marketing plan.

Stay with me here.

First, there is more misunderstanding, dis-information and plain hogwash written and taught about pricing than almost any other subject under the broad umbrella of ‘business’.

Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding is the difference between value, price and cost – that is, the vast gulf between the value a customer or prospect perceives, the actual price charged, and the real cost to the business owner to deliver that product or service.

And part of the problem for many salon owners is, frankly, the low esteem in which they hold themselves, their ability, professionalism and standing.

It’s why most salon owners reading this would fail the ‘Picasso Test’.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Picasso was sitting at a café in Paris, idly sketching. A woman walked by, recognized him and stopped to ask if he would be so kind as to sketch her, and charge whatever he thought was appropriate.

Picasso obliged, and three minutes later, there it was – an original Picasso.

“That will be 5,000 francs,” Picasso said.

“But it only took you three minutes!” she exclaimed in shock.

“No,” he said calmly, “it took me all my life.”

Of course, had Picasso simply charged for his time on that particular task, he would have had a difficult job justifying the price.

You see, the big mistake most business owners make when figuring out how to price a product or service, is doing it based on what it actually costs them. E.g., they’ll say to themselves, ‘this widget cost me $X to make/buy in/provide, so I’ll ad an 80% markup’.

It is a blinkered, nay, blindfolded way to price anything, because it completely ignores

a)     The value that product or service might have in the eyes of the customer (perceived value)

b)     How it’s price might be lifted considerably by adding more perceived value with low or no-cost items/treatments/services (eg free samples you got from a supplier)

c)      Any other value you can add to it through the messages/stories/testimonials/personal qualifications in all your advertising and promotional messages/flyers/letters…

Price and value are entirely different things, and value is in the eye of the beholder. It has nothing to do with price.

To me, spending $3,000 to live on a boat for a week with friends, miles out to sea – no shops, bars, restaurants, movies – it’s great value. But there are thousands who wouldn’t do that if they were paid to do it.

To my wife, a week in Bali for $1,000 including air fares is great value. Me? I’d rather gouge my own eyes out with a sharp spoon than spend a thousand bucks to meander endlessly around market stalls shopping for cheap sarongs.

All of which brings me to another point about price and value.

The more narrowly you identify your target market, the more precisely you craft your message to match exactly the wants of that target market, the less and less important the issue of price becomes.

Golfers will pay anything to get that perfect swing.

Anglers will move heaven and earth – or pay someone to do it for them – to catch that prize fish.

For example, say you sell cellulite treatments. Which do you think is going to create more value, a headline which says

“Anti-Cellulite Treatments from $495”

Or a headline that says

“For Young Mothers who are Embarrassed About Their Unsightly Cellulite At LAST, The Zero-Pain, Breakthrough New Treatment That Melts Cellulite and Gives You Back Those Smooth Youthful Thighs! WARNING: Men might look at you – and wish.”

In fact, the second headline is deliberately designed to create desire, offer a painless solution to an identifiable problem, and specifically include (young mothers) only those prospects wanted, while deliberately excluding unwanted prospects.

Furthermore, it doesn’t even talk about price, which would only be addressed in terms of value in the body of the piece, backed up of course by all of the components of a good emotional direct response ad – a strong guarantee, scarcity, before and after photos, testimonials etc.

(All of the elements you’ll find in the templates in the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit™)

The last point I want to make about price is this: the purpose of re-inventing what you sell, of creating packages, is to blur the lines of distinction between your business and that of your rival salons, to create for yourself a distinct difference, so that prospects and customers simply cannot compare you with the opposition on price alone.

The better you get at this, the more you tip the playing field in your favour. Business is NOT about playing on a level field. It’s about giving yourself an unfair advantage. Unfair to your competitors, that is.

And reducing the issue of price to the point where it’s a non-issue.

NZ Success Story: Find Out What Happened When The Local Paper Accidentally Deleted The Phone Number from Lynette Adams’ Mothers Day Ad!

There are some really crucial elements to any successful salon marketing ad or flyer, an attention grabbing headline, a strong offer, guarantee, use of scarcity and of course a call to action.

So when Lynette Adams of Glory Salon in Thames, Coromandel recently put together a Mothers Day campaign using a Worldwide Salon Marketing template, to run in her local paper using all the above marketing elements, she was excited about what results she would achieve.

But her excitement soon turned to anguish when the paper arrived in her letterbox only for her salon PHONE NUMBER to be missing of her ad.  She checked the original and the phone number was there, but the paper had accidentally deleted it when converting the file to a PDF.  The call to action was completely gone.

Now you’d expect the salon phone to be quiet as a mouse.  Instead, what happened completely amazed and amused Lynette.  Here’s what she emailed to me…

“I have sold 19 of the ‘out of order’ Mothers Day packages already!!! + when I saw the ad they had left off my contact details (somehow they had got deleted from bottom when converted to pdf) so they are going to run it again this week for free! Kinda cool that still got response from people without the number as they would have had to look it up.”

You see, what happened here was that the other parts of Lynette’s ad where so strong and enticing that people actually took the time to find her salon’s number in the phone book or on the net and call her to book.  Her customers simply didn’t want to miss out on what was on offer.  That’s pretty amazing and goes to show how incredibly effective and powerful the Worldwide Salon Marketing templates are, even when they are not used 100% right!!!

And there was one other thing that really made her ad stand out.  She got the paper to print the ad upside down.  Yes that’s right, upside down…except that bit was done on purpose.

WSM members can view the ad used by Lynette in the members website by clicking here now

Now I am not saying you should all leave your phone number off your ads from now on, but just imagine what would have happened if the phone number was on the ad!!! It will certainly be interesting to see how Lynette’s follow up ad goes with the phone number on it.

And Lynette went on to tell us how she had done in the last 12 months since joining Worldwide Salon Marketing…

“So happy just looked at figures up $4000 on last March!!! + I started WWSM end March last year so from 1 April to 31 March this year increased my turnover by 50% AMAZING!!! Sold $5000 more in vouchers as well =) Thanks so much for all your help really appreciate it! Lynette x”

Keep up the great work Lynette!  And make sure the paper send you a proof next time!

If you want to achieve results like Lynette then call me now on ** *** **** (haha, just kiddin 09 476 1592) or email me chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com – or if you prefer you can click here to fill out a contact form and we’ll be in touch within 24 hours.

 

Happy Marketing

Chris D’Aguiar-Sanders

09 476 1592

0800 029 668