by Greg Milner | May 31, 2010 | Australia, The Smell of Success
Salon Business Plan Template – got a tax bill to pay? Try THIS…
We’re often asked ‘will the your marketing program work for me, I’m in a small country town/poor area…’ etc etc. I give the same answer every time: YES! Just check the results Susan Anderson achieved in a little mining town of (mostly men!) just 7,500 people:
“I have found that my best results for any promotions are to deliver my newsletter as a flyer. I do this once a month with my monthly specials and any other news etc that is going on in the salon.
So my April newsletter went out with (a special offer) plus the dates they were available and the terms and conditions that I have on them. I also had it on my chalkboard outside the shop and had flyers in store.
I then sent one more flyer as a reminder the week before the event.
I found that this was enough to get everyone talking about it and as we are a small town the message was out!!
They went on sale from Wednesday the 5th of May to Saturday the 8th of May, we finish at 2pm on Saturdays so I also wrote that in the newsletter too.
We did this offer for Christmas and had great results then so I was prepared to do it again, I found that we were busy right through January February and March which is usually the quiet times of the year and also found that when people come in with a voucher they are willing to spend more on other things or add more to the voucher, so my takings stayed the same and did not drop at all, also I have secured my customers for the next six months!! What more could I ask for!
The next three days were very busy selling the vouchers and we ended up selling $35,400 worth of vouchers in a town of 7,500 people, mainly male dominated I might add, as we are a mining town, I thought this was an amazing result.
Once again thankyou so much for your ideas help and encouragement Greg. It would not have been possible without you. Now I can pay my tax bill!!!”
by Greg Milner | Feb 22, 2010 | Blog
Beauty Salon Gift Certificate Template: Less is not more. MORE is more.
I keep getting ads and other marketing material sent to me (yes, even from IC members who should know better) that demonstrate only a bare minimum of effort rather than Maximum Effort that’s required to cut through the ‘clutter’ of marketing messages bombarding everybody today.
It shows clearly that most people in the salon business regard the ‘job’ of marketing as a mere chore, to be grudgingly endured rather than embraced as the most important task in any commercial operation.
(And don’t imagine that this is restricted only to ‘small’ businesses. The Big End of town is just as guilty. Most big companies have Marketing Departments, as sure a sign as any that they too, mistakenly regard ‘marketing’ as some kind of 
separate, compartmentalized component of business. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Marketing IS the business. Every part of every business should have its ears cocked and eyes open to marketing and sales opportunities.)
If you put a gun at my head and said I could only use one regular method of marketing to my clients and prospects, it would without doubt be a monthly hard copy newsletter. Yet if they do it at all, most salon owners do the very bare minimum, 
throwing a few ‘specials’ into a haphazard single sheet document and calling it a ‘newsletter’.
Thankfully, there are some salon owners who ‘get’ it. Inner Circle member Louise Adkins of Lavish Life in the little Victorian country town of Benalla is one of them. Louise doesn’t just do a ‘newsletter’ she puts enormous effort into a monthly “Lavish Life’ newspaper, sending it to clients with excellent results.
We have found it is big enough to stay around for 6 weeks, we are already working our new one. On Monday I emailed it to 50 of my clients and suppliers, and placed a cover letter on it as well, if they commented on the paper i would give them a $25 voucher. 5 clients replied and gave back some positive feedback. here are 2 of the ones and i picked up 2 raise the dead clients as well.
I also tell the clients that there is a spelling mistake and a prize for it if they can find it ! makes them read the whole paper …………We are still working on it- we are now re-promoting Valentines day to say “what did you get ?”… nothing or very little, then ‘treat yourself to our Valentines day package as a treat to yourself for missing out!
“Hi Lou, Loved the newsletter, it covers a broad range of interesting topics. Just wondering though, is VPL better than IPL. I couldn’t determine much difference from the article?”
“I love the newsletter – I seem to read it more than once just in case I miss something! I especially look out for the deals on the back page…..seeing the savings is a great excuse to book an appt. Keep the newsletter coming. J”
So far this is great ! we have had it mail box dropped to 3 different areas and clients have returned from this, we also place it on our beauty beds on a rolled up towel and give it to our clients before they get on the bed, and explain the specials to them.
It is also in our new client gift bags, and the local paper that produced it came and asked if they could showcase it at their meeting. The local business network are looking to do the same idea, and have said ‘why didn’t we think of it first?’ ! I have places for business to advertise in it and help me out with the costs.
So far to this date we have done in packages-
$99 nail packages= 6
$99 facial packages = 2
1x valentines singles package
$60 IPL vouchers = 5 plus 6 free consultations
Confronted with such a task, most business owners would rather stick their head in the sand and hope it’ll all go away….and go back to furiously cutting hair or doing massages, in the deluded belief that that’s the ‘real’ work.
by Greg Milner | Aug 19, 2009 | Blog, Marketing Superstars
Salon Template Salon Superstars – Inner Circle Member of the Week, Susan Vincent – USA
If more so-called ‘business leaders’ took some lessons from fleet-footed business owners at the small end of town, like Inner Circle member Susan Vincent of Body & Soul Day Spa in Staunton, Virginia, the US might not be wallowing in its own economic misery.
Unlike the CEOs of big, fat companies bailed out by the taxpayer, Susan didn’t ‘know it all’ – she sought – and found – the money-making templates and tools in Worldwide Salon Marketing’s My Social Salon system, including the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® and USED them:
“As of June 2009, with the recession in full force, we are still experiencing a 20% growth rate – we couldn’t be happier!”
Susan joined WSM and got her Toolkit nearly two years ago, and immediately embraced its no-nonsense style of direct marketing, advertising, salon/spa marketing plans and sales strategies. But importantly, she did it with a pulse, and used it as a spur to seek more knowledge about the whole world of direct response.
“Although the recession hasn’t hit us like it has in some parts of the US, the community here has embraced that (recession) mindset.
“This has created a very difficult environment for such a small spa. A couple of years ago, a Dan Kennedy mentor of mine recommended that I start a print newsletter. He knew I was a writer and encouraged me to write about my life in the newsletter. I really thought he was nuts. After all, email was the rage.
“Why would anyone want to read a print newsletter? But more to the point, why would anyone want to read about my boring life? Turns out, he was spot on.
“A year after the newsletter’s debut, we grew 35%. Our clients raved about it. They loved the funny, inspirational stories I wrote, much to my surprise. But it wasn’t just that.
“I combined the newsletter stories with great offers. Worldwide Salon Marketing helped me to understand how to craft an offer and combine a killer guarantee to increase sales.”
In fact, so successful has Susan’s monthly newsletter proven to be for her spa, she’s about to launch a ‘done-for-you’ newsletter service for other beauty businesses. She’ll do almost all the writing for you, with a couple of gaps to use for your own offers, and all you’ll have to do is get it printed and mailed.
The fine details are being ironed out over the next few weeks. We’ll let you know when it’s ready to go.
