by Greg Milner | May 1, 2013 | Featured
Getting your salon marketing message out to your customers, clients and prospects used to be relatively simple – because you had very little choice when it came to which ‘media’ to use.
You had word of mouth of course – always the best kind of advertising. You had one-on-one, face to face marketing. Maybe some direct mail and the occasional ad in the local newspaper. And if you were really adventurous, some radio and possibly TV. Now? Well, the range of online and offline media is enough to make the mind boggle.
And then again….
Why are apps becoming so important for small businesses like salons & spas? Because your clients and prospects are starting into them – and using them – all day, every day.
There’s ONE form of media that almost every single one of your clients and prospective clients is carrying with them, pretty much 24 hours a day. Their smart phone. And they’re staring into those little screens, for hours and hours. When they’re at work. When they’re watching TV. On the train or bus. When they’re in your salon. Which is why more and more smart salon owners are opting for a ‘smart salon app’ as a key plank in their marketing armoury.
For Baltimore salon owner and Worldwide Salon Marketing member Jill Turnbull, having her clients download the app WSM built for her salon has brought in an extra ten new clients per week….and that’s just from the referral tab within the app!
[cf]Jill Turnbull[/cf]
Our technical department here at WSM has built dozens and dozens of apps for salons & spas, and they’re starting to have a big impact. If you want to see what a your own salon or spa app might look like, grab your own smart phone, go to the App Store or Google Play store and download one or two of these recent examples:
For a Cosmetic Clinic: |
For a Hair Salon: |
For a Beauty Salon: |
by Greg Milner | Oct 31, 2012 | Featured
Tamara O’Dowd of NRG Hairdressing in Leederville, Western Australia. “Business has grown by 40% in the 4 months since joining WSM and getting the My Social Salon online system…”
Every day, as Perth salon owner Tamara O’Dowd looks through her plate-glass front window to the inner-suburban street beyond, she knows that somewhere close by, at least seven prospective customers are typing ‘hair salon leederville’ or ‘hairdresser leederville’ into the search bar on their phones, iPads or laptops.
She knows this because Google’s keyword tool tells her so. And every day, one, two even three brand new clients walk through her door and hand over their cash for a hair service of some kind, having found Tamara’s brand new website at the very top of their Google search. Not just at the top of organic searches, but at the top of Google’s maps as well. (See picture below)
Every single day, day after day after day.
Think about that for a moment. I’ll do the sums for you. If a regular client is worth say, $1,000 to you in a year (roughly, $160 X 6 visits per year) then even ONE new client every single day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year is adding….wait for it…
$260,000 to Tamara’s annual revenue.
(click here to see videos that show exactly how Tamara did it – My Social Salon)
That’s how important it can be to be at the top of Google searches for your local area, in your industry sector. It’s now the end of October. Tamara’s website has only been live online since the end of July – 3 months. But as this image shows, it’s already dominating a very competitive geographical area, crowded with rival salons. 
Being able to be FOUND by prospective customers looking for your service, in their local area, has become not just ‘nice’ to have. It’s more important than that. It’s actually costing you money, lots of it, if they can’t find you.
Here’s another image of a Google search I did just today, ‘beauty salon ulverstone’ (a town in northern Tasmania).
Not surprisingly, at the very top of the search results was a website we built for another of our members, Silvia Bell of Bohemian Beauty. Silvia’s new website has been ‘live’ for about 12 weeks…
Now, at the risk of boring you witless, this matters because of studies which show that the difference in traffic you attract – and therefore, customers – is MASSIVELY dependent on your position in search rankings. Take a look at the graph below, showing the huge drop off in clicks from Number 1 position compared with Number 2 and beyond….
