Owning a salon can be a fun and lucrative venture. In the beginning, however, it can also be incredibly stressful as you work to build a customer base that allows you to generate a sizeable profit. To help you with this, here is a look at seven awesome ways to gain more customers for your salon.
Deliver Great Service
As with any business, word-of-mouth advertising is still the optimal way to gain more customers. While it is almost impossible to judge exactly how well it works for a particular business, there is little debating that it does work.
The only way to ensure that word-of-mouth helps advertise your salon is to deliver great service. A culture of top-notch customer service will enable you to separate yourself from the competition and bring customers to your door through referrals.
Referral Program
Building off the word-of-mouth advertising strategy, you can encourage current customers to bring in friends and family by creating a referral program. When doing this, the biggest thing that you will have to worry about is how you will reward the individuals who provide you with referrals.
While it may be tempting, salon marketing experts like Phorest advise against offering salon discounts. Doing so can attract the wrong customers. Instead, offer free hair products or get creative with other rewards that may be intriguing to your current customers.
Write About Hair Care
One of the more intriguing options for bringing in more customers is to write about hair care in a local publication. Whether it is a magazine or local newspaper, putting together a weekly advice column is a great way to prove your competence in your field and to bring in customers who know you can provide them with a great service.
Utilise Social Media
Another great option for building your customer base is to utilise social media. Find out where your target market is spending their time and work to build a presence on that particular network. From there, you can provide them with useful content and information that can help build your brand and bring in customers.
Create a Blog
Creating a blog is another solid option for bringing in customers, especially when combined with social media. While it may take some time to get off the ground, the long-term benefits provide an ROI that is unmatched by just about any other digital marketing method.
Target the Right Customers with Your Marketing
One of the mistakes that many salon owners make when marketing to new customers is that they tend to go after individuals who are most interested in hair care. While it may seem like the obvious choice to target this demographic, the problem there is that most of these individuals will already have a salon that they patronize.
Attempting to get them to change from a salon that they have been going to for years can be a huge challenge. Interestingly enough, it is often much easier to get people who traditionally do not go to salons regularly to finally give it a shot.
Get Creative
Although there are plenty of marketing options that you can follow to gain more customers, the most successful may be unique to your own business. Think about some creative things that you can do for your own business – such as creating a contest – that can potentially generate buzz and bring in customers.