As a salon owner, you know that your job comes with several responsibilities and it can be exhausting at times, yet very rewarding. Marketing your salon may not always be your #1 priority. That’s why we’re here to lay out beauty salon marketing ideas so you can get more clients and increase your business revenue.
Step #1: Develop a Brand
The first step in marketing your salon is developing a brand. This means that you put together a brand strategy—which can include anything from deciding who your target audience is, researching your target audience’s likes and needs, and designing a look and feel for your salon.
Audience
If your salon does haircuts for kids, you will need to adapt your marketing strategy to a younger audience. You can still keep your brand professional while appealing to parents who are looking for a salon for their childrens’ haircuts. On the other hand, if your salon is more of a high-end salon that installs extensions and specializes in coloring, your marketing strategy may want to focus on middle-aged women. Deciding your audience and how to appeal to them will depend on the services you are providing and the type of clientele you are trying to appeal to.
Branding
When designing your salon’s brand, you will need to make sure it is memorable and recognizable; selecting two or three colors can help with this. Reuse these colors over and over in all of your marketing efforts. Make sure that your branding is unique and relates to the services you provide. Your audience should know what your salon does by seeing its marketing—aka it should be obvious you are a beauty salon providing certain services. Your branding also includes the voice and fonts that your salon uses. This will come in handy when you are creating your website.
Step #2: Create a Website
Our next beauty salon marketing idea is to create an online portfolio or website. This is the first step to having an online presence for your salon to get more traffic. When creating your website, make sure it is not only desktop-friendly, but also mobile-friendly. Like mentioned above, make sure that your salon’s brand is consistent on each page and throughout your website.
List Services and Relevant Information
Creating a website would be beneficial for your salon so you can share the services you provide and the prices for each service. You can list your salon’s address and contact information. Install a scheduling tool on your website so clients can book online if they don’t want to call the salon. You can also have a page showcasing all your beauty professionals with their pictures and specialities listed.
Collect Emails
When potential and existing clients visit your website, you should have a place for them to sign up to receive weekly or monthly newsletters that contain salon news and updates, upcoming discounts and promotions, or a spotlighted product of the month. If you’d like, you can add a pop-up to your homepage asking them to add their email address so they can receive these newsletters. Soon enough these potential clients will turn into current clients!
Showcase Client Reviews
Perhaps you have already been collecting client reviews on Google or Facebook for some time; your website is the perfect place to showcase them. If not, you can ask existing clients to leave a review on Google and then copy their review to your website. Have a designated page on your website for client reviews and show your top reviews on this page.
Post Blogs
If you want to go the extra mile, you can create a section for a blog where you can share online content with the potential to rank, which refers to a website’s position in the search engine results page. When implementing search engine optimization (SEO) correctly, you can get more attention and traffic to your website, which can lead to more potential clients. You can write about anything relevant to your salon—like how your clients can decide on a new cut and color, how to choose what type of extensions they would like, and more. To learn more about SEO and how it works, take a look at this website.
Step #3: Engage on Social Media
If you want to get maximum exposure for your salon online, you will want to invest some time and money into social media. In the 21st century, it’s hard to promote anything without using some sort of social media.
As you post on social media, stick to your salon’s branding and remember that it’s not just about posting—you will also need to take the time to engage with your followers. You’ll want to have your salon’s contact information on each social media platform, and have a link to your website so they can visit it from there.
TikTok
As of September 2021, TikTok has over 1 billion monthly users with an average age between 13 and 60. So, if your target audience falls within that age range, and it likely does, you will want to start creating content and post often on TikTok. The types of videos that you can create are endless, so use your creativity here. You can create videos of tours of your salon, before and after videos of cuts and coloring, hairstyles done on your clients, hairstylist spotlights, product highlights, and more. Just make sure you get the consent of your clients, or don’t show their face.
Instagram is the place for pictures and videos, unlike TikTok that is just videos. Use this platform to post pictures of the work your salon does, share your pricing and list of services, post videos of hair before and afters, and much more. When setting up an Instagram account for your salon, make sure it is a business account. This will allow you to see the analytics of the content you post, the demographics of your followers, and create sponsored posts.
Having a sponsored post means that your post can show up on others’ feeds, based on the specifications that you selected. You first select the goal you would like to achieve. Do you want more profile visits, more website visits, or more messages? Next, you will select the gender, age, and location that you would like to share your post with. You can run your ad for a certain amount of time, ranging from one day to 30 days. There is a budget option, where you can pay $3, $5, or $9 daily, or you can choose your own price. From there, you will put in the payment information and you can start boosting your post!
Create a Facebook business page to have a place for your clients to visit on Facebook. A Facebook business page’s primary function is to provide a place to share what you do, where your salon is located, and how you can be contacted. Use this business page to post the salon’s news and updates, and any upcoming events or classes. You should also have a link to your website and list your services, hours, and prices. Post pictures and videos of your salon, because everyone loves visuals and doesn’t want to just see text.
Step #4: Try Print Marketing
Some may say that print marketing is dead, but that is not the case. You can still print fliers and posters and hang them up at local businesses and see success from these efforts. You can put these fliers at city buildings, grocery stores, and other places that have bulletin boards. You can also create business cards for your beauty professionals that have their information and the salon’s information on the cards. These can be handed out to anyone, and can provide awesome networking opportunities for your beauty professionals.
Step #5: Purchase Salon Insurance
Believe it or not, having insurance can help you get more clients. It may not seem like a beauty salon marketing idea you have in mind, but having insurance shows that your salon is credible and trustworthy. Salon insurance provides a financial safety net in case something goes wrong in your salon. If a hairstylist damages a client’s hair while coloring it and the client decides to file a lawsuit against the salon, you can have coverage. Work with peace of mind knowing that you have salon insurance in place.
At Beauty and Bodywork Insurance, you can purchase salon insurance by filling out an application to request a quote. Hair salons, nail studios, franchises, and more are covered by BBI. Your salon receives general and professional liability insurance, commercial property insurance, excess liability insurance, workers compensation, and much more. If you have any questions about our policies, feel free to reach out to licensed insurance agents today.
When you purchase salon insurance from BBI, you receive immediate coverage and access to an online dashboard. From there, you can download a proof of insurance seal that can be used in your marketing efforts. This seal shows your clientele that you’re insured, and can be displayed on your website, in your salon windows, on business cards, and more.
Work Hard and Be Consistent!
We hope these beauty salon marketing ideas and steps are helpful for you to start thinking of a marketing strategy for your salon. Start with developing a brand, create a website, develop an online presence on social media, do some print marketing, and purchase salon insurance. As you follow these steps and are consistent with your marketing efforts, you are sure to see success and attract more clients to your salon.
