Archive for beauty salon advertising
7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 3
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Recession Busting Secret Number 2
Focus on a New Customer/Client
Generating System
Simple supply and demand illustrates that high demand for something in low supply will lead to higher prices and a position of power. Such a position gives you the ability to raise prices and the ability to create wealth.
So, we need to create MORE demand for what you have than there is supply (or at least perceived supply).
What we can’t afford to happen is you spend every waking moment physically making your demand generation machine work.
We need to create something which consistently pumps out new customers/clients come rain or shine whether you’re around or not.
Here’s how we’re going to do it.
1. Get Prospects to raise their hands as interested in what you have.
2. Capture their details.
3. Educate as to why YOU are the perfect choce for them.
4. Remain in contact with them with timely, pertinent offers until they become a customer and beyond.
Nothing magical about that. BUT, do you do that now?
Let’s look at an example based on a local nail salon looking for new clients to see how it works.
My name is Jane Bloggs, I’m sat at home, fed up to the ‘quick’ (excuse the pun) with my poorly maintained, ‘ugly’ looking nails.
I’m 47 years old, a professional (in this case a doctor), own my own home, am married, have 2 children at university and earn over £80k per year.
A letter arrives at my door. Hand addressed, real live stamp in the top right hand corner.
Ummm, I wonder who this is from.
It’s not my Birthday, Aunty Gerturde is back from OZ and she emailed me yesterday so it can’t be her. My Mum is downstairs drinking a cup of tea so it can’t be her.
Dunno…I’ll open it and see.
I open up the envelope and am greeted by a personal, well written letter with the headline “Who Else Wants nails So Perfect You’ll Constantly Be Asked ‘How Do They Look So good?’”
What an interesting headline. Let’s read on.
I then read the rest of the letter. A well written personal invite from a nail salon a few miles away offering me a free nail consultation worth £35 and a free guide called ‘The Consumers Inside Guide to Selecting the Perfect Nail Treatments For You”.
Funny enough, I’d been thinking about my nails recently and am a bit fed up with the way they look.
Now, the letter says I can call the salon to book my free nail consultation; I call an 0800 number to get my consumer guide or head to a website to do the same.
I’m not sure about calling for an appointment yet – this is an interesting letter but who knows, it could be a con!
So… I head to the office and tap in the web address.
I’m immediately presented with a single page website giving me a number of options.
I can request my ‘Consumer guide’ by leaving my details and in fact there are a couple of other free reports on their too. One about ‘the 7 secrets to a nails so eye catching you’re friends will think you’ve been to Hollywood’ and one called ‘How to Stop Biting Your Nails Forever’.
Plus, there are a whole bunch of videos on the site from happy, smiling clients professing what an amazing job the nail techs had done for them.
There’s even a 100% money back guarantee on all treatments.
Blimey, these people look really good.
I think I’ll request my ‘Consumers Inside Guide’, have a read and then maybe go see them for the free consultation – what the ‘heck’ have I got to lose?
I type my details into the website and click submit.
Wallop, I’m taken to another page with more videos from happy smiling clients from my area and a voucher I can print for a FREE ‘bracelet’ with any first paid treatment if used within 2 weeks.
Geez, this gets even better.
What a professional, interesting, different and exciting way to present nail care.
I then open up my email and surprise, surprise there’s an email from the salon.
A really well written personal welcome from the owner telling me all about where she’s from, her family, what she likes doing at weekends, and a little story about her claim to fame giving that famous actor a perfect nails.
Plus, a whole bunch more comments from really happy clients, my free report attached to the email and even my voucher for a free bracelet!
You know what; I think I’ve just stumbled across something special here. I really feel like these people know what they’re doing and could actually help me.
Anyway, let’s print off the report and have a read.
“The Consumers Inside Guide to Choosing the Perfect Nail Treatments for You”. Ok, what have we got.
The 3 fatal salon selection mistakes and 5 steps to the perfect salon selection for you.
You know what, this makes sense.
I should expect amazing service from my nail salon. I should expect a 100% money back guarantee, and why would I want to go to a salon who can fit me in today… Surely if they’re any good they’ll be busy!
Two days pass.
Beep, beep, beep.
Oh…There’s a voicemail on my mobile. Let’s have a listen.
“Hi, this is the owner (she’d say her name) from XYZ nail salon. I just wanted to say hello and thank you for requesting our ‘Consumers Insider guide’ a couple of days ago. Just to remind you, we do have a £35 free consultation available for you. We’d love to see if we can make you look and feel your best. But please be aware, we are very busy and I can only hold the free consultation open for another 2 weeks. Hope to hear from you soon.”
Wow, what a pleasant message. And you know what; I had seen the expiry on the consultation voucher. Perhaps I’ll call tonight.
Another day passes.
5am on Thursday and I’m checking my emails. Aha…An email from the nail salon. A case study of a lady who’d been embarrassed by her nails for years. Wow, she looks great.
Ok, and some answers to common questions about the salon. How the consultation procedure works, how long treatment takes etc.
Ah yes and my free consultation expires in a little less than two weeks.
Ok, I’ll call today…
Another day passes…
Ooo…Post is here…
What’s this postcard?
Ah…Another case study from the nail salon. Geez, this lady has gone from a nail biting fanatic to having amazing looking nails. If they can fix her, they can sure fix me!
Right, I must call today and book in that FREE consultation.
Another 4 days pass.
Post arrives. A red envelope. Umm, what’s in here…?
Aha, another letter from the nail salon. Blimey, I’m glad these guys don’t give up.
A nice letter saying they’re concerned I’ll miss my free consultation. How it is 100% free with no obligation. And two more case studies from clients who’ve had their lives changed by having their nails fixed…
Wow, this is one professional outfit. I must call now and book my appointment.
“Hello, this is XYZ nail salon. If you haven’t been to see us before please press 1. If you have, please press 2.”
I press 1.
“Good morning, Claire here and welcome to XYZ nail salon. My I ask you name.”
Claire then asks me a few questions and lets me know that the earliest consultation available is in 14 days time. And while that’s outside the date allowed for my free voucher they’ll be happy to give the consultation free as they’re just so busy they can’t do it sooner.
Great I say. That’ll be fine. I then come off the phone and jump on the laptop for work.
Ooo, an email. Ok, it’s a confirmation from Claire confirming my appointment in 14 days time and inviting me to take part in a brief survey.
Why not?
The survey asks me a few questions about my feeling towards the salon so far, what has been great and also what my main reason for booking a consultation was.
There’s also an opportunity for me to refer a friend or family member and if they book in for a free consultation I’ll receive a £10 M and S voucher and if they proceed with treatment I’ll receive Theatre Tickets for 2. It’s clearly explained that the salon relies heavily on word of mouth to help them keep their costs down and thus keep their fees as low as possible and maintain the highest level of service possible.
Quite frankly I’m ultra impressed so far and they’d have to do something monumentally stupid during the consultation to get things wrong so why not! I know my sister hates her nails and my Mum is constantly complaining about hers and how her current salon is way to heavy handed and treats her like a ‘prisoner of war’.
I bet those people would look after them!
In the run up to my free consultation the communication doesn’t stop. I still get interesting, educational emails and a couple of postcards and the day before I even get a little reminder message left on my voicemail.
If these guys are half as good at nails as they are at clientt communication then this is gonna be great!
STOP!
Ok, let’s take a quick pause here. I’ve just described the bare bones of a high value and very effective client attraction system.
Did you notice all the different things that happened?
All the different ways we were immediately presenting value and immediately positioning ourselves as something completely different than the norm…
Now, what’s really important in this example is not so much how we instigated the initial interest – direct mail is one way but it could equally be via a magazine ad, newspaper ad, Yellow Pages, TV, Radio and article, press release, telephone etc, etc. but rather the comprehensive value and benefit driven follow up.
In the example we followed up with the ‘prospect’ many times.
In reality this person may have responded a lot sooner or may have taken even longer to respond. What’s key is that we keep following up until they do.
Now, there is a point where that becomes counterproductive but we’ll leave that until another time.
You see one of the BIGGEST mistakes businesses make is not following up with the interest they generate from their marketing.
MOST people will NOT respond on the first touch – the first time they are exposed to us.
It’s therefore essential we capture the details of the interested people early and then focus on maximising new clients from those people with their hands raised.
Using the ‘lead generation’ approach I’ve just shown you then overtime you will build up an enormous ‘pile’ of ‘hot prospects’ i.e. people who have shown an interest in what you have. AND, you can at any point send those prospects an exciting offer and you will instantly generate new clients.
The larger the ‘pile’ of ‘hot prospects’ the more customers/clients you will generate.
Imagine the feeling of security and ‘power’ that will give you. Pretty cool eh?
And don’t think it all needs to be manual labour. Nearly everything that happens can be automated!
Ok, I went into that in a lot more detail than I expected but it is of VITAL importance. There are a LOT of secrets to success in there. Be sure to re-read it, circle what you don’t do and apply to your business quick-sharp…
And grab your FREE Salon/Spa Profit Gift if you haven’t yet => Free Gift Click Here
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsRecession Busting Secret Number 1
Get VERY CLEAR About Who You Want as a Customer/Client
I suspect one of the main reasons you’re here is to learn how to attract more new clients.
But as you’ll soon see, doing so is rarely the fastest way to stability.
So, what are we going to do?
Well, we want to attract new clients. BUT, not just any old clients. We want to attract the type of clients you want. We want the highest value, easiest to sell to, least price resistant, most loyal customers we can find.
It pays to be discerning.
The last thing we need is to be overrun by ‘bottom of the barrel’, low price customers who buy once every 2 years and ‘moan like hell’. Why?
Well, let’s look at a simple example. This is not a beauty example. That is NOT important. The principle is the same and the goal is to get you thinking.
Say you’re a dentist wanting to add a £1million to your practice in the next 12 months, which of these two scenarios would you prefer.
1. £1million in case revenue from single fillings. At an average cost of say £50 that’s 20,000 fillings. In a typical working year of 235 days (360 minus weekends and a few weeks holiday) you’ll need to see about 85 of these ‘bad boys’ a day… If it takes an average of an hour per filling from patient greeting to leaving you’ll need about 14 dentists working full time in your practice.
A completely ridiculous scenario but you get the idea. Pretty tough eh?
2. Now, contrast that to this. You deliberately go looking for high value, affluent clients looking for big smile changes. A smile makeover could cost between £500 and £40,000 plus. Even at just £1,000 you’ll only need 1000 of these patients to hit the £1mill and over a year that’s about 4 a day. Sounds a bit easier right.
So here’s my point.
NOT all clients are made equal and YOU have a choice as to which you attract.
YOU decide. YOU go get them.
And YOU need to decide who you want, why you want them, how you can help them and then go get them.
So what do we need to do?
We need to ascertain WHO your ideal client is. And often the best place to start is WHO you do NOT want as a client…
A myth to dispel.
In 99% of cases it is not ten times as hard to sell a service for £1000 as it is to sell one for £100. In fact it’s not twice as hard.
Rather than being more difficult it usually just requires a different approach – we’ll have a look at that in a bit.
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7 Secrets to Recession Proofing Your Salon or Spa – Part 1
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Is Your Salon/Spa Built on Solid Ground or Crumbling Like a Biscuit?
Before we move onto my recession busting secrets it is important for us to have a look at your business and take a quick score card as to your current standing.
How are you doing, how solid is your business, how resistant are you to economic downturn and how ready are you for new opportunities?
Please take time to answer these questions:
- Do you have systems in place for attracting new clients (or are things a little ‘haphazard’)?
- Do have systems in place for getting existing clients to return to your business (or is it more ‘let’s wait and see’?)
- Do you have systems in place to get your clients spending more each time they come to your business (or do you just give them what they ask for)?
- Do you have systems in place for generating referrals (or are they just ‘nice to have’s')?
- Do you have systems in place to measure and reward your staff’s performance (or is it a case of a smile when things are good)?
- If YOU left your business tomorrow, would your clients want to follow you to your new destination (or would they be pleased to see you go?)?
- Do you know your average cost of client acquisition (or haven’t you got a flippin’ clue)?
- Do you know your average lifetime client value (or are you just happy to be making a profit)?
- What is your unique selling proposition (or perhaps you just know you’re good at what you do)?
- If you could not attract one more new client for the next 12 months, would you survive (or would your business come crumbling down)?
If you answered NO to one or more of those questions then you have some seriously gaping holes in your salon or spa.
Holes that need to be plugged FAST if you want to survive, let alone prosper over the months and years to come.
The good news is I want to help you plug up them ‘old holes’ and shed a whole new light on why the things I just mentioned are so important!
But, the truth is that these few pages I have here are really only going to scratch the surface. To get ahead fast you’ll need a tad more. So keep an eye out for the additional report I send in the post. THAT can double your profits FAST!
This is a Theory Free, ‘Hocus-Pocus’ Free Zone
Ok, nearly there, sorry, in a moment we ARE going to move onto the ‘good stuff’.
Before we do so, I just want to make something very clear.
There are a lot of reports which base their recommendations on theory and un-tested, un-proven ideas. Ideas born out of universities, business and management schools.
Ideas from people with little or no experience of their own in the cold, hard world of real business and little or no experience actually in the trenches helping real salon/spa owners fight and find success.
This is NOT one of those.
The strategies I’m about to reveal are not ‘fluffed up’ ‘hocus-pocus’, they are not theory and they are all proven.
As you’re about to discover they are also NOT difficult. They do not require you be a master salesman, master marketer, business genius, management wizard or require you have a bottomless pit of funds to invest in them.
They are simple, to the point, easy to implement, fast and very effective.
BUT, they ‘aint gonna’ jump up off these pages, haul themselves over
to your business and put themselves to work…
You do have to do something. Unfortunately here are NO shortcuts to success.
You do have to implement the ideas and strategies. And you do have to be persistent in their application.
So…grab a pen, a piece of paper, a cup of coffee, tea, orange, a biscuit, lock the door and let’s get to work. This will be fun…
Well…At least when the next part of this series arrives…
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How to Use the News to Send Your Salon or Spas Profits to the Moon
Posted by: | CommentsWHEN WILL NEXT GIANT METEORITE STRIKE EARTH AND CAUSE
MASS EXTINCTION?
There are actually people worrying about this sort of thing.
According to a recent article in the Times, the last bash was about 250 million years ago.
Apparently this is cyclical, so, according to this article, in another 50 or 100 million years, you may not want to be standing in the middle of Australia. Make a note of that on the calendar in your Palm Pilot. You’ll thank me later.
Well, why have I put this odd news item in this week?
Years ago, Sinatra recorded the “once there was a little old ant who thought he’d move a rubber tree plant”, High Hopes song on a bet, that he could take any piece they handed him, record it, and put it on the charts.
One of the “dares” I like taking is: hand me any newspaper and I’ll find something I can use to advertise or promote something of mine or my clients’.
This particular day’s Times had slim pickings, so I got stuck with this meteorite story. So, if used as grabber, then “As you can see, I’ve sent you an article about a giant meteorite wiping out life on earth. Why have I sent you this?”
To show you how to use the news…
- You don’t have to wait until another giant meteorite strikes for a reason to spend 3 days pampering your skin at out spa.
- Free With Every Set of Nail Exensions – 100-Million Year Warranty Against Meteorite Damage.
- How to Protect Your Skin from the Sun, Acid Rain, Wind, Pollution and even giant meteorites — without wearing a mask.
Yes, it is possible that, this month, I had a little too much time on my hands.
But the demonstration has a legitimate point: there’s no shortage of “jumping off point” fodder for ads, sales letters, promotions, thus no excuse whatsoever for boring your customers or prospects, for turning out mundane stuff.
The daily news is ripe with opportunity and ideas. But you need to condition yourself to “read FOR what you can use”. Most people do not read for purpose, watch TV for purpose, even listen to the random conversations around them for purpose.
Great fiction writers listen to the conversations around them for purpose – to capture dialogue to use. I do the same thing, to capture “copy” for ads and sales letters.
You can program your subconscious to do this automatically, without conscious work on your part. You’ll have to do it very consciously and deliberately for 21 to 30 days, then your subconscious’ll get the idea and take over.
So, get a notebook to carry around, and set a goal to capture “out of the blue” at least one hot, possibly useable idea — ad theme, piece of copy, title, etc. — everyday. Every day, read your newspaper with the goal and purpose of tearing out one item you can somehow use in your marketing.
Have a great day.
==============
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Give Your Salon or Spa the ‘Wow’ Factor
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Have you ever been somewhere and been so impressed that you literally said ‘WOW’?
A restaurant, a hotel, a theme park, a holiday, a wedding?
I can count on one hand the times that’s happened to me.
Sad, but true.
However, the people, places that DID make that happen have received hundreds, thousands, even times of thousands of pounds of FREE promotion from me.
I’ve told friends, family, colleagues and even used these places as examples in my newsletters, tele-seminars, marketing materials, books, courses in interviews, on the radio and more.
And don’t for a minute think it’s ONLY me they’ve received that free promotion from.
By creating the ‘WOW’ factor they’ve literally created an army of fired up sales people trotting around around the world spreading news of their amazing service…
Would you like a piece of that?
Any sane salon, spa, business owner of course would.
So how do you create the ‘WOW’ factor.
Is it so rare because it’s just fluke? Nope…
Is it so rare because it’s so expensive? Nope…
Is it so rare because it’s so difficult? Nope…
Is it so rare because most business owners NEVER think about how to create it? Yep…Probably…
It’s the LITTLE things that can ACTIVATE the ‘WOW’ factor for you.
Think of it in a different way.
Think of it as making yourself ‘WORHTY OF BRAGGING ABOUT’…
What can you do to make your salon/spa stick in your clients minds as something truly:
- UNIQUE
- OUTSTANDING
- SHOW OFF ABOUTABLE (I know that’s not a word)
You could:
- Pick up your clients in a limousine (charging a LOT for it of course).
- Have a different themed celebrity chef every month providing ‘nibble’.
- Have a world class MAGICIAN performing tricks for waiting clients.
- Have a monthly FREE dinner for your top clients at an exclusive restaurant.
- Provide a once a year trip to the most exclusive spa in the world for your top clients (and charge them but you arrange it all).
- Link your salon/spa to a celebrity so your clients can say… “I have my beauty treatments at the same salon/spa as XYZ…”
- Just give each client a fresh flower at the end of each treatment.
Look, there are endless things you can do.
And don’t think the small investment in each of them won’t pay you back…Do it right an it will…Multiple times over…
And if fact there’re are a whole bunch of things to do which I show you in my ‘Client Attraction System’ which cost very little and yet I can pretty much guarantee NONE of your competition will be using them…
Give yourself the advantage you need to prosper in these unprosperous times.
Don’t sit on the sidelines and worry, stress, ponder what to do.
Let me make is really simple, fun and profitable.
Grab your pile of salon and spa FREE marketing tools here:
FREE SALON AND SPA MARKETING TOOLS
And get looking for ways to create the ‘WOW’ factor in your salon TODAY.
Oh, and have a great day…
Henry.
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