With a focus on winning new clients and retaining existing ones, a good marketing plan is vital for the success of your salon business.
Marketing is all about getting the right message to the right audience at the right moment – and unless you approach it strategically and have each part of the equation right, your efforts will not pay off.
This article will help you figure out what tools and tactics you can use to achieve your goals. Follow these seven simple steps to create the perfect salon marketing plan for 2020, and make your business thrive.
1. Analyze Your Current Situation
Whenever you start building a marketing plan for your salon, you need to have a clear idea of where you currently stand, set your goals, and plan the right actions to achieve them.
Begin with assessing your results from the previous year, by writing down the most important business data, such as:
- The average number of appointments for the month,
- Your total number of unique clients,
- The number of new clients,
- The number of returning clients,
- The number of clients who visited you once, and never returned,
- Monthly and annual revenue.
Also, try to gather information on the marketing results you've achieved:
- Your number of total website visitors,
- The number of social media posts,
- Number of followers on each social media channel,
- Money invested in promoting your business,
- Number of contacts in your client database,
- Number of online reviews you have received,
- A list of promotions that you offered and their results.
When you collect all this data, you can easily assess how your business performed over the last year. You will be able to notice correlations between your monthly performance and your marketing efforts, sales, and promotions.
If you're only starting your salon business, research on how other salons performed during their first year, and try to set realistic goals based on their experience.
2. Rethink Your Customers
Developing a profile of your ideal client is your next step. Use all the intel you have on your clients and, describe them in as much detail as you can think of. Think about how often your clients visit your salon and what kind of services they are usually looking for. What pain points or challenges are you helping them solve?
What do they like the most about your salon? What are the things they are not fond of and make them never want to return to your salon? If you are in the dark regarding these questions, you can run a survey and ask your existing and former customers for sincere feedback.
Use all the information you obtain to create your ideal buyer personas, as this will help you identify your marketing strategies and tactics. This data will also be useful for creating the content to fit their needs better.
3. Know Your Competitors
The competition is fierce when it comes to beauty services. The only way to maintain a competitive edge is by analyzing your competitors and finding ways to differentiate your salon from all the others.
- Who are your competitors?
- What is their approach to branding?
- What do you think about branding ideas?
- What is their social media strategy?
- What are their prices and sales policy?
Try to understand how your services stack up against the existing competition, and what makes your salon unique and special in the eyes of your clients. This will be your unique value proposition that should be highlighted in your every marketing campaign.
4. Set Your Goals
After you're done with the analysis, you need to set the goals for the upcoming year. Think about what you want your marketing plan to achieve and the objectives that you would like to accomplish. Only then will you be able to track your numbers properly and see how your efforts are performing.
What do you think matters the most in the current situation? Should you maybe try to increase the number of new clients? Should you work on increasing your brand awareness? Or is it something else?
Put together a list of goals, both the short term and the long term ones, and try to specify them as much as possible. Also, try to make them measurable, so that you can easily track your progress and identify when you've met your goals or exceeded them.
Your goals might look like this:
- Increase the number of monthly appointments from ____________ to _________________.
- Increase the number of returning clients from ____________ to _________________.
- Increase number of Instagram followers from ____________ to _________________.
- Have a new salon website ready by _________________.
With such precise and quantifiable goals, you will have a much better idea of where you are headed, and what activities will get you there.
5. Research Marketing Tactics
Now that you know what you want to accomplish, you can analyze the marketing strategies that will get you there.
Some of the activities you might consider including in your 2020 marketing plan are:
- Brand Your Salon. If you haven't by now, you should make it your priority to build your brand and keep your branding efforts consistent across all marketing channels. This goes for your brand image (your logo, typography, colors) and your brand personality, tone, and voice.
- Improve Your Website. Your website needs to make a great impression on your prospective clients. Besides being visually appealing, your website should be easy to read and navigate, so that it offers quick and seamless user experience to all your website visitors regardless of what device they use. Remove all the clutter from your website; make sure it's super fast and mobile-friendly. Your website should also include an online booking calendar to facilitate the process as much as possible.
- Invest in search engine optimization. Your search engine rankings are essential for attracting and retaining clients, so investing in SEO is a must. In other words, most people won't go beyond the first page of Google search results, which is why it's of crucial importance to improve your rankings and find your place among the top results. Your website and all the content should be optimized with relevant search phrases, and include links to other credible pages. Running your own blog with beauty and health tips can also be of great help when it comes to SEO and attracting new clients.
- Shine on Social Media. Focus on social media channels your clients use, such as Instagram and Facebook, and regularly post high-quality photos and videos. Try to engage with your clients in discussions, and incentivize them to post their own content related to your salon. Also, consider investing in ads for better visibility.
- Get Involved With Your Community. Make your salon popular in your community by organizing or taking part in local initiatives. Think about the causes that stand close to your brand's values and take part in charitable events to support them – this can be a great way to help out but, at the same time, attract and retain your clients.
6. Decide On Your Budget
Now that you have a better idea of your goals and activities, you need to decide what percentage of projected gross revenue you're going to allocate to your marketing budget.
A general rule is to dedicate at least 5% of your gross revenue for these purposes. However, if you want your business to grow, you should think about doubling your budget, but consider whether such an investment is realistic in your current situation.
When creating a budget, stick to the activities you've planned, and see how much each one will cost you. If you exceed your budget, it's better to go back and adjust it now than in six months.
7. Make a Content Plan and Editorial Calendar
Now it is time to put it all in a calendar and schedule your marketing activities. Set the dates for your campaigns and draft essential details, such as when you are going to announce a certain event, and which channels you'll use for promotion.
You can start with busy times during the year such as the holidays, back to school, or as clients are gearing up for summer vacation.
If you have an anniversary of your salon coming up this year or a charity event you're organizing– put them in your calendar too.
This way, you will be able to plan these events throughout the year evenly and be ready on time.
Now that you have a thorough salon marketing plan for 2020, you will find it much easier to focus on achieving your goals, measure the effects of your campaigns, and adjust them.
About the Contributor:
I’m Rebecca, a translator and avid traveler, a book worm and horror flick enthusiast. My job has given me the amazing opportunity to travel to dozens of countries around the world, and writing on Rough Draft gives me a chance to try to showcase some of them.
