I have always been a little skeptical about the importance of building a great website. The sales today are not what they used to be 5 years ago when I was contemplating building a new website. Since then I have noticed a huge shift in sales in the last few years. More and more people are shopping direct on line to get their nail supplies. The convenience of shopping any time of the day and the direct to the point ordering is driving people to click and shop!
I suggest that all salons and spas have an up-to-date website set up. This way client’s can go on line and plan a trip to the salon or spa. They can leisurely shop around the site and see promos, package deals and products without the need of human interaction. Now to make life just a little easier there are programs to help book appointments for services. Helping to fill books any time of the day! I would also set up a retail section on the website offering clients a way to purchase spa products without having to stop by the salon.
Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc) is an outlet to let people know up to the minute press and deals but I am not sure how well that works with getting people to come in for a treatment. While an e-blast of promotions or special services help specifically drive traffic though your doors, it targets the people that have already signed up to be on your e-blast list that have shown interest rather than a shot in the dark. I have found that e-blasts with promotions give people time to marinate with the idea of a special or service. Creating original services can often entice clients to stop by the salon for a visit.
One of the major suggestions in my seminars is to have gift certificates at the cash register. What better way of getting people to pre-buy services than gift certificates? I would set up a program to give people the ability to order gift certificates on-line and pay with a credit card and print out the gift certificate to take to the salon.
Finding creative ways of marketing on-line will help increase sales and drive more traffic through the doors without the need of hiring another receptionist. Let your online business help generate sales and more business for your salon!
Mr. Cuccio, I have met with you once many years ago at your old facility in the Santa Clarita Valley. At the time, and even now, you are still very keen on branding. When you think about branding, words like “perception”, “reputation” and “interactive experience” come to mind. I agree that salons need to be branding and working to manage that brand…but more importantly in marketing salons today, the people who work there need to be branding themselves. It’s in the most fundamental moment of marketing where a person makes a recommendation to another person and trust is built…then a sale is transacted. This is branding at a social or relational level. So this is my simple argument for social media with salons: People do business with people, and on-line searches rule. So put that all together and you have a web site that is better structured as a blog, integrating facebook comments so your friends friends are commenting on your site, and your site is reaching facebook users, and twitter users and other bloggers–all of this tagged and optimized around keyword phrases so that you come up on top of Google search results.
Further, take your products and make them available to more people at smaller margins by selling not just locally, but make recommendations off your site on where to buy, and build ecommerce in a tri-fold manner: use other sites that have ecommerce traffic and shipping facilities to sell your product (such as APIs, or amazon stores), use your site to sell your product, and spin off other sites (shell sites) to sell your products at discount. Watch what happens! You’ll be able to sort your sales into three types of buyers: the cost-conscious, the brand-conscious, and the brand-loyal (luxury sale).
Wishing you all the best of success and the fine salons you sell to.