So you’ve been working hard on setting up your beauty salon and carefully building your business. Now, you’d like to get as many people as possible to know about it and walk through your door. Here are some tips and tricks that might help you do just that – get better recognition and eventually more customers for your business by improving your salon marketing.

1. Turn your business into a brand

First, let’s consider your identity. Think about all the ways in which you can develop your business into a recognizable brand with its own story to tell. The thing is – people love brand stories! Whether it’s the support of the values promoted, sympathy and emotion towards their story or the sense of community and belonging, brands inspire trust in the majority of people. They also imply higher competencies and quality of service and products and provide authority and credibility to your business. Likewise, most people are willing to pay a little extra for the brand, which is also a wonderful salon marketing opportunity to increase your revenue. What is important here is to maintain consistency in everything that you do – from visual identity, tone and style of communication with (potential) clients to your core service. Make your business recognizable and it will become memorable and appreciated.

2. Make your physical location noticeable

Good salon marketing starts from making your own neighborhood well aware of your business, which is likely to both help your branding efforts as well as bring more clients through your door.. Decorate your windows and front door in your brand-specific style and set the tone straight away. Add balloons, lights, and/or signs likely to positively draw attention and play music that matches your vibe. For extra effort, play with the smells – we do, after all, remember them the most and they have a high impact on our emotions, moods and decisions.

3. Create your Google Business Profile

Nowadays basically the rule is that if you’re not on Google you don’t exist! So you want to make sure you do appear in the “salons near me” searches. This will allow the people in your area to learn about your business and its exact location. Remember, neighbors tend to be among the most loyal customers for beauty salons, so this might be quite worth the very little effort it takes to set up your profile.

4. Build your website

Following from there, building your online “residence” is of utmost importance if you’d like to boost your salon marketing. If you still don’t have a website, here are some useful pieces of information and advice on how to create it. Likewise, if you already do have it, you might be inspired to rethink some of your choices, improve it or add new features to it.
In any case, you want it to be both functional and beautiful – not only to provide all the necessary information about your business and services, but also to inspire confidence and a sense of warm welcome to the visitors so they are likely to become your customers. Remember, this will be your first contact with many people and you want to make the best possible impression while staying true to your business’ style and mood.

5. Create and maintain social media profiles

Seeing how the beauty industry is so so visual, another aspect of good salon marketing is showcasing what you can do. There is no better place for it than social media and every channel has its own strengths. For example, Instagram and Facebook are made to showcase pictures, Pinterest is where people look for beauty and inspiration, TikTok is heaven for all the educational videos on tips and tricks whereas Facebook still facilitates creating communities and multi-person dialogue. For the best results, cross-reference your channels, post regularly and actively engage with your followers. Eventually your customers will become your ambassadors by tagging you in their own content, which you may also reward.

6. Use an online booking and payment system

An increasingly important feature of salons’ websites is the online booking system. There are several ways in which it can help your business, which makes it an extremely valuable tool to boost your salon marketing. In addition to relieving your staff of some of the administration and paperwork and freeing them up to provide beauty service to your customers, it also makes for a better user experience since it provides them the option many of them actually prefer. Charging for bookings also reduces the numbers of your no-shows, which directly improves your revenue.

7. Invest in paid online ads

Where organic digital presence reaches its limitations, paid ads take over. Their benefit is threefold – they are practical, effective and completely customizable. Paid ads, whether on social media (regardless of the channel), Google ads allow you to create your ideal client, build an audience around them and target specifically those, or very similar, people. Select their interests, age groups, geolocations and any other relevant traits and show your unique and custom ads only to them. You also decide on the budget, which means you won’t pay any more than you want to. There are no minimum time periods and you can start or stop whenever you want.

8. Cooperate with influencers and other businesses

Having someone you trust and admire recommend a business, a product or a service is one of the most effective marketing moves. So why wouldn’t you use it to boost your own salon marketing?
Cooperation with local micro influencers (the ones who have under 10,000 followers) who are already respected members of your target community, who are relatable and respected by their followers is almost guaranteed to raise awareness of your brand and drive more customers through your doors.
Similarly, partnering up with a local non-competing business is a wonderful way to build a stronger relationship with your (and theirs!) customers and promote each other’s services to mutual benefit.

And all this is just the beginning. Think about what you would like to see as a user and try to implement that for your own salon. Whether it’s holiday or season promotions, first-time discounts, special live events, referral bonuses or loyalty club – your imagination is your limit. However, if you’d like a little help with it, do not hesitate to contact us here at Digital Salon Group. We’ll be happy to oblige and boost your salon marketing.