3 Secrets to Salon and Spa Advertising that Nobody Wants to Tell You

Angry!

You gotta be kiddin'!

Furious!

More like it.

It takes a lot to move me from my persistently happy mood to a state of crossness (let alone anger) when I'm sat at our beach hut watching the holidaymakers get told off for walking their dogs or throwing a tantrum for dropping a sausage from the BBQ into the sand.

But yesterday it happened...

I got cross.

Very cross.

I was reading an article in a Beauty Industry Magazine (I won't name and shame them - and it's not the magazines fault I suppose) about how to get more clients.

Their advice was that given we're in recession beauty salon, nail salon, tanning salon, hair salon and spa owners should get ANY clients they possibly could.

Any!

They should do things like get out of foot (or send their employees out) and BLANKET deliver flyers.

They should hang around on in towns and on street corners and give out flyers to the GENERAL PUBLIC (yeah! that works! If you're REALLY BORED and like wasting time).

That as long as they told enough people WHERE their salon was then eventually... Eventually... Eventually... They'd get some new clients.

Ah!

Ah!

Ah!

On one level they were kind of right.

Give out enough useless freakin' flyers and yes eventually... Eventually you will get a few badly qualified, bottom of the barrel clients stumble through your doors...

And maybe even the odd client who you really want.

But for the love of god!

That's a really, really, really, really bad, waste of time, lazy, expensive, useless way to get clients.

And the fact someone is giving that advice away MAKES ME A CROSS LITTLE BOY!

So...

I had another cup of tea.

A rich tea biscuit, closed my eyes and erased the anger.

And this morning I'm going to once again give you the THREE things you MUST do BEFORE you do any marketing or advertising at all.

Do these and you'll be in the top 1% of salons and spas quickly.

Don't and you'll be chasing your tail forever.

3 Secrets to Salon Advertising that Nobody Else Will Tell You

Here they are:

1. Identify YOUR ideal client. WHO do you want into your salon or spa? What gender are they? How old are they? Where do they live? How much money do they make? What paper do they read? How many children do they have? EVERYTHING and anything you can identify from existing clients and/or what you see as your perfect client. Once you know who you want then guess what! You can actually go find them!!
2. List every possible place you can find these people. You can buy mailing lists, maybe they go to a particular 'club'. Maybe they live in a particular part of town. Maybe they frequent another business in your area (yeah - believe it or not they do buy from other people too...).
3. Develop an OFFER. Something truly irresistible. Something that will make your IDEAL client sit up and say 'Geez, Frank, we gotta get our little butts over to Henry's Beauty Parlour TODAY!". This bit is very IMPORTANT. Their is so much NOISE out there you gotta give your prospects a reason to CONTACT YOU. Luckily, most salon and spa advertising is so LAME - covered in pictures of smiling women, beaches, couches, lipsticks (guess what - your prospects KNOW what a couch looks like) that quite frankly just having an offer will set you in really good stead.

There are a few more things you need to do but you gotta do some thinking too...

Best,

Henry Baker.