How to kick start your marketing to men

Jul 15, 2011 3 Comments by

For the last twenty years Old Spice After Shave has been in trouble, year after year, sales kept falling and the brand had become associated with wrinkled old men. After doing some market research, Proctor & Gamble discovered that women purchase as much as 70 percent of the shower gel and after shave for men in their households. They asked themselves the question, “How could we market body wash to female purchasers and yet still cast the product as decidedly masculine to lure men away from bar soap?” The result is the brilliant advert below. For those of you who haven’t seen it, take a look at the video below. The ad was actually shown on South African TV recently.

This is a typical branding style ad, not something any small salon or spa can afford to do. But, there is a way that your Salon can piggy back on this. In marketing, you want to try and enter the conversation that is already taking place in your customers mind. For example, a lot of South Africans have been speaking about the recent marriage of Charlene Wittstock and Prince Albert of Monaco, so it makes sense to use this event in your Salon Marketing, however, very few Salons did. Right now a lot of people are talking about the Old Spice man. In fact, everyone who sees the ad can’t help laughing at it and telling their friends about it – in other words, it has gone viral.

If I was a Spa or Salon Owner who wanted to target men, here are a couple of things I would want to do witrh this advertI

1. I would place this ad on the front page of my website, on my Facebook Fan Page and I would send it out in my monthly email newsletter to every man and women on my Salon’s email database.

2. I would create a special offer for men that included a free bottle of shower gel or aftershave with every purchase.

3. Using Salon Studio’s targeted email functionality, I would send this video to all male customers on my database with the value added special offer.

4. I would drive prospective male customers to it through their wives/girlfriends

5. I would put this special offer

If you pay attention to what’s going on around you, you will continually come up with great marketing ideas that you can “steal” and make your own. Here’s an example, just the other day I was roaming through radio stations while I was stopped at a robot. Jacaranda FM was running a competition called, “Pimp my Bride.” An obvious rip-off of MTV’s Pimp my Ride show. I wonder how many Salon Owners in Pretoria sat listening to that competition and never came up with their own “Pimp my Bride” promotion. So, pay attention, be quick on your feet and get busy marketing!