The success formula for Salon Marketing that works
Have you ever sat down in front of your PC struggling to create an advert, brochure or promotion for your Salon? I am sure you have. You know that you need to market your Salon but you just don’t know what to say because no one has even taught you. It is our job at Salon Management Studio to help you achieve your business goals so here is some practical advice on how to create ad’s, brochures, emails and promotions using Direct Response marketing principles that work.
What you are about to read is very different to what you have read in Beauty Magazines and it will be very different to what the Newspaper Sales rep or Get it Magazine Rep has told you. But, what I am about to share with you works if you use this step by step formula. Before I give you the formula there is a simple marketing principle that you have to understand first – all advertising is salesmanship. In other words, every piece of advertising must do the work of a Sales Rep, and that is to sell. If you use this formula, your ad will be turned into a compelling sales presentation that grabs a customer’s attention and moves them to purchase.
Here are 6 elements you need in every ad, brochure and promotion…
Critical Element # 1:
Firstly, you need an attention grabbing headline. A headline has one job and one job only. Its job is to force or compel the reader to read the next part of the ad, brochure, website etc. This is where most Salon Owners make their first marketing mistake. Instead of using an attention grabbing headline at the top of their advert they use their Salon name. You may not like what I am about to tell you, but your Salon Name is not strong enough to cause people to read the ad and buy. When people read adverts and articles, they scan the page and look for headlines that grab their attention. If a headline does grab hold of them they keep reading, if not they turn the page. In short, your salon Name is not enough to catch the prospects attention.
Critical Element # 2:
The next thing you need in your ad is an irresistible offer. An offer with massive value! A discount is not an offer, a list of what you do in the Salon is not an offer. The offer is the most important part of the ad because this is what the customer will buy, plus everything else in the ad will revolve around the offer. I don’t have the space in this post to show you how to structure a value added offer but I will dedicate an entire post to creating your offer next week.
Critical Element # 3:
You are probably going to think I am crazy and you might hate what I am about to say but the next part of a compelling, irresistible offer is a guarantee. I will also talk about this in detail in future blog posts. The reason you need a guarantee is twofold. None of your competitors has a guarantee. But also, for all the people who pick up the phone and call on your ad, brochure, website or flyer there are twenty, thirty or fifty who almost call but don’t. What you should be doing is shouting your guarantee from the rooftops to generate sales, rather than hide it. Your guarantee is the best sales tool that you can ever include in your offer because it eliminates risk and gives your prospect more reasons to say yes and less reasons to say no. If you can’t guarantee something don’t sell it and if you can’t prove something don’t sell it. Your guarantee will make you untouchable.
Critical Element # 4:
The fourth part of our marketing formula that works is a customer testimonial. This is the cheapest, most effective marketing tool and almost everyone reading this post is guilty of neglecting it and not using it nearly enough! When is the best time to ask for a testimonial? As soon as your customer walks out of the reatment room and pays. That is when they are the happiest and most excited about what you have done for them. They look good, they feel good. You have turned them into a Hollywood Superstar, you have taken a photo of them. All you need to do is say, “Wow, you look great. Would you mind saying how you feel?” Ninety nine percent of them would say “of course not, I would love to.”
Critical Element # 5:
The next element is scarcity. A special offer is not a special offer if people can buy it anytime they want so you have to limit your offer. Essentially, people are lazy and stupid. So whenever you offer them something you have to take it away from them. You create scarcity by either limiting the number items or by creating an expiry date. Scarcity is a valuable thing because it makes people want something more. There is a lot of psychology behind this but scarcity plays on the “fear of loss” and “greed factor” that all human beings are prone to.
Critical Element # 6:
The last critical element in your ad is a “call to action.” You need to tell your prospect what to do and why you want them to do it. There are different types of call’s to action and they all depend on the purpose of your ad. But basically, the simpler, easier, cheaper and faster you make it, the more people will respond. Tell your prospect who to speak to, what number to phone, website to visit and what they have to do to get their hands on your special offer.
There are a few more elements that you can include in your marketing like a P.S, that includes an upsell or points that overcome objections, but for today, these six elements I have given you will help you go far in your marketing. Over the next few weeks I go into more detail and I will even show real life example of marketing mistakes to avoid and why most Salon ad’s don’t work
