½ way down, ½ way to go!

It doesn’t seem two minutes since we were typing to you to wish you good luck for 2016…and now here we find ourselves in June, I know, already?! Which, for you guys this is the start of summer peak so you’re all busy, busy- and how have you all been getting on in the last few weeks? I hope that the first half of the year has been a great success for you all and you’ve got plenty of bookings to be tending to.

However once your summer of weddings, proms and holiday packages comes to a halt, you need to start thinking about the next quarter, and you want to make sure that you are prepped for your Autumn/Winter custom, that you have done enough marketing and promotional activities to ensure that you have those clients already lined up and you generate those big sales!

Understandably it's hard to think about this now when you are in the height of a busy period and sales are thriving. However, September on-wards you have back-to-school, the autumn (where everyone wants a tan, new style and colour change) and also, the big one, Christmas.

You don’t necessarily need to start the actions for this yet however, just when you get a spare couple of hours, do a little evaluation of what worked well for you last year and perhaps what didn’t. Also, take note of how you manage the high demand through this peak summer season and see how you can implement some of these tactics in to your Autumn/Winter strategy. This way, you are prepped mega early and you don’t have to cram in last-minute ideas.

If you are currently a salon software user, why not run a report of your sales throughout the summer, and have a look at peak times against certain marketing campaigns that you send out. This then highlights to you the types of messages that have worked well for you and indicates the types of approaches that you should be using to keep a good client retention from Summer through to Autumn/Winter.

Re-booking! A great one to push to clients who visit you throughout July & August, as then you are guaranteeing yourself extra custom in the September and October months, where salons are a little bit quieter before the start of the peak Xmas season in November.

Create a new Winter treatment list…(and it might be here that you don’t actually make that many changes!) ..but if you freshen up that service list both in the salon and online, create some ‘wintery’ titles for some of your treatments and change up the design a little bit, this small change could mean a big one in the eyes of clients. Use your social media channels to push the ‘refreshed services.’

Retail products, do you supply different products in the summer to what you do in the winter? If so, order these early, just to ensure you have that quick turn around when it comes to the Summer-Autumn/Winter changeover! Also, it’s all about the presentation of those. Get your most creative technician to do a bit of visual merchandising with your retail products to increase their appeal value to customers.

Staff working preferences. Throughout Autumn/Winter, you have an array of events, including Halloween, Bonfire Night and Christmas. Demand for days off or early finishes around this time could be high, therefore plan these shifts early and get your staff to fill out a shift preference sheet, to keep it fair and to give yourselves plenty of leeway with time to arrange these shift patterns accordingly. This way, you’re not shooting yourself in the foot if all of your therapists come running with the same day-off request, last-minute.

This is just a start off…and the aim was to provide few little pointers for you to think about over the summer season in the lead up to autumn. It may be that you don’t actually action some of these until the end of the month, but it just gets you in the planning mode and gives you a few ideas in how to manage the season switch up! Keep posted as next week we’ll be offering you our best Father’s day marketing and promo techniques for how you can capitalise on this event in the salon. Until next time…

Salon Tracker x 

Salon Tracker Software: How Salons Can Prepare For Prom Season

As the most awaited night of the year for School & College pupils approaches, many of you I’m guessing will be fully booked throughout June with an array of Spray tans, up-do’s, Mani’s & Pedi’s. However for those of you that have got those last few appointments that you want to fill, here are our tips for prepping and progressing through Prom Season!

Event-

You may come across certain clients who are unsure of the style in which they want to go for, they have purchased a last-minute dress and they need a little bit of expert Inspo in to what styles will complement their outfit. If you have the staff to cater for this and have a free hour, why not plan a walk-in service that offers clients the chance to have a free planning consultation. Set it on a first come first serve basis for 10 people, giving them each a 10 minute slot in which to try these treatments. A great way to generate a bit of fun in the salon and also to promote your services.

Promotional Packs-

Affordability is key to the Prom market, as your Prom packages are directed towards a teen audience and not everybody’s parents, aunts or grandma’s can always help out with the costs. Therefore use Prom season to connect with the youngsters and as you whittle down to your remaining few appointments, why not offer some last minute deals? These smaller prices will attract clients to snap up those deals so that you no. 1, don’t have any spare appointments going to waste and no.2, have a room full of happy clients. If you need something to secure these, ensure that a small deposit is added just to make sure that a customer doesn’t miss the appointment.

Local Prom Dates-

The perfect walk-in opportunity! Get in touch with your local schools/colleges and see when their Prom dates are. This is especially beneficial to sunbed or beauty salons for those clients who want a last minute mini-treatment, as this way you can ensure that you are prepped for the potential demand!

Social Media Coverage-

Not only can this improve the amount of custom that your salon may get for Prom season, it also creates interest and engagement from your current followers and might help to increase that social media following. You will probably already have a lot of Prom clients booked in, therefore when you have carried out their treatments, see if they are willing to let you take a snap of the finished product- share these on your social media sites as 'Prom inspiration' to increase your brand awareness. You can also have a look in to the top 10 search terms for Prom ideas and hash tag your images with these to further increase those viewings.

Intelligent Marketing-

If you haven’t done so already, intelligent marketing is the best way to promote your salons services at any time of the year, whether this be Prom, Holiday Season, Weddings or Christmas. A simple SMS campaign can be a fast and easy way in which to ensure a promotional message reaches clients instantly, or equally a visual email campaign to capture the eye of the client. If you have social media pages, you could run a competition giving clients the chance to win an exclusive Prom Package, as this will also increase engagement on your social media channels, or alternatively create last-minute deals on your mobile app to prompt customers to make a booking with you.

Add-On-Sales-

Around Prom Season, everyone gets a bit spend happy, as they want to ensure that they are fully prepped for the big day! To encourage this spending, why not have your mini retail products displayed at the till and put an exclusive ‘Prom Offer’ on some of those. This doesn’t have to be anything sizable, just a small percentage off or even a multi-buy offer, just so that your salon capitalises on the event and improves retail sales for the month- win, win!

Happy Prom Season!

Salon Tracker x

SMS Marketing ideas for Spring Bank!

Yes, we know it doesn’t feel like 2 minutes since May Day Bank Hol, but Spring Bank is edging ever closer and so what a great way to capitalise on this holiday with a bit of SMS marketing. For those of you that already use Salon Tracker software, and currently subscribe to our

Professional package, you will already have access to our SMS marketing feature and you may well have planned a couple of Bank Hol campaigns in advance. However for those of you that haven’t and need that extra little bit of inspo’, here are a few quick-fire examples that you can create using our message templates, or even just take these ideas and submit the messages in your own way if you don’t currently use our marketing suite. We hope you find them useful, here goes…

• Hi <<Forename>> 

[Bank Holiday Bonanza! We’re offering 10% off all treatments from <<date>> to <<date>> Call <<CompanyTel>> to book your appointment and to be sure not to miss out!]

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

• Hi <<Forename>> 

[Improve your Bank Holiday Selfies! Book today to receive a free <<£>> reward off your next spend over <<£>>!]

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

• Hi <<Forename>> 

[Bank Holiday Buys…we’re offering 10% off selected retail products across the whole weekend, so don’t forget to drop by!]

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

• Hi <<Forename>> 

[Need a bit of TLC this Bank Hol? We’re offering <<%>> off <<treatment>> on <<date>> Book now to receive your discount!

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&C’s Apply

• Hi <<Forename>>

[Bank Holiday Beauty…we’re offering a complimentary <<treatment>> when you spend over <<£>>! Call <<CompanyTel>> to book today]

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

• Hi <<Forename>>

[Refer a friend! Know someone who is looking for a beauty change-up this Bank Hol? Refer a pal and receive 10% off your next treatment. Click here for more details <<link>>]

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

• Hi <<Forename>> 

[Bank Hol Brand Offer…receive <<%>> off <<treatments>> if booked before <<date>> Call <<CompanyTel>> today to secure yours!

<<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply



Happy Bank Holiday!

Salon Tracker x

Want to keep track of the salon from home? Now you can with our salon software…

After interviewing and speaking with many clients about some of the biggest issues that they face as a salon owner, on evaluation, it seems that many agreed that they would like to be able to manage salon activity and oversee their businesses from home.

And so, having said this, earlier this year we took this advice on board and introduced a new feature for multiple salon owners, allowing them with the capability to oversee each salon site from a business ‘headquarters’.  However, we then thought that if this is required by larger businesses, it could work for smaller businesses too, just in the fact that it will make the management of the salon easier for all business owners if they have out-of-office access. So, we have since expanded on the HQ feature by now providing salon owners, at any salon level, to be able to access salon happenings from the comfort of their own home.

Benefits of the “Home View & HQ features” are:

-The ability for salon owners to view business reports, such as daily takings and stock checks

-Track cash flow and retail sales undertaken by each staff login

-Accurately track KPI’s

-Monitor staff shift patterns

All of this can be accessed whilst absent from the salon, meaning that salon security is evidently improved as the software will track all transactions carried out by each employee login, meaning mistakes or malicious behaviors cannot be covered up. Due to our software also having the ability to link up with an electronic fingerprint reader, this means that client and staff activity is accurately logged on the system and is available in report format. Staff rota reports generated from the fingerprint clock-in and out method will track the duration of staff shifts, also highlighting lateness, in which a salon owner can also follow up on their return to the salon.

A second gripe that we discovered for many was that regular clients or perhaps even friends would contact salon owners on their mobile for a last min appointment.  This is all well and good if it is a loyal client whom has been used to being able to do this for some time, however the downside to this is, whilst salon owners want to provide the best service that they can to long-standing customers, this could be happening on their day off or, would be inconveniently late at night.  Benefits of the Home view feature means that these appointments can now be updated live from home, including the management of other customer details, meaning that the salon owner 1. Doesn’t have to be present at the salon and 2. If they aren’t present in the salon they aren’t having to then phone up their technicians to alter bookings.

HQ and the Home-View features are part of Salon Tracker’s Enterprise software package, which also includes Online Booking facilities and a Mobile Web App.  The Enterprise package can be purchased for less than £25 per week with no other upfront fees and includes FREE support.

Some of you who have our Enterprise package at the moment may already use our current ‘Site-View’ feature, in which this has provided salon owners with a resource to view calendars and reports from a tablet or mobile device for some time now.  It is as the demand for owners’ being able to access all areas of the system on their days’ off has increased that we decided to develop the ability for them to do so from home. We just wanted to provide salon owners with the peace of mind that their business was running smoothly in their absence and we hope that our new feature provides that peace of mind for them.

If this sounds like it will benefit your salon, why not get in touch with us and request your FREE 2 week trial.

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker Software: Our Social Media Tips for Salon Owners

Over the last decade, Social Media has become one of the main communication methods and promotional portals for the majority of businesses, whether these be start-up, SMEs or blue chip organisations. Social networking combined with the massive increase in smart-phone users, means that social media marketing is now one of the fastest ways in which businesses can relay a message to its consumers, as these can be received instantly on a mobile device or tablet.

Here at Salon Tracker, we just wanted to give you guys as salon owners a few tips on how you can use social media to your advantage and hopefully increase profits by doing so, whether this be through paid advertising or a bit of free PR:

- If you haven’t done so already, set your business up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Google +. Company pages are FREE to set up, and whilst these channels may not necessarily apply to every business, for salon owners, Pinterest and Instagram are great places to visually showcase your salons’ work and to also gather inspiration. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are the three other most popular social media channels, in which engagement is key on Facebook and Twitter and you can gather customer reviews through Google + and also Facebook again.

- Now you’ve created the above, it’s time to plan your content. For those of you that are worrying about managing these social media networks around your busy salon schedule, there is no need, as there are websites out there to help you. A great one is the specialist social media management scheduler ‘Hootsuite’.  Hootsuite allows businesses to plan their Tweets, Facebook and Google+ posts for weeks/months in advance, meaning that whenever you have a spare couple of hours, you can schedule your messages that will then be posted automatically at your chosen times. Again, this site is FREE to sign up to and gives you the peace of mind that your social media is under control whilst you are busy keeping an eye on the salon. Another great tool on Hootsuite is their ‘auto-schedule’, which after you have been using the scheduler for a couple of weeks, it will automatically post status’s/tweets/updates at optimum times based on the performance of your previous media.

- Create a professional company website. Along with the increase in social media, comes the rise in people browsing the web, in which now many businesses have had to ensure that their website is optimum for mobile, as over 50% of people searching the web use their smart phone in which to do so. (Dailymail, 2015) Another plus of having a website is that your salon business is present on google, in which enhances your search engine optimisation (SEO). This evidently meaning that when it comes to your target market searching for salons in your area, or salons that offer similar services, your salon will appear higher up in the google ranking dependent on your SEO. SEO is improved the more content that is published containing a back-link to your website, which will be increased through reviews, conversations on salon related social forums, such as Salon Geek, and also though blog posting – which we will come on to next.

- Create a company blog and have your professionals showcase their work and styling tips through content. Not only is this interesting for your followers and a great place for them to gather inspiration, it will also as mentioned above, increase your company SEO. Use your employees expertise to create engaging content and share these on your social networks to gain yourself a further chance of external sharing and backlinks to your website. You can also share these posts yourself on your google+ pages and salon forums to improve the readership level and to increase brand awareness.

- Facebook Ads! 9/10, Facebook is one of the main social networks, especially for salon owners and one of the main platforms that their target market will be using. FB ads are extremely simple to create and aren’t too text heavy, meaning that they are easy for consumers to interpret, providing that a powerful image and caption is used. Facebook is a fantastic platform for B2C marketing and also, an excellent tool to attract further consumers as your updates can be shared and updated among individuals & their friends. You can set budgets per month for your Facebook ads so that initially you can test out a couple of layouts to see which would work best for your business and also, so as to ensure that you keep within your marketing budget until you have seen the ROI from your campaigns.

- Engaging content that is posted at Optimum times! It’s alright being present on all the relevant networks but you need to make sure that you are scheduling updates to be posted at the best possible times in order to achieve a high level of engagement. According to the Huffington Post (2016) for maximum viewing and re-tweets on Twitter, content should be posted at either 12pm (to attract people on a lunch time) or between 5pm/6pm (attracts people on commute from work.) For Facebook, according to Microsoft (2016) the best time to post to achieve maximum shares and FB likes is on a Friday afternoon between 1pm & 3pm, as the average post life is much longer on a FB newsfeed as a pose to on a Twitter feed. Plus, the more likes a post has, the higher up the feed it will appear, meaning that it will be shared constantly through in to Friday night. Instagram is slightly different again, as the main achievement here is to gain as many likes on pictures as possible, as the more likes your content has, the more likely it is to appear on the main Instagram news page. According again to Huffington post and Latergramme (2016), Wednesday at 5pm is the best time to post on the Mid-week commute. For many consumers, they will scroll aimlessly through their social media channels until they come across something enticing or entertaining, therefore make sure that your content is always No.1 relevant, and No.2 interesting, to capture the attention of your target market. Then be sure to check that your content is constantly refreshed and you’re not repeating yourself too much.  That way, you are ensuring that the consumer then remains a follower of your social media pages and hopefully, will help to promote your content to others in order to achieve a greater following.

Hope these tips helps, Happy Marketing!

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker: Beauty Product of the Month

It’s been quite a while since we’ve done a product review, therefore with Spring fast approaching (with the hope that the recent un-seasonal snow has eventually left us for good!) we thought that we would share one of our fave collections for this season, that being one of OPI’s latest Spring polish collections: ‘New Orleans’. (OPI)

Made up of 12 different colours, the collection is heavily inclusive of pinks, purples & blues. However, there are a mix of bright corals to subtle chromes and even a deep green thrown in there, making there a colour to suit every occasion, and the shades will last perfectly in to the Summer months. Be it dull days with April showers or glorious sunny afternoons, these polishes are designed to complement each outfit perfectly.

Ranging from £10.00-£12.50 a bottle, these are a fantastic investment for every girls nail collection, and also, a great addition to beauty salons who already use and offer the OPI range. What do we love about OPI? The bottles seem to last forever, with sometimes only one coat being needed for that bold nail statement...A must-have nail Collection for 2016!

Our favourites are Humidi-Tea & Got myself in to a Jambalaya, what's yours?

Check out OPI's 'New Orleans' Collection Below:

Salon Tracker x

I'm so Swamped

Humidi-Tea

  

    Suzi Nails New Orleans

Let me Bay you a Drink

Manicure For Beads

            

        Spare me a French Quarter

          

                       She's a bad Muffa Letta

  Crawfishin for a Compliment

Got myself into a Jambalaya

Rich girls and Po-boys

Take a right on bourbon

Show us your tips

OPI. 2016. Web. 3 May 2016.

Salon Tracker: How our Salon Software can help to improve the Safety & Security of Tanning Salons

It’s that time of year again, as we approach the season where glow & glamour is on high demand…but is your tanning salon as safe and secure as it could be?

You’ve probably heard us mention before if you already follow our news feed that trading standards ‘unannounced’ salon visits are on the up. According to the Daily Mail (2015) “three salons were each fined £250 last year for allowing illegal tanning”, and these fines can be as excessive at £10k.

We don’t want this to happen to you and that’s why as we enter the beginning of peak tanning season, here at Salon Tracker we wanted to reinforce the importance of following the legal tanning guidelines and also, how our software can help to enforce that.

Our software packages include many features that contribute towards safely tanning clients and so we have listed a few below so that you guys gain an idea of how we can help!

Enable Tanning Rules

For any client that you add in to the Salon tracker system, there is the option to add a date of birth, in which salon owners could enforce a rule that all ID must be checked to log a date of birth accurately. The benefit for tanning salons of this feature is that they can then turn on our ‘tanning rules’ which then completely disables anyone whom has a date of birth saved that is under 18 from being able to book on to a sunbed. Similarly, another rule is that clients whom have had a sunbed in the last 24 hours, a rule notification would flag up that this particular client had already used a sunbed in the last 24 hours, again disabling them from booking another until it is out of the 24 hour time period.

E-signature attached to all digital client cards

As part of our Professional software package and above, we offer integration with an electronic signature pad, meaning that for any type of salon, including tanning, all disclaimers can be signed for electronically and saved to a client’s digital record card. Not only is this an efficient welcoming process, it is also space saving as salons can do away with their paper disclaimers and record cards!

Fingerprint Recognition for Staff and Clients

Again, on the Professional package and above, our software integrates with a fingerprint reader, which can be used not only secure client details but to also track staff shift patterns and activity. For tanning salons in particular, this helps to lock down on illegal tanning as a fingerprint is unique to any one person and therefore no one can fraudulently use someone else’s data to tan. Another plus is that salon owners can track when an employee started and finished their shift, and also what they were doing during the duration of that, therefore meaning that staff equally can’t abuse the system and no ‘miscellaneous’ minutes can be booked by employees.

T-Max Integration an Accurate Minute Tracking

T-max integration is beneficial in terms of taking control of your tanning business, as every minute that is used on the sunbed is accurately tracked and has to be assigned to a particular client. The T-Max integration allows a live bed view, meaning that technicians and clients can see an accurate countdown of how long a customer has remaining on that particular bed. Again, this means that there will be no ‘mysterious’ freebie minutes given away or any ‘missing’ tokens, as all tanning minutes that have been put through the system that day will appear on a report as service minutes, in which you can also track this by bed number.

Home Access for Salon Owners

Salon owners now have the ability to view business activity including reports, such as daily takings and stock checks, accurately track KPI’s and monitor staff shift patterns- all whilst absent from the salon. Our software will track all transactions undertaken by each employee login, meaning mistakes or malicious tanning bookings cannot be covered up. The staff rota reports that record each employees’ clock-in and out time via the fingerprint reader will accurately track the duration of those staff shifts and will highlight any lateness, in which an owner can identify from home and follow up on their salon return.

If any of the above sounds like it would benefit you, why not get in touch and have a chat with a member of our team? Everyone who enquires is entitled to a FREE no obligation fortnight trial of our software…to receive your trial click the link > http://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx

Salon Tracker x