Why a Competitor Analysis of Local Competition is Essential

If there’s only your salon in your local area then you’re rather lucky, but I’m guessing for most of you there’s a few other salons nearby? You may not always think of doing competitor research for any nearby salon, however it is something that you could really find beneficial to your business. By competitor research I don’t mean walking past all of the salons nearby and trying not to stare too hard but getting a close enough look to pick up some details. Well I mean, you could do that as a starting point, but there’s a lot of better ways that you can gather your research…

Who are they?

The first port-of-call would be to find out exactly who your competition is. The easiest way to do this would be to just do a search on google for salons in your local area. Once you’ve got a list of all of your competitors, you can begin collating information about them, and really start defining who will be your direct competition and who is sort of your secondary competition.

Social Media

Nowadays most salons will use social media, especially Facebook, and this is the perfect place to find out all of the latest news about any of your competitors. This could be their latest deals, any new services, reviews, photos, events, pretty much anything you need to know can be found on there. You could draw inspiration from their posts or their services, they might offer something you’ve never heard of so it might be a good idea to start offering it if its something that you could provide. Perhaps you see that they’re doing a deal on something that you also offer, you should try to match it or even beat it to try get more customers in. The main con of social media is that this also means that if you use social media for your salon, then I would guess that your competitors are also looking at your page, so if you decide to promote an offer on your social media pages then there’s a good chance that they will see it and want to offer something similar, if not better.

Website

Take a look at your competitors’ websites, you should be able to find out a lot of information on here as you would be expecting them to want to showcase their business. Not everyone will have a website, as social media seems to be taking over, but its always good to try and find them. Look at what they’re doing well and if there’s anything that you could take from them to replicate on your own website or just on your social media.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Once you’ve done your research on the website, social media and just through google, make a list of all of the strengths and weaknesses that your competition offer. From this you will be able to see what you could be doing better or what you should try stay away from doing in your salon. Also think about how you can beat their strengths to make sure you stay ahead of your competition.

The last thing you want is for one your customers or potential customers to go to one of your competitors down the street instead of visiting your salon! I hope you can use these tips to help collect some information about your competitors and begin to create some sort of strategy in order to make sure you stay ahead of the competition.

Salon Tracker x

Do you use social media to it's full potential?

The average hair and beauty salon loses between 10 and 25% of it’s clients each year. To put that into perspective, after 3 years, that’s half of your client base gone…

Which is why it is essential to consciously attract new followers on a regular basis. Unsure where to start? Carry on reading to discover all our useful tips.

Content

Don’t fall into the trap of using your social media pages as a billboard with the sole purpose of advertising what your Salon does and any offers you have on. Yes, it’s a good platform for it, but followers soon get bored of the same content every day and this is where you lose your followers - Not what you want. Identify your market and what content they will enjoy viewing. As a Salon owner, your market is potential clients and current clients. Quotes, tips, client transformations, news in the industry and trends are all a good start for a followable account such as Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram

Instagram is an essential account to have for your Salon. Using a business account to register allows you to have access to an important tool called “insights”. You can see a chart of the gender, age range, top locations and the best times and days to post your content on. On-top of this you can post Instagram stories and live stories which will more often than not notify your followers that you have posted – bonus! Furthermore, Instagram gives you the option to add polls to your stories giving it an interactive, engaging element, allowing you to see the results which can be beneficial if thinking of adding a new product line etc. 

Make your Instagram feed at least 80% pictures inside of the Salon. This can include showing off work you’ve done such as a manicure or hairstyle, or pictures of the salon with seasonal themes you’ve implemented along with pictures of the outside of the Salon and your valued staff members. The other 20% of your feed can be creative. Quotes are always a great hit, offers you have on that are only valid with a code (this means they can only use the offer from following your page) and pictures showing         condolences to unfortunate events and current news.

Tip: Tag used products such as L'Oreal and O.P.I etc as well as following their accounts to gain a business relationship.

Give-aways

Create a social media incentive. Offer prizes or discounts for everyone that shares your page such as 10% off or a free product. Similarly, raffles are always a good hit and tagging friends in your page works a treat too. Nobody would turn down a freebie for a quick share of your page - it’s simple!

Make use of your Instagram and Facebook stories to offer exclusive discount that can only be used if they show the story and follow the account. This way you can monitor and track your online traffic all in one!

Be interactive

Follow back clients that follow you and like their stuff, this way you can gain a customer relationship and develop loyalty to your Salon. Also, following useful accounts such as Salon Magazine will help develop your business and brand name as well as finding interesting content for your own feed.

Respond to client queries/ shout-outs and be quick about it! Not only does this satisfy your existing clients, but if potential clients can see that you’re efficient at replying then they will already get a good impression of the way your business goes about thing’s and therefore choose to follow your account and visit the Salon.

Retweeting, liking and sharing of useful content are all features that are a blessing in disguise for your Salon. Not only for your social media presence but to get your brand name out there too as every time you retweet something your name will appear in that list which everyone can view.

Listening to what your client wants

If you wanted to go that one step further to satisfy clients and attract new ones, consider a tutorial page where you can demonstrate different looks and how to do them. Videos are a highly interactive element of any social media page, especially if it is something your clients have requested. Whether you decide to do these live on Instagram or posted on a channel such as YouTube your videos will catch the attention of new and current customer’s and will get people talking about how useful they are. Furthermore, they’re free!

These are just a few useful tips you can use to gain more followers on your Social media accounts, try them and see for yourself! 

Any questions or queries? Call 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk and we'll be happy to help!

Salon Tracker x

Create the Perfect Email!

Now I know it may seem that emails are becoming a thing of the past, but they are still one of the most used and most effective marketing tools. There are plenty of great providers out there that you can use to really maximise the benefits of using email marketing. One that I recommend you using would be Mailchimp, for starters its free, but it offers a range of different templates and designs that you can customise to your needs.

The method of A/B testing is one that’s used widely across many businesses, and at first it can be quite tricky to get your head around, but online tools make it very simple and easy to do. So, I know some of you will be thinking “I’ve got no idea what you’re on about”, so let me think of the best way that I can give you a full detailed description of what A/B testing is, but I’ll try keep it to only a few sentences…

A/B testing is designed to allow you to send two emails to only a percentage of your customers, from this you will be able to determine which email has the better open rate or click rate. After a certain amount of time Mailchimp will then send the email that performed better to the remaining percentage of your customers. And then overtime you will be able to complete a number of different A/B tests to find the perfect design, template and subject that your customers will want to open. So essentially, you’re creating an email that your customers will want to open, which is great if you have any offers on that you want to get out to your customers. It can be quite a lengthy process, but if it gets more people into your salon, then it’s worth it! Well, I hope that’s sort of made a clearer picture in your head as to what A/B testing actually is.

Mailchimp offers a free service that will do all the sending work for you, all you’ll need to do is design the emails. It will ask you to select which part of the email you would like to test, this can be: subject line, from name, content and send time. You will then need to enter the percentage of your customers that you want to receive the test email, for example 30% would mean that 15% receive one email and the other 15% will receive a different email. You will need to select how the winning email will be determined, so this can be by the open rate or click rate or you can manually choose, and then enter the number of hours or days that you want to send the winning email out to the rest of you customers. Even just typing that out, having done some A/B testing in the past, I can see this being quite daunting if you’ve never done it before. But as I mentioned earlier, Mailchimp is a free service so you can do as many tests as you want before you actually begin to send them out to your customers, which I would definitely recommend doing just to make sure you know the exact steps on how to send you’re A/B test out.

Here’s an example of something you could do:

You could then wait a day or so and see which offer is bringing more customers in, and then you will be able to send out the winning email to the remaining percentage of customers who are yet to receive the offer.

I really recommend trying this method out to really maximise your offers and see what your customers want to see and what will get them into the salon. If it works then its worth putting in all the effort! Good luck!

It's Sunbed Awareness Week; so here are Salon Tracker's 'Tanning Rules'

It’s that time of the month again, where we run through one of our most relevant and favourite features with you. And with the recent amazing weather, we have had lots of feedback from our fellow tanning-salon clients that their footfall has been through the roof! So, with this summer-spurt hopefully continuing and as we enter the holiday season, we just wanted to discuss how to ensure that your clients tan as safely as possible when using your beds. And with the sunbed association running a 'sunbed awareness' campaign this week, we thought that this was the perfect time to 
share our feature for this month: Tanning Rules.

So, what are our tanning rules? These are little checks, if you like, that we have put in place to ensure that your clients are as safe as possible according to current laws and regulations, when using your sunbeds. Below, we explain each of our rules and what our system uses to check each client is as safe as possible.


Rule No. 1

“Forbid a client to book a sunbed if their date of birth field shows that they are under 18.”

First off, it is illegal in the UK for anyone under the age of 18 to use a sunbed. We are aware however that it is easy for a client to lie and make a date of birth up, but not so easy if you have the relevant checks in place.

With our software, we have fields on their digital client card that prompts a client to have a photograph added to it, so that this can be matched up with a form of their ID before they are allowed to book on to a sunbed. We have also introduced fingerprint recognition, which again means that a client's perhaps younger sibling can’t try and pass as their elder brother/sister as the fingerprint will have to match. For further security, we have also implemented a signature pad so that a client has to sign a disclaimer stating that they are over 18 and that they will comply with your salon T’s & C’s before using a sunbed. Protecting your business from any lawful damage as you also have the clients consent on file.

 

Rule No. 2

“Warn a customer if they have not set a Skin Type.”

To advise clients on how long they should be using a sunbed for, we have implemented a field that asks the customer to state which skin type they are. This is because if the customer describes their skin type to be sensitive to the sun, or fair, it is recommended by the sunbed association that they do not tan for longer than 6 minutes every 48 hours. Therefore, if your salon staff are aware of this, it gives them the option to advise the client appropriately when they come to book a sunbed.


Rule No. 3 

“Warn a client if they have had a sunbed in the last 24 hours (or last 48 hours if they have skin type 1 or 2/sensitive or fair.)”

The sunbed association also recommends that no one at all, no matter what their skin type, tans more than once every 24 hours. Whilst this is not yet illegal, it is still a recommendation that we like to follow and would advise all tanning salons to operate with too. As just mentioned, if a client has specified that they do actually have a sensitive or fair skin type, the sunbed association recommends that these individuals don’t tan more than once in 48 hours, and so our system will keep a track and record all sunbed use so that your staff can advise clients appropriately.


Rule No. 4

“Maximum Minute Usage.” 

Finally another recommendation from the sunbed association is that unless a client is using a low-powered sunbed (such as the Sun Angel where we are aware courses are 21 minutes each time), no one should go on a sunbed for any longer than 15 minutes for each session. We have therefore set all of our sunbed configurations to a maximum usage of 15 minutes by default, in the hope that all tanning salons that are users of our software will stick to this recommendation to eliminate over-use from clients.


How do you implement these rules?

All salon owners using our software will have access to an ‘admin’ section, in which we have tanning calendar settings within this section, where the owner can choose the level of enforcement for each of these rules. Aside from Rule No.1, in which this is a legal enforcement that all clients must be over 18 to use a sunbed and therefore we force this rule by default, all our other rules can either be forced by recommendation, or you can simply warn the client by giving advice. Recommendations are at a salon’s discretion; therefore, we have put these rules in place for the safety of your clients, it is up to you how you use them.


So, if you currently have a tanning salon and want to ensure that you maintain the highest level of safety possible, get in touch with us today on 0113 350 8230 and we can offer you more information on our tanning safety rules. Or alternatively, send us your details at http://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx so that we can arrange you a FREE 2-week trial.

Let us help you to keep your tanning salon safe this season!

Salon Tracker x

5 fault-proof tips on how to provide a 5* star Salon service

It’s common knowledge that your sales are bound to go up and down, but great service is forever. Which is why we’ve written a helpful blog full of tips and tricks on how to provide the most memorable, 5* service!

Wondering why great service is so important?

· It increases your client loyalty – Clients are much more likely to return to a salon they know they’ll feel special at.
· Increases referrals – Similarly, clients are likely to talk about a good experience they’ve had in a Salon, or even better, people will ask your clients where they got their hair or nails done.
· Ultimately, higher profits – Repeat customers and a bigger client base overall will work wonders on your revenue.
· No more gaps in your calendar – Your staff will no longer have to carry out pointless tasks to keep themselves occupied, there will always be a client to see too.
· Widespread brand awareness – You’ll find yourself with clients who travel for miles to receive your service. Word of mouth is something that spreads far and wide!

Facts to remember

According to Harris Interactive customer experience report:

· 85% of customers would be willing to pay 25% more for a superior customer experience.
· 40% began purchasing from a competitor after a bad experience.
· 55% became a customer to a company for their great customer service reputation.

How do I make it happen?

1. First thing’s first. You need to know all your clients like the back of your hand. Old and new. Get to know them, how they like their tea, their preference of nail length, hair style, routine, everything. Now I should hope you know your long-standing customer’s pretty well by now, but for your new customers; try a survey. Ask personal questions, but not intrusive ones. Are they an introvert or an extrovert, casual or glamourous, confident or unconfident? Don’t lose sight of these surveys, revise them, store them – use Salon Tracker to note all their important answers on their client card to give you a helpful reminder.

2. Make them feel at home - nobody wants to make their clients feel like coming to the Salon is a chore. Offer them a drink, hot drink, cold drink (related to their preferences), and offer them regular. Biscuits, cake or snacks is always a nice gesture and having a comfortable waiting area is so important. Modern, comfy sofas with a choice of recent magazines and a TV wouldn’t go a miss. And don’t forget cleanliness. Hire a cleaner and ensure that the Salon is spotless every day. Think of what a perfect salon in would be like in your client’s eyes, it is always good to look at things from other’s perspective.

3. It’s the small things that matter – Remember the details. You had a client come in for her nails doing last month for a wedding, how was the wedding? Did they have a nice time? Small things like this will make your clients feel special and form a great relationship between staff and customers, therefore encouraging loyalty.

4. Be consistent – So you might have started off small, offering only a few treatments at a at a very professional level. So now it’s time to expand your service line and offer more treatments – which is great! CAUTION – don’t step over the reachable line. It’s great that your business is expanding but every service you have to offer needs to be to an exceptional standard, displaying consistency. This will place a level of trust between the staff and clients meaning your salon will become the hub for every treatment.

5. Communication is crucial – When your clients leave you in charge of their valuable possessions such as their hair, they are putting their full trust in you and rely on you to make them feel and look good. This means It is very important that you clearly communicate with each client and find out exactly what they want before carrying out any service/ treatment. On top of that, keep checking if that’s how they like it, giving them compliments to make them feel good about it before they even get to see the final result themselves.

And there you have it, 5 useful tips for a 5* service. Put them into practice and your reviews AND results will show it!

Any questions or queries? Email info@salontracker.co.uk or call 0113 350 8230.

Salon Tracker x

Spruce up your Salon this Spring!

It’s May! The month with double Bank Holidays and plenty of Spring weather (we hope!). We’re officially in the Spring/Summer season, so your salon footfall is naturally going to increase with everyone rushing to get their pre-holiday treatments booked. And if any of these are new clients, your salon atmosphere and appearance are the first identities and long-lasting impressions that a client has of your business. This being said, throughout Summer, we therefore think it’s really important that your salon reflects the season that we’re in, just like at Christmas you would always put up your best festive decorations. It should be the exact same with Summer, as this is equally one of your busiest times.

So, you’re probably thinking, what can I do differently that doesn’t cost too much but will make a huge difference to the Spring/Summer styling. We’ve got a few simple ideas for you here to get you off to a good start. So, let’s re-vitalise! And by that we don’t mean a huge costly renovation that’s going to take forever, just a few simple little alterations that can really enhance the mood of your interior.


Colour

Currently, what colours are the walls and floors in your salon? What colour is your ceiling for that matter? It’s a natural fact that lighter colours increase your space. Even though your salon doesn’t literally grow in size, by using brighter colour tones, this helps to create an illusion that the salon is bigger as the light makes the space seem larger. Similarly, to if you put a large mirror on the wall, or just simply mirror a whole wall of a room, this instantly makes the space look larger as the reflection helps to enhance the size of the room. So, if you currently have a dark colour theme, why not try painting your salon walls a shade of cream or white as a starting point? We’re not expecting you to alter the entire room, as sometimes a colour theme can reflect your business branding, however by just lightening the tones a little bit, this can really have a great impact on your salon’s ‘spacious’ effect.


Minimalism Design 

Refreshing the salon also doesn’t mean spending hundreds on new accessories either, you can keep things really simple and apply the 'minimalistic' touch. This is such an easy way to enhance an interior and plus the beauty of this type of style is that it keeps your salon looking clean and your work-spaces clutter-free. You could simply switch up your colour theme by purchasing a couple of new little accessories (such as retail product holders or salon-themed photographs/wall art). Or it could simply mean that you purchase a couple of Spring-themed indoor plants, like an orchid or a bamboo palm to create a fresh, natural environment.


Shelving

A simple and easy way to enhance plain walls and create a homely vibe. Even if you just use the shelves to display some of your latest Summer retail products or put up some photo frames to showcase your best work. This could simply be postcard size photos of client’s nails after treatments, or one of your recent hair colouring services. Another great idea would be to get a polaroid camera for the salon, and if clients don’t mind then you could snap a polaroid of each customer after their treatment and have a little photo-line of all the snaps? For any new clients visiting the salon, this then allows them to see the extent of your client base and all of your hard-work, which is always a good sign for longevity!


Enhanced Waiting Area

If you take a lot of walk-ins, then you would expect that at some point clients are going to have to spend time waiting in your salon. Now, depending how long the wait time is, this gives client prime-time to look in detail at your salon surroundings, and pass judgement if something doesn’t feel up to scratch. Therefore, first pointer - don’t allow them that time! Ensure that waiting spaces are comfortable and inviting, and that there is plenty around to keep the client occupied – whether this be having a TV on the wall, magazines in a basket or a complimentary tea and coffee station. Secondly, ensure that your décor is finished off properly, that painting is neat and that accessories are up-to-date. If a client feels that they have had a relaxing experience in a trendy waiting room, this can go a long way in keeping their custom. For this season, you could simply alter your cushion covers to spring pastels to give the furniture a fresh look. You could also colour theme your mugs to match this new scheme so that all your accessories co-ordinate. You can always store them and then re-use again next year if you want to switch them back to your usual accessories during Winter.

Re-Vamp Old Furnishings

Now if you really want to improve your salon on a tighter budget, then re-cycling your current assets is one of the best ways to do it! It could be something as simple as re-painting your storage furniture or creating a new effect like ‘shabby-chic’ with any of your wooden fixtures! You can really revitalise an old piece of storage equipment with a bit of paint and a design change. Pick up some interior design or home magazines to look at the latest Spring colour schemes and experiment with your current furnishings.


Your Salon Entrance 

This section of your salon really is the first impression, so we’re OK discussing how to alter your interior, however if your outside doesn’t match the inside this can then be just as detrimental. For example, think of if you were looking to try out a new salon, but the outside of it looked a little shabby. Same instance if you were deciding on a restaurant and the entrance looked run-down. We all know that we instantly are put off by untidy business fascia’s, therefore you should take as much pride in your salon entrance as you do the inside rooms. A fresh lick of paint, a clean doorway and some nice spring plants outside will do the job. Just ensure that it remains clean and neat at all times sure that no-one ever passes you up!

So as the weather is due to warm up a little bit, now is definitely the time to give your salon a good spring-clean and spruce up. Take a couple of our ideas on board and try them out to see if it enhances the feel of your salon. We hope that you’ve enjoyed our little tips and look forward to seeing how they help to bring a bit of Spring to you! If you do happen to alter anything, we’d love to see your pics so please email them to info@salontracker.co.uk, in which you could also be in for a chance to feature in one of our posts this Summer!

Salon Tracker x

National Hairstylist Appreciation Day!

I would like to think that you all already appreciate your hairstylists, but on National Hairstylist day you should make sure you go that extra mile. The official day isn’t until the 30^th April, so hopefully this will give you a few days to make sure that you are fully prepared for anything special you might do to show your appreciation. Here are just a few ideas that we’ve put together for both your hairstylists and your customers:

Rewards

If you already have our Salon Tracker software then this would work perfectly for you! Get your customers into your salon on National Hairstylist Appreciation Day by promoting an offer. An example of text that you might a send out would be “We’re celebrating National Hairstylist Appreciation Day, visit the salon on April 30^th for 15% off!”, just a little incentive to get your customers in. Even if you don’t have our software, you can still push some sort of offer, Social Media is a great place to promote any offers, or even just putting something up in your salon window.

Gift Vouchers

Why not treat your staff to a gift voucher, it doesn’t have to be much, maybe just £10-£20 just to show your appreciation. If you know each of your staff’s favourite store then props to you, but if not there’s those ‘One4all’ gift vouchers which let you use the voucher at pretty much any high-street store.

Competition

How about creating a little competition for your customers or a raffle where you can give away products or gift vouchers for services in your salon. It’s a great way to get all of your customers involved and engaging with your salon and with your hairstylists. There are plenty of competitions that you could try out, maybe something like ‘Guess how many hair grips are in the jar’, customers can then pay an entry fee to make their guess and the winner will then receive the money entered.

Staff Party

You could even treat your staff to a team night out, something to give your team morale a boost. It doesn’t have to be an itinerary that’s bursting to the brim, just something to make sure they know that they are appreciated by you.

We hope that this give you a few ideas that you can use in your salon in order to celebrate Hairstylist Appreciation Day! If you need any help sending an SMS from our marketing feature don't hesitate to contact us on 0113 350 8230.

Salon Tracker x