How to Utilise Quiet Periods in the Salon

This time last month I’m guessing you were rushed off your feet, and now maybe not so much... For many of you, January tends to a quieter month where sales can be quite slow, so this is where you need to use all the marketing tools you can to ensure that you’re still generating those sales. January also gives you the time to re-evaluate your salon, this could be by updating the pricing, looking at new services and retail products you might want to introduce, giving the walls a fresh lick of paint and just reflecting on the last year to see what you could do even better!

There are multiple approaches you could take in your quiet periods to really boost those sales: 1. Aim to get new customers in 2. Reward you most loyal customers 3. Target those that haven’t visited your salon for a while 4. Refer a friend.

Aiming for New Customers

Obviously, you’re always wanting to get new customers in, but you might not always have time to sending out marketing campaigns and really push to get those new customers in your salon. And January gives you the perfect time to do this. Social media, as we all know, has become one of the best places to market your salon on, especially Facebook, as it gives you a free platform to post all of your offers and campaigns on. An example of a campaign that you could run would be a discount of their first visit, for example you might offer £10 off or 30% discount, whatever you feel most comfortable offering! This is a great way to get new customers into the salon, who doesn’t love a discount?

Rewarding Loyal Customers

Seeing customers return to your salon over and over again has got to feel rewarding, so why not reward them in return! With Salon Tracker there is a great feature in the marketing suite which enables you to filter out your best spending customers, you can filter this to your best 10, 25, 50, however many you want, you can filter it for the past year or past couple of months, it’s really up to you. You will then be able to send out a text message to your best spending customers, an offer you could reward them with would be:

“Hi <<Forename>> Thank you for a great 2018! For your amazing loyalty we would like you offer you 50% off any treatment in January. We hope to see you soon! <CompanyName>”

Customers That Haven’t Visited in a While

How many times do you think you’ve only seen a customer once or twice? Or maybe you haven’t seen them for a few months? Well, why not entice them with an offer to try get them back into the salon. Again, are marketing suite gives you the ability to easily filter out which customers haven’t had an appointment booked in the past x amount of time, this could be the last 3 months, 6 months, the last year. There is also already a pre-filtered SMS message with this that you can quickly alter to fit what sort of campaign you want to send out. The message on Salon Tracker is:

“Hi <<Forename>> You are missed! All appointments booked before [ENTER DATE] will receive [ENTER DISCOUNT] discount.  <<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply

So, with this you can enter in whatever discount you want, or you can just delete the pre-filtered message and write in your own, again its completely up to you!

Refer a Friend

Did you know that 1/3 people come to a brand through a recommendation! This is a huge area that you should be targeting, as it proven to increase your client base and these customers will often have a higher retention rate, especially if they come through a loyal customer that loves your salon. It is important to decide early on what sort of offer you want to give for someone referring a new customer to your salon, and I would also suggest that you track your campaign to see if customers are returning once they have been referred to your salon to see if it is worth the extra effort. This again is a campaign that can be sent out directly from the Salon Tracker system. I would suggest only sending out the refer a friend campaign to your most loyal and highest spending customers, as if you send it out to someone that has only visited your salon once you will be less likely to receive anything from it and it could also tarnish your reputation. With the filters on Salon Tracker you can ensure that you only send out the campaign to those you want, by selecting, for example those that have spent more than £200. The message that is ready made on the system is:

“Hi <<Forename>> Special offer on [ENTER PRODUCT/CATEGORY/TYPE]. Bring a friend along and receive the 2nd treatment free! <<CompanyName>> <<CompanyTel>> T&Cs Apply”

If you are wanting to send out a different campaign offer you can just change the message to suit the offer you are wanting to use for your refer a friend campaign.

I hope that these few different marketing approaches to the quieter periods in January have been of help to you. As I mentioned though, January isn’t just about trying to improve and increase your marketing, it is also a time to get some jobs and tasks done that you might not have had chance to do for a few months whilst you have busy. So, make sure that you use this time to not only think of new ideas and campaigns that you could offer, but to also get on top of any of those boring jobs you don’t want to do!

If you are a customer of ours and need any help with the marketing suite on the software, then please don’t hesitate to call 0113 350 8230 or email us at info@salontracker.co.uk and someone will be there to help you out! We do offer a free demo and 2-week trial of the software where you will receive 50 free marketing texts, so you can test out a marketing suite!

Salon Tracker x

Feature of the Month: Annual Charts

Hello, Happy New Year! How has everyone’s first week back been? Hope you’ve all caught up from Christmas and are back in to the swing of things!

We know you’ve had a busy few weeks, but have you managed to squeeze any time in to sit down and start planning yet for 2019? A new calendar year is always a good time to look over your business performance from the last 12 months and is a great way to organise your KPI targets for the upcoming year.

So, we thought that for our January feature of the month we’d talk about one of our most helpful tools on the software, that enables you to analyse previous years – and these are our; Annual Charts!

Ranging from your annual booking information to total sales profits, our charts offer clear concise information, allowing you to easily identify sales patterns and peak months.

For your months that may not have been as busy, these charts then allow you to analyse this and forward-plan for similar times this year. So, for example, say in January and Feb you notice that your sales drop off (which is probable after the Christmas period), you can then plan some promotional campaigns to notify clients of towards the end of December, in order to get a bounce-back of footfall in those upcoming quieter months.

Equally, your charts also monitor peak times of day, in order for you to see when your client’s preferred times of day are. A benefit of this report is that you can run ‘Happy Hour’ offers over the hours that are not as high in demand, discounting certain services to hopefully prompt clients to pop-in to the salon during those times. Salon Tracker also has a tool where you can set auto happy-hour services, meaning that our system will alter the prices to your discounted rate in the background over those time-periods, so you no longer have to worry about it! (If you want any more info on how we can set this up, please fill out our contact form after reading and we’ll be in touch!)

You can also identify customer behaviours, for example the charts will show you the average spend of each of your customers and also the age ranges categories of those, for you to get an insight in to the price ranges that best attract each group of clients. From this you can then tailor your marketing to suit each age category accordingly, using our age range filters within the software. This way you can advertise products of similar price ranges to those relevant customers.

All of our charts can be easily exported to print or saved as PDF’s, for you to keep an archive of those for if you ever want to run over these figures at a later date. These are also all accessible from our Site-View application, meaning you can even run these charts using your smart-phone or tablet from the comfort of your own home! 

And so, if you are currently a user of our software, you will find these charts in the reports tab on our system. If you are new to Salon Tracker or are looking to try out a software in the near future, these charts are also available on our free 2-week trial, simply fill out your details at https://bit.ly/2Qsv3Ei and a member of our team will be in touch!

Happy January Planning!

Salon Tracker x

Hello 2019!

Happy New Year! Hello and welcome back everyone, hope you’ve all had a fabulous Christmas and enjoyed the festivities with family and friends!

But now, it’s business as usual and we all know that January can be a bit of a quieter time for us, but what not a better time to create a plan of action to ensure that you have a successful 2019! It’s also a great time to have a spring clean and re-organise the salon, as there’s nothing worse than having leftover Christmas accessories and old stock dotted about at the start of the New Year. You need a fresh space for a clean positive start.

Do you have a marketing or business plan for this year? If not, this may be a good place to start. Sit down with your team and discuss how 2018 went and where you think there may be room for improvement. This then gets all your staff members involved and interested in helping you to grow the business this year and allows them to set personal targets for development too. Good sections to implement in to your plan are:

- Objectives for the year

- Goals to set in order to achieve these objectives

- Competitor analysis (to identify how competition are pricing their products)

- SWOT analysis, to work out if there are any external factors that may affect the business or affect your targets. It’s good to plan contingencies around this early if you can.

- Marketing Strategy and how you are going to reach new customers

This will then give you a concise structure and a bit of something to work towards throughout the year, rather than going into it with a blank canvas. A marketing plan also gives you something to measure at the end of 2019, in order for you to see what you have achieved clearer. Also, with your marketing tactics, our sales team have lots of knowledge to be able to help you with some campaigns, and if you are a user of our software you have our in-built marketing suite which gives you tools to target certain groups of customers with your promotional messages. We are also going to be adding some extra exciting features in terms of marketing in to our software this year! Introducing our new Salon-Assist: we will soon be able to run your shops adverts and promotional messages on a tablet whilst clients use this to check-in for their appointments! Keep posted on our news page for more updates.

If you’re not already a user of our software, now’s your chance to book in and get your own salon-management system installed fresh for the New year! You can also trial our system FREE for a fortnight, in order to get a feel for how our software can enhance your salons performance. We’d love for you to join us so that we can help to boost your salons profits!

So, we hope that 2019 is a successful year for you and if there are any bits that we can help you with please call us on 0113 3508230 as our sales team would love to help!

We look forward to working with you, let’s have a fab 2019! 

Salon Tracker x

Happy Holidays!

Another year over! I think this has to have been one of the fastest years for us, I mean I know we say this every year but this one in particular seems to have flown by! For us here at Salon Tracker, we’ve had a jam-packed year; we’ve done 2 shows, expanded our team with 3 new staff members and also brought lots of new useful features to the software along the way (which some of you may be taking advantage of already).

To mention a few feature requests that we have introduced- we have brought to you our upgraded tanning waiting list, improved touchscreen display, a brand-new Salon Tracker colour theme and we made a few tweaks to our calendars too - to make life easier for those of you who have lots of different types of service categories!

We’ve also had the privilege of meeting quite a lot of you this year at the shows and we’re actually going to add an extra event to our usual appearances next year; calling all you guys who have salons in the Midlands, we will be exhibiting at Beauty UK next May! This is our first ever Beauty UK show so we’re really excited to see how this goes for us and to be able to be closer to some of you who may usually travel to Manchester or London to see us. We thought we’d spread ourselves a bit more evenly across the country next year! We’ll then also be exhibiting at PB London in Feb and Manchester PB North in October, where the event space is actually changing for PB North to Event City this time round, rather than the usual Manchester Central, so we’re excited to see what the new venue holds too!

So, we’re really looking forward to seeing what 2019 brings for us and can’t wait to continue to help you to improve your salons. We’re working on even more new developments, including an enhanced Salon-Assist where clients can check in and sign for disclaimers using a tablet! This is all coming very soon, so be sure to keep an eye on our news page for more info. And for those of you that are thinking of visiting us at PB London in Feb, keep posted in your inbox for our direct invite and for all of our product updates! But before that, we hope you have a good last few busy days in the salon and make lots of Christmas retail sales from your Winter stock! From everyone here at Salon Tracker, we all wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and we’ll speak to you in 2019!

Best Wishes,

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker's Last Minute Christmas Present Ideas!

Less than a week to go! Can you believe it?

Here at Salon Tracker we know all about that last-minute dash we all go through to ensure we have everything ready for the big day. And so to help, we have decided to compile a list of our best last-minute present ideas!

Candles

Scented candles are a great present idea because of the fact that there is a range of scents and style of candle that you could specifically choose to fit the personality of the person who you’re buying it for.  Yankee Candle have over 200 different scents so there will be no one you can’t find the perfect scent for.  Also, if you order in time you can now get them personalised for that extra touch.

Flasks

Colourful and cute flasks are also another great idea for a Christmas present. They’re extremely useful, especially in England when it’s always cold, to keep your drink (and hands!) nice and warm through the winter. They’re also reusable meaning you’re helping the environment and saving them money as they can make all their hot drinks at home rather then buying them when they’re out.  Primark and New Look have many different designs like this one here!

Face Masks

We all know at this time of year that we tend to over-indulge on the Christmas food and fizz! And this can really take its toll on our skin. So, another great stocking filler to add to the list is Face masks! There are so many different types on the market, ranging from the anatomical range that start at just £1.50 a sachet, great to give to people who spend a lot of time travelling around. Or you’ve got the Body Shop pots that are great to have on the bathroom shelf for whenever you need to beat those blemishes!

Coin Purse

Christmas time is party-time and we all take smaller bags on our festive outings, so why not treat someone to a sparkly new coin purse, or mini card wallet for the guys?  This is the perfect present for someone who wants to condense their night-out accessories! Depending on the style you want to go for you can pick these up from so many stores on the high-street, or even get a personalized one online at sites like https://www.notonthehighstreet.com   . And don’t forget to put a coin in before you wrap it for good luck!

Photo Frames

Photo frames are always a great present idea, and these photo walls make for a great creative present! We’ve found one on Amazon for just £19.99 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rumcent-Panel-Display-Organizer-Organizer-Rose/dp/B078PGSSP8/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1545214920&sr=1-1&keywords=Rumcent+Mesh+Grid+Panel ), and it’s even on Prime so if you need anything last minute this is a great idea. You can clip photos, artwork, you could even push the boat out and buy an extra shelf, so you can place items on it as well. It could even be used to organise your things as well, like your keys and mail, so it can be a multipurpose present.

Perfume

Tiffany & Co. Eau De Parfum is one of my favourites. This perfume is the perfect gift if you’re wanting to splash the cash a little on a loved one this Christmas. This perfume is well worth the money as you can smell it on your clothes for days after and only requires a couple of squirts for the smell to linger all day. The smell is a very pleasant musky/ floral scent and receives 5/5 stars on most review pages I have looked on as well as me being able to vouch for it myself. You can buy this fragrance from most department stores such as Debenhams, House of Fraser and John Lewis but if you’re wanting to order one now… go to https://www.johnlewis.com/tiffany-co-eau-de-parfum/p3330859?size=50ml to order from John Lewis!

We hope these last minute gifts help you with your Christmas shopping rush!

We hope you have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,  Salon Tracker x

Feature of The Month - New Years Marketing

Now we all know that January tends to be a slower month for most salons, with people having just spent like crazy in December it tends to be that everyone wants to save and not spend money on themselves. So, given that, we’ve come up with some SMS marketing campaigns that you can send out to make sure that your January isn’t too dry.

Example 1

“Hi <<forename>>, why not treat yourself this Jan with a hair treatment, we’ve got 30% off all treatments when you book before the 31^st! <<companynumber>>

Example 2

“Hi <<forename>>, book in for a nail treatment at <<companyname>> before the end of January to receive a £10 voucher! T&Cs Apply”

Example 3

“Hi <<forename>>, as well all know January can be quite a slow month, so why not pamper yourself & book in at <<companyname>> to receive a free back massage”

If you aren’t a Salon Tracker customer, then you might not be aware of one of the great features available on both our professional and enterprise packages. In the reports section you are able to see which days are your best/worst in terms of income and which hours your best/worst are, you can then use this to determine the best time to put your offers on. You can then use the marketing section to send out your campaign to your customers, heres some examples below:

Example 4

“Hi <<forename>>, visit <<companyname>> between 1pm-4pm Monday-Friday to receive 50% off all single minutes and courses in January!”

Example 5

“Hi <<forename>>, feel like pampering yourself after the Christmas madness? Book an appointment before 31/1 between 9am and 12pm to receive a free facial!”

For those of you that use our Salon Tracker system, you might be aware of our marketing suite, this is available in our professional and enterprise packages. With this feature you can send out marketing campaigns to all your customers or just a select few, e.g. customers that have visited the salon in the last 3 months. This is a great way to make sure that your customers know about any offers that you are currently doing or planning to do in the future, and with it going directly to their mobile it means that most of your customers will read the message.

If you would like to test out this feature, we offer a demo and free 2 week trial of our software where we will give you 50 free SMS credits which you can use and test whilst on trial. You can call 0113 350 8230 or you can email us at info@salontracker.co.uk to get booked in! We hope that these few examples will be of use to you, or at least help to spark your imagination for any offers that you could do heading into the new year!

Salon Tracker x

Utilising your xmas profit for New Year budgets

I think we’d all agree that January is the longest month of every year. It’s cold, we’re all running low on funds and the one thing we’ve been looking forward to all year is over -(Christmas). So how about we make your January a little more exciting this year and give you a rundown of how you can take a little of Decembers joy with you into dull January!

I’m sure you’re all aware that December is booming with appointment after appointment meaning your revenue is more than likely double your average month! Yet once all the festivities are out of the way and everyone sinks back into reality it might almost appear like a ghostl town in the Salon. Well I’m about to tell you how you can turn that around by investing the extra profit from the run up to Christmas in all the right ways.

Send a simple Happy New Year text to all your clients!

Show your customers some love with a text on New Years day, not only will this bring a smile to their face but also remind them of your Salon and push them to book in. A little offer wouldn’t harm either, whether it be a small or big one!

Nothing beats a bargain to cure the January blues

The good news is that from all the extra profit made in December, you have room to give or take a little bit in January. Hold some offers that will draw your current clients and new clients in to keep you and your staff busy in the quiet couple of months. For example 30% off any retail product on the day of appointment.

Spread some festive cheer

For everyone that visits in December and spends over £30 for example, give them a voucher with their receipt for something like 10% off in January to keep them coming in. You might not be getting your maximum profit here but you’re going to need all the appointments you can get in January! Plus, what you earned in December can account for this.

Invest it

Is your Salon looking tired and dull? The New Year is the perfect opportunity to fix that! Treat your Salon to a makeover, have something to show for the profit you made over xmas. It’ll be much more rewarding when you have something to show for all the hard work you and your staff put in over the festive period.

Give your staff that well-deserved promotion

Have some staff that you really appreciate and feel they deserve a promotion? The new year is a perfect opportunity to give them that. Even if it’s just a little one, a promotion is a massive motivator for your staff which will increase the quality of their work and their loyalty to you!

And that’s how you can make the most out of your Festive profits this year… spend wisely!

Have a lovely Christmas and a very happy new year!

Salon Tracker x