Valentine's Day Marketing!

Although Valentine’s day isn’t the happiest day for everyone, for many people it’s a day to spoil their loved one (or themselves). This is where your Salon needs to step in and make the most of this day, and there are plenty of ways in which you can do so. There a three simple steps involved in in making a success of this day; planning, marketing and selling. So, keep reading to see how you can upsell your treatments and retail products this Valentine's Day.

Planning

Before you can go out and start advertising your deals and offers it’s important to determine which of your services and retail products are going to be most popular for V-day sales. To make your salon more appealing for those looking at treating a loved one, it’s a good idea to bundle a few treatments together and create a special ‘Valentine’s Day Package’. You could do a few different priced packages to appeal to a broader range of people, starting with a couple of services for a lower price and going up to a more premium price and including your more expensive services. The same can be done with your retail products by putting together a few different priced hampers. The key is to figure out which of your treatments will perform best, whether its massages, nails, facials etc.

Another great way to utilise Valentine’s Day is by selling gift vouchers, you could even get specific ones printed for valentines day and give them a bit more of a personalised feel. Gift cards also often result in people spending more as they know they’re going to be getting say £20-£30 off, so it’s a win-win as a salon owner.

Marketing

Once you’ve done all of your planning, it’s time to market it to your customers and target customers. As we all know by now the main place you want to be showing off these deals is across your Social Media platforms, as this will not only help reach your current customers, but it will also help to reach potential customers. Especially with Facebook having an option for customers to share your posts, it will further help to reach a wider range of people. I’d suggest creating an eye-catching post to make sure it stands out amongst others when someone is scrolling through their feed. There’s a great free programme called Adobe Spark which make its super simple to create images from scratch or by using templates that are pre-saved on there. You can then use the same image across all of your social media platforms, and this will help to show consistency. Here’s an example of one that I quickly made by using a template, to show you how easy it is:

You also want to make sure that you make it obvious in your physical salon that there are going to be deals available, for example on your reception desk it would be a good idea to place the hampers in view, along with any gift vouchers.

If you are already a customer of Salon Tracker, then I’m sure you already know about our Marketing suite. If not, this is a great feature built in with Salon Tracker that enables you to send out an SMS message to all of your customers straight from one place. There are plenty of different filters that you can apply in order to target a specific range of customers. I have come up with a few examples of messages you could send out:

Example 1

“Hi <<forename>>

Don’t miss out on our V-Day deals! £45 for acrylic nails & a facial, £60 for a back massage, mani, pedi & facial! Call 0113 350 8230 to book”

Example 2

“Hi <<forename>>

Treat your loved one (or yourself) this Valentine’s Day at <<salonname>> for as little as £20! Call 0113 350 8230 to book before it’s too late” 

Example 3

“Give your partner the ultimate Valentine’s Day treat at <<salonname>> with our V-Day Special! Full Body Massage, Facial & Mani for just £45. Call 0113 350 8230 to book!”

SMS messages have a great open rate of around 98%, so it’s a great way to directly market your customers. By using both the SMS marketing suite and the use of social media, you are massively increasing your chances of having a successful number of sales.

Selling

After all of your planning and preparation I’m sure it will all pay off when it comes to the day. As Valentine’s Day falls on a Friday this week, it makes it an even better opportunity to make the most of it, as you can extend the offers and deals to run until the end of Sunday and ensure that your calendar is fully booked!

I hope these tips will help you have a successful Valentine’s Day weekend in your salon! If you are interested in taking a look at the marketing suite on a free demo and trial then don’t hesitate to contact our team by either emailing info@salontracker.co.uk or calling on 0113 350 8230 and someone will be happy to help. 

In just over 2-months’ time we will be exhibiting at the Professional Beauty Show in London, you can visit our stand S35, meet the team and have a live demo of the software. We look forward to seeing you there!

Salon Tracker x

What is it that makes us so good at Tanning?

Since we established in 2014 our aim was always to specialise in Tanning and get as good as we can be. On our Journey, not only have we mastered the Tanning software, but we also excel in helping Hair Salons, Beauty Salons, Spa's and Barbers all around the world. 

But what is it exactly that makes us so good at Tanning?

First of all, we are one of few software companies that actually provide sunbed timer integrations. We integrate with TMAX and Sigma currently and this allows you to fire off a bed directly from the software without the fuss of counting coins. The customer will come in, tell you their name (or use the fingerprint scanner), you'll deduct the minutes off the account and then it will communicate with the bed first of all sending a dress down time of either 3 or 5 minutes following with the selected time frame the customer has chosen to go on the bed for and finally finishing with a small cool down time for the bed to cool down and reset itself. Perfect for all you Tanning Association members!

Another great feature that comes in handy for all Salons is the new and improved waiting list feature that tells you exactly how long the waiting time is to use each specific bed and allows you to form a Que of people so there's no losing track of who's in turn to use the bed first. Perfect for all you busy Salons out there! 

Worried about your customers ruining your reputation and abusing the Salon Policy? Our system has a set of booking rules that allow you to not be able to put anyone on the bed that has already been in in the last 24 hours, stop anyone that is under the legal age of 18 and limit the bookings per year they have to make your Salon as ethical as possible!

To add further security, we sell Finger Print recognition devices which once the client has initially registered their Finger Print, every time they come in the Salon in the future they can just come in, place their finger on the reader and it will automatically bring their client card up and how many remaining minutes they have left allowing you to directly put them on the bed saving a lot of time and embarrassing moments of forgetting the clients name!

Storing signed disclaimers has never been so easy either. Once you've come up with your Salon policy/ disclaimer in a PDF format, we're able to upload this to the system and the client can read it and sign using our signature pads. A signed copy of the disclaimer will then store onto their client card making it easy to access and without the hassle of getting them lost in the hundreds of other paper disclaimers you keep scattered about the Salon! Furthermore, we sell QR cardboard cut outs that you can place on your reception desk in the Salon and let your clients scan the code to register using their phone which is perfect for all you super busy Salons!

On our Enterprise package, your clients are able to log into the mobile web app and check how many minutes they have remaining as well as book a slot for a bed to save time waiting in a que of people which has proven to be extremely beneficial with our current clients, just see the testimonial below!

“Now our clients have online booking, they know that when they turn up their bed is ready waiting for them, so our customers are a lot happier. Main advantage is that there are no waiting times for customers anymore, so it has prevented us from losing any clients as before there was a long wait. It’s actually helped us to retain customers as they are no longer going to competitors. Our phone used to never stop ringing for bookings, but it barely rings anymore which is so much better and less stressful as it saves us so much time! It’s just so much more convenient as people can book from work or home!” - Annie Whitehouse, Flamingo Bay.

Our software also allows you to place a happy hour discount on the system automatically and completely customisable. For example if you sell your minutes at 50% off for an hour each day to get the clients in on those quiet hours, the software has got it covered meaning you don't even have to think about adding the discount as it is already done for you! And if you're looking for something where you can let your customers know about happy hour, why not use your SMS marketing suite to send out a text to your clients to let them know?

Furthermore, the software measures the lifespan of your sunbeds and lets you know when the beds are ready for re-tubing and servicing which can be extremely useful as it is quite easy to lose track of the last time your bed was service. Each time someone goes on the bed, the counter will increase to show how many hours that bed has done, the service lifespan will also decrease as that means it is counting down until the bed needs a service. All of which can be done from within the software as well as when the bed has been serviced which will then reset the timers!

The software currently has around 30 reports that come with the software, one of which being the 'day end receipt' which pretty much shows everything you need to know about what went through the software that day but the best thing about this report is the Bookable Item Summary which shows exactly how many sessions each bed has had and how many minutes it has done which is great for showing your most popular bed and least popular bed. On top of this, the system monitors and tracks stock of retail products so if you sell tanning creams and sachets, you will always be aware of what products you have in stock and what you're running low of as well as the ability to accept stock orders from the HQ which you can read all about in this blog http://bit.do/stock-ordering

These are just a few of the features that can benefit your Tanning Salon, but instead of reading about them... why not see them for yourself? Call us on 0113 350 8230 to get booked in for a free demo and 2 week trial, you won't regret it!

Salon Tracker x 

Feature of the Month - Our New Features!

New Year, New Features!

To start off the new year right we have a brand-new release packed full with new features that you, our customers, have been asking for. For this month’s feature of the month we have decided to give you a quick rundown on all the exciting new features you can expect.

Split Bookings Online

A highly requested feature that is new to Salon Tracker is split bookings online. We created this specific feature with hair salons in mind but this can be easily altered and adapted to work in other types of salons. What this feature does is it allows your customers to split up a booking, to for example, allow room for a development time if they’re getting their hair coloured. This feature allows you to set a development time for certain services which will automatically be added in if any of your customers book a hair colouring online.

Double Payment Sense Terminals

A new feature for our payment sense using customers on the professional package and up is you can now link two card terminals to your salon tracker rather than just one. You can give both terminals names and have them linking to different bank accounts. Then when it comes to a customer wanting to pay, you can select which card terminal you would like to send the payment to. This could work well for many different scenarios for example in a tanning salon who may rent a beauty room out to a self-employed beautician who both use the salon tracker but require card payments to go into different accounts.

View Customer History

One new slight tweak to the system that has been requested from some of our clients is that you can now see a customers recent booking history from the booking calendar. This means you no longer have to go into the customer card to see any recent visits they have had or what service they were booked in for last. This will be especially useful for busy salons on days where all you need is a quick look at your customers details before completing their service.

New Waitlist

A new feature available on all three of our different packages is our new and improved tanning waiting list.  Though our original waiting list will still be there, we have added a new one especially for customers who use the timer view for their sunbeds.  Instead of being at the right hand side of your screen, you are now able to add waiting customers to a list below a specific bed and once its time for them to go on the bed, all you have to do is click a button to move them up to the bed. This allows you to be more specific when giving customers waiting times for each bed.

Double Calendars

Another new feature available on our professional and enterprise package is double calendars. This means, for example, if you’d like two tanning calendars this is now possible. This will be useful for large salons with many sunbeds or salons spread over two floors. This will just help to ensure that calendars aren’t too full and will try to help stop confusion.  As well as being useful for tanning salons, this could also be a useful feature for different salons such as hair and beauty.

If you have any questions on our new features or would like any form of training on these please don’t hesitate to get booked in.

If you’d like a FREE demo and two-week trial please call us on 0113 350 8230 or alternatively email us at info@salontracker.co.uk

Salon Tracker x

2020: The Start of a New Year & New Decade!

Happy New Year! 2020: Not only the start of a New Year, but a new Decade too. Bring on the Twenties!

Our Salon Tracker team would like to welcome you back! We hope you’ve all had a fabulous Christmas and enjoyed the festivities with family and friends.

But now, it’s another blank canvas, a fresh start and a New Chapter! And we all know that January can be a bit of a quieter time for a lot of businesses, but this only provides some extra breathing space for you to be able to spring clean the salon, re-organise your strategy and maybe think about your marketing for this year too. So, it’s time to take down the remaining Christmas decorations and refresh any old stock that you may have lying around and start this month fresh, with a clean new start!

January is also a good time to have a sit down with your team and discuss how the last year went, make sure all of your staff are happy and then make adjustments for anywhere where you think there may be room for improvement. This also then gets all of your staff members involved in ensuring the business is just as successful this year as the last. But not only that, it also ensures that they are happy in the current work environment too, boosting team morale! It’s great to keep your team involved in how business is performing, maybe even create a fun little presentation to talk through how your staff have helped you to achieve success.

A marketing and sales strategy is also great to have, as this is something that you and your team can work towards, and this then provides you with something to measure performance against at the end of 2020! If you need a bit of help with your marketing tactics, our sales team have lots of tips and experience to be able to help you with some campaigns, and if you are a follower of our blog, we are always offering our best advice and promotional ideas. So keep posted on our news page https://www.salontracker.co.uk/News throughout the year for some new tools & tips!

We are releasing a new software version also next week, therefore for any of you that are already users you will be automatically get the new version through auto-updating, so get ready for this in a few days! However, for anyone that is thinking of trialing our software out, keep posted next week on our news page as we’ll be showcasing what our new software has to offer. January is a great time to improve organisation of your salon, and so why not try our software out for a fresh new management system this year. Salon Tracker is FREE to trial for a fortnight, to give you a feel for the system before you make a decision on any packages.

So, we hope that 2020 is a successful year for you and we’d love to help you to boost profits & performance! And so, if there are any sales, marketing or organisation structures that we can help you with along the way just call our team on 0113 350 8230 or drop us an email at info@salontracker.co.uk.

We look forward to working with you, let’s have another great 12 months!

Salon Tracker x

It’s the Holiday Season!

Another year down, and 20 years since the Millennium! I know we say this every year but time really is flying, and what a busy year we have had here at Salon Tracker HQ. We’ve expanded our team (again) with 4 new team members this year, and also had our debut at 2 new shows, Beauty UK and Salon International; where we might have had the privilege of meeting some of you face to face. And for any of you that came to Salon Int’l, you might have dropped by our stand for our Champagne Reception, which we actually WON! A great little competition winning for us & you guys, we had such a fun weekend and really enjoyed meeting you all and helping to improve your salons!

We have also enhanced the software massively this year, where we have introduced a lot of new features to improve the usage and really benefit your salon business. Our best features include our new split-booking online, so that for all of you that require development times to be taken in to account for treatments, such as for highlights, brow tints etc, the online booking will now automatically account for the development time for those treatments, so you’re no longer having to make amendments within the salon once those bookings are made. We will be demoing this for the first time at PB London, which has moved to March next year, so hopefully will be a bit more Spring-like and another great show weekend. Keep posted on our news feed in the New Year for the link to register for your FREE tickets! You may have also seen that we have launched ‘QR Scan’ for online booking registration within the salon, this seems to have gone down a treat in some of our salons already where they have seen their online bookings increase by over 50%! Head to our Instagram @salontrackersoftware to see our board examples!

We’re really looking forward to 2020, the start of a new decade and we’ve got lots more exciting things to add in to the Software in the New Year. We’ll be exhibiting at a couple of shows too, and might even be running a little workshop afternoon in the Summer (TBC), but keep posted for more details on our blog next year! But for now, 2019 is nearly out, we hope your last few days at the salon are busy and everyone is in the festive spirit! From all of us here at Salon Tracker, we hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year, and we’ll speak to you in Jan!

Best Wishes,

Salon Tracker x

Please Note: We will be closed from 1pm on the 24th of December until the 2nd of January 2020. If you need any emergency support during this time then please call 0113 350 8230 and leave a voicemail or you can message us on our Instagram @salontrackersoftware, and someone will get back to you ASAP with best endeavors. 

Please note that there will be no support on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day.

From everyone at Salon Tracker we hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for a great 2019, we can't wait for the next one!

Christmas/ New Year Lookbook

It’s now a week till one of our favourite times of the year again… Christmas! Here at Salon Tracker Software we adore everything that Christmas involves from the decorations to the outfits at the Christmas party.  This week’s blog is a look book of some of our favourite Christmas looks, it will also allow you to feel inspired how to decorate your salon.

Makeup

At Christmas you may partake in many events such as family dinners, work Christmas parties and other activities with your friends such as nights out celebrating and congratulating one another. Each individual is different but for most girls they love to get dolled up for Christmas day and the events that come before and after.

Many prefer a natural makeup look

Makeup to look like a reindeer, why not?

Red lips at Christmas are a must have for many

Outfit inspiration

Now Christmas is upon us, the High street shops are filling with glitter and sparkles. Christmas and New Years is all about sequins, satin, velvet, feathers, diamante and red clothing basically anything that screams strong glamour. This time of a year is all about making a statement with the outfits you wear especially when attending an event on New Years Eve this means stepping out of your comfort zone to wear something bold or sparkly this season.

If you're not a sequin fan why not try a red
jumper dress with thigh
high boots which is currently very
 fashionable. Comfy and cute!

Sparkles and silk equals the perfect Christmas party outfit

Sequin skirts would be another option to a
 Christmas party or alternatively a sequin top

Hairstyles

Over Christmas and New Year’s, it is essential for many individuals to ensure that they look immaculate this includes having the perfect outfit, makeup, nails and of course hair style. One of the most popular hairstyles currently is the high textured ponytail, as it is appropriate for every occasion especially during the holidays. Other popular hairstyles including a side braid and wavy ponytail, low loose swirl up-do, texture centred bun, thick textured ponytail and a simplistic down do. 

Half up Half down hairstyle,
 why not add curls as well

The current fashion trend a
high textured ponytail

Low neat ponytail

Nails

Every girl love being pampered this includes having their nails done frequently especially when Christmas and New Year occurs. At Christmas many individuals love to have art work on their nails this can include a Christmas tree on their middle nail. Other popular decisions for nails during this season includes the colour red, sparkles, animal prints, white prints and marble patterns.

Red nails are extremely popular
 at Christmas time

At Christmas time the nail art is extraordinary
these above are just a few
examples of the nail art
that takes place at Christmas

Snowflakes and white nails

Decorations

Decorations at Christmas are essential, here at Salon Tracker we love decorating the office, as it helps to encourage staff and clients to feel festive. Decorating could mean adding small details such as a snowflake sticker on the windows or a merry Christmas sign and allowing staff to wear Christmas jumpers or themed accessories. 

Add a Christmas tree to your salon to
ensure your clients and staff feel comfortable
and relaxed within the salon

Finishing touches to push the
excitement of Christmas

Add a few small decorations to brighten your
salon and ensure that clients and staff
are feeling the Christmas spirit

Salon Tracker x

Festive Feature of the Month! - Xmas marketing suite

Now we all know that December is the busiest time of the year for Salons which is great but what happens when we get to January and the boom of December has gone because you didn't get prepared or make enough time to do some marketing campaigns in December? 

Well luckily for you, Salon Tracker has a built in marketing suite with plenty of templates and filters already made up, making it super easy to send a simple text to your clients informing them of the offers you'll be hosting throughout January to keep you just as busy as you are in December!

If you're unfamilar with the marketing suite, you can always ring us up for a free training session -  we're always happy to help! But for now, let me show you exactly what the marketing suite entails...

First of all, there's a selection of pre-made filters to choose from which gives you a template already set, all you have to do is change the discount and the time frame! 



An especially useful one is the 'January Sale' which has everything you need to boost them sales in Jan. I would recommend sending this text towards the end of December so you give them chance to get booked in and organised as you never know the kind of January rush this text may bring. 

Better yet, you can preview the text to your own phone to make sure you're happy with it before you send it to all your clients!

Looking to send a text to just a specific selection of clients? Our extensive filters have got you covered. For example, if you only want to send a January offer to the customers that spend the most in hair retail, the little + button to the right hand side allows you to add up to 4 extra filters where you can really underpin the the selection of customers you want to send it to. You could even send two lots of offers and send a bigger discount to the customers who spend the most with you, almost like a loyalty incentive!

If you're stuck for offers you'd like to do over January, I've put together a few ideas that may be just what you're looking for:

Example 1:

"Hi <<Forename>>, as our Christmas treat to you, we're offering 30% off appointments booked for January if booked before the 31st December 2019. Call <<company number>> to book!"

Example 2:

"Hi <<Forename>>, book in for an appointment in January before the 31st December 2019 to receive a £20 gift voucher for any retail product in Salon. Call <<company number>> to book!"

Example 3: 

"Hi <<Forename>>, any appointment booked in January receives a free retail product of their choice and 10% of their treatment! T&C's apply. Call <<company number>> to book>>

There are all sorts of things you can do with the marketing section, and utilising it to banish them January blues is a must do! 

If you don't currently have Salon Tracker, but want to give the marketing suite a try, then give us a call on 0113 350 8230 for a free demo and 2 week trial with 50 free texts to give it a go! 

Salon Tracker x