Planning for the year

January is often a quieter period in Salons after the mad rush of Christmas, so there is no better time than now to plan for the year ahead. At Salon Tracker, we believe that the best way to approach marketing for the year is to plan around the different holidays and target these periods specifically.

The first few months of the year are always the cold ones, and there’s no better time to visit the salon. Often this can be a quieter time for tanning salons so why not offer some special courses during this time and build your client base ready for the summer. For beauty and hair salons, you may have seen an increase in gift voucher purchases over the Christmas period, so why not encourage your customers to use these now. Also, customers will be trying to fulfil their new year’s resolutions, so what better way to have a ‘new year, new me’ moment that by getting a new hairstyle or having a pamper.

Other major events to center your promotion around during this time are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Before you start advertising around these days, why not look at previous years and see which of your treatments are most commonly purchased around these periods, and create special packages featuring a few of these at a reduced price. Also, why not create some hampers featuring some of your retail products as well as a gift voucher. You may even want to do a little complimentary fizz with all services booked in the week leading up to, and week after Mother’s Day, to make the client’s service seem a little more luxury!

The next period is filled with bank holidays (1th April, 18^th April, 2^nd May, 2^nd June, 3^rd June) which means customers will be going out and need to be booked in for their pre-outing pampers. This is prime-time for salons, so now may be a good time to push your service packages, for example; if you are a hair and beauty salon you may want to do an ‘Bank Holiday Bundle’ consisting of a couple of mini beauty treatments and maybe a hair style? This year we’ve gained an extra bank holiday due to the Queen’s Jubilee. It’s a great marketing technique to promote the extra Bank Holiday date, as believe it or not there will be a lot of your clients who are still unaware of the Bank Holiday change, so make sure you get in there first to get your calendars booked up.

Going from Spring to Summer, Wedding season will be approaching, as well as proms and graduations. All of these events will drive customers into your salons, whether it be for a fresh tan (spray or real), or for a makeover. Targeting your audience is essential to ensure that your diary is filled to the brim, so why not try something new. Maybe offer a raffle entry for every treatment purchased with the winning prize being a free makeover for their special day. Alternatively, you could offer a trial day at a reduced cost so customers can see how they’ll look at on the big day and minimise the stress on the actual day. This would mean they’re visiting the salon more often and may be more inclined to do so again in the future.

Also, during the summer period, people will be jetting away on holidays after being limited so much over the past two years. What better way to get their tans started than by offering special courses to encourage them into the salon before they go away. Soon enough we will be back around to the autumn/winter period and then it will be time to start looking at Halloween makeovers and Christmas party prep.

Hope this has given you a few pointers to think about, and of course as always if you want to chat to a member of our sales and marketing team for a few extra tips, we are always on hand to help you with any marketing tools, or simply to offer further advice on using our software functions!

Salon Tracker x

Q & A - Hair and Beauty Special!

We know we specialise in Tanning, but did you know we also specialise in Hair & Beauty too? All your questions answered!

Can you view the salon calendar from home?

Yes, salon owners and employees are all able to view the salon calendar and reports from home and when on the move, using our Siteview app. Appointments can also be added and edited within this application. This is available on our Enterprise software package.

Can you take deposits/online payments?

We can yes, these can be taken both in the salon and online using our Stripe integration. We also integrate with Klarna payments. Online payments however are only available on our Enterprise package.

Can you market to your clients?

Our system has a full marketing suite built in, where both SMS and email marketing campaigns can be sent to clients. We currently have a direct integration with Mailchimp for emails, where we also have micro-marketing filters to target a range of customer groups.

Can you offer commissions?

Yes, we can, these can be set at a global level for the salon as a whole, or individual level per therapist or specifically based on a service sold.

How do you reduce no-shows?

We currently have SMS appointment reminders that get sent to the client 24 hours before an appointment and also our deposits feature, which both of these have significantly helped to reduce no shows.

Do you link with Payment terminals?

Yes, we currently link with Dojo payments for a seamless payment solution. We can provide more information on that for our clients.

Can you register patch testing?

Yes, this can be added on the customer client card as an alert and can also be recorded as a booking too to show when the patch test was carried out.

Do you offer appointment reminders?

Yes, we currently offer automated SMS appointment reminders, these can be sent out either 24 hours before, 48 hours or the week before depending on the client’s preference!

Do you offer disclaimer forms?

Yes, we do we currently offer disclaimers that can be signed using our electronic signature pad or can be agreed to online when the client fills out the online registration form.

Can clients book online?

Yes, clients are able to make appointments online through your own salon-branded web app, where appointments will link straight directly in to your calendar at the salon.

How do you represent development time?

Development time can be set up through a feature called ‘post-delay’ where we can allocate a certain amount of time for development to be added to each booking, in which this is also then taken in to account with online bookings too.

Can you handle stock takes?

A full stock control system is built in to the software so all stock is depleted automatically when retail products are sold. You are also able to organise stock from HQ to site locations using the same feature.

Are you GDPR compliant?

Our system is fully GDPR compliant and client details are protected by a privacy screen. Should these need to be viewed for an appointment, this is logged in an event and on a report. Fingerprints and biometric data are all also stored securely.

Can you manage a multi-site salon chain?

We currently specialise in multisite management and also offer a headquarters system, where every site location can be viewed from one main head office machine. Client data and products can also be shared and accessed across multiple sites.

What would you do in the event of another lockdown?

Over the last two lockdowns we froze all payments and subscriptions whilst our industry had to close. Should there be another lockdown, our clients have peace of mind that we will always freeze payments and our support will always be available.

Should you wish to trial Salon Tracker, head to https://www.salontracker.co.uk/FreeTrial.aspx and submit your details for your free 2 week try of our software!

Salon Tracker x

Hello 2022! Another year, brand new!

Welcome back, and a very Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas break and have enjoyed the festivities.

It's been a good time to reflect on the previous year over the last couple of weeks, on how as a whole we have all bounced back from the closure of our industry and managed to have a great second half of 2021. But not only that, it was a great time for extra planning too. As this time last year our salons weren't able to open and so it has therefore been a useful time to look at how you are able to reengage with your clients this January and really kickstart the New Year as a positive!

Quick note - a few dates for your diary this year with Salon Tracker; we are hoping to be exhibiting at the Professional Beauty London show across the 3rd and 4th of April at London Excel, and also at the Beauty UK show across 22nd and 23rd of May! We have lots of new features we hope to bring to you across those two events, keep posted here on our blog for release dates. Exciting new projects we are hoping to achieve however are; further advances with our online payments and also occupancy technology, allowing you to be able to track when a client is using a sunbed or is sat in a treatment chair using heat/electrical technology, to further improve security in your salons.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll also be bringing to you lots of marketing tips and ideas on how you are able to utilise our software over the coming months, to really give your business that extra boost. You’ll be able to find all of this information here on our news page, also over on our social media channels and, if you require any personal training directly for your salon, our team are on hand at the office to arrange a remote assistance session with your team members, to help to further improve their software skills!

For anyone reading this who is currently new to us and are in the process of thinking about a trial, we currently offer a FREE fortnight try-before-you-buy system, with no obligation, to allow you to see how Salon Tracker works for you operationally before you sign up to a package. To enquire about getting a free trial, please head to our website at www.salontracker.co.uk/freetrial.aspx to submit your details and interest, and a member of our sales team will be in contact as soon as possible to arrange a demonstration. The beauty of a demo with us is, all of our support is carried out via remote assistance software, meaning you can arrange a digital meeting with us, from anywhere, anytime! If you would however prefer to speak to a member of our team beforehand, we’re just a phone call away on 0113 350 8230, where we are always on hand to help you with any enquiries and questions you many have.

And to our lovely Salon Tracker customers, keep an eye on your update notifications over the coming weeks, as we have a release due with some great new reports and features to improve your current service. So, make sure to download the latest update when you see this prompted on your system!


So now all that’s left to say is, 2022, let’s go! We’ve got a really positive feeling about this year and we are so glad to be working with you all once again, to boost your salon businesses.

All the best wishes for this year,

Salon Tracker x

It's the most wonderful time of the year! A little thank you from us, and Christmas information:

It’s that time of the year again! And what a year this one has been.

We spent the first quarter of it in lockdown with our whole industry closed, yet we saw some fantastic ideas from you all about how to host virtual tutorials, home treatments and a lot of you offered an online delivery service which was great. And what a huge bounce back it’s been since the Summer, where we’ve had the lovely pleasure of helping you all to get back on track promoting & managing your salons, and also said hello to a lot of new friendly faces too! It’s been great to expand our Salon Tracker family this year and we’re so glad that you have all remained or joined us as customers, allowing us to help you with your businesses.

We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your consistent patience throughout the past year, as there were a large volume of clients requiring assistance to get back online after the lockdown, queue times were long and there were still restrictions for us all to adhere to. But, you all had great understanding and we will always be grateful for that. And as always, for your continued custom with us.

And now, Christmas is only a few days away, we also want to thank all of you who entered our Xmas giveaway competition by leaving us some really wonderful reviews. They have been so lovely to read, our team have really enjoyed getting your feedback and it’s been great to have some Xmas fun & giveaway some fabulous prizes! We have revealed the winners over on our Instagram story, if you missed these please visit our highlights to see if you have been a lucky prize-winner! We will however also be in contact with you for you to be able to claim your prize.

Christmas opening hours: We will be open until 3pm on Christmas eve, and then our sales offices will be closed throughout the Christmas period until Tuesday 4th January.

If you do require any urgent licensing assistance during this time, please telephone our support line on 0113 350 8232 and someone will get back to you as soon as possible with your activation code.

As we have all seen in the news, there is some uncertainty about what could happen over the coming days regarding possible restrictions. We just wanted to give you the peace of mind that we will be here as always to support you, and subscriptions will be frozen should our industry have to close.

On behalf of everyone here at Salon Tracker, we’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas, and a happy & healthy New Year, see you in 2022!

Salon Tracker x

Why is an online presence beneficial for your salon?

What is an online presence

An online presence is defined as how easy it is to find the business when a client is searching for keywords relevant to your business on the internet. Having an online presence allows your clients to interact with the businesses virtual presence to find out more information about the salon brand, its products and services. An online presence allows your salon to be visible on the internet as well as a range of different social media pages which means tat your salon is more discoverable to potential clients. To maintain your online presence, it is essential that you have a desirable webpage and the basic social media platforms that you are continuously active on.

Why is online presence important

An online presence is important for your salon as it allows you to reinforce your brand as you are able to constantly boost your salons image. Constant updates on social media and maintaining your online presence allows your salon to attract new clients and retain pre-existing customers. Online presence is extremely important for small business owners it could potentially provide the salon with the means to grow their client base. This also allows your salon clients to review relevant information such as salon opening hours, location of the salon and the reviews left in regards to the salon done by previous customers. Clients are able to browse the pricing of your services that your salon offers before booking therefore allowing clients enhanced accessibility to your business. Having a greater online presence allows your salon access to a wider audience as your business information will be accessible to clients 24 hours a day seven days a week. You are also able to communicate with your clients continuously through social media therefore allowing you to build customer relationships and trust.

Ways to strengthen your online presence

There are plenty of ways to strengthen your online presence one way to do so would be to optimize your business website, when you are creating or editing the website it would be beneficial for you to use key words that clients will be searching to find a business like yours. Ensure that you and your staff members create many engaging marketing content this includes things such as blogs, videos and social media posts and post them of a range of different platforms to build the chances of reaching out to new clients, you must ensure that you focus on the channels that best suit your target audience. Video marketing will allow you to showcase the benefits of using your salon as well as the services that you offer in a new and attractive way. Focusing on your brand purpose is another method that enables you to strengthen your businesses online presence as you can build a community to interact with clients and other salons this will enable you to promote your brand values as well as allowing you to share a clear consistent and compelling brand story across the content you share. It is important that you make certain that client reviews are continuously up to date online and you encourage your clients to leave a review so that you can further improve your services as this will increase the salons credibility as word of mouth is one of the most common strategies that businesses use to attract potential clients. Boost your search engine optimization to promote your online presence by email marketing, developing your website further and posting content on social media constantly. Many online tools enable you access to data and analytics to help you understand your target audience, their behaviour and preferences and how they experience your business at every stage of the customer journey. It is important that you take this information to measure the effectiveness of using a range of online marketing channels to develop a strategy that works for your brand.

The advantages of online presence

There are many advantages to having a strong online presence this includes the improvement of customer service by being able to interact with them directly converse with them through social media platforms. Your salon is also able to gain referrals through social proof this includes client reviews and images you and your staff members upload of the services you have carried out. Online marketing is an easy and affordable way to market your salon therefore permitting the company to spend the money they have saved from marketing onto other aspects of the salon such as improving the quality of products meaning the salon receives larger amount of profits with limited investment. Having a range of different social media platforms allows you to reach out to a larger audience meaning that more people will be aware of your business. Another advantage of your salon having an online presence is the trust factor that you will secure with potential clients as they will check online to ensure that you are reliable and can trust your brand. Online presence also allows you to view your competition and see what you are able to do different to distinguish your salon from others in your surrounding area.

The disadvantages of online presence

Online marketing is not effective when used alone without another marketing technique as it can be unreliable as the internet can go down, systems can crash therefore it’s not 100% dependable. Another disadvantage to having a strong online presence is that it exposes the company to spam messages and content. Having online accounts paves the way clients and other individuals to leave bad reviews that will tarnish your salon reputation.

I hope this blog has been informative and beneficial for you, make sure to keep continuously posting on your social medias.

Salon Tracker Team. X

Hidden Gems in Salon Tracker!

 

When it comes to Salon Tracker, many of our features such as the ability to integrate with TMAX and sigma, Stock Control and our online booking features and very popular and well known by our customer. This blog is going to tell you about some of our less popular features or ‘hidden gems’ as we like to call them which will make day to day running of your salon much smoother!

 

Groups

Groups is one of the back ground, and slightly more complex features included in Salon Trackers Professional and Enterprise packages.  This feature allows you to create custom groups for your products, services and customers.

 

You can use customer groups for things such as NHS and student discounts. All you need to do is create a customer group and then associate a certain discount with any customers who get put in that group. This discount option is separated into retail and booking discount so you can pick and choose what discount to offer. You can then add customers into this group as you please. Customer groups also work well as a way to reward loyal customers. You could have a gold, silver and bronze customer group which customers could work their way through based on number of bookings.

 

You can also create product groups. Product groups allow you to offer different discounts or require certain deposits for your services. Product groups also allow you to do deals and things such as happy hour easily and efficiently. You can set up your happy hour but setting up a product group with a purchase availability of Monday to Friday for a set hour or so. This will then discount all the services and products you have selected to your happy hour price automatically for the set time before going back to normal pricing after.

Groups can be tricky though so we’d recommend giving one of our support team so we can help set these up for you!

Tube Tracking

A small, but very useful feature which is available for out Salon Tracker tanning salon customers is tube tracking. This feature allows you to monitor the usage of the tubes on your bed. You can see this in the management section of your Salon Tracker when your click on the individual beds. When your beds get retubed you can reset this counter.

Post Delay

Post delay is another smaller feature which can be very useful especially for our hair salon customers. This feature automatically puts a gap between appointments where there is more than one service being done. For example, if a customer books in for a colour and finish and needs 30 minutes for the dye to process, your system will clear the 30-minute gap in your calendar so you can squeeze in another appointment.

Site View Dashboard

Many of our enterprise customers already know and love this feature. The site view dashboard gives you an over view of the entire day, week or month in your salon. You can view this out of the salon on a phone, tablet or computer at any time of the day. This dashboard includes figures such as number of bookings, bookable and retail sales and takings.

Charts

Another hidden gem of Salon Tracker is the charts. These are located within the reports section under the ‘charts’ tab at the top. These are available on our professional and above packages and the allow you to have a basic rundown of the year. For example, you can see when you’re busiest and quietist months are using the annual bookings chart and you can also see your annual customer information including things such as average spend by age and the number of new customers per month.

 

If you would like any more information on any of these features or would like to get booked in for a free demonstration and trial, please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0113 350 8230 or email us on info@salontracker.co.uk.

 

Also, if you’re a Salon Tracker customer don’t forget to enter our Christmas giveaway! Head to @salontrackersoftware on Instagram for all the details.

 

Salon Tracker x

Style Your Ear …. Curate with Inverness!

This week we have something a little bit different for our blog. After meeting Inverness Piercing at the Professional Beauty show in London, and experiencing their services first hand, we couldn't think of anyone better to feature as a guest blog. Some of our team members had piercings done at the show and we highly recommend Inverness for their safe & gentle ear piercings. Why not consider adding ear piercings in your salon as another source of revenue!

Have you been hearing all about the ‘curated ear’ but not sure how to get one or even what Curated/Earscape or Designer Ear means?! Well, keep reading. We’ve put together some top tips and must haves on how to curate that ear!

 

What does ‘Curated Ear’ mean?

A ‘Curated Ear’ is a variety of multiple piercings in one ear designed to create a unique look. No two ears are the same, so why not look at each ear as a blank canvas? Fancy 4 piercings in one ear but only 2 in the other?  Why not?!   

 

If you’re looking to mirror those glamorous ear shots across social media or our famous icons on the red carpet, or just to create your own unique look, you can do so with the Inverness piercing system.  Most people think it’s only possible to Earscape and Curate the ear through a needle piercing but that’s not true. The hand-pressure Inverness instrument and specially-designed piercing earrings can be used to create gorgeous earscapes piercing both the earlobe and the outer cartilage 

 

The Inverness system creates piercings with a quiet, gentle, hand-pressured instrument and specially-designed piercing earrings that are as sharp as a needle. Each earring has a finely-honed piercing point which glides through the skin in one smooth action, with no trauma to the ear like the old-fashioned spring-loaded guns. Inverness also have a wide selection of metals and styles to choose from, so it’s possible to get the desired look straight away, whilst you wait for your piercing to heal.

 

Over the years we have listened to many people share their piercing experiences and how they feel about their current piercings. Unfortunately, a large percentage aren’t happy with their original piercings. Maybe their first holes sit too high or their seconds are too close together making it difficult to fit two pairs of earrings in. This is where getting creative comes in handy and designing those curated ears shine through. 

 

If your piercing is sitting too high, why not add one just below. Wear a small 2mm CZ in the top hole and a hoop at the bottom. If your piercings are too close together, add a third piercing so when those big earrings come out to party, you can still wear 2 sets and be ready to return to 3 after. 

Planning your Curation!

It’s important to plan your ‘Curated Ear’ starting with the location you visit for your piercings to the steps you’ll need to take to create that unique look. 

At your appointment

Your piercer will work closely with you to try and mirror what you’re looking for. Take some pictures with you to talk through your ideas, but remember every ear is different so your piercer may advise a different position while still aiming for your dream look. 

 

How many can I have?

Although it’s possible for multiple piercings in one sitting for the earlobe, we advise only one piercing in the cartilage at a time. After the 12-week healing period another piercing can be done. 

 

The cartilage can be very sensitive, so too many piercings in one sitting can be overwhelming for the ear and it will struggle to heal smoothly. Simply pick your favourite position first and work through each piercing. There’s no reason your piercer can’t place all the dots at your first appointment to make sure the positions are correct for you; they are easy to wipe off so take your time confirming the dots positions. 

 

Things to consider:

o    Picking the right piercing location.

o    What look are you aiming for?

o    What style earrings are you planning on wearing?

o    Do you plan on having more piercings in the future?

 

Aftercare

The aftercares steps are a critical stage to the healing period. Your piercer will provide you with a bottle of Inverness Aftercare Solution which you will need to use 3 times a day and follow the instructions provided for the healing period.

 

Due to multiple piercings possibly being extra sensitive and tender, extra care should be taken during the healing process. ALWAYS wash your hands carefully before touching your ear, and take special care to AVOID:

 

1.       Bumping your ears

2.       Prolonged pressure against your ears from phones, hats, headphones etc.

3.       Sleeping on your newly-pierced ear

4.       Touching your ears or playing with your earrings.

 

 

Become a Stockist!

Do you own a Beauty or Hair business and would like to add this service to your menu? Contact us today for information on our starter kits and how to get set up with the piercing business using Inverness, it couldn’t be simpler!

Website: www.invernesspiericng.co.uk l Email: enquires@invernesspiercing.co.uk

Telephone: 01223 828718