Another year over...

And that’s a wrap for another year! I’m sure these years are getting faster, but yet again we find ourselves at the end of December and about to begin a new chapter. It’s been another brilliant year for us, one of our busier years in fact! We’ve got lots of new faces, and that’s not just clients - we have a few new members to the team as well which I’m sure for our current customers you’ve had the pleasure of chatting to some of them over the phone these past few months.

We’ve met many of you at the Professional Beauty shows this year in Feb and October too, which was a pleasure as always. And speaking of the event, I’m excited to announce that we are again exhibiting at Professional Beauty London on 25^th/26^th Feb! We will be on stand W16, so be sure to visit us there! In fact, you can sign up for your FREE ticket now using our link below:

https://registration.n200.com/survey/3njgxhgn3h7vy?actioncode=NTWO000545GPV

The Dev team are working on a few really exciting features for the Feb show! But, for now I know you are all extremely busy in the salon so we won’t keep you, but all that’s left to say is have a fantastic Christmas from all of us here at Salon Tracker. We wish you a very happy and healthy New Year and look forward to catching up in Jan with more salon management and marketing advice to grow your business.

It’s been a pleasure, speak to you soon!

Best Wishes,

The Salon Tracker Team x

*We are closing down for Christmas on Friday 22nd December 2017. We will be back in the office on Tuesday 2nd January 2018. Should you require assistance during this time, please telephone 0113 350 8232 and leave a voicemail or email info@salontracker.co.uk*

Marketing tips to make sure you start 2018 with success!

So, after the busy buzz of the Christmas period, Jan and Feb can seem like extremely quiet months for your business. I mean, in comparison to the rest of the year they are always going to feel quiet, but after the extremely frenzied festive period, the contrast can feel noticeably greater. Still having said this, there are some extra things that you can be doing to boost your business footfall and sales a little bit in to the New year.

In the toughest months it’s all about product placement and setting the right marketing campaigns to catch your clients eye above all other competitors.

So what campaigns can you plan to kick off 2018 in the right way?

After Christmas, everyone (or so it seems) goes on a mass health kick and often adopts a fresh new look for the New Year. You see gym memberships advertised with no joining fee, everyone quoting the #newyearnewme line and so what not a better time to jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of the same campaign.

How can you promote this?

There are lots of different ways to promote a New Year campaign and after Christmas everyone is looking for fresh new product ranges, sparkles are no more and it’s everything spring! However, little tip - your left-over Christmas merchandise you could flog for a discount and I’m sure they’ll still get snapped up by your clients!

Here’s what we think you should push for New year throughout Jan…

New Product Promotion

We see a lot of social media sharing, starting in the week running up to Christmas, where businesses want to start promoting their new year product lines. So, this is where we would advise that you begin. Use the common hashtags #newyearnewyou & #newyearnewlook so that when people are clicking these your 2018 campaigns will also be shown on Facebook & Instagram’s main feeds. Advertise your up and coming products, write a blog post on why they aren’t to be missed and maybe grab some testers to hand out to clients. Aside from the obvious plus point for your clients of a ‘complimentary tester’ which is always loved by everyone, this is also a great opportunity for you to grab some testimonials of your new products to push on social media for further advertising! And everyone appreciates an honest client review before trying something new.

New Year New Me

So, we’ve already mentioned starting to use the cliché hashtags when promoting your new product ranges, but these sorts of campaigns are in their volumes across Jan. So even if you do a general #newyearnewlook campaign to push your main treatments, use slogans such as ‘love your image’ and ‘self-confidence’ to promote it to ensure positivity is at the forefront of your new year merchandise. You could even then run a January selfie competition where all clients who have had a New Year makeover upload their selfie and tag your salon, and then the winner receives a prize of your choice and this could be drawn in Feb? Just a little idea for further social post engagement.

Revive & Replenish

Another great campaign to push your skin and hair care products in Spring, as you go down the whole ‘rejuvenate after the Christmas partying’ route. However, also a fab time to refresh the salon as well! Give the salon a fresh new look, or even just spruce things up with a lick of paint, some different accessories and a bit of a spring clean. You can then even use this as an excuse to promote your business on social media, by asking your followers to ‘come down and see your fresh-faced salon’?

Discounts and Bounce Back Rewards

Now, I know we usually don’t promote discounting your products and services too much, as you don’t need to cheapen down your services if you offer quality treatments and have loyal clients. However, in January we all know that everyone tightens the purse strings a little bit so a small discount or little money-off reward is sometimes necessary to get those clients spending a little earlier than they may have planned in the New year.

We particularly love the idea of bounce back rewards, in which you could start giving to all clients towards the end of December and in Jan, and this then offers them either a small percentage or little value off their next treatment in Jan/Feb? It doesn’t have to be anything massive, and you set the rules. So, for example, you might want to set a minimum spend before the reward can be redeemed, so an idea would be ‘Spend £40 in Jan/Feb to receive a £5 New year bounce back reward off your treatment?’

Client Testimonials, they can become a VIP?

Promote the message to your loyal clients of ‘Thank you for your custom in 2017, could you please help us to have a successful 2018?’ Then poach them to see if they will be one of your testimonials or case studies? A reward for them giving you a service review could be to put them in to a VIP programme. Everyone loves feeling privileged and to say that you are a registered VIP member of a company is always rewarding, so this should hopefully push for you to get yourselves some fresh new testimonials, which are great for your marketing campaigns throughout the New Year. And you could do something as simple as offering your VIP clients '10% off all treatments' or 'a % off a certain amount of a treatments', say 4 times a year? Whichever would work and still be cost-effective for your business.

New Year newsletter

Similar to the client testimonials, you often have to give people an incentive to sign up! So, it could again be something as simple as ‘10% off if you sign up’, or ‘receive a £5 voucher to use if you sign up to our mailing list?’ The great thing however about a newsletter is it provides you with not only another communicational channel to message your customers, it also brings in new potential clients that you may not have had. If you promote your salon on Facebook or Google using adverts, and push your newsletter sign-up offers on those, this is likely to improve your lead generation of new clients. Then, you can start telling your new mailing list all about your services, new products, up and coming treatments and even include a few of your (hopefully) new client testimonials!

So, we hope these little tips have helped and given you something to think about for the New year…but first, lets have a cracking Christmas and then we’ll hit 2018 in successful style! Let’s do this!


Salon Tracker x

Email Marketing and how it’s done right

Whoever says email marketing is a dead art form is very mistaken. Pretty much everyone still has an email account these days and uses it. Smart phones and other portable devices have made it possible to connect and stay on top of your emails on the go and at any time.

As a salon owner, you own a business that flourishes from customer interactions that needs to develop ways to attract new, as well as retain current clients. Email is not only a powerful marketing tool it is also free to use with many providers. The options with emails are plenty and it can be used in many ways, from campaigns to promotional emails. There are a few simple steps you need to do in order to optimise your emails, to get the most our of them.

Getting started

First, you’ll need an email marketing service such as Mail Chimp. Many of these services offer a free version up to a certain number of emails per month. These services offer plenty of different templates that allow you to create different designs to match your business. However, the key with email marketing is not to overload your customers with too many emails. Less is better will do the trick in this instance. 

Here are some tips on what content you want to be sending and how you can measure your success:

Salon e-newsletter

Why not start with a monthly salon e-newsletter. Newsletters are great to tell customers about your business and any industry news they might find interesting. Go easy on promotional material, writing too much about offers and deals can put people off and will lose you subscribers as it will come across too sales driven. If you make your content entertaining and useful to your subscribers, they will be more  likely to stay local. 

Use a creative and grabbing subject line

A lot can be decided even before your emails is opened. If the subject line doesn’t spark a subscribers interest it will go straight in the bin without giving up any further consideration about the content. Meaning, you’ve only got seconds to grab someones attention. Therefore, try to avoid words in your subject line like special | free | percentage off | reminder | £ $ symbols | ! | as they will likely trigger spam filters and subscribers also know that you want to push your products on them. Once you have their attention and they have opened your email you want to make sure to keep the content concise and right to the point. 

Keep track of your performance

Emails get open just to be deleted again or to unsubscribe. Even though in your report it is marked as success, you haven’t really achieved new clients or revenue with this. A good way to track if people are reacting to your email is to measure performance with Google Analytics. For example, you can set up different goals such as see when people clicked on a link in your email. When you set up your campaigns and you want valuable information about your customers this is a great way to do so. 

Testing can be good as well. Create similar emails and see which one is performing better so you know what clients prefer and click on more often. 

Make sure it works on all devices

(Source: Marketingland)
If you want to make sure your email is catching the reader’s eye and will be opened make sure it works across all screens. Meaning, it is important that your email campaign adjusts to different devices and screen sizes. 

You can check the exact percentage of open rates and which devices were used on Google Analytics again. Once you are aware of the most popular device you can make sure everything works according to people preferences. 

Overall, email marketing can be a great way building relationships with current and potential customer when done right. Record what you learn from customers in a database. This way you can adjust your marketing. For example, if there is a popular time people open your email then send campaigns around that time. This might require some initial trial and error testing but after a few attempts, you should have some valuable info what clients prefer. 
As always if you have any questions or need advice don't hesitate to contact us via phone, email or social media.

Salon Tracker x

Feature of the Month - Site View

We can’t believe it’s already December! Where has the time gone? Anyway, it’s time for another feature of the month blog, and this month we’re focusing on Site View! For those of you that don’t know, Site View is a great feature that allows salon owners to have full access to their systems reports, takings, staff and refunds. It also allows your staff to look at their upcoming bookings, and their rotas for the upcoming weeks. Here’s just some of the ways that Site View can benefit your Salon:

Access Anywhere at Anytime

One of the main pros of Site View is that you can access it on any device, whether that’s a computer, phone, tablet, laptop, and at any time, as long as there's an internet connection. So, if you’re enjoying your holidays, on the go, or even if you’re just at home, you can easily check on your salon and see if everything is in order. You will also be able to view staff performance reports, allowing you to maintain authority in your absence. Site View is great for your staff, especially those who do shifts, as they will easily be able to login to their account and have a look at their rotas. To ensure that there are no double bookings made by you or your staff, Site View isn’t editable, as this could cause the calendar to become hectic, and result in you having to rearrange appointments. 

Admin Levels

With the Salon Tracker system, there are permissions that you can set for your staff members, so that they only have access to certain areas of the software, and this is the same with the Site View feature. Within the permissions in Salon Tracker, you can tick the areas you want your staff to be able to access:

• Allow access to Site View dashboard 
• Allow access to Site View calendar 
• Allow access to view my calendar 
• Allow access to view my calendar 
• Allow access to Site View reports 
• Allow access to Site View charts
• Allow access to Site View HQ dashboard 

It may be that you only want your staff members to have access to their bookings calendar, so that they can see all of their upcoming bookings. Either way this is a fantastic feature to add security to your Salon!

Security 

Site View is password protected, and needs both a username and password to login. The usernames and passwords are those used on the Salon Tracker system, and can be changed at any point. Site View will give you the reassurance that your salon activity is secure and running to a high standard by allowing you to constantly check on your business and flag up any problems or issues that you notice.

Our Site View feature is available with our Enterprise package, which is £90 a month (excluding VAT). It is an essential for those of you with more than one salon, as you can easily view everything you need, in one place! If you want any more information about the software, don’t hesitate to contact us on 0113 350 8230 or email us on info@salontracker.co.uk.

Salon Tracker x

Salon Trackers Christmas coaching on how to make the most out of your salon this season!

I am certain you are all aware that nerve-racking November is already upon us and with Christmas just around the corner, there isn’t any more time to waste when it comes to getting your salon out there!


Not to worry, Salon Tracker has some festive favourites lined up on how to keep your Salon successful this season and ahead of your dreaded competitors - all you need to do is take it in and put it into action.


What you need to grasp first is that this Month will almost definitely be the busiest time of the year for your Salon, therefore trying to attain more customers isn’t what you need right now. Instead, focus on the following 5 important things:


1. Before a client leaves after their appointment, try and encourage rebooking of appointments to help see your Salon through the New Year.

2. Make sure you have an effective reward scheme in place for your loyal customers to encourage customer retention.

3. Try to boost the product sales, really encourage customers to purchase the products you have used on them by upselling the benefits.

4. Increase the price of your services only a smidge whilst holding offers such as “book an appointment 5 times and receive your 5th free” which will also help you out in the very dry January of the New Year.

5. Raise your brand image locally – encourage customers to feedback using social media services and to tell their friends about the salon which would be enforced with a reward scheme as I mentioned above.


Now you have an idea of what you need to focus on in terms of Marketing your Salon, I’m going to give you an insight as to what you can do on a personal level to really give your Salon the vibe that your customers cannot stop talking about this Christmas…


Modernise


Keep up with the fast growing rate of technology. Bring “festive selfies” into your salon, engage with your customers and make them feel welcome. Not only that, but the results are everlasting.As your clients begin to post their selfies all over social media, potential newcomers will get a real taste for your Salon and make it their New Year’s Resolution to get involved with your Salon – something to make those January blues roll into fly-by February! All that’s required is a few pa-rum-pa-pum-pum props to set the scene for the ideal selfie and to create the perfect ambience for you and your clients.



Festive feels

Your Salon will be rammed over the next couple of months and although your main focus may be managing your clientele and fulfilling the high demand of your customers, you need to make sure that yours and your employees smile is just as bright as the stars on Christmas night. Ensure that each and every customer is more than satisfied with their treatment and politely encourage them to write reviews on Facebook and your other social media outlets. Remember, customers are extremely dependant on the opinions of others before they even consider trying a new Salon; hence the reason why you need to be prominent in making sure your level of service is through the roof and consistency is key when inspiring your customers to write reviews. Maybe come up with a reward scheme when a client recommends you to one of their friends, or a percentage off when a client writes a review 24 hours after their appointment. All of which will help your salon come out glowing into the quiet new year.



On the first day of Christmas my salon gave to me…

I know you may be thinking “we’ll make enough profit this season to take us through the new year” but you’re wrong! Yes, your sales may well be sky high over the next couple of months but that doesn’t give you the opportunity to take a seat on the bus of salons that are plummeting into failure in January 2018.









You need to be an innovate forward thinker. Do your research. Always be a step ahead of your competitors and most importantly, reward your customers! Don’t let your clients leave without a reason to come back in the New Year. There’s the standard discount off in January and book an appointment in January before you leave and get a free product etc… or you could create a fun, festive vibe and do a raffle with multiple different prizes (treatments at the salon) – either or will work! Loyalty cards are an essential thing to have to ensure customer retention.


Give your Salon’s season’s greetings with an essential merry playlist


A play list is such an important tool to have in any salon, especially a festive one at Christmas time. A bit of jolly festive, music on a dull winters day will boost anyone’s mood; and it will potentially increase your salons sales! Read more about this at: http://ow.ly/NOVM30fgBjl. Take some time out to consider which songs should go in the play list. I suggest you have about 3-4 different playlists to stop your staff from going a little insane…



Free, quick & simple yet so effective merry marketing tips


Christmas doesn’t have to be as expensive you think it’s going to be. Use the answer machine on your salon telephone as a way of promoting your Christmas bargains. Change the standard print out receipts on your till to festive ones where you can also promote your festive motions. Use the outlook of your salon as a festive poster display. This will encourage your local customers to venture inside.


And that’s a wrap…ed up present from us at Salon Tracker to you. Have a lovely Christmas!






Salon Tracker x

Feature of the Month – Salon Insights

Following our last feature of the month we thought to continue to write about a feature that you perhaps didn’t know about.Therefore, this month we are introducing Salon Insights, a feature that has been around for a while and we thought to remind you of its advantages. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it is basically an all-round analytics tool that helps you keep track of sales, performances indicators and growth of your salon throughout the year. It is the perfect tool to find out when your busy periods are and what months are quieter. This not only helps you to plan accordingly to any busy periods but also helps to think about promotions when you have quieter periods. Salon Insights can be accessed on a PC or mobile device and is a beneficial way to stay in control of the salon, especially if there should be a time when you cannot be present to oversee everything.

But what exactly is Salon Insights? 

Salon Insights is powered by Microsoft Power B.I and has the ability to view important information about your business including sales projection charts. 

How does it work? 

Microsoft Power BI powers Salon Insights, which is a suite of business analytics tools that deliver insights of your salon. Meaning, you can connect to hundreds of data sources and simplify data. The tool produces reports, then publish them for your salon to view on the web and across mobile devices.

How does it work for your business?

Salon Insights is more than just your advanced business reports. It analyses information in more detail and provides graphical charts that you can customise to meet your needs. 
The feature provides salons with a range of dashboards, allowing you to view extensive stats visually through different graphical displays. This makes it easy to measure salon performance, which can be tracked against retail trends in peak periods, for example Christmas, school holidays and wedding season. These are just one of the obvious stats that are available, but there are some pretty cool settings that lets you even measure heat maps to conduct information on how the weather can effect your business as well.

The great thing is that once you have collected some data, whether it be a few months or a year, you can then compare your performance of previous months/years and see how your Salon is performing.

(Salon Insights compares customer data to the previous year to measure progress)

Salon Insights feature can be accessed through an app on your smartphone or tablet, making it accessible 24/7 anywhere, at any time as long as there is an internet connection. When you are at home the feature can be accessed on any PC and Laptop as well. This is particularly beneficial for multi-site salon owners as they can select to view stats and performances for specific sites without needing to be present at that location or logged in the Salon Tracker system. Even if you don't own multiple businesses this feature is still beneficial to keep track of performance and growth of your business.  

Now that we gave you a little overview of the features you can see for yourself that it is extremely worthwhile for all any business. If you combine our software with Salon Insights you can organise and evaluate large volumes of data, quickly and accurately. The tool will process these results in graphs that are simple to extract data from and plan accordingly to these results.

Salon Insight is available on our Enterprise package. If you would like to find out how this can benefit your salon then get in touch with us via phone or email. Our sales team is available during regular office hours Mon-Fri for any questions.



Salon Tracker x

The 6-week Christmas Countdown is officially on! Here’s how to keep your Salon spirits high in the process:

If you’re unsure as to where the year has gone, and how we ended up in November with only 6 weeks left until Christmas day, then good. We’re in the same boat. Now you’re on board… I’m going to fill you in with 6 ideas’ (one for every week we have left) as to how you can keep not only your clients happy, but your staff as well.

Your elves

I think I’m right when I say, without your staff, your salon would be unmanageable, right? Your staff are working hard to maximise your sales and make your clients happy day in day out therefore they deserve a little bit of a treat, especially in the midst of a busy Christmas. What to do? STAFF NIGHT OUT! A Christmas night out with all your team is essential this Christmas. It gives your staff something to look forward to and keeps them motivated. The next time they have that ‘mid-day meltdown crisis’, they’ll soon forget as they look ahead to their night out. Whether it be a meal, drinks or bowling, your team get the opportunity to know each other outside of work and therefore allows them to work well in a team inside of the Salon. Beneficial for everyone! If you haven’t got yours booked yet, book it soon and let your staff know to give them that boost they need before your salon sales boom.

Advent calendars

Now we all love a good advent calendar. The joy of waking up on a December morning to a scrumptious chocolate gets us all a bit giddy for the big day. So why don’t you make your staff giddy to come to work? Go out and buy them their favourite brand advent calendar or get creative and make your own! Surprise them with it on the 1^st Dec. This gives the perfect personal touch, making your staff feel appreciated and the results will show!

Not only is it a good idea to get your staff an advent calendar, but why not have one for your loyal clients too? Now we can’t have our expectations too high and expect them to come every day of advent… but a little treat every time they visit in December is definitely something to consider. It doesn’t have to be chocolate. It could be a range of things, like 10% off all treatments or buy one retail product and get another half price. All of which will not only encourage your customers to revisit but also boost your salon profits, entitling you to a Merry little Christmas.

Deck the halls

Nobody wants to walk into a miserable salon, especially at Christmas time. Your salon needs a festive makeover. I know you might be thinking there’s too much to do in such little time but there are ways you can make it easier for yourself. For instance, why don’t you delegate the decorating of the salon to a keen staff member? Give them an affordable budget, a few inspo pics and a realistic deadline and that’s your Christmas décor covered!

Top tip: Pinterest is full of amazing inspo pics for your Salon décor!

Secret Santa

Plan a secret Santa. Discuss with your staff and decide on a theme and budget. Then put all of your staff names (including yourself) into a Santa hat and allow each staff member to pick a name out with their eyes closed. They mustn’t reveal the person they picked out to anybody or go over the budget. Secret Santa is a way to let your staff have fun and bond as a team but also remain motivated as they have something to look forward too at the end of the busy period!

What wait time?

We understand that sometimes appointments run over, which can leave your other clients frustrated when they have to sit reading magazines they’ve already read 5 times because the client in front of them was late to their appointment… again! So why not make the waiting room a place where your customer’s actually want to wait? Place bowls of sweet treats for them to enjoy along with complimentary drinks and in date magazines. A TV is also a nice touch and the sofas have to be comfy. These simple niceties will make your salon the talk of the town and make your appointments run so much smoother!

Santa’s social media sleigh

I know it’s Christmas, but a silent night on your social media this Christmas is the last thing we want! Aim to post on each hub at least once a day, more if you can. And I bet you’re wondering “what am I supposed to post about so often?” and “how am I going to find the time?” well we’ve got the answers.

In terms of your posts, you can market your festive offers but try not to make this your only post. Tips, blog post links, competitions, quotes which your audience can relate too and behind the scenes pics are always a hit. By doing this, your clients can relate to you and will find themselves looking for your posts because they enjoy them so much. It’ll also increase your brand name and attract more clients!

Time? Yes, you may think that posting every single day is going to take a substantial amount of time out of a busy day running up to Christmas but I’m going to let you in on a little secret… Hootsuite is an amazing social media management system that allows you to schedule your posts way ahead of you. You can plan to sit down once a week and organise your posts with Hootsuite and have them all done in less than an hour. One perfect way that you can stress less this Christmas!

And that's a wrap! Only 6 weeks to go 🎅😆

So here’s to the start of a jolly Christmas! 🥂

Salon Tracker x

Why it is essential that you take part in this year's Black Friday!

Normally, November starts the countdown to advent but no, not anymore. November = Black Friday and our reduced Christmas gifts for friends & family (and a few treats for us while we’re at it)!

From what I can remember, Black Friday has only seemed mega-popular in the UK over the past 3, 4 years or so. It was always massive in America, but it’s so great for UK business now that we have jumped on the band-wagon too!

According to consumer experts, Brits alone spent over £1.5 billion on Black Friday, and over £5 billion in total across surrounding days until Cyber Monday *(Cyber Monday is always the Monday that follows Black Friday). With the sales generated last year equating to £2.3 million per minute *, Black Friday is an event that every business must capitalise on, as if you don’t your consumers may wonder what’s going on and will definitely visit your competitors!

The best thing about Black Friday however is, the majority of businesses all run similar deals, therefore you’re not in competition about price. You’re instead battling it out for the best quality product, where your clients will feel that they have got their best Black Friday deal.

I know in a lot of our previous posts we don’t normally advise running big discounts, however this event is an exception! As the whole nation seems to go in to promo-mode, you’d be at a disadvantage if you didn’t discount also. Typically, from my visits to the high street across the Black Friday weekend, most companies offer 20-30% off their usual RRP. Therefore, you have to let it be known that you are participating in the event and also the offers that you are going to be running as you are up against the mass market.

So, what can you do to get the best out of Black Friday and still make a profit?

Weigh up what your trade costs will be against the retail price with your discount. Also, what are your best sellers? If you know that a particular service of yours sells extremely well all year round, a smaller discount on this treatment, for example 10%, will still be attractive to your customers as likelihood is they will have purchased this normally anyway. Then look at your slower selling lines and maybe advertise these with a larger discount to make them more attractive to your clients. However, when looking at your trade prices make sure that when you are running a discount, you are still making a slight profit for yourself. As at the end of the day, this is always the end goal with all promotional events. And obviously the more of each service you sell, the better that profit is going to be anyway.

Now, let’s discuss your retail products. A nice stat for the health and beauty industry – a massive 28% of the total sales generated last Black Friday were in the Cosmetics & Perfume centre. * Not to mention, 63% of purchases were identified as ‘gifts for others’ – in which this means that this % could be even higher for all those sales that weren’t specifically accounted for as gifts. * So, what a perfect time to club together some of your retail products and create ‘Christmas Hampers’? Work out the RRP for each individual product, add all these together and then decide on an overall % discount to sell the bundle at. This way, you’re not discounting individual products, you’re instead offering a range of products for slightly cheaper (but the client doesn’t have to know this) and also this is usually the case generally with multi-packs anyway. This way, you are guaranteed to make a better profit than if you were to discount each individual product separately. However, if you have a few single products that won’t fit the Xmas bundle, then it’s up to you whether you want to put an offer on these, or tie them in as freebies with a treatment depending on the original cost of that.

What else can you do to make a bit of extra Christmas cash?

We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so simple and such a good little money-maker for you. And this is the Christmas gift wrapping service. This doesn’t just have to be applicable on Black Friday either, you can use this over the whole Xmas period. For all the little gift-bundles or retail products that you are selling, offer a gift-wrapping service for £1.50? By doing this you could even then use this as an extra on Black Friday and throw it in FREE for that day? Another little idea is to get a local charity involved, and for every gift-wrapping service someone purchases, you could offer (X) amount of the cost to donate to your chosen charity? This also builds on your brand’s credibility, as people can share this across social media - and especially around Christmas time whilst people are in a festive mood they are extremely likely to help in your fundraising!

How can you let everyone know you are taking part and where do you promote it?

The easy one, Social Media. The Black Friday hashtag will be one of the most popular and commonly used hashtags across that weekend and the good thing about posting on your social pages is that it is the most cost effective. However, studies go to show that a text or email on the day before or on the actual day of Black Friday work extremely well. This is because the open rate is much higher than the rest of the year round as people check their inboxes expecting to see all the retailer offers. * So, a mailshot or SMS to your client base is essential. Banners and decals in your shop window are also a great tool, as this can attract walk-in clients from the street if they happen to see your advert as they are passing by.

When do you run your offers?

Obviously on the day, but many businesses run their deals across the whole weekend, where the Monday following Black Friday is called ‘Cyber Monday’ and is said to be the biggest day for online deals! Great if you have an online store at the salon. However, a lot of businesses go into early promotion on the Thursday night before the event, especially if they have an online portal to be able to advertise.

Good luck!! We hope this Black Friday is your most successful yet!
(p.s keep an eye out over on our blog over the next couple of weeks to see what promotions we're offering you this Black Friday)

Salon Tracker x

*Stats from Centre for Retail Research & Retail Week

How to get the most out of your software

Christmas is just around the corner and many salons are already filling up their appointment books rapidly. Understandably, you want things going as smoothly as possible during this busy period and being prepared is just one of the measures you should take.
Working with software, especially Salon Tracker is designed to make your life easier and manage your salon through every period of the year. No need for pen and paper anymore, as you now have everything electronically available. Good advice is always helpful when your head is full of other important bits to keep track off.

Therefore, we have complied some tips on how to get the most out of your software in the lead up to Christmas.

Planning: Having an action plan in mind is not necessarily something you only do once when you open your business. This should be evaluated now and then and always be adapted to how the business is changing. For example, if it’s going slow then you can adapt to more aggressive marketing techniques. It can be a good habit for managers or salon owners towards the end of the year to sit down and evaluate the last month’s performances. Not only will this provide valuable information on your business, but also help create a marketing strategy to push sales further.

Here at Salon Tracker we have created a new feature called ‘Salon Insight’ and it basically does all the hard work for you. If you want to find out more about Salon Insights we're happy to answer all of your questions. But let me tell you it makes marketing and creating an action plan dead easy. Creating good habits now will help you in the long run. Establishing a good routine while using the software can help you keep track of things better and manage the salon more professionally. 

Features: At Salon Tracker we constantly develop our features based on our customer’s needs. Therefore, over this past year we have developed a variety of features that make using the system even easier. Our latest features include adjustable appointment times and prices. This is especially designed for hairdressers and beauty salons and will be ready on the system in a few weeks.

However, you can also take advantage of what’s already on the system. Did you know that our software is designed to meet your needs. Plenty of things are customisable such as booking columns, financial reports and marketing features. As no system fits all salons, we have created a way that caters for different types of salon, such as hair, beauty and tanning.

Tanning: Speaking of tanning, we are the only UK software provider that caters for all your tanning needs. Meaning, we offer advanced tanning features and timer integration. Many people still want to keep their summer glow during the winter months and it is important to keep up tanning safety during those months as well. Our system can work with pin codes or a fingerprint reader to ensure people don’t use someone else’s account. Furthermore, you can enable warnings and shutdowns of the system if a customer doesn’t meet certain tanning criteria, like being over 18 or tanning too much within a 24 h period.

As you can see it depends what sort of business you have, the features that are an advantage to you. Even if your salon caters for all things hair, beauty and tanning, the software is still great as you can keep the business under control from one solution.


Finance/ROI: Our reports are great to keep track of your financial site as well as how your business is performing. Combined with the marketing tool you can then tackle weak spots. Helping to grow your business even further. This is perfect for the upcoming Christmas period and especially the new year.

Run through the filters and play around. This already will give you plenty of insights such as important customer characteristics. This is pretty helpful in 2 ways. Firstly to find out important information about your customers spending habits and secondly to encourage them to rebook or remind them about activities. Using custom text messages will make the experience personalised and the customer feels valued.


Support/Training: Take advantage of our free support and training. We are also currently working on videos that will soon be available on the system demonstrating common features and settings. If it’s there and it’s free by all means get your use out of it. 

Our team is always happy to help with your questions and queries. Require additional training for you or your staff members? We can schedule individual sessions that will go through the software in depth and can last from 10-45 mins or even longer if it's needed. Most of our customers benefit from a step by step tutorial where they can ask all relevant questions.



As always if you have any questions or need assistance let one of our team members know and we’d be happy to help.


Salon Tracker x

How your Salon can help Children in Need this year!

Children in Need is right around the corner again! Here at Salon Tracker we want to help in any way possible, and I’m hoping you do too. Your salon is the perfect place to raise some money for Children in Need this year, but it’s all down to the planning and preparation that you put in. There’s no need to panic though, we’ve mustered up some of our best ideas for you to run in your salon!

Raffles

One of the best ways to get your customers involved would be by setting up some kind of raffle, give people that extra incentive for making their donation. Maybe you could offer out a free treatment to those who win, or a free voucher worth x amount. You could even use our SMS marketing feature to send out an SMS message to everyone that participated, thanking them for their donation, so make sure you take down any contact details for the customers that contribute towards the cause.

Bake Sale

One of the most stereotypical methods to raising money for charity is a bake sale, but if it works, it works! Get your staff involved, ask them to bring in some cakes, biscuits, flapjacks, anything that tastes good really! I’m sure your customers would love a little snack during their treatment with a nice cup of tea or coffee. It’s also a great opportunity to give your clients some extra information about the campaign, and why they should join in.

Dress Up

Get people talking about your salon by getting all of your staff to dress up, you can be as imaginative as you want! Be sure to let your customers know why you are dressing up, as this could persuade them to leave a donation. It doesn’t even have to be anything over the top, you could just all wear something yellow for a period of time, or maybe just get wear ‘Pudsey’ ears. Anything to make your customers think “why on earth are they wearing that???” as this gives you the chance to give them an insight into the cause, and hopefully encourage them into make a donation.

Old pound coins

As I’m sure most of you know, the old pound coin has now expired, meaning that you can’t spend them anymore. Well, I have some good news for you! Children in Need are still collecting the old pound coins this year, so why not ask your customers if they happen to have any old ones lying around in the bottom of their bag, I mean, it’s not like they can use them anywhere else!

Get involved
Don't be afraid to really get in the spirit of the charity event. Create a special offer on "Pudsey themed" nails. Donate a percentage of the profits to Children in Need and make sure its well promoted and your customers know about it. Your salon should aim to be as involved and interactive as possible! 

Social media

With all this effort that you’ve put into your planning and preparation, I’m sure you are wanting to raise a lot of money, for one of the best causes. This is where your social media pages come into effect, you need to make sure that you are posting across all of your social media pages so that your customers are aware about the work you are doing. Not only does this benefit the charity itself, but it also benefits your salons reputation. Everyone’s a winner! Especially if you’re offering some sort of incentive with every donation, as this could be the difference between a client visiting your salon or not, and helping you raise some more money. You know what they say, every little helps!

These are just a few ideas that you can use this year to help donate Children in Need. It’s fast approaching so if you’re going to make a real effort this year then you better get planning now, it will be here before you know it! On the Children in Need website you can find plenty more resources which can be very helpful towards your fundraising - http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/childreninneed.

Just in case you didn’t know the Children in Need appeal show is on the 17^th of November this year, and as always will be on BBC One, so make sure you tune in!

Salon Tracker

Feature of the month - Hidden Features that you perhaps didn’t know about!

For those of you that regularly follow our social media and news page, you’ll be aware that we are exhibiting this weekend at Professional Beauty North! Quick reminder also…if you haven’t got your ticket yet, you can bag yourselves a free one using our link here:

https://registration.n200.com/survey/364r05ev8wm44?actioncode=NTWO000123RTD

So in prep for the show, we thought we’d dedicate our ‘Feature for October’ to some of our hidden features that perhaps aren’t as obvious to the user, yet are extremely beneficial! Below I’ve discussed a few features that can really help you to organise your salon whilst maintaining maximum control over it.


Admin Permissions

How many of you have our pro or enterprise packages but are unaware of all the admin features? Well, let me go on to explain…

For those of you who employ over 2 staff, you probably have a hierarchical staffing structure for your team members; be this staff, to team leader, to management, to senior manager etc. - you get the drift. And it may be obvious that you don’t want all employees being able to view all areas of the system, so for example you may want to hide your company sales & profits reports but might still want staff running an end of day check for you.

Our permissions allow you to tailor your software logins per each employee group, or by particular staff member. So for example, you can hide all company reports from employees that have a ‘staff user level’ and also remove the discount button for everyone except management, to protect your business from being subject to staff giving friends un-approved discounts.


Customer Groups 

Leading on from the removal of the discount button, you may now be thinking ‘how do my staff manage discounts when yourself or management aren’t around?’

Another hidden but very beneficial feature is the customer grouping, again configurable on the site-admin permissions. You can create a particular group, so for example we’ll use ‘student discount’. It is then up to the salon owner to decide what the % discount would be for retail and for bookable services and then any customers that are added to this group will receive auto-discounts on all purchases - but the system won’t make it obvious. Customers can be added to the relevant group upon registration and this can also be done by your staff-level employees if you wish as they will only be able to see the name of the customer group and not the discounts associated with it. You can then use this same grouping feature to give your employees discounts as well.


Happy Hour Services

Many of you will probably take advantage of our sales by hour and sales by week reports, to identify when your quiet or peak times are for purchases/appointments. But, how many of you then use this information strategically to plan offers and discounts around these particular identifications?

Say for example, you notice on the report that between 1 & 2pm most weekdays, you see a bit of a lull and the salon generally has a few gaps. Our happy hour feature allows you to create particular offers to be able to run automatic discounts on certain products/services for that 1 hour per day. These are setup by the salon owner so that you don’t need to have staff or managers doing manual discounts, the system will operate this for you in the background so it is all organised and efficient. A great way to improve custom and boost those profits in times that otherwise may remain quiet!


Hierarchical Pricing

How many of you price differently per sunbed brand? Or for example your junior & senior therapists. There is a very organised way to run these discounts via our groupings tool, however you may not know that this exists and I imagine a lot of you have all of your services in one long list, correct?

It is quite long-winded to get your head around but trust me, once you have cracked it, it will make organizing your service prices so much easier and also, it eliminates the chance of human error. As once you have created all of your different services and their prices, for example junior hair services - you then associate these services with that therapist level, so in this case with Junior Stylist. This means that when your staff members come to select the service under one of your Junior Therapists, only the junior services will be there to select and therefore they won’t accidentally select a senior price and overcharge the client. For any of you that think that setting up these groups will help you, please give us a call and one of our lovely sales team will be able to assist you with this!


Alerts

Many of you will use the client ‘notes’ section on their record card to note-down dates of their last patch test, allergic reactions, usual colours/tints or just for general information for reference of that customer. However, did you know that if you simply put ‘ALERT:’ before some important information in the notes box, this will then flag that information up in a highlighted red box on the screen each time you click on that customer’s client card. So for example, if it is allergy information that you want to clearly notify all staff members of, this will flash up on the screen boldly when they book that customer in for a treatment, giving you peace of mind that all employees are made-aware.


So how many of you didn’t know about these little gems? Each of those features are so useful to have in your salon and really help to keep the running of it secure and efficient. If you feel you’d like a bit of extra training on those, please get in contact with us and let us help you to tailor this exactly to your salon requirements. Find our contact deets below:

info@salontracker.co.uk
Sales & Marketing - 0113 350 8230

And also, another reminder (we did mention at the top but in case you’ve got lost in the blog) here’s the link for FREE PB North tickets this weekend! Be sure to visit us at stand #E84 for some goodies and more helpful salon tips.


https://registration.n200.com/survey/364r05ev8wm44?actioncode=NTWO000123RTD


Look forward to seeing you there!


Salon Tracker x

The perfect spell to make your salon sales soar this Halloween

As we get into the month of October, there’s only one thing that’s on every salon owner and workers mind, Halloween. This and how their salon is going to take advantage of the guaranteed Halloween rush. Here at Salon Tracker we have come up with a few tips and tricks for you salon owners to take full advantage of to market your salon properly in order to have a happy Halloween rather than a horrifying one!

Spooky Social media 

The first thing we recommend (and probably the most obvious) is to use social media. Make your customers and followers excited about Halloween and use sites such as Instagram to promote your incredible work from previous years. Advertise all your deals on social media outlets; put your salon out there! Start off your Halloween posts well in advance to give your customers chance to make a booking before you get fully booked, we recommend you start the advertising at the beginning of October or the end of September for the best results.

Deadly Deals 

We also recommend you advertise deals and promotions for Halloween. For example, a ‘bring a friend’ scheme which includes 2 friends coming in for a Halloween look, and only paying for one. From this, not only are you attracting more people to make use of this deal and therefore selling more, but you are also attracting a wider client audience as one of your clients brings a friend with them, their friend could potentially become your regular client. You could also advertise things such as ‘pay for a Halloween makeup look and get eyelashes free' which is a bargain and as well as your current clients booking this,  you will also find (if you advertise the deal effectively) that new customers will be choosing your salon over your competitors. Something which is not only beneficial in the short-term but also beneficial in the long-term as you have attracted new customers to bring regular profit to the salon. And these are only a couple of our sales ingredients to add to your cauldron to create the perfect recipe for a Happy Halloween. 

Trick or treat!

It would be offensive to the Halloween season if you didn't have a plastic pumpkin filled with spooky sweets in your salon. Better yet, why don't you add some print out vouchers/deals such as 'visit again in November and get 30% off all treatments' or '20% off all hair and beauty products if purchased today'. Not only does this sales feature add to the spirit of Halloween and makes your customers feel welcome, but it will also encourage sales in the Salon and make the spirit a lot brighter than the Autumn weather! 

Loyalty cards

The final thing we here at Salon tracker recommend is when new clients come for their Halloween looks, (trust us there will be loads) offer them a loyalty card or discount off their next treatment or appointment as this will then encourage them to revisit your salon throughout the year, not just at Halloween. This will then increase the amount of paying customers you have throughout the year and not just a these peak times and holidays. Making your salon a spooking success! 

Inside of your spine-chilling salon

You're all well and good offering special Halloween offers but what use is a Halloween offer without the Halloween spirit?! Go all out on the decorations this Month. Make your customers want to come inside with your inviting display. Posters, cobwebs, witches, broomsticks, skeletons... anything is better than nothing.

Make one of your employee's head of Halloween so they can take full charge of the display and give you one less thing to worry about. Halloween is the perfect time to remind your clients that Christmas is near around the corner and start taking bookings now. 

A freaky photo booth is something to consider. Something like a before an after picture where the client can show off their new hair cut, nails or makeup look which is not only rewarding for them but also shows off your salons skills and services.

So maybe Halloween isn't as scary as you thought and I'm hopeful that the thought of it no longer gives you the chills! For the run up to Halloween, I have included some of our favorite looks that we found on pinterest which may be perfect for your clients!

Salon Tracker x