How to look your best at a festival on a tight budget

It is finally peak festival Season - what you’ve all been waiting for since approximately… the end of last festival season! As you’re all aware of the remarkable summer we’ve had so far, I’m sure you’re even more aware of the damage it has done to the majority of the UK’s bank accounts. Football at the pub 4 times a week, holidays, takeaways - because it’s just far too hot to cook in this weather. Am I right? But unfortunately, the footballs off, we’re coming to the end of a sun-filled summer and it’s time to start focusing on our future festivals. Only now, you’re on a strict budget.

Don’t worry, I’ve got you sorted as I’ve hunted some of the best festival-look bargains there is on the internet, and you’re going to love them.

Boohoo £18

First things first, after the longest and sunniest summer in a while, you should probably expect the worst of the weather and prepare. A waterproof mac would be an essential, and it doesn’t need to dull your sparkle either - this one will bring sparkle to your look. This Glitter Trim Clear Mac from boohoo comes in two different glitter colours (silver and pink) and not only protects you from the rain but is see-through so your funky festival outfit isn’t hidden away. For just £18, it’s Perfect! Click http://www.boohoo.com/glitter-trim-clearmac/DZZ28208.html?color=364 to shop.  

Boohoo £35

This dazzling two-piece also from boohoo is a knockout! At only £35, what isn’t to love? It falls perfectly with the festival trend of 2018 – sequins, glitter and all things shimmer. Best of all you won’t need much to accompany the outfit otherwise you’ll over-crowd it. Maybe a simple choker and some black trainers will do the job. Click http://www.boohoo.com/paris-hilton-multi-sequin-bralet-short-co-ord/DZZ58701.html to shop. You’ll find boohoo is very discount friendly, students, random 20%-30% off everything sales – so keep any eye out! 

Missguided £28

These eye-catching yet simple shorts from misguided bring out the “less is more” effect. Paired with a plain tee or halter-neck top, it is the perfect find for your festival. At only £28, it would be rude not too. Click https://www.missguided.co.uk/tall-rose-gold-sequin-shorts-10101334 to shop. Misguided also welcome discounts, currently offering 20% student discount and free UK next day delivery, bargain!

I saw it first £30

This is one we are absolutely loving! These extremely sassy fringed trousers from I saw it first are definitely in. With the level of detail, they look to be an expensive pair of trousers, but priced at just £30, they are a real bargain. Paired with the matching boob-tube crop top is idyllic but mix and matching wouldn’t go a miss either. To shop, click https://www.isawitfirst.com/collections/festival-shop/products/lace-fringe-trousers-white-jl23554#. I saw it first know how to give the discount, currently offering 50% off everything, making these trousers just £15. Grab them whilst you can!

Misspap £20

These funky trousers from misspap are just one of the pairs we love from there. They sell around 10 different pairs each with the same style with a different pattern. They’re more than suited to festivals, giving you that hip-chick look and they’re only priced at £20, currently with 25% off making them just £15! You may as well treat yourself to a few pairs... Click https://www.misspap.co.uk/isabel-mustard-snake-print-flared-trousers/ to shop. Another online shop which welcomes discounts, currently offering 99p next day delivery!

Pretty little thing £35

This pastel blue fringed playsuit from pretty little thing is giving us all the feels; it comes in 5 different colours and is priced at just £35! The open tie back accompanies the suit perfectly making it an amazing outfit for festivals. To shop click https://www.prettylittlething.com/powder-blue-tassel-  playsuit.html and have a peak at the sale too!

So that’s it for our top 6 festival purchases, although I could go on and on… I hope you’ve found the bargain you were looking for. We look forward to hearing all about your festival shenanigans, we hope you have an amazing time!

Salon Tracker x

5 Things You Didn't Know About Salon Tracker

We had too much choice for our feature of the month for this month so we have decided to mash 5 of the most unknown, amazing features that Salon Tracker has to offer.

Drag calendar to add break

Most of you with Salon Tracker will know that within each of your staff members in the management section you can add breaks and holidays. But if you’re wanting to quickly add a break for one of your staff members all you need to do is drag across the time that you want to put a break in. With the method you can only add in a one-time break, so if one of your staff members has a doctor’s appointment or has rung in sick then you can quickly and easily add a break in.

Reviews

Every salon owner wants glistening 5-star reviews about their salon, and I’m guessing that’s the same with you. Most reviews now are found on the likes of Facebook and Google, meaning that any potential customers will be able to see straight away what other people think of your salon. With Salon Tracker there is a great feature that many of our customers don’t actually know about, and that is sending out a review SMS to your customers a certain number of days after their appointment. Reviews management can be found in the marketing section of the software, and then under the reviews tab. The SMS is completely custom and you will be able to include a link to where you want your customers to write a review for your salon. For example, you could have something like this:

Hi <<Forename>>,

Thank you for visiting! If you have any spare time please would you fill out a review on our Facebook page: https://bit.ly/2utFf5Y

The software will automatically put the customers name in if you include the <<Forename>> code, as it will be able to pull this from your data. This just makes it a bit more personal to the customer, as you can see in the example image it is directed towards Fiona. The customer will then just be able to click straight from the link to where you want them to leave a review

 You may need to shorten down the link to your website, as it could mean that you SMS will send out as two messages if it is too long, you can do this on https://bitly.com/.

Course Sharing

I know that many tanning salons allow customers to share their courses with other customers, and this is a feature that we have implemented into Salon Tracker. In order to turn this feature on you will need to go into the admin section of the system, and then into settings, here you will be able to turn on the feature. Now when a customer buys a course you will be able share it with another customer that you have in your client list. So, for example, if one of them comes into the salon and uses minutes they will be deducted from both the clients who are sharing the course.

Buying a retail product when a customer already has purchased sunbed minutes

This is a feature that many of our customers don’t know about, and I often find myself showing customers about this as it is so useful and makes the process much quicker, which is great for when you’ve got those long queues going out of your door! If a customer has already bought sunbed minutes, however when they’ve come into your shop they have decided that they also want to buy a bottle or sachet from your retail products, all you need to do it put them on the bed as normal but before you deduct how many minutes they want to use click on the buy button on the left side. By buying a retail product this way instead of through the buy product method, it will take you straight back to putting the customer on the sunbed, instead of you buying the product and then having to go to the bookings screen and out them on the sunbed.

Staff Rota

This is a relatively new feature of ours, but its one that quite a few of our customers are already using. In a lot of salons, the staff are working different hours each week, and with the rota it allows you to plan ahead and make sure that the hours your staff are working for are entered ahead of that week so you can start inputting any bookings. This is also a great thing if you have our online enterprise package as this will ensure that customers aren’t booking during times that a staff member isn’t working, which saves you the hassle of contacting them to rearrange the appointment! You can have as many upcoming weeks as you want. To get this feature turned on you will need to call our support number which is 0113 350 8232, it should only take around 5 minutes!

This might seem like a lot of information at once if you weren’t aware of these features, so if you have any questions about these features or need any training regarding them don’t hesitate to contact us on 0113 350 8230 or email us on info@salontracker.co.uk. 

Salon Tracker x

How to get the perfect work-life balance in your busiest months

I know that being a Salon owner is tough work, especially over the Summer. And i'm probably right in guessing that the image on the left is much more relatable than you thought? You get carried away and end up spending 23 hours a day working instead of setting aside valuable time to relax, socialise and do the things you love.Now is the prime time to turn it around and start enjoying work whilst enjoying catching up with friends and taking up hobbies all at the same time.

How can it benefit you? The list is endless:

· It can lead to increased productivity when you are in work

· A happier environment to work in – a stress free zone!

· A better physical and mental health

· You’ll stop missing out on the good stuff

· Going to work will no longer feel like a chore

· The Salon will blossom with the extra care and time you put into it

Want to get started? Keep on reading!

Team work
As a Salon Owner, you’re a lone wolf unless you take it upon yourself to hire a reasonable number of stylists, receptionists and an important Salon Manger – who is also known as your very own side-kick. If you’re reading this and thinking no, no and no then this is a step you need to take and you need to take it now. Although doing everything on your own may seem a cheap, easy option, you’ll find that the more staff you have, the easier it is to cope and manage a social life at the same time. Something you should take into account is that if you struggle to find cover when one of your staff members is on holiday, you are more than likely short-staffed and may want to consider employing more people part-time. Employing a Salon Manager or promoting a staff member to Salon Manager will take the weight (well, a good amount of it) right off your shoulders. They should be capable of running the Salon entirely without any struggle even if you’re away for 2 weeks. No calls, no texts/emails, not a peep. This way you can arrange days out, holidays and chilled nights in without worrying about what’s going on in the Salon and whether there are any problems. Easy!

Another easy option (if you haven’t already) is implement our software!

Salon Tracker can save you heaps of time, taking control of all them time-consuming tasks you dread doing whilst also increasing your footfall - as proven from the feedback received from our lovely clients.

“Salon Tracker has made day to day salon tasks a lot simpler and we are a lot more productive because of it.” 

- As quoted from one of our testimonials on our website.

Salon Tracker covers:

· Your marketing – we provide an automatic marketing suite with a range of filters to send texts out to clients with offers and to get them back in the Salon.

· Appointment reminders – no more texting clients individually off your personal mobile

· Online booking – Facebook messages and texts off clients can stop taking over your life as clients can book directly from your website or via your personalised mobile app.

· Stock control – Salon Tracker offer an easily accessible countdown of stock saving you the hassle of counting it and double checking.

Stop being so available! 

I know it’s difficult when you see a text coming through, or an email or call from the Salon. But it is likely this is only happening because you have let it be known to your staff that you will always answer the phone and reply immediately. If you make yourself unavailable, your staff will know not to contact you and will start to become independent allowing you to relax on well-deserved days off. You will soon notice the difference and finally feel like when you leave the Salon you’re leaving it all behind and not just the building. On holiday, log out of your email and only accept emergency calls.

Prioritise your time

If everything’s piled up without you even getting a chance to blink, you’re going to need to prioritise and delegate. Sit down and decide what needs doing first and in what time-frame and share this information with your Salon Manager. Give the manager some tasks and a deadline and give yourself some tasks to complete but schedule them within a specific time frame so you still have the opportunity to go home and eat a cooked tea rather than picking something fast up on the way home.

I should hope that you’re well on your way to approaching your perfect work-life balance by now and can finally enjoy owning your own Salon whilst doing all the things you love.

If you have any questions or would like to give Salon Tracker a try, call 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk to enjoy a free demo and 2-week trial. 

Salon Tracker x

Reviewing your Salon Business for the first half of 2018

Hello, how’s everyone enjoying this gorgeous sunshine?! What an oh so fabulous Summer we’re having! Saying this, how has business been for everyone so far this season? We’ve heard mixed thoughts from our clients, with some saying it’s been so much quieter than the average Summer. However, some have said that this year has been great for up-selling their retail products, as more and more clients are looking for something to lock moisture in to their hair and skin with this dry spell!

Whichever it is for you, either way, we’re already half way through this year already, can you believe that! It’s officially less than 6 months till the next peak season, Christmas! So, this week we wanted to discuss how you can evaluate your last 6 months of business and how you can use this evaluation to plan wisely for the upcoming half of the year!

Now, for a new business or if you have started out in the last 2 years, these 6 monthly checks are absolutely essential, as your business will change more and more in the first couple of years. And also, if your business is going to survive, you need to make sure that you get off to a great start in the first 18 months, for your revenue to be sustainable enough to get you established in the market and to start turning some profit around! Those of you that have been trading a long time, it’s always good to monitor your progress and run business analysis on a regular basis. So, let’s have a look at how you can review the first half of your year and what you can do to ensure that you are just as, or even more successful this next half!


Sales Progress: 

The main one, sales. As they are the sole contribution to your business turnover and of course, your lovely profits – the ultimate aim of the game! So, if you’re a current user of Salon Tracker, we have several sales reports that you can use and run for each month, in order to track your best sales periods and also identify where you may have been quieter. Similarly, we also have sales by day and hour charts, enabling you to analyse these figures even more closely, by looking at which days of the week are your busiest and then also your peak footfall times of those days. If you don’t currently use Salon Tracker, no problem, use your current reporting tools and accountancy software to gather the same monthly sales figures, to give you a rough idea of when you are busy and when you could perhaps use a bit of a sales-boost!

Once you have recognised your peak and quieter times, you can then start to plan appropriate promotional strategies to implement going forward, to ensure you increase footfall during your less busy hours. A method that we have seen that has proven to work for some of our clients is running a: ‘Happy Hour’ or a ‘Bring-a-friend’ campaign. Market these to your clients via SMS or social media and then after say 3 months’ time, run the same monthly reports to marry up whether you are now making more money during those times that you had identified to be quiet. Then, work out how much it has cost you to run that campaign, including the discount you are offering on your usual RRP’s. Then, if the sales revenue outweighs the marketing cost and you can see a positive return, you know that the campaign was worth it!

Retail Sales:

Dig down in to your sales even more. Look at your most popular retail products and see if there is a purchase correlation for these. Excess overstock is one of the biggest wastes in many businesses, as you purchase stock from your suppliers upfront and granted you will get the majority of your retail product at cost price! However, if you fail to sell all of this in a significant period of time, it is then almost a wasted investment. Especially with the way the beauty and hair industry are evolving, there is always something new on the market. So, by evaluating what you have therefore sold in a certain period of time and working out what is it that you have sold the most of, you can then forward plan for your stock purchases in the next 6 months. This is to not only save you money but to improve your storage-management too!

Social Media Following/Engagement:

Facebook is the new Google, especially in the salon and retail industry! It’s just a given now, you must be active on social media in order to become established. We’ve found through research that a lot of salon and retail clients research a company on social media and look at their Facebook reviews before deciding whether to use their services. It is therefore so important that you have an active business profile on social networks and that these are regularly updated, to ensure that your content is always current.

So, how do you track your social media progress? The majority of social networks now have their own analytics reports, with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all having their own insights, where you can track follower rates and your engagement over certain time periods.

And so, similarly to what we have mentioned to do with your sales tracking, it’s the same with your social media. Run the analytics reports for each of your networks, for say the first half of this year, and then do the same for each month of the year too. From this, you can then identify what times of day you got the most engagement, so for example post likes, comments and shares. This information allows you to recognise your popular social media patterns, so you know when you should be posting in the future to get similar, if not better results. Another good insight to look at is your following. So, identify how your social following has grown and whether there is any correlation between your posts and then your follow rate. From this you can determine which times of day and when in the week you should be sharing posts, in order to improve this following even further for the upcoming half of the year. Another good idea would be to request testimonials from some of your loyal clients, as positive and genuine feedback on your social networks also contributes highly to your following and client retention. Your business needs to be transparent on social media, to attract the attention of people that may not have seen you yet. You can then run these same social insights just after Christmas to see whether anything has improved for you!

Measuring Targets:

For those of you that read our blogs regularly, you’ll know that back in Jan we posted a couple of blogs about establishing your salon and also planning for the New year. (You can re-catch those here if you want to refresh your memory >>> https://bit.ly/2CKpsl3 and https://bit.ly/2L89Nk2)
So, now we’re half way through, to refer back to those previous posts; we discussed setting yourself some targets and reviewing these perhaps quarterly, or half-yearly. So, now is the perfect time to review your progress of those! Have you met your targets, or are you any closer to achieving your annual goals? If so, fantastic! However, if you find that you’re a little bit behind where you want to be, use the analysis of your sales to look at peak times to take advantage of and run some fresh marketing campaigns around these time-frames.

Staff: 

Do you have regular reviews with your employees? As much as we discuss tracking your sales, it’s also just as important to see how your staff are getting on, as these are the next most important factor to the success of a business. You can’t generate or manage your sales without your employees and so it is essential for you to ensure that staff are happy and comfortable in their job role. A happy workplace = more motivated staff and this contributes to your sales progress. The more you review your staff, praise and thank them for what is going well, but also give them feedback on areas for improvement; this allows your employees to recognise their value within your workplace. But not only that, it also contributes to improving on their own personal development. If you invest in your team, they will invest in you. Another thing to think about, when was your last team night out? If you haven’t had one in a while, plan your next staff social, as it’s always good to get your team together out of the work environment to boost morale!

We hope that this post will help you to evaluate your recent business performance this year and get you in good stead for the remaining half. However, if there is any other way in which we could help you please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our lovely marketing team, who are always on hand with some top tips for you! Catch them on 0113 350 8230 or at info@salontracker.co.uk. Happy planning and enjoy the rest of your Summer!

Salon Tracker x

When should you post on your social media?

Did you know that there are over 3.196 billion people active on social media! That’s 42% of the world population! Obviously, your main focus would be those in your local area, but social media has all of the tools to ensure that you are approaching your target audience. It is important to make sure that you are posting on a number of different social media platforms, however the time you post could massively impact how well your tweet does and how many people it reaches. There are thousands of articles out there that go into when the best posting times are, but don’t worry you’re going to go to go searching through them all, I’ll do that part for you!

Instagram

There are two factors that can influence the best time to post; the day and the time. From doing some research I found that in the UK the best days to post are on Monday and Thursday, with Sunday being the worst in terms of engagement. The best times to post are between 8-9am, probably because this is when most people are travelling to work and 5pm when a lot of people will be leaving work, surprisingly, 2am is also one of the best times to post 🤷‍️.

Instagram in particular has some great tools out there for businesses that allow you to see what your best posting times are. By making your salon Instagram a business account you will also be able to access these tools, giving you a better idea of when your best posting times are in order to ensure you are receiving a high engagement.

Facebook

Facebook is probably the most used social media platform by salons, its not often hat you will search for a salon and a Facebook page not come up (if you’re reading this as a salon owner and don’t have a Facebook page I would highly recommend making one). In terms of the best posting day for Facebook, Saturday and Sunday have the highest engagement, along with Thursday and Friday also having a relatively high engagement. The best times to post are 9am, 1pm and 3pm, 3pm giving you the most clicks and 1pm giving you the most shares.

Similar to Instagram, Facebook also has analytics allows you to view all of your likes, reach, visits, people – basically it sums up all of the information and data that your page is receiving and puts it into groups and summaries for you. This will allow you to target your posts towards a specific age group or gender, which will further allow you to improve your Facebook posts.

Twitter

For a lot of you I would presume that you don’t have a twitter page for your salon, but for those of you that do the best days to post are on the weekend, with the best times coming at 12pm, 3pm, 5pm and 6pm. The peak time seems to be Wednesday between 5-6pm, again I think this is because this is when many workers are leaving their offices.

By finding out the best posting times for you and your salon, you will be able to increase your engagement, and hopefully this will also result in an increase in customers! Once you figure out the best time for you to post on your social medias you will be able to post your offers during these times to ensure that they receive a higher number impression and reach your target audience. I hope that this will help you improve your social media and increase the engagement and impression you are receiving on your posts.

Salon Tracker x