Children in Need at the salon!

Children in Need is fast approaching and here at Salon Tracker, we aim to help our clients to raise as much money as they can for the event. Salons are a really great place to fund raise because you have a wide accessibility to your target audience. Sometimes half the battle of fundraising is actually deciding what to do, which is where we come in. Below you can find multiple fun campaign ideas that you can run in your salon! Enjoy!

Back to school!

There are mounds of people who seek to learn all things hair and beauty. Is it feasible for you to open your salon for an extra day for one week only to do an expert masterclass? All entry tickets can be charged at £5 for the day with all sales being donated to Children In Need. You can even charge for tea and coffee throughout the day or cupcakes etc with full donations going to Children in Need.

Roll out the red!

If lessons aren’t particularly for you, why not think about hosting an event where you can offer a few activities for your clients to partake in? This could even involve children of your clients by having mini pamper days for them and their friends with treatments such as glitter nails and tootsies, hair cuts, mini facials and mummy and me packages! 

Playing Dress Up!

Add some zest to the event by getting all staff to dress up! With it being Children in Need, you can be as creative as you like. Think pajamas, superheroes, celebrities, animals or eras in history! Make sure you tell all of your clients why you are dressing up. It’s best to hold a sign asking politely for donations so clients do not feel obliged. State the cause and maybe some statistics about how their donation will contribute.

Cake stall

Having a cake stall is a fail-safe idea and a great way to raise extra money throughout the course of the day. If you ask staff and family friends nicely they might be willing to bake and donate to the cause so that you can offer clients a mini snack during treatments. This is also a great time so give clients a bit of information about the cause (make sure you use your sales techniques)! 

Complimentary treatments

Are there any treatments that you can offer to clients throughout the day as a way to upsell? For example with every pedicure you could throw in a foot massage and ask clients to rate it out of 10 with a monetary prize. Hopefully everyone will rate you high since all donations would go to charity!

Raffles and Lucky Dips!

Another great way to engage your clients. Offer raffles and lucky dips throughout the day with a fantastic prize of one of your bestselling 3 treatments. Make sure you take all of the contact details and email addresses of your clients so you can thank them for their participation and welcome them back at another time.

We fully support BBC Children in Need’s vision! Every little helps!

Halloween Marketing & Promo Ideas

If your salon isn’t cashing in on the nations love of Halloween, you’re missing out on a great opportunity for consumer spending! Now second only to the Christmas holiday season and being right around the corner, if you feel like your salon needs an extra boost for some sales it might be time to try these last minute marketing tips. Whether you have our Salon Software or not, something here will be relevant and worth a try! Check out our ideas below…


CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE

In order to sell any retail products or treatments that are linked to a certain festival, the ambiance in the salon is really important, as it is key to improving the buying habits of consumers. Offer out free confectionery, complimentary Halloween drinks and on the actual day of Halloween, maybe have all of your employees in fancy dress to help create the mood. Focus on your window displays, decorate the salon with Halloween decals and themed decorations, as this will let clients know also that you are offering Halloween treatments and promotions by drawing attention to the festival.


RETAIL PRODUCTS UPSELL

All salons and high street stores will be competing this week to sell out their remaining Halloween products. But, why are your retail products any different to another salons? A great idea here for upselling would be to market your products in a more visual way, it’s like the saying ‘a picture says a thousand words’. For example, you could create a photo book with the help of your employees, showing a few ‘Halloween looks’ and then list the retail products used for those particular styles underneath. This would help especially if you have a list of Halloween treatments, as it will also act as a book of inspiration for clients who want a treatment especially for their Halloween night out! Also, the display of those Halloween products is crucial. An idea would be to create a display table, in which you could arrange all of your retail products/gift packages and surround them with Halloween themed accessories. Or, you could create a bit of fun by having the retail products in large bins and again cover them with Halloween decorations, just to add a bit of humour to the salon!


EXCLUSIVE OFFERS/HALLOWEEN COUPONS

You are all probably doing this and all have your own Halloween offers, treatment lists and loyalties ongoing. It is however the promotion of these in which you need to focus on, so that you make sure that consumers visit YOUR salon and don’t go elsewhere. Be sure to promote these using our ‘back to basics’ in which we discuss below…


BACK TO BASICS....

The obvious, yet fail safe marketing techniques... where it might be that your campaigns just need that little bit of refreshing.


MOBILE & WEB APPLICATION

Going back to marketing basics. If your salon business is visible on smartphones, tablets and iPads, at current, these are taking over our world. Clients want to book appointments on their mobile, browse your services whilst they commute to work or read a newsletter over their morning coffee. With your salon app they are 1 second away from signing up to your best Halloween offers and you can instantly promote these on the app through push notifications.  Be sure to use some quirky phrases and graphics to improve the advertising of that campaign!


SMS & EMAIL MARKETING

Another marketing original! Do you currently have SMS or Email marketing? You don't even need to have Salon Software for this either, as you could just do a one-off campaign using a business email address. If you are currently using this style of marketing, then this is without a doubt the next fastest way to reach clients after the mobile app. Last minute offers, for example ‘10% off all Halloween treatments’ or 'a free complimentary Halloween product with treatments over £50' are a couple of examples that could apply to all appointments that are booked before the 31st of October.  A quick and easy way to get those extra sales, especially for those walk-in clients that need a quick-fix style on the night!

POSTAL MARKETING

The good old paper letter or flyer is also a great option for local salons to use in promoting services to the surrounding area. An alternative way to advertise your salon services and offers, if you aren't quite ready for the digital side of marketing just yet! You could get some Halloween colour themed paper and decorate the letters with arts & crafts to add that festive effect, creating the same mood that an image on a mobile app or email would. Simple, and another effective way to personally market to clients.


So, I hope this has helped any of you that need a couple of speedy ideas for extra promotion at the end of this month!  Hope it is a busy one for you...

~HAPPY HALLOWEEN~


Salon Tracker x

Halloween Make-Up Ideas!

With Halloween just around the corner, we wanted to offer some Halloween makeup ideas for you to practice before the big event! The scarier, the better, but we’ve included some pretty ones too- just in case!

Salon Tracker x

Salon Tracker Software introduces; Salon Insights

**Coming Soon**

We are releasing a new feature; Salon Insights.  Powered by Microsoft; it will be a great way for salon owners to track KPI’s and salon activity.  The feature provides salons with the access to a range of dashboards using the Microsoft Power BI tool, allowing you to view extensive stats visually through different graphical displays, including charts and heat maps. 

Now, some of you reading this may already have our Site View feature, that gives you access to reports and KPI’s when absent from the salon.  Salon Insights brings to you a further in depth version of data, where aside from being able to view sales figures, it also concentrates on business peaks and falls, by having the ability to analyse large volumes of data dependent on different circumstances, such as geographical location or climate.

Salon performance can also be tracked against retail trends in peak periods, for example Christmas, school holidays and wedding season.  The heat maps generated through Power BI will highlight peak trade times so that you can target yourselves based on last year’s figures.

Dashboards will outline how a salon performs versus different weather conditions and where salons are based across the U.K.  You will be able to obtain data from your local area regarding temperature over the past few years and input this in to the software system alongside past sales reports, to determine how well your salon has performed seasonally.  And for all you multiple salon owners this is a great feature as you will be able to use this information that is generated by Power BI to compare and assess how salons have performed against each other dependent on these factors.

The Salon Insights feature is optimised for phones & tablets in the format of an app, which means that the dashboards can be accessed 24/7 anywhere, at any time.  Being another great benefit for multi-site salon owners as you can select to view stats and performance for the location of a salon that you are currently situated in, instead of having to be at a headquarters to view your activity in the different sites.  Which again is also really beneficial for those business owners that are constantly on the go, this even applying to the owners of sole salons. It provides you with the opportunity to access all business activity from an iPhone, iPad or a PC. A beneficial way to stay in control of the salon, especially if there should be a time when you cannot be present to physically manage staff and cash flow. 

Salon Insights will be extremely worthwhile for all salon owners, as by combining our software with Microsoft’s Power BI, it means that you can organise and evaluate large volumes of data, quickly and accurately. Power BI will process these results in to intelligent graphs that are simple to extract data from, meaning that business decisions can be made confidently. Excellent for future planning and for analysing, as it is much easier to see patterns via a graphic as a pose to evaluating a report!

So, we’re looking at November for a live version of Salon Insights, but hope this brief over of the information has helped you guys and given you time to have a think about it! This feature will be available as part of our enterprise package, in which you can now purchase on a monthly subscription basis. To all of our current customers, you always have the chance to upgrade if you like the sound of this new next-generation feature!

Should you want more information on Salon Tracker, or the upcoming Salon Insights feature, please feel free to call our office on 0113 3508230 and a member of our support team will be happy to assist you.

We hope to hear from you and help in improving the success of your salon business!

Salon Tracker x

MOVEMBER- Best beards ever!

Salon Tracker Software holds a skill for multiple trades. We always tend to focus on the benefits of our software for the hair, beauty, tanning and spa industries but rarely the barbering businesses.

Now this month is a great month to extend our hand to all you barbers out there in the light of the ever popular….MOVEMBER!

The Movember Foundation is a global charity that focuses on its main aim of helping men to live “happier, healthier, longer lives”. The charity has four main priorities which consist of a focus on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, poor mental health and physical inactivity to have an “everlasting impact on men's health”. (Movember.com, 2015)

So due to this wonderful cause, we are urging all of the barbers who use Salon Tracker, to create a tailored campaign in order to support Movember.  Salon Tracker offers a specialist solution for barbering whether your business is for walk-ins, appointment based or, both! So, if you haven’t yet invested in salon software then you have 11 days until D-day! Until then here’s some of our FAVE Movember beards..

Go to https://uk.movember.com/donate to donate!

A Mobile App: why it is a MUST have for your salon business

Now, according to Ofcom, "66% of the adult population in the UK owns a smart phone". Therefore that means that 2 thirds of the population are actually browsing their phones on a daily basis. With technology advancing day by day, it is good to move with the times and so now is the perfect time to think about getting your salon online and mobile. Research by Lockhart Meyer found that "last year over 40% of time spent online was via a mobile device". There are lots of other speedy ways of marketing, however if you think about it, your SMS and email marketing combined with a mobile app means that your salon is one step ahead of competitors by being accessible at all times.

So what are the pro’s to having a mobile app?  The initial benefit is convenience. If you think of how much quicker it is for a customer to pop their details in to an app whilst on their commute to work or just at home, as a pose to filling out a form in the salon- it is much more time efficient.  Another advantage is the difference of a client not having to ring the salon and then perhaps needing to wait in a queue if the line is engaged.  With a mobile app, there is never a time where 2 people cannot book an appointment simultaneously.  The other positive to this being that salon technicians don’t actually have to take the bookings as they will automatically synchronise to the salon calendar through your booking management system.  ‘On-the-go’ booking is also brilliant for clients who have busy time schedules, as a mobile app doesn’t have an opening and closing time, unlike the salon.

However, some of you who are reading this probably already have online booking and so are wondering what are the differences between the benefits of having a website and a mobile app?

The biggest difference is the accessibility.  Your mobile app will be a simplified version of your salon website, that is easier to navigate around and only has essential information on it. Your website would contain so much more data and therefore would take a little more time to browse.

Another great use of a mobile app is the free marketing.  Many of you will already use SMS and email marketing, however with your mobile app you can add last minute deals and offers to the application, in which clients can easily view without having to read an email, or newsletter (and it also saves you having to type out the campaign!)  You can set up alerts from the mobile app through ‘push notifications’ that notify customers of offers and any last minute deals, promoting your salon 24 hours a day.

Improvement of brand awareness is another pro.  The application will be designed and tailored to match your salon, so that anyone who already has correspondence by you can easily recognise the app as being related to your business.  Great for advertising and also SEO!  Another benefit is that certain mobile apps can actually run offline and so some sections of the app will be accessible without a WiFi or 3G connection.  For example customers may be able to still see their upcoming appointments and your salon price lists whilst offline, as most information is stored within the app itself.

So, moving forward maybe this is something to think about.  Especially in peak sales periods and in the lead up to Christmas, imagine how beneficial a mobile app could be to the salon in terms of promotions and extra bookings!

If you want to find out any further information on our mobile app feature please contact a member of our team on 0113 350 8230!

Hope to hear from you!

Salon Tracker x

The importance of reviews and testimonials for the salon and beauty industry…

In today’s blog, we’re going to take a look at salon reviews and testimonials. Did you know that the hair and beauty sector is the area which has “grown the most significantly in the last 3 years” with regards to the amount of customers actively searching for reviews of a particular hair or beauty salon. “In 2012, this figure was 9% compared to a huge increase in 2014 of 31%.” (Bright Local, 2014) Currently there are no statistics from Bright Local with 2015’s figures however with a very apparent and rapid year-on-year increase we are (approximately) looking at just under 50%. That’s a whopping half of your entire market judging you on your business and talents before they even reach your front door. Nearing to 2016, this figure is very likely to keep on increasing which means salon reviews and testimonials are increasingly more important than ever. 

Facebook tends to be the most popular social channel in the hair, beauty and tanning industry, so the majority of this blog focuses on Facebook reviews. However we will note other methods to help grow your business and all of these skills are completely transferrable so please keep reading!

Facebook is a heavily saturated market with salon owners for multiple reasons. First of all, it is a social network, allowing the ability to connect and engage with your niche market. Secondly, Facebook is aesthetic. Not only do you have the ability to post pictures, videos and infographics, it is friendly and easy to use from the inside working out making it a great place to really establish a brand online with the additional support of customer reviews. 

How reviews can help you and how to get more of them!

• The great thing about having a reviews section on your Facebook or Website is that clients can access this at their convenience. It is also coming from a non-biased party which means the ‘reviewer’ has no loyalty to your salon which installs more trust with the potential buyer. 

• Speaking of loyalty, online reviews are not only great in acquiring a new customer but a great area for you to establish some loyalty with your current clients. The best way to win reviews is going out of your way to ensure a happy customer. This means being completely personable with all clients and ensuring an enthusiastic approach with all of your clients. 

• Rewarding reviewers is important. It doesn’t have to be 50% but a small gesture which shows your appreciation for their time and custom. 

• Don’t ask anyone and everyone to review you. Salon Tracker Software’s review service is great because you can send this to the (loyal) individuals you choose. You simply need to right click once you have confirmed an appointment and you can fire this off with a set delayed time. It’s important to be selective with reviewers because a true reflection is a client who is loyal to your services.

• Google + is a gold mine! Probably the greatest review you can receive since it helps to optimise your search engine ranking. The only downfall is you need a Gmail account so customers can shy away from this somewhat. However, if they have an account, see if they would be willing to review with a simple step by step guide send out. 

• If a client is particularly grateful or enjoys a service, they tend to email. Simply ask if they would mind transferring this to Facebook or Google and make sure you add a link on how to! 

• Respond to bad reviews as positively as you can with a professional manner and apology for their services. May be even offer to welcome them back for a chance to rectify. If they are serious complaints with ill manners then they should be reported immediately.