Christmas promotional ideas for the salon!

With Halloween, Bonfire Night and autumn festivities just out of the way, there’s no time like the present to throw yourself into your salons Christmas promotions. Year on year, the festive season proves to be a huge money maker for many salons but you need to be prepared for the January slump too! Here’s a bit of inspiration to keep your ideas fresh and eclectic this December.

 Percentage off treatments on 1st day of advent

As we have discussed in our blog posts before, you don’t want to be renowned for giving too much discount too often, as then clients can then become accustomed to these prices leading to a refusal to pay full price. However, a one-off discount on a significant day, for example the first day of advent, could be a great way to increase those sales throughout December rather than cramming them into the final two weeks. You can do this through your salon software programme or use alternative advertising methods such as your social media pages or the good old poster in the window to notify clients early of your advent deal!

Black Friday Promotions

Black Friday is a huge opportunity for all businesses to capitalise on. Most large retailers offer Black Friday offers to price match competitors and reap in those pre- Christmas sales. It is also usually the last discount day prior to Christmas which means people are out to buy, buy, buy! See what discount competitors are offering and don’t be afraid to beat their offers if it’s for one day or weekend only! Ensure you promote these offers, through your salon software marketing feature, multiple times especially the day before Black Friday! Your salon should be high on the list of priorities for your customer to visit.  

Christmas Freebies

There’s nothing like a complimentary gift to give to clients when they come for their winter treatment, even if it’s just something as simple as a free mince pie with their tea, or a nice hot choccy! A lot of salons also have sweets at the cash desk on a regular day; why not theme these up a little bit and have candy canes instead, or Christmassy chocolates like Quality Streets to get clients in the festive mood.

Social Media

Get people talking about your salon!  The best thing about social media is that the messages are delivered instantly and on a mass scale.  Your social media platforms are the best and fastest way to connect with your clients and target audience, to share incentives and to create news about your salon. Launches are another great way to get people talking, whether this is through competitions on your Facebook page or new product launches. Team these with a wintery themed picture and it is sure to attract some attention.  The more publicity you can generate for yourselves on your social media accounts, the better the chance you have at improving your client base!

Salon Decor

Ambience is everything when it comes to a client remembering your salon. Especially during the Christmas period and into the New Year, you have to create an impression that will WOW client and prompt their return.  Over the Christmas period, ensure you trim up with appropriate decorations.  If your salon is usually decorated classically, make sure that your Christmas trimmings reflect this.  Likewise, if your salon is ultra-modern then make sure you go for some contemporary sparkle.  When it comes to the start of the January, ensure that your salon has had a good tidy, is newly organised and is ready for all your New Year services.  After Christmas, everyone is in the ‘New Year, New Start’ mind set, so make sure that your salon indicates that you as a business are also fresh & prepared for the year ahead.

January promo vouchers

January is always a bleak and slow month for everybody and at best we all know that salon sales dwindle off until the Valentine’s Day period.  A good way to increase custom in January is to create a ‘new-year return’ voucher/coupon.  Hand these out to clients in December when they come to pay for their Christmas treatments, offering them something like £5 off their next £50 spend in January or 10% off spends over £40, valid from 1st to 31st Jan.  This is sure to put a spring in the step of your customers and you should see a good return on investment by getting a few extra’s through the door at the start of the New Year.

Hope this helps, Salon Tracker x

Managing your salon reception in busy periods!

We’ve said it before and we stick by our word, a salons reception area is the most important part of “closing a sale”. Everything from the cleanliness, the attitude, communication and information the client is given at this point. With the run up to Christmas fast approaching, we thought it the perfect time to highlight the importance of your salon receptionist’s role/s and how you can ensure they manage your salon reception rather than the reception managing them.

The salon receptionist holds key responsibilities within your business, firstly being their appearance and professional manner. For your salon to be taken seriously by people of all walks of life, your reception staff must have a professional and positive aura. Now obviously you cannot foresee complaints, delays or other similar issues but you can train your staff to react to these occasions.

Staff should be approachable, knowledgeable and efficient, especially in busy periods. This holds high importance in your salon and the above three pointers are linked. To be efficient, your staff should be trained to know all treatments, timings and staff like the back of their hand. This allows them to act with authority, even in your absence. 

Your reception should feel comfortable.  What we mean by comfortable is, at home. Your client should have plenty to do in the occasion of you running behind which is why most salons are stocked up with magazines and newspapers. Can you ensure that your reception staff stay on the ball with complimentary tea, coffee and juice? Phone chargers are another little addition that you could invite into the salon for clients to feel at home. Most importantly is there somewhere for them to sit and hang their coat or put their umbrella if it rains? 

Your client’s safety is another thing in the hands of te receptionist. Have they had the required skin test? Do your hairdressers and beauty therapists know everything they should about this particular client? The receptionists should include all the relevant information needed to ensure the sales process is a strong and safe one. 

A clean and tidy reception and display area are so important. Are your staff on top of cleaning up after every client and on an evening? It’s absolutely imperative to stay on top of this since it could be a make or break for people when they decide if they want to continue with your services.

Meeting and greeting clients is one thing, but are staff tailoring every meet and greet appropriately? How you speak to a 9 year old little girl differs completely to how you would speak to a 90 year old woman. You may need to speak a little slower and explain things more which is where excellent customer service comes in.

Underrated things that hold huge importance in the salon are things such as checking and making appointments. So many errors occur when things haven’t been double checked, which is where you should ensure staff are relaying information back to the client for client, receptionist and therapist benefit. Information might include the cost of their treatment and the date and time of when they have booked. Also what is the typical duration time of the treatment so your client knows for parking etc. Give as much information as you can to help out more so. 

Even if your staff are not specialist therapists or hairdressers, the reception is key to product upselling so they should use the correct terminology and offer all the benefits.  Salon products do tend to cost more money because of the ingredients so the potential outcome of using the product does need to be explained. The reception area is a great time to do this! 

Salon Tracker Software's upcoming feature; the fingerprint rota and why this is so important during the Christmas Period;

Around the festive season, your salon will be exceptionally busy, therefore as a salon owner you are juggling with time and you struggle to oversee every single client that comes through your door, let alone your staff. Especially at this time of year, you have certain requirements within the salon to ensure that it runs smoothly in a fast-paced environment. One of the biggest factors during this busy period is your staff. You need to be able to see that they are acting professionally in a peak season and also, arriving and leaving work on time. So having said all that, we just wanted to tell you about our latest feature, due to be released in our next software update; the 'Staff Rota'.

Many of you may already currently use our fingerprint reader, to sign clients in for appointments and to keep their records safe. Our upcoming feature will allow all staff members to log in and out with their fingerprint, to avoid misbehaving or getting colleagues to sign in for them. A great way for you as salon owner to ensure visibility and authority remains consistent, should you be absent from the salon at any point or when you go away for a length of time, such as a holiday. The fingerprint rota will provide you with that peace of mind that you can leave your salon in safe hands without having to worry about malicious behaviours, as everything will be accurately tracked and visible on instant reports.

The rota will accurately track the duration of staff shifts, also highlighting lateness, meaning that you can follow up staff members accordingly. For multi-site salons, this feature is exceptionally useful as records generated by the Staff Rota can be accessed at salon headquarters or when on the move, via our Site View feature. Again, at Christmas this will be so useful, as if the multi-site does apply to you, then you are going to be distributing your time across all of your different sites and so would struggle to track the activity of every individual staff member at each salon. Combine the fingerprint rota with our Site View feature and you will no longer have to worry. Reports generated from the Salon Tracker system will instantly identify which staff members have signed in and out of the salon. Staff won’t be able to alter the times either, as only an administrator (salon owner) will have access to the fingerprint sign in and out times, therefore if they don’t clock in…you know that they weren’t there and therefore can act upon this to find out why.

Should you wish to receive more information about our Staff Rota feature, then please feel free to call our office on 0113 350 8230, or alternatively go to our website www.salontracker.co.uk where our packages and their features are detailed.

We hope to hear from you soon and look forward to helping you to improve your Salon this Christmas time.

Salon Tracker x

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