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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salon Tracker x

Why is an online presence beneficial for your salon?

What is an online presence

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

Why is online presence important

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

Ways to strengthen your online presence

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

The advantages of online presence

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

The disadvantages of online presence

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

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

Salon Tracker Team. X

Hidden Gems in Salon Tracker!

 

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

 

Groups

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

 

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

 

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

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

Tube Tracking

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

Post Delay

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

Site View Dashboard

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

Charts

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

 

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

 

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

 

Salon Tracker x

Style Your Ear …. Curate with Inverness!

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

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

 

What does ‘Curated Ear’ mean?

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Planning your Curation!

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

At your appointment

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

 

How many can I have?

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

 

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

 

Things to consider:

o    Picking the right piercing location.

o    What look are you aiming for?

o    What style earrings are you planning on wearing?

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

 

Aftercare

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

 

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

 

1.       Bumping your ears

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

3.       Sleeping on your newly-pierced ear

4.       Touching your ears or playing with your earrings.

 

 

Become a Stockist!

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

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

Telephone: 01223 828718

Christmas Advent with Salon Tracker

Here at Salon Tracker we believe in making Christmas the most generous time of the year... so that's exactly what we've done!

We're going to be taking full advantage of the 12 days of Christmas but instead we will be putting our own spin on it. Our 12 days of festivities will start on the 1st December right through to the 17th of December where we will be posting our exclusive giveaways through the week days!

Join us on Instagram at @salontrackersoftware to follow our daily updates.

Some of the exclusive giveaways we will be offering will be as follows:

• Free SMS credits in exchange for a review on our capterra landing page.
• A free shout out to our customers on our socials
• 3 months subscription at 30%
• A Salon Tracker hamper
• A mail chimp marketing campaign done by us for your customers!
• A free social post creation 

& Much more!

So please keep an eye out for all our advent offers this Christmas, it's going to be a good one!

Salon Tracker x 

BLACK FRIDAY AT SALON TRACKER

Here at Salon Tracker we value offers just as much as you guys do... this is why we've decided to spread the festive cheer this year and offer a massive 30% off your first 3 months subscription, 15% off any hardware and also 15% off any text bundles!

This offer is too good to miss so enquire at Salon Tracker before Friday 3rd December 2021 to make the most of our deals and get your free 2 week trial now!

Terms and conditions apply, please speak to a member of our team to find out more. You can call us on 0113 350 8230 or email info@salontracker.co.uk.

How to manage the festive rush this Christmas

 As the rush of Christmas was all crammed into one month last year after the November Lockdown, this year we have finally got a real run-up to Christmas and the festive season is in full swing!

I would imagine by now that you are already in Christmas mode in the salon, festive decor, xmas songs on repeat and everyone in high spirits but above all this, is your salon schedule fully prepared and being used to it's potential to help you manage this Xmas rush? First things first and that is:

Sort your Schedule

By using Salon Tracker your life is made a whole lot easier because it takes out all the hard manual work and does it for you! If you have Salon Tracker already, make sure you are utilising your online booking link as best possible. I.E having a book now button on your website, having the link in your instagram bio and on facebook and then actually promoting it. Make posts, tell your clients in the Salon and tell them to tell their friends too - it'll work wonders for your calendar! 

Not only can clients book online using their own customer account but your staff can all have their own user log ins for our Siteview app (which can be downloaded from the app store) to view their calendars and also make appointments for existing customers. This means you can view your calendar and organise your time appropriately for the big rush, leaving you less stressed!

Stock up!

There is nothing worse than having demand for stock but not having any stock in. Christmas time is the best time to sell your retail products because everyone is wanting to get their hands on last minute stocking fillers and simply just to treat themselves! 

Using Salon Tracker, you can track and monitor your stock levels of every product so you can see easily what you are running low of and need to reorder so there will be no room for mistakes. 

Keep your staff motivated!

It is important not to lose sight of your hard working employees over this busy period, they are the ones that have kept the Salon going and without them, you'd probably be in a very sticky situation. Simple things such as making sure they have their breaks and are not too over worked, bringing in treats such as sweets and chocolates to keep them going and more importantly, a works Christmas do! After all the hard work and hours your team have put in the thing that will keep them going the most would be looking forward to letting their hair down at a party or event to celebrate.

Build on client relationships

It is important now more than ever to build on your relationships in this period because it is more than likely you will see customers in the Salon you have never seen before and if there is something that is enticing them to coming again they will return which therefore increases your customer retention and overall your long-term sales and profit. The best way to approach this is to create a loyalty scheme such as for every 5 visits made to the Salon you will receive 20% off or a free retail product! 

Furthermore, using Salon Trackers marketing suite you can filter out specific groups of customers such as high spending customers and customers with birthdays coming up and offer them a discount which will make your customers come back into Salon again and build a loyal relationship. 

Time is money

Make your no-show policy clear and well-know. In these busy periods, you cannot afford to let no-shows happen, especially when you have had to turn down customers as you had no appointments left. 

It is estimated that no-shows cause the hairdressing industry 1.2 million pounds every year according to recent research powered by flossie. 

Profit is something you don't want to be missing out on so here's several ways you can try and put a stop to no shows:

• Utilise your SMS marketing reminder and no-show texts on Salon Tracker. You can set your SMS reminders to go either 2 days or 1 day before and can also send a text if your client is a no show. This text can include information of charges they will incur for being a no-show therefore deterring them from doing it again. 
• Make your cancellation and no-show policy well known. Have it printed in the Salon, all over your social media and actually enforce it. If your client is a no-show, request that they pay the money you missed out on.
• Take deposits. Using Salon Tracker you can add deposits onto treatments so that the customer pays a set amount before the booking. If a customer has already paid some of the bill, they are less likely not to show up because they will lose out on money.

We hope that these tips have given you a clearer insight into managing the Salon over the next couple of months and if you would like to trial the software free of charge for 2 weeks, simply enquire here and a member of the team will be in touch!

Salon Tracker x