2011 marketing award: michael van clarke

Marketing is an essential tool for gaining new clients and retaining existing ones. It can help to promote new services or simply generate awareness to what you are already doing.

In 2011, the team at Michael van Clarke's marketing campaign wowed the judges and helped them to lift the Marketing Award at HJ's British Hairdressing Business Awards.

But what made their marketing campaign stand out from the crowd? Michael reveals all.

What makes a great marketing campaign?

Something that captures the imagination and the client. It needs to be well planned, engage across a range of media, and comes in under budget.

What mediums to you use to market the business?

Anything linked with us that touches the client or potential client is a marketing opportunity:

• Our people - how they look, move and speak.
• Our existing clients - making sure they are inspired to talk about us and recommend.
• Our salon - how it looks and feels.
• The quality of our work. The quality of our catering.
• E-mail newsletters.
• Salon Promotional Notices.
• CRM programmes.
• New client offers across first four visits.

Do you take inspiration from outside the industry?

Always. We can cross pollinate ideas from surprising sources but the obvious ones would be hotels and restaurants, medical, professional, fashion, retail, social science.

What do you see as the most common marketing mistakes made by salons?

Discounting and any forms of buying business that debase the brand or profitability.

What do your feel makes your campaign stand out from the crowd?

We had a lot going on this year, but the campaign we used as our sample for the entry was centred on our art appeal - Hare Styling for Great Ormond Street Hospital. It was something different for a salon to take on that incorporated 220 celebrity and artist canvases, a three-week London gallery exhibition with two 250 guest parties, a ball for 400 at The Dorchester and 1000 full colour art books published to commemorate the campaign. In between all that, there were national press articles, radio and television. 

It was a lot of fun, a fair bit of stress, but I still get people coming up to me saying how much they enjoyed the events.

Anything lacking from your current marketing strategy/what are the threats to it?

We've come to a point in our business where we really need to upgrade on everything including our marketing. We've built a platform for our voice in the industry; we have a brilliant education team; a best practice successful salon model, and a fledgling product range that's been very well received in UK and USA. The threat, I guess, is that if we don't upgrade we could drown in a sea of opportunity.

Describe your marketing style in three words...

Heartfelt, glamorous, inspiring.