Hj insider: marketing and software tools in numbers

This month’s HJ Insider Survey, sponsored by Beu asked HJ’s readers to share the marketing and software tools that are working best for you, your most popular services and how your business in August compared with the same period last year.

HJ Insider: Marketing and software tools in numbers

The marketing and software tools that have worked best for you since reopening are social media posts. Phone calls were the second best form of marketing tool for you with 36% of you selecting it as a successful marketing tool, this was followed by text messages with 29.5% and your websites which 23.1% of you listed as being successful. Other types of marketing tools included E-newsletters and emails, software apps and paid social media campaigns. The marketing and software tools feature that the majority of respondents selected as being the most helpful during the COVID-19 situation is social media marketing. This was followed by an online booking system and being able to offer clients updates by text message. The majority of those who filled out the survey said salon marketing is not funnelled into the booking process (55.4%), while 44.6% of you said that you are including your marketing into your booking process. Interestingly, most of those surveyed (69.1%) said they have a marketing plan in place to encourage clients to rebook in the salon, while 30.9% do not. For the 69.1% of those who do have a marketing plan/strategy in place for rebooking, rebooking before the clients leaves the salon was listed as the primary marketing strategy (76.7). Only 5.5% of those surveyed use reminder text messages, 4.9% use social media posts, 2.5% use phone calls and less than 1% encourage clients to rebook using their website (0.6%).

HJ Insider: Your business in August in numbers

Most of those surveyed found their salon appointment business this August wasn't as good as August 2019 (60.9%). This could be because most of those who were desperate for an appointment after lockdown visited the salon in July instead. Similarly there may not have been as many appointments for clients wishing to have fresh locks ahead of a summer holiday as the majority of Brits couldn't travel very far this summer. Almost a quarter of those surveyed (23.3%) found their salon business did fair better this August compared with last August and 15.8% reported their appointments were the same as last year. The most popular salon service in August was the cut (48.3%) and this was closely followed by colour (43.5%). Blow-dries, extensions, treatments and styling/updos were the least popular services in August. The issues affecting the salon appointment business in August also appear to have affected the retail part of the business with 58.7% of those surveyed listing worse retail sales this August compared to last August. The survey found 16.9% of respondents had better retail sales and 24.4% had the same number of  retail sales this August and last August. For those who experienced an improvement in their retail business, coming out of a local lockdown and stocking products not available online were some of the reasons listed for improved retail sales. The telephone is still going strong with 70.4% of appointments booked by phone in August. The next biggest method for clients to make bookings was social media with 11.4% of clients making appointments on a social media channel and this was closely followed by a salon software app which resulted in 6% of bookings being made. Only 3.3% of clients booked an appointment using a salon website and 3% booked an appointment by email. A positive story for August was that almost half of those surveyed (47.7%) experienced less unfilled salon appointments this August to compared to last August and 18.1% had the same number of unfilled appointments. However, there were still 34.2% of those surveyed who had more unfilled salon appointments this August compared with the same time period last year. METHODOLOGY: Insider is compiled from a monthly survey of HJ readers. The people who participated represent a cross-section of the industry and were polled by email. The figures given represent the average score for each answer. This HJ Insider survey was sponsored by Beu so everyone who filled out the survey was included in a prize draw with a chance of winning a £50 Selfridges Voucher, plus free access to the Beu platform and a custom-paid marketing campaign to drive bookings to your salon: Click here for more information on how salons have adapted to the 'new normal' since reopening.