Super-salon owner hellen ward on how to promote your business

  As a sector we tend to be very uncreative in terms of offers and promotions to attract new business. It’s worth remembering that the golden rules of effective marketing are to create the right mix: provide the right product at the right price, in the right place through the right promotion to the right person. To do this effectively, follow my five-point guide: 1. Tailor the promotion to the target customer If you analyse your turnover correctly you’ll rarely find you need to promote across the board. For instance, if you decide to do a promotion with one particular price tier, let’s say graduate stylists, first assess the aim of the campaign. Narrow it down to certain times or days, perhaps 9am – 11am on weekdays only, that you want to target. Then, target the desired client. If you are trying to appeal to younger clients create a promotion with a local company that has a young workforce and create a poster for their noticeboard and special invites to hand out. Keep it short and snappy so you can really judge the take-up. 2. Get creative Slashing prices isn’t the only way! GWP (Gift With Purchase) works really well as it doesn’t offend clients who may miss out. Discounting publicly does long-term damage to your established price point, so only ever do this as a private, carefully tailored campaign. 3. Keep it specific Research shows that people are more likely to take up an offer if it has a shorter lifespan, so try marketing for specific time periods. Try validating offers for a week, fortnight, or maximum a month to encourage people to book quickly. Validating for longer just makes people forget to use the incentive and therefore becomes ineffectual. Don’t be afraid to use the golden disclaimers to safeguard yourself – ‘offer subject to availability’, or ‘offers may be subject to change’, for example. 4. Analyse the results Spend time actually logging the response. Tally marks of phone calls and bookings over the promotional period can really tell you if the offer was effective and help in planning future activity. 5. Get the team involved The best ideas and feedback comes from those at the coal-face, so make time to have a brain- storming meeting and get valuable input from those who dealt with the offer and drill down into the detail so you can really effectively market areas which need higher take-up and leave those which are performing well alone! Hellen Ward is co-owner of Richard Ward Hair and Metrospa, and the author of a series of salon management textbooks for City & Guilds: Getting Established, Managing Finances and Team Performance available from www.ultimatesalonmanagement.com