5 Great Ways To Bring the Sunshine Into Your Salon
Looking for summer marketing ideas? Whether it’s a busy or quiet time for your salon, here are some fabulous things you can do to take advantage of the summer season.
1. Bring the fresh air into your salon
The heat of summer is a delight for most of us, but we also know what it is like to get all get hot and bothered! So, make sure your air-con is up to scratch, or that you have lots of natural ventilation. You might need additional fans in your treatments too.
However, you organise your salon, it is always important to check that your clients are really comfortable and that the temperature is as optimum as possible. You’d be surprised how many therapists fail to do this.
When your customers feel cool, they can breathe deep, exhale any tension and fully enjoy their treatments.
2. Refresh and pamper your weary customers
It’s a basic requirement to have some lovely chilled water available to your clients. Rather than doing this by providing an ugly water dispenser and plastic cups, you can make it a more stylish experience by decanting the water into a pretty jug with ice and fruits or fresh cucumber. And perhaps serving it in nice glasses. These don’t have to be expensive or fragile, but they add a touch of luxury.
A nice touch is to keep some cold, damp, rolled flannels in the fridge (or even freezer) and offer these to your customers when they arrive. This is common place in Asian spas, in business and first class on planes and shows that your service is in that league.
3. Scent your environment with summer
A vaporiser in your reception emitting the fresh, zingy, indolent aromas of summer will win you instant brownie points. We recommend you go entirely natural for this. Why would you use aroma chemicals when there are hundreds of beautiful scents of nature available to you in the form of essential oils?
Favourite summer aromatics are Jasmine, Neroli and any of the Citrus fruits such as Bergamot, Mandarin or Lime. These are all safe, skin friendly essential oils and will be subtle and effective used in the quantities recommended. We rate Made By Zen diffusers and the fantastic quality of Oshadhi Oils. They are expensive, but a little goes a long way and you are safe knowing you are using the real thing.
An additional bonus, if you understand more about aromatherapy, is that you’ll realize that all of the oils we have recommended are known to have mood-boosting benefits. We bet you’ll have people asking you where you got these – another opportunity for retail!
4. Summer marketing
No doubt you’ll be doing summer promotions, packages and discounts already. In your marketing, from your website to your Facebook page, look for ways to incorporate summer themes and information relevant to your clients. Send out emails or post blogs that showcase your summer specials, but mix it up with good content — summer beauty tips etc.
- Discount certain products and services. Test the market to see if you can shift slower-selling products with a limited-time discount such as for the month of August only. Promote your offer to a select segment of your email list, perhaps those who haven’t purchased from you lately. Monitor the results. If the offer works, consider extending it to other products next month.
- Off-peak specials. Many people have flexible schedules during the summer. Consider ways to draw them in during your off-peak hours, whether it’s a time-related discount or another incentive such as bringing a buddy for half price or a free consultation.
- Package promotions. Offer a discount if clients buy more than one product or service.
5. Go all out for a summer theme
Have you thought of theming your entire salon to reflect the season? The Ivy Café restaurants change their waiting staff outfits to suit the season and it is always striking. The waitresses wear floral dresses in summer and they are so cheerful. This might not work for your brand or budget, but take that as inspiration and see how you can bring a touch of summer into tiny, discreet accessories, a summer floral display or other clever touches.
We hope this has provided a little #summerspiration. What could you do better? What could you change? This just takes a little imagination.