This week we’re sharing some of our top salon marketing ideas to help you attract new salon clients online.
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About Strategies for Attraction Salon Clients Online
John: If you’ve been following this channel for a while, you’ve heard me talk a lot about the importance of being seen online and getting and attracting clients online to your salon business.
But how do you do that? It’s probably the question. So we want to spend a little bit more time on that in this week’s video.
There are two components that go into this. On the one side, you need to improve your visibility online so that people find you and they see you online, right?
And then when they have found you want them to book with you. Then you need to be able to capture their attention in order to get them booked in your salon.
So we thought we’ll start today by just going through some strategies you can use to get more visibility online and have more people finding your salon business.
And then we’ll go into some of the strategies around how to get more people booked. Handing over to My because you’re doing this very successfully today.
How to Get Found Online by Potential Salon Clients
John: So what are you doing to get seen online in front of more potential new clients?
My: I think one thing that we do is that we create a lot of content. All of my stylists create content with “before and after pictures” or short videos. I involve all of my staff because then I have 13 or 14 people creating content instead of just me.
I also use the content both on Instagram and on my webpage. So I get the most out of it. Yeah.
John: Because that’s your two main channels.
My: Yeah, I would say we also have Facebook, but we don’t use this as much because I think our audience is more on our web page and on Instagram.
John: Yeah. And we do have other videos where My is giving some more tips on what type of content works well, what you should be posting on Instagram, for example, there are some other videos like that, which we will be linking to from here as well. Yeah. Yeah, so obviously creating content, and you mentioned both your website and your Instagram.
What would you like? If we compare the two, how is that working for you? Like those different channels and the role they play.
My: I think our Instagram is more for building a relationship or more branding with our followers or yet-to-be customers on our webpage.
Getting customers from people that are out on Google searching for a hairdresser right now. I want to book a time for a bayalage, or I want to make an appointment today.
So it’s really important that you have a webpage so that you can compete with other salons in your area. Not with the whole of Sweden or the whole world.
And also have great content there because it’s not just an area like it’s not as if they search hairdresser, Stockholm or something like that. It’s also when they search for balayage. If you have good content on your webpage, your pictures will pop up and the customers will see, oh, that’s a nice picture.
And then they will click on your webpage.
86% Search Online Before Doing Business Locally
John: I think this is what we’re seeing as well driving most new clients is basically clients who are already looking for what you offer. And in fact, 86% of people do search online before they do business locally.
Before you book a table in the restaurant, you would most likely look online before, to see, which is the right restaurant booking. People do the same for your salon. 86% of people will do that at the “near me searches”, which is things like balayage or maybe manicure near me.
They were up 900% last year in terms of these local searches. So this is really just a behavior and trend that is growing. Like making sure that you show up when people are already looking for you is obviously very important and help drive bookings. We have a separate training on that as well, which you can find the link to in the description of this video, where I go much deeper.
Yeah. Yeah. So that’s how you attract people to your website. And also Instagram is great for branding as well when they find you to learn more about you and also to reach potential new clients there as well. Even if Instagram is not as local on SEO.
My: And also, I think when they arrive on your webpage, it’s also important that you have a lot of pictures and not too much text on your first page.
So that they can directly say, okay, I’ve come to the right place. It’s a hairdresser. Oh. They can directly see a beautiful picture.
John: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. So that’s a bit on just how strategies you can use and the ones we’re seeing are most effective to get that visibility online.
There are some other things you can work with, paid ads and so on to get more visibility, But that’s if we’re talking about free visibility, right? There’s a lot about content on these different channels. So now we need them to book you, right?
So let’s say they search for a service that you offer, they do land on your website. So what would you say is really important for you to really get that attention to people and to actually get them to book?
My: I think it’s important when they land on your page. It’s important to like get them in directly.
Using a Chatbot to Engage with Potential Clients
On our webpage, we have a little chat. That pops up that says, hi what can I help you with? And they can ask right there directly. Because I think a lot of customers, if you just send them to a booking page, they’re like, okay, what do I want to book? Who is this? Because we work in a relationship business.
You often have a very good relationship with your hairdresser. And if you’re looking for a new one, you want someone to communicate with. So I think it’s really important. I think we catch a lot of customers there already where they can write us directly and say, oh, I want to book a balayage or this other thing. My first time on your page what would you recommend for me?
And if you don’t have the time to answer right away, they will also pop up a thing that says just write your email and we will get back to you as soon as we can. And we get a lot of customers that way right there, it makes a big difference.
And also booking the right service. Because sometimes if they just book online, sometimes I know a lot of hairdressers complained about these things that the customers book the wrong treatments.
Here you can actually say, do you know what, send me a picture of your hair and I will guide you directly to the right booking, and then you will have much more satisfaction in your customers as well.
And they will feel like, oh, I get special personalized service. So it’s a lot of benefits.
Presenting a New App for Salons Called Brief
John: Awesome. And this tool that you’re mentioning on the website as well, the chatbot is something that we’re developing here right now at the salon business, and we’re running it with My’s salon at the moment.
That will be available for you shortly as well. And we also decided that for those who registered for our waitlist to get access to this, we should find the link in the description on this video, you would also have access to a free plan. When you start like that, you can go in and try out how to use this. Because the benefit here is not only the chat feature.
But it also connects all your touch points, right? So if you’re like me, you have an Instagram account and you have a website and you have a Facebook, for example, and you have email, managing, the customer conversations on all those, without having things falling between the chairs missing to get back to customers.
It’s just really difficult. So that’s why we are developing this tool just to take this burden away from salon owners and stylists.
My: Make sure that the customers get a response as soon as possible. Because it’s hard to get a picture of all your channels. If it takes too long for you to answer because it’s so hard for you to get an overview and then you will lose the customer. They will have time to book in another place.
So I think to get the customers to book it’s really important to be where the customer is. If the customer is on the website, you’re there. If the customer is on Facebook, you’re there. You have the customers on Instagram, you’re there. So you’re always meeting up where the customer is. Yeah.
John: Depending on when you’re watching this, there is a waitlist right now, as you can register on that to get access to it.
If later you will find more information when you go to that link. So yeah, that’s what we see are the most effective strategies to get visible online. And then also making sure that you can actually convert those visitors into booking an appointment.
And if you want more business tips and marketing ideas or strategies that you can use in your salon just like what we shared today, remember to subscribe to the channel. There’s a lot of videos out there which we’ll be linking through right now, but also new ones coming pretty much every week now add to the salon business.
So stay tuned to that and we’ll look forward to meeting you inside of an upcoming episode.
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