Ah, summer—long days, warm temps and weekend getaways. It may seem like you just finished up the last few marketing tasks on your spring cleaning checklist, but our favorite season of the year is right around the corner. While your clients are hitting the beach and soaking up the sun, you may be stuck inside, scrambling to fill a wide-open appointment book at your salon. If you’re not based in a beach town, it can be a challenge to come up with salon marketing ideas that reach your clients when they’re away on vacation or to convince them to pass up time outdoors or with their family.
Here are five marketing ideas you can implement now to ensure that you get the most out of summer:
2. Sell those gift cards
Your salon can earn a nice chunk of its annual revenue from gift card sales during any time of year. With gift card spending hitting a record of $160 billion last year, pushing gift cards during the slow summer months is a great way to have a quick win when it comes to your bottom line. With those kind of numbers, your salon cannot afford to miss out on this kind of opportunity. Don’t forget to wrap gift cards nicely and promote them in email, on your social media pages, on your website, and in your salon.
Are you ready to be a pro at selling gift cards? Check out our guide.
3. Rescue lost customers
For the clients that visited once and never came back again you can send targeted promotions to entice them to book again at your salon. Odds are, these clients have a fun vacation or family reunion coming up that they want to look the best for—or maybe they may need a fresh summer cut to combat the heat. Make sure your salon is their go-to destination with special promotions directed to them.
4. Fill slow days
Even though we look forward to this season from a personal standpoint, from a professional perspective summer can be a scary couple of months for salon owners. By using smart marketing tools, you can predict which days will be the slowest for your salon and you can create campaigns to be automatically emailed to clients to promote that day. By setting up specials to run that are only valid at less busy times, you can proactively book clients who would have otherwise booked a primetime slot on the weekends. This also helps you make room for any new clients or those who can only make it during your busy times and may otherwise have to seek out another salon to fill their needs because they didn’t plan ahead.
5. Share your best work
Summer is a client’s perfect chance to try something special and unique to stand out at the beach, pool, and family gatherings. This summer, the number one hair trend seems to telling us platinum bobs are having a moment, whereas the nail industry is still hailing neutral nails as the most popular trend for summer. Make sure you snap photos of your creations and include them on your social media pages, like Instagram and Facebook, to show your clients your salon is the best place to go to look on-trend for their summer vacay.
