First off, Happy New Year, though I fear that may be a contradiction🤔 with a new lockdown in place until at least February, maybe even longer. It’s probably going to get worse for many of us, before getting better.
Needless to say, it’s been a shocking 2020, and my only hope is that 2021 fairs better once we have the vaccine rollouts and restrictions can be eased and customers come flooding back, which they will.
Typically, the Christmas holidays are when we’re able to reflect on the year that has just gone, this time round though, understandably, many of us just want to forget it.
But January is also a time for us to plan and look forward to the rest of the year, but for most salon and beauty business owners that is difficult to do given the current situation, though, despite this, it’s by no means impossible to strategise for 2021, in fact, I would say it’s more important than ever.
Opportunity Beckons?
You may have heard the saying, “out of adversity comes opportunity”, and never has that been truer than it is now.
Hard though it may be, you have to reflect on past 12 months and think hard about what you could have done, but didn’t, then set your focus on the next 12 and ensure that any lesson that you have learned from your experience in 2020 are included and applied into your marketing strategy for the forthcoming year to make your business more robust and use it as an opportunity.
Many of our clients at Salon Marketing Expert are doing exactly that and asking for new websites which incorporate e-commerce stores for example. This is so they can diversify their income and boost their retail sales, is that something you have considered, or even done?
We’ve found that this strategy works for many salons because as a result of lockdowns we’ve all gotten used to shopping online and due to the pandemic, as a society, we’ve now adopted online shopping to such a degree that we’re at the level that we weren’t predicted to reach until 2030, post-Covid-19.
We Have Changed, So Should You.
This will be a long term trend which salons can nurture in the future too, as when this is all over, we’re not going to just stop shopping online and go back to the way it was. We are going to continue to buy online because we now see the value and convenience in it, so why shouldn’t you provide that solution to your clients now and get them ordering products they would normally have to come to the salon for?
Now, I know some of you sceptics out there might be thinking, if that is the case when all of this is over, there is less likelihood that a client will come to the salon at all and we will lose our main revenue earner of treatments, but on the contrary, studies show that given the option, clients tend to purchase more frequently online despite having the option of purchasing in store. So the likelihood is that you are going to grow sales that to diminish them.
But also having an online store opens up the greater potential of growing customers and allows you to communicate through your brand more frequently, therefore strengthening your brand’s connection with potential customers
Beating Your Competition To Dominate Your Market
By simply collecting the emails of people who have purchased from your store you can build even greater brand awareness and loyalty through regular broadcasts about your beauty business, or sending out reminders and special offers to those who you haven’t seen for a while, it’s how all the big brands work and I can guarantee you’re competitors won’t be doing this either, so you can quickly get some traction just by having a quite a simple system in place.
Others ideas I’ve seen salon owners speak to us about holding virtual consultations, while others have even branched out and become salon consultants in their own right sharing their expertise with those who are new to running a beauty salon and who need and will pay for guidance about how to run a successful beauty business.
What Ideas Do You Have?
Do any of the above ideas give you inspiration at all or maybe you have your own thoughts about a product that you would like to explore further. The thing is, this is the time you should be using to implement the ideas you have and make the best use of your downtime.
Don’t be mistaken in thinking you should be waiting until you can open your salon again for you to implement your idea, that is going to be too late, you should act now and take matters into your own hands. Try things out and if they don’t work as expected, that is fine too. Just try something else.
As a digital marketer and someone who has worked in some of the most competitive markets, I have found that the most successful companies don’t let the grass grow under their feet, they keep innovating and produce new things and try the market out and they are able to assess more accurately what their clients want.
This is called failing forward, not all your ideas are going to be winners, but if you are able to implement a number of them on a regular basis, then you will have some winners which will make it worth the effort.
So get your thinking caps on and write down some ideas about other services or products you could offer which are associated with your core business and then see how you can implement them in your own business, you’ll be surprised at the things you come up with.
And if they have a digital element, remember you can always discuss it with us in confidence, and we’ll provide an honest assessment about how feasible it might be to implement.
