Managing a beauty salon is a challenge.
The beauty industry is highly competitive and businesses must fight for the same customers. To leverage this competition, beauty salon owners must shift their mentalities from traditional old-school promotion to digital marketing for beauty salons. Marketers may be surprised – the latter actually saves salons marketing costs while achieving better results.
Digital marketing may look easy to master, but it can be tricky – generic tips may not work for everyone or have an equal effect when it comes to beauty salon promotion. Marketers must first understand where to focus their efforts and identify what things are detrimental to a marketing strategy. Before starting the planning process, marketers should pinpoint tactics that can make or break their digital marketing.
The goal is to build a strong presence in the digital space, drive traffic and increase conversions. Keep in mind these digital marketing do’s and don’ts to make sure your beauty parlor’s marketing strategy is heading in the right direction.
#1 Do: Attention-Grabbing Landing Pages
How do you convince your clients to visit your beauty salon over your competitors? Your business advantages must be noticeable and clearly-stated on your service landing pages. For the maximized effect, dedicate one landing page to each of your specific services. This way you have enough space to thoroughly describe your procedures, benefits, best candidates and other essential information.
A perfect “conversion-friendly” landing page for beauty services should combine the selling of content and actionable CTAs. Content will help convince your targeted audience that your salon is a perfect fit and CTAs will tell your website visitors what you expect them to do next. These actions could range from buying, using, calling, emailing and more. Moreover, your content is where you include niche-focused keywords to ensure a strong SEO performance for your beauty website.
#2 Do: Conversion Forms and Telephone Number on Each Landing Page
Aside from content and CTAs, pay close attention to your conversion forms and contact information on your service pages. Page visitors should be able to easily find your contact information, regardless of whatever services they are currently researching.
Make sure your conversion forms do not include too many fields to be filled out to discouraging your potential buyers. And since more than 50% of worldwide searches are conducted on mobile devices, it makes sense to make your contact information clickable on mobile so your users can directly reach you by phone.
#3 Do: Before and After Pictures
Before and after pictures of happy clients can work magic on your brand’s reputation. Just remember: if you choose to include these pictures, they must be of your clients.
Here’s why:
- You don’t want to be sued by salon owners from whom you have stolen the pictures
- You don’t have to be looking for excuses as to why your services do not have the same effect as shown in pictures
In short, you should only post pictures of your own happy clientele with the type of service offered and which employee performed the work. This way, your potential clients see what to expect after visiting your salon and can request a specific employee’s handiwork.
In this section of your website, you can also take advantage of customer reviews. Research shows that people trust online reviews and user-submitted reviews play a pivotal decision in a client’s decision making process.
#4 Do: Show Your Competence
Your beauty salon website is where you can showcase your business advantages and the level of your expertise by adding a page highlighting your staff’s credentials. Trust acquisition is a big deal in such a niche as beauty services, so displaying your staff’s beauty certificates can establish a level of confidence in your customers.
Potential clients will care about who is going to take care of their skin, especially if the specific beauty treatment requires a high level of skill. No one wants to be treated by an amateur. If your specialists hold relevant diplomas and certificates, don’t hesitate to show them to your audience. This will make your brand look more trustworthy and authoritative.
#5 Don’t: No Analysis
Analytics is the solid foundation of every successful digital marketing campaign. Neglecting to perform analytics means your strategy won’t have any research behind it, so each decision you make is not backed by data and won’t necessarily lead to measurable results.
First things first, start with a competitor analysis. You must know the beauty niche’s leaders, their achievements, competitive advantages, selling points and shortcomings in order to stay one step ahead. Your competitors are your competitors because they never rest, so why should you?
#6 Don’t: No Local Targeting
Embrace the power of smart local SEO techniques if you haven’t done so yet. Market your beauty services to local searchers instead of wasting your resources on the global market which can result in lost customers and a wasted marketing budget.
In a niche market as specific as beauty services and treatments, not having a local SEO strategy is unwise. Three people from your location looking for a stylist are more likely to come and use your services than 3,000 searchers who are hundreds of miles away. This is a perfect reason to always remember to target your local market.
#7 Don’t: PPC Only
If your marketing budget includes PPC expenses, that’s great. Despite the fact that PPC marketing can be pricey, especially for beauty parlors, it is not always effective. PPC alone is not enough to boost your salon’s visibility and must be completed with various usability techniques.
While PPC is all about getting a user to your website, usability tends to be about increasing conversions and guiding a user to accomplish a specific goal. Sure, your website can appear at the top of SERPs thanks to PPC, but it makes no sense if your website visitors click away after having stayed for a few seconds. PPC alone is not a magic remedy and this is why positive user experience matters.
Conclusion
There is plenty of competition in the beauty services and treatments industry, so you must convince your potential client to trust your brand and to use your services. Conduct a thorough examination of your current business needs and identify a digital marketing strategy that is specific to your salon. Feel free to contact digital marketing professionals if you need help improving your existing digital marketing strategy or simply don’t know where to start!