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As the weather takes a turn for the chillier this week, it solidifies that autumn is on its way. This ultimately welcomes a quieter lull in the tanning season. However, this is an opportunity for salons to reflect on the summer’s success, and create plans to encourage footfall during the quieter period. In this blog, we will explain the importance of relationship marketing for salons, and its necessity to maintain regular footfall during colder periods. What’s more we will provide tips on how to reward loyalty, and encourage more regular visits during quieter periods.
Relationship marketing is an element of customer service and care. This focusses on customer loyalty and long-term engagement instead of shorter-term goals. Relationship marketing aims to create strong, emotional, connections with your customers. This can also lead to increased regularity of visits, ongoing business, free word-of-mouth promotion, and support from customers that can generate more customers and sales.
Great customer service and relationship marketing comes as a standard for salons. Being able to share in clients’ life experiences comes with the industry. What’s more, this is reflected by many via social media and in-person interactions, maintaining close relationships with clients. However, how do you harness these carefully nurtured relationships to benefit both them and your business?
According to Cambridge Marketing College, it costs 5 to 25 times more to gain a new customer, compared to maintaining relationships with existing clients. There are many things that must be done to attract new clientele…
This can take time and money to establish clear results of a regular stream of new customers. Whereas, with existing clients, that work has already been done. They have already decided to visit you, and are aware that you exist. This allows you instead to focus on rewarding loyalty and building close-knit relationships that breed emotion and advocacy for your business.
When speaking to our training expert, Juli, she explained “rewarding loyalty is so important for customer longevity. It is key for long-term relationship marketing for salons compared to short-term strategies such as discounting.” It is argued that discounting can tarnish your brand. By slashing the price of a product or service to increase sales, not only does it eat into your margin, but it establishes to clients that that is the true perceived value of what you are offering, not the RRP. This will make clients less likely to then purchase at full price in the future, and instead, wait for further savings, lessening how regularly they visit your salon whilst they wait for the next deal.
“Unlike a discount, providing value-added promotions that are relevant to your customers can create an emotional response. The act of rewarding loyalty will be remembered, and make clients feel appreciated. This can also encourage more regular purchases, leave you at the forefront of their mind, and mean there is a higher likelihood of positive referrals and reviews.”
According to McKinsey, “Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions”. An honest opinion from a trusted source will have a far better impact than any marketing when convincing clients to visit your salon. This ultimately allows you to go full circle with your marketing with less work:
Improving your relationship with current and existing customers to encourage more regular visits or varied purchases that are relevant to their needs
Build rapport and reward loyalty to establish an emotional connection with clients
Encourage clients to share their experiences via socials or referrals
Reap the benefit of new customer referrals, entering your business with an immediate positive attitude
As mentioned earlier, when looking at rewarding loyalty, this isn’t discounting but should be done by adding value. By this, we mean through gifting, increasing the worth of purchase, and demonstrating gratitude to your clients for their continued support. Here are some of Juli’s top tips for increasing sunbed course and lotion sales during the quieter periods:
With less footfall in salon, this provides more time to build rapport and learn about your customers.
Why are they visiting you? What are they hoping to achieve? What do they usually tan with?
By understanding their motivations, this will allow you to open the conversation around lotion, and encourage further discussion into trying new products and services which may help improve their experience. Establish the relevance of your offerings to your clients using their features and how that benefits the individual to justify prices.
Ensure that when offering promotions (not discounts), they are relevant to your audience, time of year, financial situation and client needs.
By offering “the cost of a sachet off the full bottle price if, after trying the sachet, you commit to a bottle”, or allowing them to try the latest Hemp Nation, at reception, will help seal the deal, but only if the product or service is relevant to your clients’ needs.
Not only does this not discount the products promoted, but it allows you to create new conversations with your customers.
Prize draws can cover anything:
Rewarding loyalty with prize draws encourages clients to engage with you regularly. Increased engagement online will also boost your visibility, where social media and online platforms will recognise your content as valuable. Ultimately, this increases brand awareness, whilst also improving your relationship marketing.
Allowing regulars sneak peaks and tests of possible new products in exchange for their opinion demonstrates you truly value your clients’ time, opinion and impact on your salon. This will increase the emotional connection you have with clients, and also open them up to different possible sales that may be relevant to them.
By allowing visiting customers to vote on new things coming into your business, it encourages engagement with those who truly visit. Although a social media poll can be easier, the number of people who will vote for something and then not turn up to purchase or try can be demoralising. By creating in-salon voting experiences, this demonstrates you recognise your regular clients and want to hear their opinions first. This will also provide clear, honest consumer feedback on how to improve your services to your specific clients during seasons, taking some of the guesswork out of marketing.
Off the cuff social media giveaways can be a great way to reward existing customers and drum up new business. What’s more, by using salon gift cards, this ensures winners must visit your salon to redeem their prize. The cost to you is minimal, the in-salon visit is guaranteed, and the ability to create a great first impression and build a relationship and emotional connection is provided.
*Note: If a prize draw is being held, this must not be in exchange for a purchased good. For example “If you purchase X, you will be entered into a monthly draw to win Y”. This can be deemed as irresponsible marketing that goes against gambling regulations as a form of coercion. The purpose of prizes is not to coerce sales, but to thank and reward for support.
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