Having a niche isn’t just something that writers and marketers talk about – specialising can potentially be one of the things that helps you to effectively upscale your business, whether it’s a beauty salon or spa, or a copywriting business like mine.
It can be a scary idea, thinking about specialising in one area. What if you lose your clients in another area, if you try to position your business as experts in another? That’s something that I’ve been very wary of in the past, but in all honesty, you have to be able to stand out from the crowd in whatever you do, and allowing yourself and your business to be seen as an expert in one or two areas can only bring more business your way.
Charge more for expertise
When you’re working in a salon, if you have a few therapists working with you it’s easier to give them all an area they can excel at. It’s also good for staff morale because the more people you have working for you, the more feasible it is to let people concentrate on the area they enjoy most. Money-wise it’s also a winner as you can charge more for your ‘expert’ than another member of staff and they can become sought after by people who get to hear about how good they are.
According to Professional Beauty magazine, 66 per cent of beauty salons and 69 per cent of spas encourage therapists to develop a specialism – but they don’t all make the most of this extra marketing tool by charging a higher price point for the treatment with their top therapist. That’s just a waste of a good opportunity!
Specialising for sole traders
Specialising is all very well if you have a salon or spa with staff members but what if it’s just you – and you have to be able to do it all? Will specialising in your favourite area mean you lose out of the bits you’re not that in love with but bring the cash in?
Not necessarily. For example, if you’re Reiki trained and you love giving a treatment, don’t limit that to a full 60 minute session – start offering free Reiki shots with your treatments, your clients will love it. Make them a selling point – add Reiki after a facial or a massage and become the therapist that gives away free Reiki with every treatment! You’ve instantly set yourself apart from the rest of the salons. Make a big deal of it. Talk about Reiki, what it is, how it works and what it can do (look at my previous post about selling the benefits, too, how does it make people FEEL? What will it do for them?)
Blog about Reiki, talk about how you like to add it to your everyday massages, post links about Reiki onto your Facebook business page and tweet them to your followers.
You’re not just the salon that does everything now, you’re the place people think of when they want a treatment with added Reiki!
Of course, that’s just one idea, but can you see how specialising can bring in MORE business and money, give you a better marketing angle, a unique selling point and make it ultimately easier to sell your services to the people who are going to love them and keep coming back for more?
For a consultation on copywriting services for your business, contact me and I’ll be delighted to talk to you.