Marketing – it’s expensive, right? Well, yes, it can be. And time consuming too. But it doesn’t have to be. Invest a little time and effort into boosting your salon or spa’s image and you could reap rewards for very little financial outlay. Want to know how to market your beauty business for less? Of course you do…
Market your beauty business for peanuts
Get higher up on Google by keeping your website content fresh. If you have a WordPress website, it’s really easy to do; you just need to start a blog that sits on your website and add something regularly. Some free website software like Wix doesn’t rank as well on Google, according to anecdotal reports, although this might change. Add beauty news, tips and your twist on all the latest trends. Just half an hour once a week is all it takes and if you already have a website (you do, don’t you?) it’s free.
(You can also ask a professional beauty writer to write your blog posts for you if you’re not confident in your writing ability, or buy in professional content from a Marketing Content Library)*
Ask your happy clients to do some of your marketing for you – give them somewhere to post a salon review on either Google, Facebook or Instagram. You could even make it into a competition – run a raffle every month for reviewers to win a gift certificate or extra service. There are also review sites like Trustpilot that are worth a look. Use apps like Canva to add your branding to free images, or invest in images specially created for spa and beauty businesses * like the Marketing Content Library. Then over write excerpts from your favourite reviews and add them to Instagram and other social media.
Social media is free but it takes and age (I should know) so make the most of free scheduling software apps that you can use on phones and tablets as well as a laptop or PC. Buffer, Hootsuite, and other helpful content apps like PostPlanner are all good for scheduling posts ahead and also PostPlanner is great for ideas and inspiration. They all have free entry level options as well as ‘Pro’ levels which are usually fairly cheap and let you schedule all your social media in one place.
Make sure you’ve got your Google My Business account set up. It will give you more local coverage and make sure that your business appears as soon as anyone Googles ‘salon’ or ‘spa’ in your area. Yes, Google does have the monopoly on search engines, you can do the same for other platforms but really Google is the best option to get seen in your area. And of course you can get clients to review you there, boosting your ranking even more.
Sign up to an email app like Mailchimp (which is still free at entry level too) and use it to send out emails to your clients. Build up an email list of people who’ve used your salon or beauty business and send them offers, news and updates. Don’t make it all about promotions though; make them interesting, so that they don’t go directly into the trash folder. Inspiration, images, tips and opinions are all good. Save time and link it to your blog too.
Love YouTube? Why not use it to your advantage? Set up a channel with beauty and health tips and add your videos to all your social media too. If Zoella can get rich from talking about herself on YouTube…
Do you always make an effort to get to Professional Beauty, and other events, either virtually or back in the day when we did such things in person? I am making a real effort to keep up with events like this because I do know how great trade shows are for connections, workshops and ideas. PB London is in October and we might even get to meet up in person, but PBOnline in 7-8 April…Yes, I know the in-person events are also full of people trying to get your personal details by entering you into a raffle, or selling tooth whitening kits, but there will be lots of people there like you (and me) and trade shows are a great place to get them all together in one location! And won’t it be amazing to see REAL people again?
Contact me if there’s anything I can help you get to grips with, copy-wise…
*This is an affiliate link and I get paid for every sign up. On the plus side – I did write a lot of the copy for Gael myself!