Why a Salon’s Website and Facebook Fanpage Are Not Nearly Enough…

Email marketing is still the most cost-effective way to communicate to your clients.  First off…it’s still virtually free.  I mean, even email marketing subscription sites like Constant Contact and Vertical Response are still very inexpensive in terms of monthly fees.  And if you want to go even cheaper…you have other sites like Mail Chimp.

But, the cost effective nature of email marketing is not the ONLY reason that you should be using this advertising method.  There are actually two other big ones that cannot be ignored.  And the first one has to do with why email marketing is much more effective method of advertising than your salon’s website or Facebook fanpage could ever be.

Let me explain…

Email marketing employs a concept called interruptive marketing.  Interruptive marketing means that the marketing itself is designed to interrupt a person’s habit pattern or state of inertia.  In other words, they weren’t thinking of your salon…but your email subject line caught their attention and now they’re curious enough to open it.

Think about it…put yourself in your client’s shoes.  Do you think that you would randomly look up a salon’s website just to see what’s new?  Of course you wouldn’t.  People go onto sites like celebrity news sites, local city sites, yahoo, shopping sites, news sites, etc.  They don’t go to salon sites to hang out.

So posting “specials” and “news” on your website for your existing clients is not really effective.  Now, people do go to Facebook…no doubt.  So, one would think that a Facebook fanpage would be an effective means of connecting to their existing clients.  But Facebook has recently changed something on their site making “fan pages” far less effective these days.

Essentially, the posts that a person sees in their live “feed” are ranked by popularity.  In other words, the people that they connect to the most during the day…get put ahead of all the other posts.  So, if Sally is talking to her friends all the time and rarely clicks on a post from your salon…your post will be placed at the bottom of her page.  Where she probably will never see it because she won’t scroll down to the bottom too often.

So, using either your salon’s website or Facebook fan page are not all that effective today is communicating to existing clients (whereas email marketing shines in this area).  You just have to make sure that your emails are interesting so that people will want to open them.

Now, here is the other big reason that email marketing can be so effective.  Because you can “target” the person and act like you’re talking to them directly.  In other words, you can personalize the email and it can seem like the email is from you…personally.

Let me give you an example.  In HairMax (version 6), you can setup emails to automatically be sent out to brand new clients.  So, when they leave the salon, and are walking out the door…an email is sent to their smart phone (personally from you) thanking them for coming in.  Imagine if you were a client (named John) and you got an email like this…

Subject Line:  Thank You John, from Steve at XYZ Salon & Spa!

Hi John,

I wanted to personally THANK YOU for visiting our salon today.  I know that there are many salon choices in our area that you could have tried…so I’m super excited that you selected ours today.

But, I was wondering…if I could ask you to do me a big favor?

I’m always striving to create the best salon experience in the Boston area…and I really value input from people (like you) to truly make it happen.

If you could take…just 2 minutes and respond to this email with one thing you liked about our salon…and more importantly…one thing you didn’t like about our salon – I would really appreciate it!

In fact, I’ll even send you a $10 gift card (that you can use the next time you visit our salon) for taking the time to do it.  That’s how important the information is to me.

Again, thanks for coming in today…and I hope to see you again very soon.

Best Regards,

Steve Sampson, Owner of XYZ Salon & Spa

P.S. I’m not sure if you got a chance to read our service guarantee when you arrived today…but if you’re not happy with the today’s service (for any reason)…I want to fix it!  In fact, you can simply call us at (1-800-424-7629) or simply respond to the email and I will personally make sure that you always leave our salon fully satisfied.

Ok, so that’s it.  A simple email that can go out to all first-time clients that can give you valuable “inside” information that you can use to improve your salon.  This is like having a free “mystery shopper” visiting your salon every week.  Not to mention the personalized thank you message (from you) that will create a “wow” factor for the client.

So, the moral of the story is this…Quit trying to use your salon’s website and your Facebook fan page to communicate broad messages to your existing clients.  Target your clients with personalized emails that will be interesting (to them) and effective for your salon.

P.S. If you’re not using HairMax version 6.0 yet…what are you waiting for?  Click the link below to see all the great changes we made to make your life easier and to grow your salon sales.

http://www.hairmaxsalonsoftware.com/hairmax-update

As always, aim high…and dream even higher…

Steve Sampson

HairMax Salon Software is a product designed to be the best investment your salon has ever made.  It is not only the easiest and most powerful salon software on the market.  It is from a company dedicated to becoming the ultimate VALUE source to the industry.