How to Get a FLOOD of New Salon Customers Quickly & Cheaply Offline
by Greg Milner on 31/03/08 at 11:37 pm
Week after week, our fax machine and our web server groan under the weight of applications for a 30-day Test Drive of the tried-and-tested Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program.
We interview each and every applicant – scores of salon owners all over the world – for just 10 new places available in the program every month. And often, as we conduct these interviews, the lament is the same, over and over again…
"I’m desperate for customers – my appointment book is empty. HELP!"
To me, the solution is so simple. And yet when I explain it to these poor desperate salon owners, they almost break down in tears of relief, as though I’ve waved some kind of magic wand to reveal a strategy so brilliant it should be illegal.
Nothing could be further from the truth. So, lean closer dear salon owner, and listen in as I explain this mysterious client-pulling strategy. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Give Something Away for Free!
No, not some cheap little gift when they buy an expensive course of treatments, or book in for a year’s worth of hair services. Make it something BIG. Stay with me here, it’s not difficult. You just have to do the numbers.
Let’s say an average client is worth $1,000 to you in a year.
Let’s also say that if 20 new clients sat down in your chair (or your treatment room) - how many of them would you expect to keep as long term clients? (Or to ask the question another way, how good are you at giving your customers the ‘WOW’ factor?? The bigger the WOW, the more customers you’ll turn into clients.)
Would it be 16 or them? Maybe 14? Let’s be conservative, call it half of them – just ten.
So, do the numbers: get 20 prospective customers into your salon, keep ten of them as long term clients.
Ten clients @ $1,000 each = $10,000 extra takings in a year.
Now, imagine if you had a tool, a device, a strategy that would put 20 new backsides in chairs (or in treatment rooms) every week.
So every week, at a conversion rate of just 50%, you’re adding TEN new long-term clients to your list.
10 new clients each week X 52 weeks = 520 new clients
520 new clients after 1 year @ $1,000 each per year = $520,000 annual income!
Pretty impressive numbers, right? Right. So, how do you get 20 new prospective customers a week…AND keep half of them as clients? One thing at a time.
You’ve got empty chairs or treatment rooms staring you in the face, right? Usually it happens in the early part of the week, say Monday, Tuesday and/or Wednesday.
So, you devise a cracker of a FREE offer. E.g., a "FREE Cut ‘n Blow Wave valued at $x – first 19 to book ONLY!"
(That’s not the be-all-and-end-all of the marketing piece of course. It takes a lot more than that, because you have to ‘sell the free’ as hard as you sell anything else. That’s where the ‘done-for-you’ flyers, ads and letters in the Inner Circle Toolkit come into play)
Okay, I’m reading your mind now…you mean, GIVE AWAY something like a free facial, a free haircut, a free body wrap, a free make-over??? Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Because if you can GIVE AWAY 2 ‘widgets’ that actually cost you a fraction of their face-value, to get ONE client who’ll give you $1,000 over the next 12 months, how many free ‘widgets’ will you give a way???
As many as you possibly can!!!
Once you’ve got the carefully-crafted message, you need the right media to get that message to your target market - new customers. E.g.,
1) mailbox flyers - unless it’s illegal to do so in your area
2) door hangers - again, if it’s legal.
3) email to your list of non-clients (who might have registered on your website)
4) A-Frame sandwich board sign outside your salon
5) get your current clients to refer friends to you – with that great FREE offer
…and a dozen other ways of getting the message in front of your prospective customers.
Take new Inner Circle member Miriam O’Hare, of Miriam Claire’s hair salon in Nerang, Queensland. Miriam took a simple flyer from the Toolkit, tweaked it a bit, and got 900 of them out to local mailboxes.
Result: 20 bookings for the free thing, EIGHTEEN of them re-booked. See more detailed figures in Peter Butler’s full report on Miriam’s work below.
So, dear salon owner, it’s definitely NOT rocket science. You just need to know your numbers; what your average client is worth to you in a year, what your average conversion rate is, and how many FREE clients can you fit in a given period of time, between paying clients.
There are hundreds of Inner Circle member salons doing exactly this, all over the world, every week. They can’t ALL be wrong.
Click here to complete our Worldwide Salon Marketing Inner Circle Pre-Application Survey
 |
A post by Greg Milner The odd idea, a bit of prodding, a nudge here and there, a little fun, and the occasional dose of brutal reality. Greg is co-founder and CEO of Worldwide Salon Marketing, a writer, direct response marketing consultant, specialist marketing systems adviser and coach. He (sometimes) accepts private consulting clients. |
Like this article? Share it at:
