Going LIVE on Monday, February 6

We’re adding dozens of new salon advertising and marketing templates to the Members only ‘sealed section’ website site every month – this month, a completely new series of templates for those salons offering specialized salon services.

Balyage (like Rachael Bilson’s hair at left), IPL, chemical straightening, remedial massage, hair extensions, fat cavitation and much more… the new templates are instantly downloadable in Word format so you can easily edit them to suit your own salon’s offers.

You’ll find them in various sizes and formats, both US and A4, postcards, posters etc.

Never stare at a blank computer screen again!

The new templates join literally hundreds of done-for-you advertising only for salons & spas, in the world’s biggest specialist library for salon & spa marketing.

Just a handful of the hundreds of instantly downloadable salon marketing & advertising templates in the Members Only website

All you do is simply download them from the website, edit them to suit your own salon’s offers and specialties, enter your own business name and address, and bingo – instant advertising! Never again stare at a blank computer screen, not knowing what to write or how to lay it out.

These templates are being continually produced by our copywriting and graphics team, adding to our vast library every month.

The Members website is a storehouse containing literally years of proven, done-for-you direct response marketing templates. They’ve been downloaded, tested and proven to grab salon clients fast, all over the world.

Online marketing, email, SMS, newspaper ads, radio ads, salon posters, client letters – you’ll find them all on the Members Only website.

Not yet a member?

Still sitting in front of a computer screen, tearing your hair out, not knowing what to put in your ads?

Go here to find out how you can get Instant Access, for less than the price of a cut ‘n color!

WSM member Juanelle Venter and family, of Rare Beauti in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Juanelle credits WSM - and her own determination to succeed - for the growth of her salon and her prospects for 2012.

A few years ago I was in an elevator on my way to deliver a speech at a hotel conference room in Sydney. The lift stopped and a disheveled-looking guy entered and kind of slumped into a corner, looking at his shoes. In the way of these things, I smiled and said “morning, how are you today?”

He looked at me, looked back at the floor. “I’ll survive.”

Mmmm. There just isn’t much even I can do to help people who get up in the morning with their best hope for the day is merely to get to the other end of it. 

But I can help people like salon owner Juanelle Venter.  Because she gets up every morning not with mere survival in mind, but prosperity.

Juanelle owns Rare Beauti salon in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I’ve never met her, possibly never will.

For years, Juanelle had been longing to join the Inner Circle Premium program and get her hands on the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit. But there was always one thing stopping her.

South Africa’s lousy exchange rate. The low value of the rand makes it tough to import just about anything.

But back in December, when we released the new, more affordable mid-level Salon Accelerator program, it was the break Juanelle had been looking for.

“Thank you to WSM for all I have received up until now it’s been MIND BLOWING!!! I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed as my time is so limited, but any time I have when I don’t have a client begging for an appointment or Husband needing time or kids needing time, I try to research and plan my next step. This is great stuff, you guys are a life saver and I foresee a wonderful 2012. This program has helped me with staff hiring, implementing rules and regulations for the salon, becoming more professional and soon, I am hoping to get off the tools.

I have learn’t that without marketing, I would NEVER have been able to move my salon away from home, become more successful, and even thinking of opening a school and distribution. I have complete faith in the program and really think anyone that gets the program will NEVER LOOK BACK!!!

Keep up the great service. And thanks again, Juanelle.”

Just a handful of the many hundreds of salon advertising flyers, ads, letters and posters available on the members website for instant download

What Juanelle and all the new Salon Accelerator subscribers found when they joined was the ‘pot of salon marketing gold’:

• Instant, 24/7 access to the world’s biggest and best done-for-you marketing template library, just for salons & spas
• One on one coaching & guidance on how to use those templates to get more clients
• Email support – got a question or challenge, need an ad or flyer critiqued? Just send it to WSM.
• Access to the exclusive Members Only Facebook discussion forum

(On the Members website alone there are already hundreds of downloadable marketing templates, used by our Inner Circle Premium members all over the world, and we’re adding dozens more new templates every month.)

Find out more about Salon Accelerator here

Their siren call is enticing. Zero salon marketing costs for you, the owner. In return, we’ll send you perhaps hundreds of new customers.

But boiled down, it’s more like this; “Give us a ridiculous, outrageous discount. We’ll send you a truckload of bargain hunters. And keep half of your money.”

The devil is in the detail, and when comedian Anne Ferguson-Howe was fined $2,000 for spitting on a Brisbane hair stylist in a dispute over the cost of a cut, the incident brought the ‘daily deal’ craze into sharp focus.

Comedian Anne Ferguson-Howe copped a $2,000 fine for spitting on a salon owner when a daily deal went sour

Ferguson-Howe had bought a voucher online for $69, entitling her to two visits to a salon in Brisbane. But the deal went pear-shaped when staff declined to honour the voucher because of the thickness of her hair. Ferguson-Howe lost her temper, and spat in the face of the salon’s owner.

That it’s come down to physical assault won’t come as much of a surprise to the many thousands of salons who’ve succumbed to the pitch from the daily deals companies. In a ‘Finger on the Pulse’ survey conducted by Worldwide Salon Marketing, there was almost universal condemnation of the daily deal craze among the salon & spa industry.

Almost, but not quite. It seems from our survey of salons in Australia, New Zealand, the US and UK, that you need to handle the ‘deals’ like they’re dynamite, or they’ll blow up in your face. But for a small percentage of salons, the daily deal can be positive.

Sort of.

The survey asked salon owners a series of questions about their experiences with the daily deals.

Just over half of those surveyed (54%) said they’d done a daily deal at least once. (Of those who answered No, fully 86% said they would never consider one. The response from one salon owner from the Gold Coast was typical:

“We thought seriously about it, spoke to 2 different deal companies. The maths did not add up. I spoke to several other business owners, one of whom has since closed her doors because of the deal companies and decided against it. In the end, better to do our own value add deals and keep all the profit.”

Another, also in Queensland, was more pointed:

“I have been approached by several deal companies, but reading between the lines, you could see disaster looming. What do you do with your regular clientele when you are full of underpaying one offs?”

Of the salons who’d ‘done a deal’, feelings were mixed, but heavily weighted in favour of the negative. The daily deals are producing ‘bargain hunting’ customers. And if the salon owner isn’t careful, flooding the salon with one-time only clients, regular full-free clients risk being pushed aside.

The daily deal sales reps tell businesses it’s a fantastic, cost-free opportunity to get new clients and turn them into regulars. But for most salons, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

Asked what percentage of daily deal customers turned into regular clients, fully 66% said less than 5% of voucher buyers turn into regulars.

Says one Auckland, NZ salon owner:
“Daily deals attract clients that only want a deal, I realised this after the first one that I did, hardly any of the clients came back. I tried again with the idea in mind that I would set up a loyalty card that would bring them back for a discount on the 6th visit, still didn’t keep the second lot coming, they were hardened deal seekers! Not only that, many had a really bad attitude as though they were clients that should get better treatment than my regulars, rude and demanding. I don’t want clients like this so never doing this again!!”

Asked to rate the ‘quality’ of voucher buyers, survey respondents said they were either ‘bottom-feeding deal hunters – zero value’ (39.5%), ‘a very few were okay’ (23.7%) or ‘mostly nice people but little long-term value’ (23.7%).

Such negative sentiment shouldn’t come as a surprise. The entire premise of the daily deal companies – who take up to half of the value of vouchers sold – is to pitch ‘cheap’ to as many people as possible.

When you pitch cheap, you get cheapskates – people who buy only on price. And that’s because they’re given no other criteria on which to make a decision but price. The deal hunters are passionate too. Many will travel enormous distances for the ‘deal’ – because it’s often too good to be true.

(One ‘upside’ for the salons selling coupons – studies are consistently showing that 25% of buyers never redeem the vouchers.)

It’s not all gloom and doom though. Just over 15% of respondents said their daily deal experience was either ‘definitely positive’ or ‘positive but with dangers’.

According to one Currimundi Qld salon owner,

“I was initially concerned that I did not sell enough – but now I am pleased with the amount I have sold as I have gained good feedback and it was a great way to test the market, I still made money and customers are happy with the service. For me the only business owners that need to be worried are the ones that don’t have good service.”

And a Wellington NZ salon owner agreed:

“I think if it’s managed properly this is an excellent way to get busy quickly with no capital outlay. Especially good for new senior staff. It’s been a mixture to be fair, but we a getting enough stayers to more than justify their existence.”

Fine-detail management of the whole experience seems to be the key. As the salon owner you need to not only pay close attention to the detail of the agreement with the coupon company – and that means agreeing to the deal on your terms, not simply caving in to their demands – as well as making sure you have all the up-sell, down-sell and cross-sell ducks lined up for when the bargain hunters start coming through the door.

Failure to micro-manage and you risk having the deal turning instantly pear-shaped.

Says one salon owner on the Gold Coast:
“…Personally I know of 2 businesses that have closed their doors after the ‘deal’. To be fair these salons were probably not travelling too well before the deal. But they both felt the deal hastened the death of their businesses. Although I have said I feel the overall deal biz is a disaster for the industry, for smart operators it is a great thing. Between the GFC and the deal companies our industry is getting pruned. In my experience clients want experts and value, not second rate heavily discounted deals. We have never been busier and we never EVER discount.”

There’s a lesson there; for most salons, cutting their prices is often the only form of marketing they know. Signing up with a coupon company is effectively double discounting – you cut your price to below cost, then give up to half of what’s left to the coupon company.

Instead of discounting, smart salon owners know that the real key to success is adding value, with that added value offer becoming the cornerstone of a carefully-crafted marketing message, including but not limited to powerful testimonials (social proof), a compelling headline (the ‘ad for the ad’), scarcity, some kind of risk-reversal (a strong guarantee), and much more.

But salon owners who complain bitterly about the effect of coupon customers on their business can’t entirely blame the coupon company, or the quality of the customers they generate.

By signing up with a coupon company you’re effectively abdicating from responsibility for your own marketing, and handing that control over to a third party whose ONLY interest is volume selling, not value selling.

There’s a compelling equation: Responsibility = Control, and Control = Responsibility.

(A lifer in prison has no responsibility for anything. Every decision is made for him. But he has no control over anything either.)

As a marketer myself, and owner of a substantial business, it’s always curious to me why business owners are so quick to hand over responsibility for what amounts to THE most important job in any business, that of bringing customers through the door, ie Marketing.

The number 1 is the most dangerous number in business. One supplier. One employee. One source of customers; suddenly lose that crucial ‘one’ and your business falls over instantly.

Relying on a daily deal company as the major or only source of your new customers is akin to putting Charlie Sheen in charge of the asylum. But much of this may be moot.

The entire daily deal craze could be about to consume itself. Deal companies are popping up everywhere, and going out of business just as fast. For the army of daily deal sales reps, it’s getting harder and harder to sign up merchants, and they’re starving.

(One salon owner was told the entire Perth sales staff of one of Australia’s largest deal companies walked out en masse.)

Even the 800-pound gorilla Groupon is struggling.

As US marketer and commentator Dan Kennedy puts it:

“Groupon has monstrous marketing & sales costs, and delays payments of the monies owed to merchants/advertisers, and uses that ‘float’ to finance its current marketing expenditures, relying on this month’s merchants’ share of money collected to pay last month’s obligations to those merchants. I’ll put it another way; this thing is a Ponzi scheme with a mask.”

If that’s true, sooner rather than later one or more of these companies is going to collapse overnight, owing merchants a fortune, unable to pay. Not an attractive concept for a salon owner with 500 angry deal hunters banging on the door demanding their now-worthless vouchers be honoured.

How to Get Marketing Where You Get to Keep ALL the Money: 

Hundreds of salons & spas all over the world use Worldwide Salon Marketing’s tools, ad templates, flyers and one-on-one guidance to bring customers through the door.

For our flagship Inner Circle Premium program, find out more here. 

For our BRAND NEW mid-level Salon Accelerator program, find out more here. 

And each and every year the website grows as more material is added and the archive gets bigger.  In fact there is over 6 years worth of archived material on the website now.  It’s easy for some of the older archives to be lost in depths of the website.

And it’s safe to say that if you were to employ a design firm or an ad agency to create the material on the members website and give you multiple options for designs, template sizes and concepts, you would be looking at spending into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  On the other side of the coin, if you were to try and design all this material yourself, well firstly you’d probably need a degree in copy writing, graphic design and a heck of a lot of time on your hands!!!

So, in this new feature I intend to delve deep into the archives, blow the dust and cob webs away and unearth some of the hidden gems that perhaps you have never come across before.

In this first feature I am going to look at a clever little flyer that was actually created by a Pizza Shop.

This was actually one of the very first promotions we use for our salon D’Aguiar: hair.skin.nails after joining the Inner Circle Program back in 2007 and it was a huge succuss. Our version was slightly different and at the top said ‘FREE $20 Voucher – No Strings Attached’  We then looped a piece of string through the flyer and hung it on peoples door knobs around our neighbourhood.  We consistently got 10 bookings from every 100 door flyers delivered and we had so many people saying they LOVED the out of the box marketing!

We still have dozens of clients that come to our salon today who originally came from this flyer. So when you think for the cost of a $20 service, we have made upwards of $4 – 5K from EACH of those clients since then, it’s a pretty good return on investment!

Here’s a link to find this template in the members only sealed section.

http://www.worldwidesalonmarketing.com/members/salon-marketing-ideas/ideas-to-steal/a-different-kind-of-mailbox-flyer-try-this/

If you are an Inner Circle Member and want to share a success story from another members only website ‘hidden gem’ then drop me an email chris@worldwidesalonmarketing.com and I’ll be sure to feature it in an up and coming article!

If you are NOT an Inner Circle Member and are sick and tired of sitting in front of a computer screen trying to come up with designs and copy for flyers and ads then you need to apply to join the Inner Circle Program and get access to the years of archives on the members only website and get your very own copy of the Essential Salon Owners Toolkit to help you market your hair or beauty salon/spa. Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive TODAY

Worldwide Salon Marketing is excited to announce that it is partnering with Salon Finder to launch the all-new Salon Finder app in Australia within a matter of weeks. It’ll be free to ‘claim’ your salon in it, add a bio, an image and contact details, and a tiny amount to subscribe and get your offers live on your salons very own App page…new ones every day if you like.

The All-New Salon Finder iPhone App

Salon Finder iPhone App (which is also available on iPad and iPod) was developed by Chris Sanders and his team in our Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ office and was released on the NZ App Store for download in December.  The App is not available in Australia yet but you can register your salon now at www.salonapps.co.nz so you are ready in time for the big launch in February!

As the world becomes increasingly mobile our industry has a fantastic opportunity to capitalize on this cutting edge technology while it is still VERY early days.

Think about when websites burst on to the scene 20 plus years ago. Done right, those early birds who got the worm set their businesses up for life! The only problem was the huge barrier to entry for Salon Owners – COST! Yes to have a website developed back then would set a salon back tens of thousands of dollars, which quite simply, most salon owners didn’t have!

And like the website craze from all those years ago, Smart Phone Apps are fast becoming the next big thing, so much so that many experts suggest that the internet is dying.

Similarly, with software developers charging tens of thousands of dollars (ouch!) to develop an iPhone App, cost will be a BIG factor preventing Salon owners from capitalizing on this technology now, while it’s running HOT!

So, Salon Finder and Worldwide Salon Marketing are making it very easy for Salon Owners to ride on this bandwagon now without the worry of crippling software developer costs.

Click this link here to see screen shots and information about how Salon Finder will help your Salon to capitalize on this ever-increasing market. 

And Salon Finder allows salon owners to take back some of the power from the ‘daily deal’ sites and do their own deals to tens of thousands of iPhone users who have high disposable incomes. And the best thing is that the customers contact them direct…there’s no middle man taking commissions of sometimes up to 50%. All a salon pays is a subscription fee, which begins from as little as $49 per month!

“The world has become more mobile, so our industry needs to move with it or risk being left behind,” says Chris Sanders. “Our industry is full of savvy, forward thinking business owners.  We are excited to bring this marketing tool to develop and enhance an industry we love. It also means salons can get away from their reliance on ‘daily deal’ websites that have been running loose and free offering cut price deals.  Salon Finder is all about empowering salon owners and building loyalty”

For more information on Salon Finder visit www.salonapps.co.nz or feel free to call Chris Sanders on +64 9 476 1592

A lot of people had a lot of good ideas before you were born. And most of those good ideas are still good ideas. But their lessons have been largely forgotten, which is why most hair & beauty industry marketing in the ‘modern’ era is a complete failure.

Take a look at this Revlon TV ad from 1973.

A 'Charlie Girl' had power and confidence unheard of among women in 1973 - hence the briefcase, and her hand on HIS backside instead of the other way round!

Anybody over the age of forty will remember the famous print and TV campaigns for Revlon’s ‘Charlie’ perfume. In the seventies, when women were still fighting to be seen as ‘equal’ to men, these ads were a revelation.
For the first time, they portrayed women as strong, deliberately sexy, confident and powerful at a time when most advertising put women firmly in the kitchen and laundry.

And if you’re a student of marketing, you’ll notice one more crucial thing: the ads aren’t about the product! There’s not even a hint about what’s in it, no dreary nonsense about how it was created by white-coated scientists with lots of letters after their names, in clinical laboratories using secret ingredients distilled from the purified secretions of a now-extinct South American tree frog.

Revlon founder Charles Revson knew the secret that most business people seem to have forgotten long ago; that nobody cares a damn about the product.

Revson’s advertising answered emphatically the only question that really matters:

‘Why should I, your prospective customer, buy this?’

There’s an old saying that talks about not being able to ‘see the forest through all the trees’.

Everybody suffers from it from time to time, even those who’re often seen by others as super-successful.

Like the salon owner who approached me last week for some advice. This very young salon owner joined the Inner Circle marketing & mentoring program a few years ago when she was working alone and struggling, and became almost an ‘overnight’ success.

She devoured everything I teach about direct response marketing for salons, soaked it up like a sponge, rapidly and repeatedly implementing everything she found in the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit, and pretty soon found herself creating her own advertising through everything she’d learned.

Became, in effect, a marketing machine.  Her salon grew and grew, she bought another salon, and within two years of joining WSM was working almost exclusively from home, while her salons ran on automatic pilot.

But that wasn’t enough for all this new-found entrepreneurial zeal. It had to find another outlet somewhere. So she decided she’d develop her own skin care product line, and use the internet to sell it.

All good so far. Then she ran into a bank of fog that clouded her once-clear vision. She wrote to me and asked

“Greg, I need a bit of reassurance…is this web-based ‘glop’ a good idea, or am I frigging mad???!!! We all have these days when we wonder ‘what the hell…’ – don’t we?”

We do indeed. This is what I wrote back to her:

“Don’t think of it as ‘web-based glop’. There is no such thing as an ‘internet business’. The internet is not a business, it’s merely a media. Just one media.

You need to think of your idea as a business, like any other business. As a marketing and sales business that just happens to be selling a beauty product or products, using the internet as just one of the many forms of media it uses to get its message out, gather leads, make sales to those leads.

It’s much bigger than just an ‘internet business’. And it’s not something you can do for a couple of hours a week, sitting at the kitchen table in your track pants, thinking this is all it takes.

You’re contemplating setting up and growing a business. Not a hobby. Don’t think of it as a ‘internet glop’ hobby. Imagine instead that you’re setting up a drilling company, or a construction business, or a fashion brand. Do all the same things you would do for your ‘glop’ business as you would do for those businesses.”

She got it immediately.

“ Thanks for that…..reality check. You’re exactly right! It comes down to marketing and sales…there are companies selling the same product, the difference will be my marketing and my sales ability…which these other companies have no idea about!”

She hit the nail on the head.
Most people, particularly in big, dumb companies, lose sight of the fact that it’s not what you’re selling that matters, it’s how you market and sell it.
They fall under their own spell, mesmerised by their own wonderful product or service, deluded into thinking that their prospects, customers and clients actually give a damn about the product. They don’t, at all. People only care about what a product does for them, not the product itself.
Which is exactly why you see most companies selling any kind of hair or skin product blathering on endlessly about obscure and meaningless ingredients – essentially, selling the sausage instead of the sizzle.

So the next time you’re tossing around product options for your salon, look closely, ask questions, and when the product rep tries to blind you with science, hold your hand up and demand clear, concise answers.

“If you were standing in front of a customer, what would you say to this customer that would clearly, in a single sentence, convince the customer to buy your product as against any and all options available to her?”
Unless and until you get a great answer to that question, all you’re selling is ‘glop’.

“Give us a ridiculous, outrageous discount. We’ll send you a truckload of bargain hunters. And keep half of your money.”

Eager for even the most meagre of cash windfalls, thousands of salons & spas around the world have fallen for it. But what do YOU think?

WSM is conducting extensive research on the impact of the ‘daily deal’ craze on the hair & beauty industry. Please take our survey and give us your opinion.

Our survey is already producing some polarized results.

According to one salon owner in Reservoir, Victoria:

“I have not been tempted to employ the services of a daily deal company. However, I did buy a voucher from a daily deal website to inspect another salon. With 3 weeks left until the voucher expired, the young therapist, who was a sole operator, nearly began crying on the phone. She stated she was working 6 days a week, long hours every day and she simply could not honour the voucher unless a client cancelled. I felt so sorry for her (she also sounded physically and emotionally exhausted) I just left it alone!”

Another, on the Gold Coast in Queensland, says

“…personally I know of 2 businesses that have closed their doors after the “deal”. To be fair these salons were probably not traveling too well before the deal. but they both felt the deal hastened the death of their businesses. although I have said I feel the overall deal biz is a disaster for the industry, for smart operators it is a great thing. Between the GFC and the deal companies our industry is getting pruned. In my experience clients want experts and value, not second rate heavily discounted deals. We have never been busier and we never EVER discount.”

Dozens of salon owners all over the world are helping us with our research.

Please take just two minutes to give us your thoughts here.

(And no, we will NOT be releasing your private details:-)

Michael Hill Was Creating A Buzz!

Last week I walked past a local jewelry shop and noticed a long queue of customers eagerly waiting outside.  There was a rope fence separating them from the entrance and a red velvet curtain blocking customers from seeing inside the store.  The customers were standing on tippy toes trying to see what was going on inside…they were REALLY excited!

The blackboard outside the store said…

‘TODAY ONLY – Make Me An offer on All Jewelry in Store’

They had created a buzz, excitement and mystery with their customers and passers by, and put a time limit on it to add to that – TODAY ONLY!  People are naturally inquisitive and if they see people flocking like sheep then they don’t want to feel left out…they want to be in the know too!

As salon owners we need to be creating this type of hype with our clients, planning and executing our marketing with thought and not just being impulsive or reactionary.  That’s how so many salons waste money – as they say ‘you fail to plan, you plan to fail.’

And planning is exactly what Louise Gray of Louise Gray Skin Care in Ponsonby, Auckland did in order to sell over $6000 of Christmas 2 for 1 vouchers.

Louise Gray and her Team in Auckland, NZ

In a coaching call early in November last year I talked through with Louise the importance of building hype especially when doing a promotion such as this or similarly memberships.  I helped her to construct a 3-step email campaign and planned what dates to send out the emails.

The initial email called for her clients to register to get early bird notification when these vouchers went on sale – just 15 minutes more notice than non-registered clients.  The email also limited the number of 2 for 1 vouchers going on sale to create urgency and get people to register.

Email 2 reminded her clients to register and also let them know how many had registered so far.  This increased the urgency as it showed the demand for the 2 for 1 vouchers was HOT!

The 3^rd email was to pre registered clients announcing the vouchers where ON SALE NOW and created urgency for these clients to call and get their voucher before the email was sent out to all 2136 clients on her database 15 minutes later.

The sequence of emails created a buzz and subsequently sold $6000 worth of vouchers.  And of course that means there is going to be an influx of new clients in the salon over the next few months as the ‘free’ voucher had to be given to a new client and had an expiry of 3 months to get these people in the door fast!

And the best thing of all…email is FREE!

I have made the emails available to Inner Circle Members by clicking the link here…

So next time you are planning any marketing campaign, think about how you are going to deliver that campaign to your target audience to get the best results.

If you want to know the secrets to putting together a successful marketing campaign and creating hype and buzz with your clients then isn’t it finally time you joined the Worldwide Salon Marketing Inner Circle Program and got your very own copy of the Essential Salon Owners Toolkit.   Click here to find out more and apply for a 90-day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system, including the Toolkit with done for you marketing and systems, one-on-one coaching (with our experienced coaches who are all salon & spa owners themselves) and access to the Members Only resources website.

One of the famous ads written by Gary Halbert for Tova Borgnine's new perfume range. It was 'tacky' direct response, and it started Borgnine's company on the road to multi-million dollar success

This is an ad written more than two decades ago for a new skin care product developed for Tova Borgnine, wife of the late actor Ernest Borgnine. Take a look at it. And before you screw your nose up, dismiss it as too ‘tacky’, not glossy and pretty, too much text and not enough glamorous pictures, consider this:

It was by far one of the most successful beauty ads ever written.

This ad was penned by the late, great copywriter Gary Halbert in the mid eighties. (Members can log into the ‘sealed section and download this and another great version in full size pdfs.)

If you did turn your nose up at these ads, you’re not alone. Back when Borgnine was starting her fledgling perfume and skin care company, she couldn’t afford to have the products stocked in the up-market shops. Instead, she used direct mail and direct response display ads extensively, many of them written by Halbert, in newspapers across the country.

Right up to (or down to, depending on your point of view) the super-tabloid National Inquirer. Her use of ‘tacky’ direct response marketing brought out the snobs.

“I love your products,” she was told by friends, “But I wish you would have them in the tops stores, like Saks – I couldn’t possibly tell my friends you advertise in the National Inquirer…”

But Tova had the last laugh. She eventually made it onto the home shopping network QVC, turning her start-up into a multi million dollar nationally-known success.

This ad had ALL of the essential elements of effective direct response…

• Desire (To recapture youth),
• Hope (That this will work),
• Fear (Of plastic surgery – including a bad result),
• Evidence (Picture of Tova – demonstrates she’s using her own product to look so youthful),
• Social Proof (Big Name Stars use it – including Tova’s husband Ernest),
• Curiosity (The ad never reveals EXACTLY what the gunk is – though it alludes to an “ancient” mystery discovered by Aztecs),
• Exclusivity (“This formula is certainly not cheap”),
• Dare (Try it for yourself – in front of a mirror – and see the amazing results),
• Risk Reversal (If not satisfied, send it back)

For those of you in the salon & spa industry who obstinately, despite all evidence to the contrary, continue to waste your time, energy and money advertising your products and services with glossy, typical ‘branding’ style marketing – yep, the way the big dumb product companies do to this day, using shareholders’ money – it’s worth taking three minutes to watch this interview with Tova.

If you want the kind of advertising the propelled Tova Borgnine’s company to stardom, you need to be a Member of WSM – there are hundreds of ads like these you can download instantly, edit them to suit your salon or spa, and start making more money. Click here to find out more.

Those salons that did well from it succeeded because they rigidly enforced their own strict conditions on the coupon buyers. The many more whose businesses were severely damaged by succumbing to the overblown promises made by the deal company reps have cause to rejoice.

The daily deal craze is on very wobbly legs.  According to Bloomberg, more daily deal websites closed down in America in July (38) than opened (36).

In my home town, it’s reported that the entire regional sales staff of Australia’s biggest deal company walked out en masse. And investors in the 800-pound gorilla of the industry, Groupon, look on nervously as it’s share prices swings wildly from extreme to extreme.

The volatility isn’t surprising. And further evidence that the ‘bright shiny object’ of online marketing ain’t the saviour it seems. The problem with daily deal sites – all of them – is they attract and congregate bottom feeders, bargain hunters in search only of the next fantastic (and unsustainable) eye-watering discount.

As Dan Kennedy writes in his latest newsletter,

…these are not customers in search of a restaurant or hair salon to patronize on an on-going basis if they like it; these are hit-and-run raiders in search of the next bargain….”

Many salons & spas will attest to that. Innumerable are the stories of small businesses being buried in hundreds, perhaps thousands of dribbling, slavering coupon carriers baying for their deal, demanding an appointment now, abusing the business owner and staff when their rudely-delivered demands weren’t met immediately, and when they were, made it clear they were completely uninterested in either re-booking and becoming a long-term customer, or buying any retail product.

And worse, so inundating the business with loss-making trades that profitable, long-term customers can’t get a look in. I’ve heard of many once-profitable salons & spas being pushed to the brink of closing their doors, virtually overnight.

Neither should it be surprising that such daily deal websites produce such an overwhelming number of grab-it-’n-run bottom feeders. The very nature of the pitch ensured it. And there is more evidence that the craze is like a catherine wheel – burning briefly and bright, then fizzling to a puff of smoke and ash.

Facebook saw the writing on the wall months ago, dumping its own daily deal service after much testing with big name brand suppliers.

And ‘deal fatigue’ appears to be setting in even for the bargain hunters. According to Time.com’s Brad Tuttle,

More than 1 in 5 daily deal vouchers are never used. Increasingly, customers who do redeem them complain of pushy upselling, tricky fine print, or that the service or product was a poor value or just plain bad, no matter how big the discount.

For those more resolute salons & spas who resisted the temptation to risk the deluge in the hope of quick cash, congratulations. For those who succumbed and got burnt, it’s a lesson in the importance of not only how you attract your customers, but where you get ‘em from.