Are offers ever a good idea?

I recently went to an upmarket London Mall and found a very smart barbershop. It had everything you would hope to see. Beautiful furnishings, great lighting, tasteful artwork and very smartly dressed, cool looking barbers. They had clearly invested heavily in their business.

Everything was right except, there were no clients and the team were sitting around looking at their phones.

It may have just been a brief quiet spell, but the impact on me (and other potential clients) was the same. As illogical as I know this is, walking in felt a bit intimidating, almost like I would have been interrupting them.

Would my first impression have been different if it were busy? More likely to walk in?

If there were clients in the salon, as a passer by would I know if they were receiving an offer or paying full price?

When your business has a quiet spell You have two choices; Do something or do nothing.

A quiet salon can have a negative ripple effect. It's not good for team morale, an empty salon reflects badly on passers by and it hits you in the pocket.

What's the solution?

In the good old days we would have an A-board on the street or a sign in the window offering standby appointments, and to be honest it's still not such a bad idea, although having digital solutions like software and social media makes it easy to overlook simple tried and tested analogue options.

Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have. Franz Kafka.

If you have run a business for any amount of time you will know that stuff happens. The problem is we rarely know when!

I am an advocate of what I call “draft campaigns.”

To get started, look back at times where the salon has been unexpectedly quiet, then prepare a campaign to generate sales in response to it. Then repeat.

Add this to your marketing tool kit and when it happens again you have the resources in place to respond immediately.

For example: A team member might be fully booked for a day, but only have three long and expensive appointments booked and two cancel. What would you do?

In this example there is very little notice. The good news is, it’s a short amount of time to fill, so you only need a handful of clients. The bad news is, you need them to visit today and not everyone can do that. So the solution may be to contact clients who are due to visit soon, but don't currently have anything booked, and make your offer attractive enough for them to change their plans and visit now.

Plan this when it is hypothetical as it is easier to be objective.There is little more frustrating than being left in the lurch at short notice, and being frustrated doesn't always help us be objective. It's much easier to “run the last minute cancellation campaign” than to think “what am I going to do now?”

If you do choose to use incentives or promotions within your business (and I think there is a place for them) here are a couple of considerations when planning.

• How big is the problem? How many clients will it take to resolve it?
• List item
• How easy is it for clients to respond?
• The harder it is for a client to respond (ie shorter period of time) the more enticing your offer will need to be for them to make the effort.

I hope you find this valuable and would love to hear about any strategies that have worked for you?

The Salon App is all-in-one booking, management and marketing software that helps you grow your salon business more quickly. Draft campaigns are an included feature . Book a demo today and see if it's for you.