Contingency – Relationship-Based Salon Marketing

Are you feeling sick to death of all the setbacks your business has had to endure over the past year or more?

With the built-in capability to draft campaigns upfront, Salon App enables you to prepare for whatever life throws at your livelihood, making sure you’ve got some control over the extent to which your business could be potentially impacted in the future.

The need for contingency campaigns

You have had to open and close multiple times resulting in huge losses in revenue, potential clients and of course, general workplace morale.

Each time you re-opened, your team were faced with an overwhelming influx of clients all expecting to be your priority… meaning you and your team had to work extra hard, long days to meet demand and all whilst implementing Covid-19 safety measures like masks, distancing and continual sanitising.

From an immediate revenue perspective, a rush of clients is GREAT. But what happens when everyone’s been serviced and you’ve just completed 2 months of work in 1?

Well, there are fewer clients left to look after.

A constant stream of clients is what keeps you open. An erratic client stream such as the above just isn’t healthy for business.

So what can be done about it?

The better question is ‘what could have been done about it?’ Not all problems are unforeseeable events, they can be predicted, and more importantly, prevented.

This problem isn’t just a covid thing – happens in regular work weeks with peaks and troughs – weekends being busier than weekdays and booking on Fridays for Saturday night out etc

Salon App’s solution: contingency campaigns

Imagine you have a way of automatically sending out personalised campaigns, to a number of potential clients, at the exact moment when your Salon needs a boost?

With Salon App, you can create “draft” campaigns ahead of time, just in case you need them. You have a mountain of experience, you just need to find a little time to draw on it. Often, your most important decisions are made in the gap just a few minutes before your next client arrives. Set a little time aside and make a plan.

How does it work? Here are a couple of suggestions to get you going.

Campaign 1: Quick diary filler

Select a lookup of clients who had their last visit less than 120 days ago, have not visited for 30 days and do not have a future booking in the diary, Then, write a text and or email explaining you have last-minute unexpected cancellations available in the next couple of days. No sounding needy or desperate, just being helpful to clients who are likely to need an appointment. Next time you have a quiet few days just activate the campaign.

Campaign 2: Time optimiser

Select clients who are booked in for 1 service next week and incentivise them to upgrade their appointment by offering them an upgrade too – tempting them to get the service they really want instead of playing it safe. An example would be clients booked for a cut and finish get the chance to upgrade to colour as well at a reduced price. No brightly coloured sale stickers in the window, just a sophisticated approach to clients already booked.

Campaign 3: Team Leaver

You know that team members will leave you just don’t know when. Draft a series of campaigns that are ready just in case. It could be something like:

• Clients already booked with the leaver
• Clients likely to book with the leaver
• Clients who are overdue to book with the leaver

Naturally, team members moving on can have a negative impact on the salon’s client base. When you can predict a negative event (like a team leaver), you can also reduce the negative impact. So having a “plan b” ready and waiting empowers you to proactively take charge.

Handy, eh?