Are you looking to build a salon clientele? Perhaps you’re new to the beauty business or starting over after relocating, and you need a place to start. Maybe you’re an established salon professional but would like to add to your existing customers. Or, in light of recent events, you may be looking to rebuild after a COVID lockdown.
Regardless of your situation or reason, there are many ways to fill your schedule by getting more clients into your chair.
How Do Salons Attract Clients?
There are many ways to attract new clients and it starts with promoting your salon and the services your team offers. You can do everything from offer a referral program, provide discounts for new clients, give away promotional items, even advertise. Regardless of what tactics you choose to use to market your salon, the ultimate key to success is consistency and remaining diligent.
What Makes a Great Salon Experience?
Clients naturally expect the service that you provide to be stellar. That’s why you should think of your salon as a concierge of beauty. From the moment your client books their appointment, walks in the door, and throughout the service, set the right vibe and be conscious of their comfort level. Make great conversation, offer your expert advice, and pamper your customer every step of the way. After all, great customer service, making a memorable impression, and achieving maximum client retention go hand in hand.
Tips to Help Build a Salon Clientele
Building a loyal client base takes time and effort. And it certainly does not happen overnight. In reality, how long does it take to build a salon clientele?
Below are some tactics to get the attention of clients and potential clients to fill your salon schedule. Naturally, you’ll need to follow through with truly exceptional service to keep them coming back again, and again.
If you’re new to the industry, here’s how to build a salon business:
Assist or Apprentice to Gain Hands-on Experience
For those newly licensed right out of beauty school, it’s advised to assist or apprentice for a while.
Assisting or becoming an apprentice in an established salon will provide a chance to gain hands-on working experience and learn more about the nuances of customer service. It will also help you to better understand all of the moving pieces that make a salon come together. Look for a salon with an excellent mentoring, apprentice, and/or assisting program that offers continuing education for the full staff.
Take the time to observe the busiest stylists and/or colorists, showing genuine interest in what they are doing. Seek mentorship and volunteer your time as much as possible to show how serious you are in your chosen profession.
Find a salon in an area that you want to stay in so you can eventually build up a clientele starting with the business’s overflow on busy days. If you assist, apprentice, or are new to an area, look for a salon with a fair amount of foot traffic. Salons located in a mall or a busy shopping center are great places to start. Depending on the salon’s policy for dividing up walk-ins, the chances are that you can find a few coming your direction. With every walk-in or overflow appointment that you take comes with the potential of turning into a regular client.
Look Inward for Friends and Family
When you’re new to the industry, you typically start with friends and family as your clientele. Although they are likely used to getting your services for free, now is the time to start cashing in on those favors. You can undoubtedly give your inner circle discounted rates but ask them to help fill your schedule, especially off times, to keep you looking busy.
The more people that see you working on someone else, the more likely they are to consider booking with you. That’s especially true if you offer a unique service or specialize in a particular technique. For example, if you’re really good at formal looks or braids, create a flattering hairstyle for someone so they can witness your talent. Create these looks when others can see your handiwork – that way, when they have a special event, they know who to consider booking.
Give it Away if Needed
Do whatever it takes to keep busy, even discount or give your services away to potential customers as needed. This will allow them to see what you are capable of while you hone your skills even further.
Start with a free haircut, bang/fringe trim, blowout, or even an up-style for a formal event. Be sure to let the customer know that it’s a limited or one-time offer and snap a few pictures to promote yourself.
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If you’re an established hairdresser at any stage of your career, here’s how to make your salon business grow. Try these ideas to attract more clients:
Grow Your Salon Clientele with Referral Requests
Especially ideal for established service providers, ask your existing clients for referrals. They all have friends, family, and co-workers that they can reach out to but may not have thought to do so.
You can even consider using a rewards system to incentivize your clients to step up. That way, they can cash in rewards points later for any referrals they make today.
Regardless of who you ask and how, make it easy for them to complete the task. Offer a small stack of business cards or postcards to hand out and be sure your clients are following you on social media so they can make recommendations digitally.
Partner with Local Businesses
It never hurts to work with another local business to help promote each other. It can be as simple as swapping a stack of business cards, giving each other kudos on social media, or sponsoring a special event or fundraiser together.
If nothing else, take the opportunity to network with other businesses. You never know who you might meet or how any of your new acquaintances could become loyal customers.
Networking is especially helpful if you are new in town. It’s how to build clientele in a new city. Introduce yourself at town events, get to know influential locals, and stay current on social media. Sending a little love on social media can help you gain followers, likes, and general interest in your business.
Take Measures to Always Stay Relevant
Make sure to keep your website up to date and include recent reviews, testimonials, and content to keep things fresh. If you’re running a referral program, list it on your website and provide an easy way to make a recommendation, such as a quick sign up form, a link to your contact us page, or your salon email address.
Get Exposure with Salon Client Reviews
Make the most of online reviews to help persuade new clients to come in for your services. Make sure you have a business listing on Google, Yelp, and other platforms where you can ask your happy clients to leave a review.
Potential customers give reviews a lot of weight when considering where to take their business. Make sure they have a way to find your business and what others are saying about it.
Promote Yourself
Another idea of how to boost your clientele is to do regular promotions — something you should always do no matter how long you have been in business.
- Always have a good supply of business cards both in the salon and on you at all times. That way, you can hand them out as needed or leave a stack behind.
- Take the time to promote yourself on social media, adding snapshots of events, ideas, and finished looks. Keep your content interesting and share it regularly. Consider placing a targeted Facebook and/or Instagram ad for your demographic and in your specific area.
- To step things up, take out a local ad and add yourself to regional directories so people can find you.
- Also, look into mass email and text message marketing options to help keep your current clients interested and engaged. Creating occasional mass text campaigns, epromos, and newsletters are effective ways to stay in touch.
- Create and showcase your work as much as possible. In addition to your efforts on social media, consider creating a series or body of work, highlighting a specific technique or upcoming trend. Create a press release and send it along with your work out to local media outlets. Getting your work published adds a lot of credibility to what you do. Also, it might catch the eye of someone looking for a new salon or stylist.
If you’ve had a hard time getting clients to come back after a COVID-19 shutdown, consider some of these tactics:
Use automated email marketing or text message marketing to remind clients that they are due or overdue for salon services. Usually, just a simple reminder or letting them know that you and your team miss them is enough to do the trick.
For clients who have fallen off the grid, consider tapping hair stylist incentive ideas. That’s where you offer a discount or other reason to get them back through your door. Look into something like 20% off of their next service, a free trim with color services, beard trim with men’s haircut, or even a deep moisture treatment for that extra level of indulgence.
If your clients are leary to come back based on health and safety concerns post-pandemic, make it a point to communicate your salon’s ways to ensure that they stay safe. Mention all of the deep cleanings that happen, including between clients, and assure your customers that PPE measures are carefully followed.
Use features like curbside check-in and contact-less checkout to add another layer of confidence. Look into a PCI-compliant merchant account for your payment processing. That way, you can safely hold their card information on file. And you can avoid having either party touch credit cards or even the processing terminal.
No matter your situation or level of experience, cultivating new clients is a fact of doing business. Now that you know how to get more beauty clients, make it a regular habit for your salon, so you are less likely to realize a drop in customers.
The ultimate tip? Make yourself a community by doing amazing work and giving the best possible service every time — then let word of mouth speak the loudest for you as you continue to build your salon clientele.
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