I own a specialty hair salon and we provide unique services. I have some new stylists that need help filling in their books and I’m hoping to invest in some marketing for the first time. Can anyone help advise me on the best way to invest in my business to get more foot traffic?

I work behind the chair full time and provide lots of training to my staff so I don’t have a ton of free time to invest, but have been working hard on social media and pushing for yelp and google reviews. I’ve been teaching myself a bit about SEO, but am not a pro. We also do a lot of community events that thankfully have kept us afloat in our 2 years of being in business.

I have worked somewhere in the past that paid for yelp advertising and when they cancelled the premium account yelp started removing all of our good reviews and harassing us. I was going to pay for google advertising but was afraid after that last experience and would love feedback on how to invest.

Here’s my site if you’d like to know more about what we do: www.blacksheepsalonLBC.com

Thank you!

  • NobiruORBustBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I ran a salon for over a decade. Here’s my advice that worked for me for years when I had newer girls. Run an inactive client report. Find every single client who has dropped off and send them a personalized text- you can type one into a note and copy it and personalize it. Let them know you have a new stylist who is x% off through Dec (must have a deadline) and she has just a few openings left if you would like to get in and get your hair freshened up for the holidays. Let them know your stylist is trained by your personally, or has their color formula you did for them, etc. Since you are busy, you can have your stylists go down the list and each do 5-10 texts per day. To me, this is better than paying for marketing because these are clients who have already known and liked your salon and maybe just got off track and have been thinking to get back in but just haven’t made the appointment. My other option is a referral contest. Now through Dec only- current clients get $x off their next service when they refer a friend. Each referral puts them into a drawing for a really beautiful, huge gift basket of retail products valued at $X. Way cheaper than $500, and referrals are always the best. And finally, ask every single client to leave a google review. Ask them personally and then text the link.