Your ability to continuously attract new salon clients will ultimately determine your success as a salon or spa owner.
It doesn’t matter how talented you and your staff are at the craft.
You need clients.
The more clients you have, the more you can optimize your staff and rental costs. Additionally, having more clients allows you to raise the prices for your services.
The more clients you have, the more you can increase the prices you charge for your services.
In this article, I’ll explain the most effective ways to attract new salon and spa clients. If you implement these strategies, you can change your business forever.
After you’ve read the 7 tips below, I recommend you watch my video on how to build your salon clientele.
1. Run Facebook & Instagram Ads Designed to Build Salon Clientele
Facebook Ads are the most effective way to get more clients for your salon.
Full stop.
Really? … You might think.
I’m not talking about boosting a Facebook post here. I mean proper implementation of a Facebook ads strategy for a salon.
I’m sure you’ve done some Facebook marketing before. But Facebook marketing can be useless if done incorrectly, or it can generate new clients like crazy at very little cost if done right.
As a salon owner, you don’t need to be the perfect marketeer at everything. But investing time to truly understand Facebook ads can be a game changer for you. If I’d recommend that you learn one skill outside your core profession, this would be it. Or if you run a bigger salon, I’d advise you to put a part of your marketing budget with a good Facebook ads agency to help you.
You can typically find an agency to help you for about $1’000 and up/per month. If you’re a smaller salon and don’t have that money, you can learn how to do good Facebook ads for the salon on your own. It’s not difficult but requires you to spend a bit of time learning.
Check out my guide to Facebook ads for beginners here.
Hair Salon Facebook Ad Example
2. Get on Top of Google with “Pay-Per-Click” Ads Targeted to New Salon Clients
What’s easiest:
Selling popcorn to someone walking up to a kiosk to buy popcorn or selling popcorn to a person watching a football game with friends?
Of course, both are possible. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it’s easier to sell popcorn to someone who’s looking to buy it.
This is like Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads.
When you promote your salon with Google Ads, you put your ad in front of people when they search for salons in your area. This means they already intend to book a salon; they’re just trying to figure out which one to choose.
This is powerful.
When you search for a salon on Google today, all you see “above the fold” is ads and the map today. With above the fold, I mean what you see without needing to scroll. You really want to be visible here. The image below shows what I’m talking about.
To learn how you can get your salon or spa on the map, you can read my article on how to get your salon at the top of Google here.
It’s a bit more expensive to use Google Ads, but that is also because it works so well. With Google Ads, you’re also limited to the number of people looking for salons, while on Facebook, your audience is endless. However, if your salon is based in a decently sized town, the number of people searching for spas and salons is typically not a limitation.
Google Ads is also easier to get going with than Facebook Ads so it’s a good place to start for beginners. You can learn more about Google Ads on Google’s website here.
If you run a bigger salon business and want me to help you manage your Google Ads, you can send me a request here and I’ll come back to you as soon as possible.
3. Enable the Features on Your Salon Website That Get More Salon Clients to Book You
Your website should be like a well-trained 24/7 salon receptionist.
It should make all visitors feel welcome and like they just landed in the right place. It should provide the experience your salon stands for, ensure the new client gets all the information she needs, and book her for her first appointment with you.
But many salon websites fail here.
I often see salon websites that look like pretty leaflets describing the salon but don’t encourage visitors to book an appointment. Even worse, they deliver a poor user experience (slow load time, not mobile-friendly, outdated visuals, etc.), and visitors leave before they’ve even had the chance to get to know you.
As a salon owner, you cannot tolerate this. You’re leaving too much on the table.
Your website is your salon’s online hub.
That’s where all your other salon marketing and promotional efforts come together and turn them into new salon clients.
Luckily, it’s not difficult to fix this. And you can do it yourself or use an agency. Just check out my other article that takes you through a step-by-step guide for how you can create a professional and effective website for your salon yourself.
Example of a Good Hair Salon Website
Find more examples of great hair salon websites in my post where I list the top salon websites.
A Word on the Technology to Use for Your Salon Website
When designing your salon website, it’s important to consider the technology behind it. The choice of website builder platform and salon software can greatly impact the experience your site provides and how successful it is at building your brand and attracting clients.
It’s crucial to ensure that the two technologies integrate well for a seamless user experience.
For salon software, my choice is Mangomint. It offers excellent integration with your website’s online booking experience, regardless of the website builder platform you choose.
When a potential client clicks on your “book now” button, it appears seamlessly over your website with your colors and branding.
The booking experience with Mangomint is shown below.
4. Incentivize Word-of-Mouth Recommendations From Salon Clients
A loyal client is the best promotor of your salon.
I’m sure you’ve noticed this already.
In fact, even salons and spas that don’t have a deliberate strategy for acquiring new salon clients typically claim that the reason they still manage to build a salon is because of word-of-mouth referrals.
But imagine if you’d put in place a system that incentivizes your loyal clients to refer new clients. Honestly, this is the best way you can build your salon brand.
There are two specific strategies I’d suggest you implement here:
- Get your clients to leave online ratings & reviews after their visit
- Reward clients who bring in new clients to your salon.
How to Get Online Rating & Reviews for Your Salon or Spa
Salon ratings & reviews are typically posted on your Google My Business page, Facebook page, and Website. There are of course many other places (Yelp etc.) but these are the most common ones.
They are critical for you. Good ratings on Google My Business will ensure your salon shows up with 4 or 5-star reviews when people look for salons in your area. Just getting this in place can completely change the flow of new salon clients you get through your door via search and your website.
The best way to get ratings for your salon is simply to ask your customer. However, we sometimes forget this and it may also feel awkward at times.
This is why you should automate it.
If you’re using good salon software, this will take care of it for you. It will send a notification to your client after they check out from your salon to ask them to rate you. This works very well as they just have their experience fresh in mind and are excited about their new nails or hair.
Are you tired of manually asking your clients to leave a review on Google or Yelp? With Mangomint, the automated messages feature has got you covered.
By including a link to your preferred review site in the Sale Closed automated message, you can encourage your clients to leave a review without any additional effort on your part.
Customizing your Sale Closed automated message is quick and easy. Simply navigate to Settings > Automated Messages > Sale Closed, and select the gear icon next to the automated message. From there, you can personalize the message to fit the tone and branding of your business.
Your clients will appreciate the reminder, and your business will benefit from increased visibility and credibility online.
You can also read my review of the best salon software right now here in case you don’t think your current solution has this feature.
How to Setup a Client Referral Program for Your Salon or Spa
A client referral program is a way to incentivize your salon clients to get new clients for you. I’m sure you’re already getting new salon clients through the door based on referrals today but placing an incentive to this can make a big difference.
New clients who come in based on referrals are also more likely to become loyal clients. So it’s worth investing a bit here.
Make your offer to your client referring attractive. Not a 10% discount on the next visit – this is too small. Try to make it something where they feel it’s really worth the effort. Remember, clients coming in on referral are more likely to become loyal. And how much is a loyal customer worth to you?
If you can, make the offer on both sides. If your client is able to give some specific value to the person they are referring to, the likelihood that they will refer goes up even further.
Also when it comes to referrals, good salon software can help manage all the tracking and client notifications for you. This will make your life much easier.
5. Define an Influencer Strategy That Attracts New Clients to Your Salon
Like it or not.
Influencer marketing is how most “famous” salons, hair stylists, and nail techs have achieved their position.
It simply works.
People do trust what people they follow on social media say. It may be enough that you get one influential person in your chair that posts about her visit to fill your books for weeks after.
But how can you achieve this?
Having a strategy for your salon or spa for how you work with influencers must be a priority for you.
Promote Your Salon or Spa Using Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers should be your focus.
These are people with 30k followers or less on their social channels, ideally with an audience in the area of your salon.
People listen more to micro-influencers than the big ones. As they have a smaller following they typically also have a stronger relationship with their audience. And if they recommend something, people follow.
At the same time, you can get a micro-influencer to post about your salon at little or even zero cost. Just by treating them well and maybe through some free bonuses, you could get them to write about your salon.
So, next time you have a new client coming into your salon, look up their social profile first. If they have 1,000+ followers with good engagement (likes and comments), you may want to consider doing something extra to get them to post about you.
Bigger, Paid, Influencer Partnerships for Your Salon or Spa
You can also get lucky with bigger influencers.
Like micro-influencers, they may write about you without getting anything in return.
But it’s rare these days.
The guys with 100k+ engaged followers know their worth. They know that just one post from them recommending your salon can get you a week of bookings.
But if they have a large following, it typically goes beyond the geographic area of your salon. Thus, you might be paying the attention of people who couldn’t come to your salon.
Working with a bigger paid partnership can be a good idea if you run a salon chain with nationwide coverage or if you’re also building a brand that goes beyond your salon – this could be with your own product line or an eCommerce store. Otherwise, I would focus on working with the smaller, local, micro-influencers.
How to Make the Influencer Collaboration Effective for Your Salon
So, do you have an influencer posting about your salon?
Awesome.
But how do you turn that post into salon bookings for yourself?
Let’s go through a few simple steps you can take. These steps assume the influencer uses Instagram but the same principle would apply to any platform.
- Make sure the influencer is linking to you by @mentioning you or your salon in their caption.
- Ask them to check in to your salon when posting.
- If you have salon-specific hashtags, see if they can use one of them as well. This might be pushing it, though. Having them @metion your salon is the most important part. Hashtags are just a bonus.
- On your salon’s Instagram account, make sure you have a good bio that captures the attention of visitors to your profile but more importantly links back to your salon website. You can read my article on how to craft a good Instagram bio for salons here.
- Have some good posts on your profile from your salon and make sure there are also some good posts about your salon at the check-in location. For ideas, you can also read my post about how you create good Instagram posts and captions for salons here.
- The steps above will help you capture the benefit of the influencer post by directing visitors to your website. The final step is (not surprisingly) to make sure you have a salon website that is effective at converting visitors into salon clients. Here’s another simple guide I’ve created to help you create an effective salon website. It goes without saying that you should also be prepared with an online salon booking system (the best ones listed here) to capture new bookings immediately.
6. Get Your Salon Listed Where Potential New Clients Look for Salons
Imagine you’ve just moved to a new city.
And you realize you just need to get a pedicure. Now.
What do you do?
If you’re like most other people, you’d pull up your phone and look for nail salons in the area.
In most cases, this search would be done using Google. But there are several other places where people look for salons in your area.
Do you know which places are?
If not, you better get familiar with all local listings and make sure you get your site listed there so that people can find you.
But let’s go over the most common ones that you just need to be familiar with:
- Google: No doubt this is the most important place where your salon needs to show up. I’ve already told you how you can show up here using Google PPC ads. However, there are several free ways to do this as well. This is why I’ve written a full article that takes you through how you can get your salon to the top of Google which I strongly encourage you to read.
- Apple Maps: Most people have an iPhone today and use the map function to find salons near them. Are you showing up there? If not, get it done now. It’s completely free and you can do it on Apple’s website here.
- Facebook: Yes, people look for salons also on Facebook. Do you have a page for your salon where people can find you?
- Yelp, Yellow Pages: There are many more websites where you can register your business. First, make sure you have the top 3 under control here. Next, you can check out Yelp, Yellow Pages, and look for other local relevant directories to list your salon or spa.
7. Stop Wasting Time on Social Media. Make Sure That What You Do Will Bring You New Salon Clients
Social media can be your most powerful marketing tool.
But it’s easy to get stuck on it. Spending a lot of time without getting any real business value out of it.
You need to be clear about how the work you’re putting into your social media will result in new clients. You need a strategy. Or chances are you, like many other salon or spa owners, are just spending a lot of time while getting minimal value out of it.
If you’re a bigger spa or salon, it can be a good idea to outsource your social media to an agency so that you can focus on your core business while capturing the tremendous value that social media can bring your business. If you don’t have the budget for that, you can learn yourself.
I recommend focusing on Instagram before expanding to other channels like YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Snapchat, or a blog. All have merit, but Instagram is what I’ve seen most salons get success with quickly.
To get you going, I recommend you read the below two articles:
- The 7 secrets to writing effective captions for your salon’s Instagram posts
- How to craft a salon Instagram bio that turns followers into clients
Conclusion
Getting new salon clients is the lifeblood of any salon business.
To my knowledge, the strategies I’ve listed in this article are the most effective ways of getting new salon clients. Some are fast to implement, and some require a bit more time to learn and implement. But investing your time in learning those is a smart move.
If you’re starting out, you may need some even quicker tactics. Although more short-term, I have also listed some further ideas for you in my post on how to build salon clientele fast.
Which strategies for getting new salon clients I have listed here have you already tried? Do you have any other tactics that are working well for you?
