The start of the year is often a difficult time for many salons. If you want to capture attention, try these New Year marketing ideas…
The best New Year salon marketing ideas focus on re-engaging existing clients, promoting fresh appointments after Christmas, and encouraging advance bookings for January and February. Salons often see stronger results when campaigns combine limited-time offers, loyalty incentives, and online booking promotions. Client retention and seasonal promotions usually drive the biggest post-holiday revenue boost.
Steer clear of the “New Year, New You” messaging this January and February and create a marketing campaign that stands out from the competition. The start of the year is typically a difficult time for salons, so you can expect most companies will have some variation of a New Year, New You campaign. If you want to capture attention, you need to offer something unique that delivers better value to the customer.
It’s difficult to say what makes a good marketing campaign. Every salon is different, and what works for one might not work for another. What’s important is that you are using every campaign as a learning opportunity.
Carefully examine what works and what doesn’t work based on the numbers. This will allow you to pivot away from campaigns that don’t work for you and ensure you’re only focusing attention on those that drive results.
Originality will always be more successful. If you find yourself relying on other companies for inspiration for your marketing campaigns, make sure you are customising the campaign to a certain extent to make it unique to your business.
What do we mean by playing the long game in marketing? Instead of trying to capture as many one-time customers as possible, think about how you can turn a single customer into a repeat customer, and then repeat customers into loyal advocates for your business.
This will typically involve capturing customer information so that you can market to them down the road. Email is one of the most effective ways to achieve this. You can capture an email address in January and continue marketing to this customer throughout the year, offering personalised advice and support.
In order to capture customer data, you need to offer something of value in return. This could mean a single discount, or it could mean the chance to build up points in return for free add on services.
A digital loyalty programme will encourage customers to keep returning to the same salon as it means they can earn points towards rewards. You can also offer additional rewards for referrals, reviews and sharing on social media.
With a physical loyalty programme, you will need to print business card sized reward cards and use a stamp every time they visit your salon. You can also offer to store the loyalty cards for your customers so they don’t lose track of them.
If you advertise the news that your marketing campaign will be active throughout the whole of January, then don’t be surprised if bookings are slow to get rolling in. Create a sense of urgency by keeping the end date of your campaign a secret. This will allow you to extend it if it is popular, but while also creating a sense of urgency that will encourage individuals to book as soon as they see it.
One simple way to drive more gift card sales is to ramp up the value and offer a little boost for free. You can either offer a percentage on top of the value of the gift card, or you can offer free services as an add-on. Remember that individuals might not claim their gift card straight away, but you will have the money in the bank before they have even booked.
Make sure you make the terms of the gift card incredibly clear so there can be no confusion about the expiration date. The last thing you want is angry customers complaining that they have been left out of pocket as a result of your campaign.
Offering multiple promotions at once will give your customers a choice and will increase the chances of a sale. The actual monetary value of the promotions might be identical, but giving your customers the impression of a choice will help them to feel more special.
You can also use this tactic to target multiple demographics. For example, you can target those interested in a simple restyle, those interested in colour services, and those interested in textured hair services. Make sure you are serving all of your salon customers and don’t leave anyone out.
Your January and February marketing plans should roll smoothly into your marketing plans for the rest of the year. Having a year-long marketing plan will enable you to plan ahead accordingly and avoid the risks of making up promotions on the fly. It will also help you to feel more organised and less stressed about your marketing plans.
You don’t have to have all of your promotions set in stone, but having a rough idea of the promotions you would like to run will help to keep the momentum going. It will also help you to avoid running the same type of promotion too many times, as this can devalue your services.
If a salon is seemingly always running a 20% off promotion, a customer is unlikely to ever consider paying full price, as they know they will just need to wait for the promotion to start up again.
Special events can help to make January and February feel less dreary, so why not schedule a few for this time. You can partner with local businesses to help drive more traffic to the area and create a bit of buzz about local independents.
Just because Christmas is over, it doesn’t mean you have to stop pushing the winter vibes. You could host an event to help banish the winter blues, as we all know that January is one of the most difficult times of the year. You could also host a wellness event with the help of other wellness companies in the area.
Working with other businesses in the area can help to push your promotions to an even larger audience, as each company will be responsible for sharing the event with their respective audiences. This can be an excellent way to grow your social media following. Want to make local marketing and promotions easier to manage? Book a free demo to see how our salon software can help streamline your campaigns and boost visibility.
