a great Salon Online Marketing Plan – step 3

3This number 3 in Easy Steps to an exceptional, high-performance salon website.

Step 1 guided you through the tools and resources that you would need as the foundation of your marketing campaign.

Step 2 introduced marketing messages, capturing client information and the never-ending process of adding new content and improving your salon’s search engine rankings.

Step 3 is when we start using the client information for marketing your salon and also introduce very effective Internet adverts on Google and Facebook.


salon marketing calendar

Salon Marketing -calendar of seasonal and promotional events

As we are now communicating with clients regularly, it is important  to have a plan of what to say and when.

For example, we may schedule a Valentine’s promotion or event for early February followed by a Spring salon promotion in March and then a Mothers Day campaign.

If we plan well in advance we can prepare the “salon marketing messages”  i.e. –

  • what are we promoting?
  • what images do we need?
  • what words are we using?
  • are we offering any special prices or deals?
  • how long will the campaign run?

A detailed plan/calendar will be needed if you are updating your website, adding some blog posts, changing your website adverts, posting to Facebook each day, running Google adverts….

An online shared calendar like that in Google Docs is great because everyone can log in and see their own actions and timescales as part of the bigger Salon Internet Marketing Plan.


salon vouchersDown-loadable vouchers and guides

Although we can ask clients to register with their name and email on the website for updates or newsletters, it is not the best way to capture client information.

Instead,  give them a good reason to register and the sign-up rate will be considerably higher.

For example, your email newsletter could include vouchers or offers that only the readers can use. This can be special prices or discounts, 3 for 2 product offers or “VIP members days” in-salon.

With the right planning these can be tied to the special events and seasons described above e.g “download this voucher for our Mothers Day special”.

Every person that registers not only gets the offer/deal/discount/promotion – but you get their email address for future campaigns.

I have run enormously successful salon campaigns based on down-loadable vouchers for – new clients, recommend a friend, colour days, beauty promotions, new product launches , new and leaving stylists…..

Voucher campaigns are automatically managed, easily track-able in-salon, produce instant results and can be run over short or long periods.


email marketing for hair and beauty salons

Begin email marketing campaigns

The email addresses and names we have been gathering through on-line sign-ups and down-loadable vouchers can not be put to great use in the start of our e-marketing campaign.

Email is just one of the ways we now deliver our salon marketing messages, but it is very cost-effective, can carry more detailed messages and is instantly track-able.

For example, I recently sent a campaign to 20,000 salon clients with a “New Year newsletter” that allowed the salon to promote some great January offers. We had 3 key messages promoting recommend a friend, membership colour discounts on Sundays and  a 3 for 2 offer on post Christmas stock.

All the messages were also repeated on their Facebook page, website adverts and in a Facebook advertising campaign. It helped make January the busiest ever month on their website – a 40% increase in traffic on the usually busy month of December!

Email marketing campaigns for salons are more work than some of our other tools, but they are a vital part of our successful salon marketing strategy.


Salon-SEO-GoogleInternet salon promotion using Google Adwords PPC

We have explained the enormous importance of Google and SEO for hair & beauty salons – but getting a great rank in search results takes time and lots of effort.

So we showed how you can “cheat at searches” by using Google Adwords to get your salon number 1 on searches. It costs money and requires some effort – but the massive and immediate increase in traffic to you salon website is worth it.

If you choose your target keywords carefully, and set a realistic budget, you can bring lots of new clients to your salon for high value services like colour correction, a Brazilian blow dry or hair extensions.

It is quite easy to test-drive Google Adwords with a small budget over 1 week and for 1 important salon service. The results are available within hours and are likely to persuade you that this is the best way to spend your salon marketing budget.


facebook thumbnailUse Facebook adverts

We have explained why Facebook is the best free  marketing tool for hair & beauty salons – it is free, fast and used daily by your salon’s clients. That is why your salon facebook page is number 1 in the easy steps guide.

But Facebook advertising offers another way to reach the thousands of people living near your salon that log into Facebook each and every day.

The way you create, target and manage the Facebook adverts for your salon are explained in detail within this site, and now is the time to start your campaign.

Like Google adverts, you can run a short test campaign and monitor the results daily, but it is a great way to quickly reach thousands of potential new clients.


We have now reached the end of Step 3 of how to build a great website and online marketing campaign for your salon.

There is just 1 step left – but you should now be seeing impressive increases in the number of new clients and salon turnover.