A Salon Guru Case Study : Michelle Marshall
Michelle Marshall SALON was established in 2015 in Cardiff and now includes two salons in the city. Michelle Marshall is an internationally renowned hairdresser in her role as a Global Artist as part of the Redken Power Network. Her Cardiff salons have won multiple awards, including Best Five Star Salon in Wales.
Michelle first heard about Salon Guru online in 2015, when she established her salon, but did not take it further at that time. She built her own website initially, but she soon realised that although she was happy with the way it looked, she didn’t have the skills and knowledge to move it on. She wanted it to be seen by a wider audience and generate business for her salon.
At a Redken international event in Barcelona, Michelle spoke to the managers of two existing Salon Guru clients, Voodou and Wigs and War Paint, both of whom highly recommended our service to her. Having looked at their websites Michelle decided to take the plunge and contacted Salon Guru. Her website was launched in autumn 2017.
We asked Michelle about her experience of working with Salon Guru. She says “From the start I’ve felt that Salon Guru have listened to my ideas and have brought my vision for the website to life.
Although Salon Guru create and manage hundreds of websites, each is unique and not simply an out-of-the-box solution. By taking the time to understand each salon’s individual brand and interpreting their requirements, the team come up with a website which is tailored to the individual client.”
Michelle has been keen to get involved with the development of the website herself but appreciates the flexibility offered by Salon Guru’s approach “You can have as much or as little input in the website development as you want to. The team will look after it all for you if that’s what you prefer.”
In terms of the impact working with Salon Guru has had on her business, Michelle recalls a specific example of a Summer Hair Care blog post, which we sent out in a newsletter to her clients. This prompted a spate of bookings for Kerastraight Hair Smoothing treatments.
More widely, Michelle appreciates the impact Salon Guru’s SEO work has had on her Google ranking. She is currently in the number 1 position for Cardiff for numerous key phrases, including Best Hair Colour Cardiff and Best Hair Extensions Cardiff.
Michelle’s website had 2.3k visits during October 2020, compared to 716 at launch in October 2017, a 227% increase. Despite a downturn during lockdown, the website attracted 28k views in 2020 as a whole, up 5k on the previous year.
Michelle has recently worked with Phil to run a New Client Offer campaign on Facebook, which also generated wide interest and new Guests for her salons.
She has particularly appreciated the support from Salon Guru during the Covid pandemic: “The flexibility of the team and the way that they keep the website up to date with closure notices and the latest developments without me having to ask has been great. “
In conclusion, Michelle says
“I’ve found the Salon Guru team easy to work with and appreciate that nothing’s too much trouble when it comes to their support for my business.”