Beauty salon advertising: how to leapfrog competitors

Issues discussed in the material:

How to organize effective advertising for a beauty salon immediately after opening
How to turn shop windows and the façade of a beauty salon into advertising for the establishment
How to organize effective advertising of a beauty salon using signs and outdoor advertising
What you need to know about online advertising for a beauty salon
How in demand is creative beauty salon advertising?

Even well-known and popular establishments in the beauty industry should have a well-thought-out marketing strategy. And if a company is just starting its existence, then its promotion needs to be done comprehensively: attract as many new visitors as possible, provide them with a high level of quality and service, so that they become regular customers and share positive impressions with friends and acquaintances. How to understand which beauty salon advertisement will be an effective means of attracting the target audience? Let's find out in this article.

Opening a beauty salon and advertising that will attract customers

You will have to make a lot of effort to let potential customers know about the opening of your establishment. A bright, catchy and beautiful advertisement for a beauty salon will attract the attention of a female audience, whose representatives are the main consumers of hairdressing, nail, and cosmetology services. Without a well-thought-out promotion strategy, a company will remain unnoticed. Women simply will not know which masters work in your studio and what procedures they perform. However, it is worth making a reservation that advertising should not be intrusive, aggressive or visually unpleasant. An advertising campaign is created based on the list of services provided and corresponds to the client’s portrait and brand (name).

At the initial stage, you can use an effective and low-cost promotion channel - mutually beneficial cooperation with photographers, videographers, bloggers, glossy magazines. Useful contacts will help you quickly tell the female population of the city about your salon. The services of makeup artists and hairdressers are always in demand when conducting commercial photo shoots and creating a portfolio. Agree with your partners about free participation in the project: you do makeup and hair styling for the models, in return you receive colorful photographs and a mention of you as the creator of the image. Thanks to such advertising, your work will immediately be appreciated by a large audience.

Make-up services can also be offered to participants in various thematic photo projects (usually the make-up artist’s remuneration is already included in the total price). This way, you won’t have to spend money on taking professional photos to advertise your beauty salon.

The results of all photo sessions conducted with the participation of your specialists can become a real gallery that should be organized in the salon. Make sure you also have behind-the-scenes photos. Often the participants themselves share materials about how the filming is taking place on their VKontakte and Instagram pages. You should not only borrow photos and videos, but also ask the client to leave a review about the studio and the work of the master.

You can collaborate with photographers and photo studios in other ways: by placing business cards, mutual mentions on social networks, etc. Expand and constantly maintain your business connections.

Beautiful and high-quality visual content is effective advertising for a beauty salon. Examples of your work should be clear, both in classic glossy format and digital. Therefore, do not save or waste time on creating a colorful catalog and an effective electronic presentation of your establishment. Having such materials, you can not only tell, but also show clients what results they will get by contacting you.

Don't forget to take photos before and after the procedure. Satisfied and beautiful visitors will be happy to pose for you. Make sure that the salon has good lighting, an attractive interior or a press wall against which you can capture the finished result. Share the works of your masters on social networks and on the website. The most successful photographs can be used for the layout of an advertising leaflet or catalog.

Keep your website up and running and spend time on your company’s social media pages. An effective SMM technique is collaboration with famous beauty bloggers, local socialites and public figures. The more often media personalities come to your salon, the more clients you can attract.

Participate in city festivals, exhibitions, master classes and other themed events in the beauty industry. Organize a stand or tent in the fresh air, where a cosmetologist, hairdresser will advise visitors, or your makeup artist will do express makeup. Since such events always attract interested parties, showing your audience will be the most effective advertising for a beauty salon. Here you can keep a record, as well as hand out business cards, coupons for a discount or a free first visit, small gifts, etc. Invite a photographer so that in the future you can share bright and colorful content from the holiday with your subscribers on social networks. Don't forget that such posts should be accompanied by popular hashtags.

The best advertisement for a beauty salon is a photograph of its beautiful and youthful owner. Show by example how stylish and well-groomed your clients can become. To turn into a real style icon in your circles, you don’t have to have a model figure and ideal facial features. It is enough to create a bright, memorable image. Be creative, don't be afraid to experiment. It is with your own appearance that you show the level of skill of your specialists. Agree, a hairdresser with unkempt hair and an outdated haircut is unlikely to inspire confidence in the client. As well as a makeup artist with a ton of makeup or vulgar makeup. Keep an eye on the appearance of your employees; spare no expense in purchasing branded uniforms: a stylish white suit for a cosmetologist, T-shirts with a logo for craftsmen. Each of your employees should make a favorable impression on the visitor and evoke a desire to use his services. In this simple way you will raise the reputation of your establishment.

You may also be interested in: How to open a beauty salon: from idea to its implementation

Tips for proper advertising

Let's say right away: there is no universal way to promote a beauty salon. Here everything is as individual as possible and you need to think through strategies for specific conditions. Of course, you can take standard pictures for advertising a beauty salon, write your name and phone number in them, but the effectiveness of such advertising will be very low. It’s the same with social networks - it’s not enough to just post on them and expect a bunch of visitors to come to you right away. You need to constantly work on this, think through new ideas, analyze the decisions made and their effectiveness, and only then can you achieve success. Let's look at some tips on how to act correctly.

Order a beautiful sign

If you don’t understand anything about marketing, then hire a specialist who will develop development strategies for you and approve the plan. To avoid hiring him on staff, use outsourcing services - he will simply help you as needed, and you will pay for his work by the hour or for the completed project.
Train the salon administrator to lead groups on social networks, respond to comments, answer questions, receive calls from the website, etc. This will allow you to develop this area and invite clients via the Internet.
Find a good advertising agency to work with. Look at his work, talk to the designer, tell him how you see your idea and what he will offer you. Don’t disturb the designer’s work by asking him to “play with fonts” or add various objects: if he has a lot of experience, he will do everything right.
Monitor the condition of your salon, the skills of hairdressers and other staff. regularly send him to advanced training courses, learn new technologies and areas of activity.
If you're on a limited budget, don't try to cover all advertising channels at once. It is enough to work with 2-3, gradually trying new things. You can master social networks on your own, but you need to order a website and its promotion from other companies.
Keep in mind that advertising does not take off immediately. For example, context brings results in a week or two, and SEO promotion will begin to bring results in 3–6 months.
Remember one rule: you can’t allocate money to advertising once and expect it to work for the rest of your life. You need to constantly pour money into advertising if you want to serve not only the people living nearby, but also others. The main thing is to understand which advertising brings the greatest results and which is useless. Please note that you cannot simply choose the most effective channel and direct money only to it, cutting off all others. This is a wrong decision: you need to support several options.
Create your customer database. Enter phone numbers, full names, contact details, people’s preferences and other little things. Based on this, you can send out newsletters congratulating people on their holidays, you can give them the right gifts and control the frequency of visits to the salon.

If you decide to save money on a competent marketer, then study the activities of other establishments . Take from them examples of beauty salon advertising text ,

think about what you can add or remove from them. Texts should be small but eye-catching. For example, the phrase “From February 5 to February 20, manicure + haircut for only 300 rubles” is much more informative than “Come, we are open and are waiting for new clients”! Of course, it makes no sense to completely copy the program of other institutions, but by studying them, you can glean interesting ideas.

External advertising of a beauty salon is the face of your business

The facade of the building in which your establishment is located can also be used to attract customers. Outdoor advertising of a beauty salon:

attracts the attention of passers-by, which means increases the flow of visitors;
indicates the specifics of the company's activities. Every person should understand that this is a beauty studio, and not a hardware store or coffee shop;
corresponds to the general concept. If you are positioning your salon as an elite establishment, then do not skimp on the design of the facade. If you have an economy class hair salon, then the entrance area can be decorated modestly and neatly.

An outdoor sign should be clearly visible at any time of day or season, preferably from a distance of several meters. Some salon owners focus on the creative component (color, font, illumination), completely forgetting that the inscription should be understandable to passers-by.

The main purpose of the sign is to make it clear that the building houses a beauty salon. Assess whether it is legible from both the pedestrian and roadway, and whether it is obscured by tree branches. To ensure that your establishment attracts customers even at dusk, order a luminous design.

Advertising on the windows of a beauty salon will help tell you about the services. You can decorate display windows using professional photographs of smiling models, presentations of cosmetics, coloring products, etc. Wide panoramic windows can be only slightly decorated with decor, but for the most part left transparent, so that the original interior and the work of the craftsmen attract the attention of passers-by.

The client’s first impression of the salon is formed upon entering the building, so the entrance area needs to be refined: install elegant railings, a beautiful door, flowerpots with flowers. Advertising on the glass of a beauty salon should also not deviate from the general concept.

You may also be interested in: Name for a beauty salon: cool ideas and naming secrets

What to do with signs and outdoor advertising of a beauty salon

Another tool for attracting the target audience is a billboard. The panel structure must be installed in close proximity to the cabin. If your establishment is located in a small town, then location may not play a significant role. However, if you live in a metropolis, then install a billboard only in the area where the studio is located. When creating a layout, show your imagination: the photograph (drawing) should be bright, memorable, and the inscription should be catchy and call to action.

If your budget is limited and you can't afford to spend a lot on outdoor panels, consider a more economical option. An example of where you can inexpensively place an advertisement for a beauty salon could be a banner or a wall. An advertising structure located within walking distance from the studio should contain comprehensive information about your establishment: name, list of services, address and contact information.

Beauty salon advertising text as an effective seller

An important stage of the marketing strategy is the description of the beauty salon for advertising. There are 4 key aspects that relate to effective advertising texts.

Aspect No. 1. Even the best master and high quality of services in your beauty salon will not be able to ensure an influx of new clients. They will only work for repeat visits and will provide good advertising through word of mouth.

Not only beginners, but also experienced businessmen face the problem of attracting visitors. For many, it becomes a mystery why, even with the high quality of services, attentive service, and advertising costs, there is no queue of people interested.

Aspect No. 2. To attract a client, you need to create bright packaging - selling text. The better it sells, the more clients you will attract to your beauty salon, even if it is not much different from similar establishments of competitors.

It is no secret that it is thanks to sales that new clients appear in the studio and, accordingly, the company’s profit increases. However, you will be surprised by the fact that selling texts also successfully cope with this same task.

Few people take seriously such advertising means as flyers, booklets, business cards, descriptions of salon services on the Internet, etc. For most entrepreneurs, any medium of textual information is a mandatory attribute of the general marketing concept, which is used only because it is customary.

However, leaflets for advertising a beauty salon should be perceived as an effective way to promote services, goods, brand, and attract new customers.

You can increase sales with the help of catchy and memorable text (online advertising, SMS, email newsletter, telephone greeting, etc.). On the other hand, the abundance of clichés and boring “selling” phrases can reduce all your efforts to zero.

Aspect No. 3. Not every sales text is able to provide an influx of new customers. But even weak text can be improved and turned into an advertising masterpiece that will work for you and attract visitors.

Not all beauty salons managers understand the need to use advertising and marketing tools. However, even if the company has developed a promotion plan and allocated funds for advertising, a high response rate is not yet guaranteed.

If you analyze the texts that companies use to attract customers, then 90% of them cannot be called selling. In most cases, this is a standard and unremarkable description, of which there are hundreds and thousands around - on the Internet, print media, advertising printed products, etc.

Aspect No. 4. Having once invested in creating a good sales text, you can count on the fact that it will work for you 24/7 and triple the conversion of your advertising campaign.

You can also increase sales using text. To make your ad work, use selling tools. Entrust the matter to a professional who will make the necessary changes to your marketing materials.

The advertising text needs to be turned into a real seller on paper who works personally with each potential and existing client of the beauty salon, which will increase conversion, sell more services, and also actively attract new clients.

You may also be interested in: Increasing your beauty salon sales: tips and tricks

Promotion of the salon on maps and in the navigator.

A large number of people are looking for beauty salons in Yandex.Maps, Google Maps, Navigator and other map services, such as 2GIS.

It is worth knowing that if the search engine understands that you are looking for a place, it will display a map with a list of organizations. Here's what it might look like in Yandex:

And here it is on Google:

What influences which organizations are shown on the map first?

Completeness of the card: list of salon services, opening hours, photographs, cost of services, etc.
The organization's rating is based on reviews from real salon visitors. Therefore, ask clients to leave reviews in Yandex and Google maps.
The authority of the site, how well promoted the salon’s site is in search engines. The more mentions of your company on the Internet, the more links to your website, the higher the authority.

If the site is promoted correctly and the cards on the maps are completely filled out, then the beauty salon will certainly be one of the leaders on the cards in its area.

How to make an advertisement for a beauty salon, the text of which will work

Effective advertising to attract customers to a beauty salon has the following components:

A unique offer on behalf of the company and advertising text.
Understanding how the text attracts a potential client.
Vision of the target audience, that is, consumers who will be interested in your offer.

An advertising (marketing) offer is nothing more than the text of an advertisement for a beauty salon, which should attract the attention of a potential client, “hook” him, and become a call to action.

The advertising offer must consist of the following elements:

A beautiful, memorable title.
A unique offer from the salon.
Limitation on services provided.
Reflection of possible client actions in the proposal.
The guarantees you provide.
Reviews about your work.

1. Heading

If you don’t have your own ideas, then look for examples of catchy headlines in popular glossy publications or in the yellow press. It is these types of media that most actively attract the attention of readers. Experienced marketers say that a well-written headline works separately from the rest of the text, that is, based on its wording, the client understands the essence of the commercial offer.

2. Salon offer

The advertising text must contain some reason (an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, an indication of a benefit) why a potential client should use the services of this particular company.

When creating an advertising campaign, the first step is to develop a unique selling proposition (USP) - a message that will demonstrate to the target audience how you differ from your competitors and the reasons why an interested person should choose you.

The USP can use the following advantages:

Speed of service provision. Express makeup or evening styling in 30 minutes will attract people who value every minute.
Guarantees. If the visitor is dissatisfied with the result, the master will redo the work or the salon will return the money.
High-quality materials and tools. For example, professional ammonia-free dyeing products, modern manicure lamps, etc.
Help. Indicate that the specialist will help you choose the color or shape of the haircut, recommend care and cleansing procedures, etc.
Cozy atmosphere. Pleasant interior, comfortable sofas or armchairs, free tea or coffee, unlimited Internet, TV will make the wait pleasant.
Additional services. For example, the ability to order a taxi. Don't forget about advertising beauty salon certificates that can be used as gifts.

Every visitor to your establishment wants to receive a favorable offer, that is, more services for a lower price. In a beauty salon, this universal technique can be presented in the form of a discount or free procedure on your first visit:

Free consultation with a specialist (hairdresser, cosmetologist).
Restoring hair mask for coloring, if the client first contacted the studio.
An additional procedure as a gift to each new visitor when purchasing a program for 10 massage sessions.

Offer a comprehensive program, the price of which will be lower than the cost of individual services:

Eyelash extensions + free eyebrow tinting.
Hardware manicure and pedicure + varnish coating as a gift.
Favorable price for sugaring for depilation of several zones.

3. Limitations

A catchy headline and a compelling offer can be a weak call to action. A well-written, memorable text will interest a potential client, but will not make him want to immediately use the services of a beauty salon.

The following marketing techniques will help achieve such a reaction:

Limit on the number of people, for example: “Offer valid for the first 10 visitors.”
Time limit, for example: “The promotion will last until the end of the month.”

Your task is to create in the target audience the feeling that the offer is scarce, that is, it can only be used under certain conditions.

4. Call to action

The goal of any content is to hook the consumer, that is, not just to tell about your existence, but also to sell him services.

A call to action is a kind of motivator that encourages an ordinary interested person to become your client:

Have questions? Write to us - we will be happy to answer.
Click “Share with friends” and get a discount on the procedure.
Hurry up to sign up. Offer expires in 24 hours (countdown).

Marketers have long noticed a pattern: the greater the number of actions you perform for a potential visitor, the faster he will come to you.

5. Warranties

To stimulate sales, it is necessary to use a marketing tool such as indicating a guarantee in the commercial offer.

By demonstrating your warranty obligations to a potential client, you fight his indecision and doubts at the final stage. The phrase “...if you are not satisfied with the result, we will return your money” is a powerful belief, as practice shows.

6. Reviews

Even if you are doing serious work to build a positive reputation for a beauty studio by advertising it, you should not lose sight of word of mouth. Some consumers do not believe in advertising beliefs, but trust only customer reviews. If a satisfied customer recommends your establishment on a forum or review site, then this will work better than any advertising, since it increases the level of trust among the target audience. The most effective review is one that is left not by an anonymous person, but by a real person.

You may also be interested in: Attracting clients to a beauty salon: 19 methods and methods

Other

Carrying out price promotions

Conduct price promotions, give discounts to regular customers, come up with special offers - all this will provide you with a flow of visitors who want to save money, receive an additional service, a bonus, etc. Use your imagination - in general, such promotions can be of any format, the main thing is not to work at a loss.

Participation in exhibitions

In big cities, exhibitions, competitions, and show events dedicated to beauty and personal care are regularly held. Participation in them will not only attract new clients, but will also show old visitors that they are visiting a serious studio interested in progress. Plus, you will have additional photo materials to publish on the website and social networks.

Nice bonuses

In some salons, the client is served free tea or coffee, there is TV or magazines - everything to make the visitor feel comfortable during the procedure. Such bonuses will be an additional advantage for the beauty studio.

How to create effective online advertising for a beauty salon

Today, advertising on the Internet is the most effective means of attracting customers. Therefore, every company should have a corporate website and social media accounts: they generate good traffic. Current online platforms for establishments in the beauty industry are Instagram, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki.

Algorithm for designing a group or page on a social network:

Come up with a name.
Design a cover/avatar.
Add a description, price, contacts, useful links, geolocation, feedback form.
Fill with content - photos, videos, posts.
Add subscribers (at the first stage you can use bots).

The target audience of the beauty salon are girls and young women who are exposed to fashion trends and the opinions of beauty bloggers. Therefore, your group should be filled with visually beautiful content, photographs of slim, attractive, successful models.

The next stage is promotion.

Repost from the group on your personal page so that the information appears in the news feed of your friends and subscribers.
Invite people from your friends list to the group. You can send invitations or send requests in private messages.
You can receive free traffic on VKontakte if your group is in the top positions in the search. Since pages are ranked depending on the number of participants, “wind up” subscribers. However, when using bots, be careful and increase their number gradually so that sudden activity does not cause blocking.
Effective advertising of a beauty salon in VK is posting in city and thematic communities, for example “Typical St. Petersburg” or “Master and Model”. You can order an advertising publication through the group administrator or a third-party service. If you don’t know how to purchase crops from communities, then read our article about it.
Advertising for a beauty salon on Instagram is carried out through mass following and mass liking. Find girls from your city by geolocation who might be interested in the services of a beauty studio, subscribe to them, like them, and comment on posts. Unlike the VKontakte network, a large number of bots on Instagram do not produce any results. Therefore, focus your efforts on attracting real, “live” subscribers. They are the ones who will create activity on the page, which will ultimately have a positive effect on promotion.
Targeted advertising for a beauty salon is a very effective way to promote hairdressing, cosmetology, nail services, depilation, etc. An effective and inexpensive way would be teaser advertisements - a large beautiful picture and an intriguing headline. If you do not have experience in setting up such ads, contact a targetologist so that he can select the right audience for you.

The main thing that social network users come to your group for is content. It should be useful, entertaining and visually pleasing, and most importantly, unique and original. Write interesting posts and select beautiful photographs, designed in the same style. Don’t forget about the interactive – contests, giveaways, surveys, etc.

As for websites, you don’t need a voluminous multi-page page for beauty salon services—make a neat and meaningful landing page: portfolio, contacts, reviews. According to the latest data, the majority of young audiences use smartphones. Therefore, do not forget to order adaptive layout so that your site looks readable and beautiful in both browser and mobile versions.

Contextual advertising for a beauty salon is also useful. Use the Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords platforms. First, launch advertising only in your city, for hot queries: “shellac manicure”, “coloring price”, “eyelash extensions city”, etc. If after 2-3 weeks there is little traffic, then expand the semantics to include “warm” ones. and “cold” keywords. If you are launching a long-term project and own a full-fledged website, then order SEO promotion.

The amount of expenses required to promote your services on the Internet is also important. For contextual advertising and targeting, you need a budget of 5-10 rubles per month for each site.

If you can afford to spend more than 50,000 rubles on display advertising, then you will certainly be ahead of the competition. However, you should concentrate your efforts not only on promotion, but also on the quality of services. In this niche, an indicator such as LTV (the period of cooperation between the client and you) works well; it can reach several months or several years. For example, one client cost you 500 rubles, but he ordered services for 10,000 rubles. Therefore, improve the skill level of your specialists and offer good service.

You may also be interested in: Advertising a beauty salon on social networks: promotion rules and common mistakes

Promotion of beauty salons in search engines with an emphasis on the area.

Don’t give in to reference books and abandon your site. The main mistake when promoting a beauty salon website is trying to promote based on general requests for the entire city.

If there are thousands of organizations in the city that provide hairdressing, pedicure, manicure, massage and other beauty services, then you will have to try very hard to put the site in the TOP 10. Most people will look for services close to home or work anyway, so why try so hard.

The main goal when promoting a beauty salon is to find out how people are looking for beauty salons in your area. In large cities, people search like this:

metro beauty salon
beauty salon street
beauty salon area
beauty salon prospect
beauty salon shopping center

You determine the requests for which you need to promote the site in your area and optimize the site for them. In this case, there is every chance to stand above reference books.

When a user searches for a beauty salon in a certain area, the search engine checks whether there are suitable sites and then displays directories. Since most beauty salon sites are promoting in the city, they will lose out to directories.

How well does creative beauty salon advertising work?

As practice shows, even after creating a real masterpiece of advertising, you may still not sell the product. On the other hand, time-tested and standard advertising techniques can increase sales. Nevertheless, every year more and more examples of creativity and non-standard approaches appear. What principle should be followed in the case of a beauty salon?

“When I create an advertisement, I do not at all strive for the average citizen to be amazed by its “creativity.” I want people to be interested enough to go out and buy the product I’m selling,” said copywriter David Ogilvy. Therefore, it is worth remembering that the task of advertising is not to burn the heart of the buyer with a verb, but to force him to visit your salon.

Another problem that you may encounter when getting creative is the discrepancy between the advertising and the service itself. It often happens that a bright picture or a beautiful video sequence evokes completely different associations among the target audience. It’s a completely different matter when your creativity is not aimed at selling a product, but at creating an entire philosophy.

Obviously, the task of any advertisement is to sell a service. However, in a more global sense, advertising allows not only to stimulate sales, but also to make the brand memorable. That is, in this way you work not only to increase profits, but also to create a certain image.

By promoting not a product, but a brand, you form certain associations among people, that is, the company becomes recognizable. Viral videos on TV and the Internet, and outdoor advertising are suitable for accomplishing this task. They successfully attract attention and remain in memory for a long time.

Creative advertising, although effective in the long term, is very expensive. Small and medium-sized businesses cannot afford such expenses. In addition, their goal is quick payback, and creativity alone cannot cope with this task.

The situation is different with large companies and brands that seek to gain a foothold and expand their position in the market. A well-designed creative advertisement for a chain of beauty salons will be an excellent investment in the future. At the same time, an integrated approach is required, when there is both concern for the image and investments in promotion channels.

You may also be interested in: Beauty salon marketing from A to Z