Marketing & Advertising Strategies for Hair Salons

Are you looking for marketing and advertising strategies for your hair salon? Thinking where to start? Your website, salon interior, staff education, ads in social media or something entirely different? We are here to help.

And our first advice is, let’s dispel the myth that marketing is all about pesky leaflets and annoying social media ads.

As successful entrepreneurs Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson explain in their renowned book ‘Rework’, “Marketing is not a department”. It’s a fundamental aspect of your business that can take many forms, and anyone in your team is doing their part of marketing.

So before diving into specific marketing strategies for hair salons, let’s broaden our understanding of what marketing really means.

Essentially, the purpose of marketing is to increase revenue and help your business thrive. That means marketing can include everything from selling complementary products to giving educational lectures in your local community.

Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of advertising and marketing for hair salons. With our actionable tips and insights, you are sure to find what you can apply in your business today.

Effective Marketing and Advertising Ideas Every Hair Salon Should Follow

Brand philosophy and concept: Integral part of a good marketing

Once again, before implementing any marketing techniques, start with considering or reconsidering the basic concepts of your hair salon brand.

Where to start?

1. Brainstorm ideas for improving your brand concepts.
2. Create a brand positioning statement to identify your brand’s unique value proposition, target market, and key messaging. This is important to help you develop a clear and consistent brand concept.
3. Hire someone who can write and put your concepts into words on various platforms (website, social media, printed materials, etc.).

A strong brand philosophy and concept provide the foundation for all your marketing efforts and help to create a consistent brand image across all channels.

Create a hair care trend blog (and update it regularly!)

It’s an old but effective strategy. People love trying new things, and stylis’s recommendations for new hairstyles are always trending in search.

Of course, it would be even better if you could create videos and take photos to add to your posts.

Fashion is transient, but, well, your business revolves around it! Therefore, it’s crucial to watch the trends on the rise, maintain consistency in creating new content, thus attracting new customers. Topic may vary, for example:

• Top hairstyling trends associated with celebrities.
• Natural and organic hair treatment.
• Low-maintenance hairstyles for busy people.
• Men’s hair.

We also suggest adding a touch of personality to your blogs. This will encourage clients not only to read and follow your advice but also to want to try your hairstyles from you as a person.

Make a focus on ingredients that you use for hair care

As a rule of thumb, you might be used to highlighting and advertising the products or brands that you use in your hair salon.

However, since 2017, there has been a significant trend in people searching for natural ingredients in their hair and skin treatment products.

You should incorporate information about ingredients into your regular advertising routines, such as your social media posts, to make sure you speak the same language with conscious beauty enthusiasts. 

Give away a simple but useful product for hair

Giving away a simple yet useful product in your hair salon is a great marketing strategy that can help you generate more word-of-mouth referrals from your existing customers and also attract new customers when you promote it through various channels, such as social media pages or email newsletters.

For example, you could offer a complimentary travel-size bottle of your hair salon’s signature shampoo or conditioner to each customer after their appointment.

This not only provides value to your customers but also promotes your hair salon brand every time they use the product.

Become technologically convenient

Nowadays, customers expect the convenience of technology to easily interact with your hair salon for various tasks such as booking appointments, making payments, and receiving appointment reminders.

All of these tasks can be achieved through a user-friendly appointment booking software saving you a ton of time.

And here is the true benefit of such: it solves the real need of your customers and of your salon assistants at the same time. For instance, relying on solutions like the BookingPress WordPress booking plugin, you can:

• Create a schedule and automate bookings on your website. Test it first-hand.
• Maintain a centralized record of all bookings and clients.
• Accelerate payment processing with integrated online payment options.
• Get valuable insights on how your business performs with the built-in analytics dashboard.
• Send automated booking notifications in SMS, email or WhatsApp.
• Send automatic invoices.
• Work with a team and create a staff account for everyone.

Even from the marketing perspective, investing in a user-friendly appointment booking software can be a valuable addition to any hair salon. 

Improve your SMS marketing

Mobile devices increasingly drive more sales for all types of businesses, with more and more people shopping, booking, and browsing on their smartphones.

By leveraging the power of SMS, you get as close to a customer as possible. SMS messages have a much higher open-rate than email, with many customers reading text messages within minutes of receiving them. So what can you do?

1. Create an SMS campaign for a holiday season to increase your chances people get your SMS at the right moment that matters to them.
2. Use SMS to enroll customers in a loyalty program, where they can earn points for every visit or purchase in your hair salon.
3. Send personalized offers. McKinsey reports that 71% of consumers anticipate personalized interactions from companies.

Attend industry events to share knowledge and promote your brand

Collaborate, volunteer, and offer internship programs in your hair salon. In addition to marketing benefits, you can find a lot of fun in these pursuits! 

As a hair stylist or salon owner, you can attend industry conferences, or host workshops yourself (even online!). These are surefire ways to show your skills and promote your business brand.

To summarize

To conclude, here are three main keystones to help you effectively employ marketing strategies for hair salons:

1. Powerful, branded content that clearly communities your concepts, provides useful information, and engages customers.
2. Technological conveniences.
3. Smart personalized offerings.

Additionally, here are a few final things to tackle an art and science of marketing for your salon:

• Use data-driven insights on search trends in your niche. Data is key to responding to your clients needs the right way.
• Give you serendipity a go in planning your next marketing campaign.
• To make customers want to get services from your salon professionals, brand the latter as individuals with unique skills and personalities.

You may find these informative articles related to the topic if you enjoyed reading this one.

• Fresh Spa Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Business
• 8 Benefits of Automated Scheduling for Appointment Business
• Beauty Salon Booking Website Ideas