6 Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas for Salon Suite Owners
THOUGHT PROCESS
Valentine’s Day activities tie in organically to the products and services Salon Suites offer, providing an opportunity for Suite owners to grow their business.
ACTION STEPS
Use these six Valentine’s Day marketing ideas for Salon Suite owners to capture additional revenue, grow your client base, and build for the future.
6 Salon Suite Valentine’s Day Marketing Ideas Clients Will Love
1. Put Gift Cards in the Spotlight
Valentine’s Day is an ideal time for you to kick gift card marketing into high gear. Last year Americans spent more than $19 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts (statista.com). While gift cards aren’t the most popular gift item, they’re firmly ensconced in the top 10 most popular Valentine’s gifts at number 8. In 2015, 17 percent of women and 11 percent of men purchased gift cards for someone for Valentine’s Day.
Selling gift cards is also a great way to attract new clients. Use email, social media, in-salon signage and suggestive selling to promote gift cards to clients in January and February as the perfect Valentine’s Day gifts for their co-workers, friends, loved ones or even that hard to please family member.
2. Love Will Keep Us Together… Make February Client Appreciation Month
Post messages of appreciation to all of your clients during the month of February on social media. Make this the month that you take the most before-and-after photos and tag your clients on social networks to help them show off their amazing transformations. Send each client home with a dark chocolate heart to enjoy after their appointment. Send an email on Valentine’s Day just to thank clients for their business.
3. Create Date Night Appointment Packages
Valentine’s Day often becomes a date night, even for people who aren’t part of a couple. This could be a perfect day for you to block the afternoon out for date-night prep appointments where blow outs, styling, and makeup, and maybe even manicures and pedicures are all part of the package. This could be a great opportunity for you to work with your fellow Suite members to extend your marketing reach and take advantage of the different skill sets each brings to the table.
4. Teach Special Occasion Hair and Makeup How-To’s
Hold an educational event for clients before Valentine’s Day to teach them how to replicate hair and makeup looks for the parties, dates, or other events they’ll be attending. Make this a bring-a-friend event to gain brand awareness with people who aren’t your clients.
If an in-Salon Suite event isn’t practical, remember that you’re only ever one Facebook live video chat away from taping quick tips and how-to’s that can be shared online, in your email newsletters, and on social media, helping you reach far more people than an in-salon event might. Videos and instruction sheets aren’t just helpful for clients; they also position you as an expert in your field.
5. Add Loveable Retail to the Mix
Any time you can sell retail products in addition to client services you bump your average ticket and produce more revenue per hour. Many of your clients will be looking for love-themed gift items to give to their kids, friends, co-workers, significant others, and so on. Adding gourmet sweet treats, stuffed animals, pink and red accessories, love-themed tanks or mugs or mousepads, lip glosses, eye shadows, nail lacquers, etc., to your retail line up turns your Salon Suite into a true gift idea resource. Salon product manufacturers often have ready-made point of sale displays available with items like these, so checking with your local distributors is a great place to start.
6. Make the Client Experience “An Affair to Remember”
If your client experience isn’t memorable in some way that sets your Salon Suite apart from all of the other options people have in your city, now is the perfect time for you to evaluate the client experience to eliminate any potential client pain points and discover ways to differentiate your business. This is another time when brainstorming with your fellow Suite members could produce ideas that can be incorporated location-wide, helping your Suite gain a reputation for surprising and delighting clients they can’t receive anywhere else.
It’s also a great idea to ask a trusted friend or co-worker to walk through the client experience you are providing and offer ideas for improvement. Role playing is an invaluable way to hone your client experience skills and getting a fresh set of eyes and ears to evaluate the experience can help you evaluate it more objectively, ensuring that you don’t miss something (negative or positive) just because you’re so familiar with the process.
Valentine’s Day has natural tie-ins to salon products and services. Make sure you’re not missing out on the opportunities it provides to help you attract new clients and grow your Salon Suite’s revenues.
1. Put Gift Cards in the Spotlight
Valentine’s Day is an ideal time for you to kick gift card marketing into high gear. Last year Americans spent more than $19 billion on Valentine’s Day gifts (statista.com). While gift cards aren’t the most popular gift item, they’re firmly ensconced in the top 10 most popular Valentine’s gifts at number 8. In 2015, 17 percent of women and 11 percent of men purchased gift cards for someone for Valentine’s Day.
Selling gift cards is also a great way to attract new clients. Use email, social media, in-salon signage and suggestive selling to promote gift cards to clients in January and February as the perfect Valentine’s Day gifts for their co-workers, friends, loved ones or even that hard to please family member.
2. Love Will Keep Us Together… Make February Client Appreciation Month
Post messages of appreciation to all of your clients during the month of February on social media. Make this the month that you take the most before-and-after photos and tag your clients on social networks to help them show off their amazing transformations. Send each client home with a dark chocolate heart to enjoy after their appointment. Send an email on Valentine’s Day just to thank clients for their business.
3. Create Date Night Appointment Packages
Valentine’s Day often becomes a date night, even for people who aren’t part of a couple. This could be a perfect day for you to block the afternoon out for date-night prep appointments where blow outs, styling, and makeup, and maybe even manicures and pedicures are all part of the package. This could be a great opportunity for you to work with your fellow Suite members to extend your marketing reach and take advantage of the different skill sets each brings to the table.
4. Teach Special Occasion Hair and Makeup How-To’s
Hold an educational event for clients before Valentine’s Day to teach them how to replicate hair and makeup looks for the parties, dates, or other events they’ll be attending. Make this a bring-a-friend event to gain brand awareness with people who aren’t your clients.
If an in-Salon Suite event isn’t practical, remember that you’re only ever one Facebook live video chat away from taping quick tips and how-to’s that can be shared online, in your email newsletters, and on social media, helping you reach far more people than an in-salon event might. Videos and instruction sheets aren’t just helpful for clients; they also position you as an expert in your field.
5. Add Loveable Retail to the Mix
Any time you can sell retail products in addition to client services you bump your average ticket and produce more revenue per hour. Many of your clients will be looking for love-themed gift items to give to their kids, friends, co-workers, significant others, and so on. Adding gourmet sweet treats, stuffed animals, pink and red accessories, love-themed tanks or mugs or mousepads, lip glosses, eye shadows, nail lacquers, etc., to your retail line up turns your Salon Suite into a true gift idea resource. Salon product manufacturers often have ready-made point of sale displays available with items like these, so checking with your local distributors is a great place to start.
6. Make the Client Experience “An Affair to Remember”
If your client experience isn’t memorable in some way that sets your Salon Suite apart from all of the other options people have in your city, now is the perfect time for you to evaluate the client experience to eliminate any potential client pain points and discover ways to differentiate your business. This is another time when brainstorming with your fellow Suite members could produce ideas that can be incorporated location-wide, helping your Suite gain a reputation for surprising and delighting clients they can’t receive anywhere else.
It’s also a great idea to ask a trusted friend or co-worker to walk through the client experience you are providing and offer ideas for improvement. Role playing is an invaluable way to hone your client experience skills and getting a fresh set of eyes and ears to evaluate the experience can help you evaluate it more objectively, ensuring that you don’t miss something (negative or positive) just because you’re so familiar with the process.
Valentine’s Day has natural tie-ins to salon products and services. Make sure you’re not missing out on the opportunities it provides to help you attract new clients and grow your Salon Suite’s revenues.
