Getting a steady flow of salon bookings is not something that happens by accident. If you want to increase business, you need to be willing to get creative and put in the work. With social media, you can reach your fans like never before. But with Facebook organic reach at an all-time low, it can be hard to rely on these methods. It might be time to switch up your strategy if you want to stay ahead of the game. Here are 5 tried-and-tested methods you can use that will help you to increase bookings fast.
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One of the best ways to encourage repeat bookings is to automate the follow-up process. When a customer is paying for their last service, you will naturally offer them a chance to book their next appointment. Some people will book in right away, others will want to call back when they know their schedule. So you just trust them to remember, right?
Wrong! You can easily automate the process so they get a follow-up email or text to let them know that it’s been 3-4 months since their last cut. And then you sit back and watch the repeat bookings flow in…
One of the things that will hold you back from achieving a fully-booked salon is the dreaded no-show. No-shows can seriously damage your business as you may be turning away other bookings for the same time slot. People failing to show up for their appointment isn’t always intentional – sometimes they genuinely forget.
You can cut down on no-shows by introducing a message reminder system. You simply text the person the day before their appointment and ask them to confirm they are still attending. Most beauty salon appointment software will allow you to do this easily. If someone doesn’t respond, you can feel confident in offering their spot to someone else. Just make sure you have the correct number on file or you could end up with a double-booking.
Offering discounts can be problematic for salon owners. Some believe that it devalues the offering, and some customers will even think they are getting a less attentive service if they aren’t paying as much. Instead, reward customers loyalty by offering a loyalty scheme.
Just like any other loyalty scheme, customers can get a stamp for every visit. You can then decide what to offer for free and how many visits qualify. For example, you could give away a free conditioning treatment with every 5th haircut. Or you could offer 5% off the first treatment, 10% off the 5th treatment and 25% off the 10th treatment. This will encourage people to keep coming back to you time and time again.
Facebook organic reach is now falling, but there are ways you can use Facebook messenger to reach your audience directly. Like an email marketing subscription, you have to ask your audience to sign up for Facebook messages from your page. You will then be able to send messages directly to their inboxes to offer promotions or other salon news. You can also automate the process so your messenger bot can reply and answer frequently asked questions.
It might not seem like the natural route to getting more business, but online reviews are big business. Many search engines are now skewing their results to favour those companies that have a good level of trustworthiness. And this means you need more reviews on sites like Facebook and Google My Business. You can either ask people to leave a review at the end of their appointment, or you could send a request to their email address a week or so after their appointment.
