If you are a salon owner, hair salon marketing is just all part of a day’s work. Or at least, it definitely should be. If you aren’t investing in marketing, you are not doing your salon justice. Marketing strategies for salons are all-important if you want a successful salon business with a vast, loyal customer base. Whether you invest in Google My Business, promotional ideas for retail products, or an online booking system, marketing matters.
Without marketing, you are relying on chance passersby and word-of-mouth recommendations. And while location-based marketing and word-of-mouth recommendations sometimes pay off, they don’t create enough customer numbers. You need to be actionable and purposeful with your marketing approach to garner meaningful success and customer numbers.
This guide’s full of hair salon marketing details to get you up to speed and towards marketing success. We’ll teach you everything you need to know - no matter your current stage. If you are a salon owner, managing your marketing is as essential as managing salon employees. So let’s get the inspiration flowing.
What Is the Target Market for a Hair Salon?
Knowing your target market is essential for running a business. And if you are considering hair salon marketing, it is a necessary piece of information. Expect some variation in this when comparing your salon to other competitors in the industry. The target market for a hair salon depends on what you specialize in. So the answer to ‘what is the target market for a hair salon’ does vary salon by salon.
These are the usual target markets for hair salons:
- People who want to look good.
- People with disposable income to invest in hair care.
- Specific socio-economic demographics depend on salon location.
- People who want barbers versus people who want hairdressers.
- People who want certain styles.
- Certain age brackets, e.g., 40-75.
Naturally, you might attract a certain demographic without choosing them as your target market. This more passive approach may work initially, but when it gets to marketing, you must know who you’re targeting. Need help to identify your target market? Follow these simple steps:
Build up customer profiles to monitor your customer demographic.
Note any demographic patterns, e.g., age, gender, race, and profession.
Use these patterns to create an understanding of the market you are already targeting.
If you’d like to adjust what target you are attracting, consider how to reach them with marketing. Consider changing services and products to better appeal to your preferred target market.
You can also analyze your customer base further with psychographic marketing. Psychographic marketing incorporates studying things like personality and behavior traits. The more you know about your target market, the more precise your marketing efforts will be. So you should really dedicate a lot of time to evaluating customer demographics. Remember that these things change over time as well.
Types of Hair Salon Marketing To Invest In
What are the main types of hair salon marketing to invest in? What are your options as a salon owner? When you start creating marketing strategies for salons, it is crucial to evaluate your options. Remember what we just mentioned about customer profiles and understanding your target market. The last thing you want is to invest in marketing that brings in a customer base you don’t want. Or worse, a customer base that you can’t cater to and who may leave negative Google reviews.
To effectively begin marketing your hair salon, you must establish your target market and customer base. Then you can move on to one of the following top five strategies:
1. Use Google My Business for Hair Salon Marketing
Google My Business is single-handedly the most important digital marketing tool you need as a salon owner. Google My Business is what gives you a business profile on Google. You know, only the biggest search engine in the world. It is totally free to set up and allows you to start collecting Google reviews. If you are wondering where to find and collect Google reviews, it starts with opening a Google My Business account.
Visibility is key when it comes to a successful business. Simply opening a Google My Business account will boost your marketing prospects. You’ll be visible and build a positive reputation by building your Google reviews.
Another fun approach to hair salon marketing is through promotional ideas like events. You can instill a sense of novelty in your business and salon employees by running one-off, fun events. Simultaneously, this also opens you up to the broader community and helps foster positive relationships with potential customers.
These events could be anything from ‘wine and dye’ events to fundraisers for charity causes. In the ‘wine and dye’ events, attendees practice dyeing on dolls or models and enjoy a tipple. This is an excellent way to help upskill those dyeing their hair at home to be more budget-friendly. Your hair salon wouldn’t usually attract these people, so it’s a fantastic way to connect with a different demographic. You can also use fun events like this to showcase solutions to the demographic’s issues - like cuts and dyes deals.
Events are fun and creative. This marketing strategy is ideal for building positive relationships with new or unlikely customers.
It is easier to sell retail products when you establish a seed of interest beforehand. You should already be considering using social media marketing, which is on a continuing upwards trajectory in 2023-2024 marketing trends. But retail products are especially well-suited to social media marketing. You can showcase results using Tik Toks and Instagram reels, catching customers’ eyes in ways you can’t do without video.
If you aren’t already, you should utilize social media marketing. And this is especially the case if you sell retail products in-store.
4. Have a Website and Online Booking System
These days, if it isn’t online, it doesn’t exist. It sounds brutal, but that’s just the way of the world. To embrace hair salon marketing, a salon owner must invest in a website - at the very least. A website helps massively with visibility and creates a sense of brand authority. You can showcase reviews and boast of your professionalism with stunning images and a sleek layout.
While you are at it creating or commissioning a website, you should add an online booking system. An online booking system makes everything easier and makes booking convenient for customers immediately. We all know how frustrating waiting for a busy phone line is. Or - even worse - trying to take calls on a busy day while cutting other clients’ hair. Having an online booking system removes those factors. It also helps you to stay organized by keeping all your bookings neatly stored online, where multiple people have access.
5. Collaborate With Local Businesses for Hair Salon Marketing
Next, you are definitely going to want to collaborate with local businesses. Make friends, not enemies. You could partner with local shops and groceries to sell snacks and refreshments. Or you can strike up deals with places like care homes, offering services at discounts in exchange for regular clientele. There are tons of ways to collaborate with local businesses to market your business and access new demographics.
Collaborations increase word-of-mouth marketing by putting your business name in different circles. You’ll be rocketing brand awareness in your local area and creating more positive connections to the community.
What to Budget for Hair Salon Marketing?
So, you are looking to start hair salon marketing. Brilliant, but what should you budget? It is easy to think that a marketing budget is as long as a piece of string. You get as much out as what you put in. However, some average figures and critical factors will influence your marketing budget.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Firstly, will you be outsourcing?
If you are outsourcing, you know that you’ll need upfront budgeting for marketing your hair salon. If you are not, you will have close to zero upfront costs. Of course, if you are a salon owner marketing your business, you will cost yourself time. But there’s more of a hidden cost with this approach, and it’s perfect with a few hours spare each week.
- If you are outsourcing, what mediums will you be outsourcing for?
Get clear on what marketing you want to invest in. A budget for email marketing will be different from a social media marketing budget. Overall, $300 per month is standard for email marketing through an agency. With social media marketing, you are more likely to spend three figures.
Once you are clear on that, you can create a basic budget for your marketing plan. Definitely get your salon employees on board, too, if you can. The majority of younger generations are already proficient with the tools for social media marketing. So why not offer professional development and invest in a course for interested employees? This will upskill your staff and save you money, as you won’t pay as much for ‘entry-level’ marketing.
How Quickly Do You See Results From Hair Salon Marketing?
Hair salon marketing results are almost instant. Any marketing you do will create instant results because any person you reach is someone you wouldn’t otherwise. So in that sense, you get results immediately.
Some results reach higher levels quicker than others. For instance, when using social media marketing, you can have a post go viral anytime. So one Tik Tok could gather massive results on your first or second day if you were fortunate. Email marketing takes a little longer since they require an email list.
Other more traditional forms of marketing, like posters and partnerships with local brands, get instant results. However, you often don’t note these until people act on your marketing. For example, ten people might walk past your poster and note your salon name in five minutes. But you won’t see results until one or two of those people reach out to book an appointment. The lesson is just because nothing seems to be happening doesn’t mean that’s actually the case. Results are silent until they aren’t.
Are you desperate for some tangible statistics? Then pay attention to Metric Marketing’s claim; noticeable and consistent results take around six to twelve months. As we explained, this doesn’t mean nothing happens for six to twelve months. It just means that it takes time for consistent results to become noticeable.
Think of it this way, two of those poster passersby might visit your salon a month after seeing it. But three of the remaining eight people might only get their hair done every six months. Therefore, even though they saw the poster immediately, you didn’t see the results until they visited three months after—marketing staggers results.
Hair Salon Marketing: Do You Actually Need Marketing for a Hair Salon?
Hair salon marketing is the best way to boost your business. Marketing strategies for salons make all the difference - whether you use promotional ideas or online booking systems. As a salon owner, you achieve success when you jazz up your marketing campaign. You can run a hair salon without marketing, but we wouldn’t recommend it. You can get better results and net profit when investing in marketing. And any marketing costs get written off as tax anyway, so it is a win, win.
No matter what industry you belong to, marketing is the best way forward. Investing in marketing as a salon owner means accessing different pockets of customers that you’d otherwise never see. You can have fantastic location marketing, but there’s always a world away from your salon’s storefront. And if you aren’t even set up on Google My Business, how do you expect people to find you?
Marketing isn’t for everyone. Would you like some extra help with running your hair salon marketing campaign? Perhaps you are looking to incorporate your WiFi into your marketing plan. At Beambox, we’d love to assist you in this campaign. You can outsource to us; let us manage the more demanding details. We are experts in marketing businesses and increasing profit through WiFi marketing.
Beambox offers the best all-in-one WiFi marketing platform. We use a mixed approach to connect, capture, and keep more content customers. Start your Beambox free trial today, and let us help you begin your hair salon marketing journey.
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