5 Tips to Make Your Beauty Salon More Successful

When you first opened your salon, you were probably focused on assembling a team and acquiring your first clients.

However, now that you have experience managing staff and clients under your belt, it’s time to plan for long-term success.

The meaning of success varies from business to business, but for most salons, it means generating enough revenue that you can reinvest in developing your salon.

Once you have the means to upgrade the equipment and constantly work on your beauticians’ education, you’ve really made it.

However, to get there, you have to know where to start. This is why we brought you five tips you can start implementing right away and make your salon flourish.

Hone in On Your Niche

The first step towards salon success is identifying your niche and sticking to it.

There’s an expression along the lines you can’t make everybody happy; you’re not a jar of Nutella. But guess what, not everybody likes even Nutella, either.

The point is, trying to please all audiences won’t get you far.

Instead, you should hone in on your niche.

Whether you narrow down the scope of your services or identify the age group prevalent among your clientele, finding your niche will provide you with a direction in which to grow your salon.

Additional benefits of finding a niche include:

• Cheaper marketing
• Less competition
• Customer loyalty

According to Kati Whitledge, an award-winning hair salon owner, even your salon staff can profit from a limited scope of services.

“Your stylists can continue to build on the skills they’re most passionate about learning, allowing them to truly feel fulfilled in the workplace, and your clients will feel much more confident in the services they’re receiving.”

Identifying your salon’s niche doesn’t have to be an arduous task.

You can start by observing the services you offer.

If acne treatments are among your most popular services, you can probably exclude clients aged over 60 from your marketing efforts without any consequences, focusing on teenagers and young adults instead.

Of course, you’ll be able to get a more accurate assessment of your clientele with facts rather than observations.

Salons using our booking app, Zoyya, can get a clear overview of the most frequently booked or highest-grossing services and eliminate the unprofitable ones.

Few salons nowadays offer everything. Clients feel more confident visiting salons specializing in nails, brows, or particular types of massage.

So, there’s no need to feel the pressure to do a bit of everything.

Once you identify what your salon does best, you will be able to form your niche. And the more you polish your specific skills, the more satisfied your clients will be with the results.

Nurture Your Salon Image

If you want to make your salon successful, you have to find what makes it unique and build on that quality. In other words, you have to nurture your salon image.

You can advertise your salon as anything you want; a luxurious beauty palace, or maybe a sustainable salon with carefully selected eco-friendly products.

For instance, Still, a sustainable nail and beauty salon located in London, has established the image of a salon that is equally good for the clients’ nails and the planet.

All of the products the salon uses are natural and cruelty-free. The salon also sells their own line of skincare products packaged in recycled, sustainable tubs and containers.

This means that, while Still misses out on a clientele with different priorities, they cultivate a huge customer base with the same ideals.

Whenever clients return for facials or manicures, they can be sure they’re receiving treatments in line with their values.

Whatever your salon’s values are, once you define them, you’ll be able to manage your reputation more consistently.

Here is a list of steps to take if you want to define your salon’s image.

1. Identify who you are
2. Identify who your clients are
3. Develop your mission and values
4. Be consistent with your image

The language that you use to talk about your salon matters as well. If you only advertise it as a nail salon or tanning salon, clients won’t have to reason to choose you over your competitors.

If you want to stand out, you have to let your clients know what to expect.

For example, this Californian tanning salon describes the client experience on their website.

Only three sentences were sufficient to communicate that they are an upbeat, energetic, and specialized salon.

You could also go the extra mile and write a mission statement for your salon. Whatever method you choose for establishing your image, don’t forget to nurture it—clients love consistency.

Be Smart About New Client Acquisition

Salons need new customers to stay in business, so many salon owners make the mistake of trying to incentivize clients with heavy discounts.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with discounts, as long as you approach them carefully, but there’s more to client acquisition than simply reducing prices for first-time visitors.

While it could get you many new clients in the short term, that method wouldn’t be as beneficial for your client retention.

If anything, clients could perceive you as desperate or even assume that the quality of your services is low.

If you decide to offer discounts, make sure that you’re still generating revenue. A standard discount rate in the beauty industry is between 10% and 20%—anything higher could hinder your profit.

The next element of client acquisition to consider is the type of new clients you want to gain. This is especially true if you’ve already found your niche.

Let’s say you’re running a luxurious spa that uses gold-infused massage oils.

There wouldn’t be much use handing out flyers to random people walking down the street because an average customer probably aims for a more affordable service.

Instead, you could turn your salon into an instagrammable place your clients would feel tempted to share on their own, attracting their friends who share similar values.

As you can see, your salon’s image itself can help you attract the right type of clientele.

All in all, it’s better to acquire fewer clients with whom you can form meaningful relationships instead of attracting tons of one-time shoppers.

Focus on Your Loyal Clients

Getting new clients is great; it shows that your services are in demand. However, if you want to make your salon more successful, you should focus on your loyal clients.

Who are you more willing to give your money: a clothing company you’ve shopped with many times and are familiar with the sizes, or a new retailer you haven’t tried?

People are creatures of habit, so most would choose the first option, the one they’re familiar with.

This applies to your clients as well. If you give them brilliant results every time, they are less likely to try out the services of your competitors.

Check out the review of a loyal client of London Beauty House. They are so satisfied with the service that they’ve been going to that salon for three years for all their beauty needs.

As you can see, in addition to professional service, the client chooses to return time and time again, because the salon always tries to improve and values the feedback they receive from returning clients.

But what’s in it for you?

A study on customer loyalty has shown that repeat customers spend 67% more in months 31-36 than in the first six months of doing business with a brand.

The longer the relationship with a business, the more a customer spends.

So, if you manage to retain a client for more than two years, you’re on your way to financial success.

Returning customers are ready to spend more and try new services you introduce because you have proven your skills over time.

Your efforts to focus on loyal clients should also cover booking, a crucial element of salon customer service.

If your salon is busy and you want to ensure your loyal clients always have an available spot, offer them to prebook their next appointment.

Prebookings give salons a reliable source of revenue and minimize the risk of clients living with lash extension shed, so it’s a win-win situation.

And if you want to streamline the booking process in your salon, Zoyya is here to help you.

Rethink Your Pricing Strategy

Over the years, you have likely upgraded your equipment and services.

However, if you’ve kept your prices the same, you’ve done a disservice to your staff and the salon.

Prices change across all industries, so the beauty industry shouldn’t be an exception.

There are multiple factors that call for a price increase in salons, such as supply and transport disruptions, higher labor costs, and inflation.

COVID-19 has also rattled the way salons operate.

You can now take in fewer clients at the same time, but overhead costs have remained the same, leading to losses in profit.

Even if it weren’t for these changes in the market, the fact that you’ve polished your skills over the years justifies a shift in your prices.

Here are some benefits of a well-executed price increase:

• Increased revenue and profit
• Positioning yourself higher in the marketplace
• Rewarding your team
• Achieving a better reputation
• Clients take your business more seriously

Some salon owners hesitate to raise their prices because they don’t want to disappoint the clients.

However, that fear is often unwarranted; if you show clients that the increase means you’ll be able to maintain the same quality in service, they likely won’t mind.

For instance, when this Australian hair salon owner announced a price increase, she explained that the increase would help her continue using quality products to give the clients the best and healthiest hair.

To keep your client communication open, you should approach the changes in price with transparency.

Make sure to show clients your appreciation, explain the reasons behind the increase, and explain how your salon price benefits the clients.

If you don’t have time to craft social media announcements, you can find a template email to announce a price increase here.

To sum up, don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth.

Rethink your pricing strategy with the market conditions in mind, and you’re bound to make your salon a more successful business.

Conclusion

Every choice you make matters when you run a salon, from which sanitizer you use to keep the equipment clean to how you define your brand.

To appear as a successful, established business, you should find your niche and focus on it. The niche will also help you reinforce the image of your salon.

Pricing also plays a role in salon success; you shouldn’t undersell your services.

Finally, no business can survive without customers, so make sure to establish connections with your clients and encourage their loyalty.

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