How to increase the turnover of a hairdressing salon?
This is a recurring problem for all scalp professionals.
In this area, we see that independent salons are subject to head-on competition from discount salons, which sacrifice market prices by offering offers 50% cheaper than a traditional salon (in fact, discount salons are less expensive because, according to their business model, they ignore services such as reception, switchboard, coffee, etc. and operate according to a chain work mode). It is estimated that, on average, the hairdresser in a discount salon serves around 200 clients/month compared to 120 / month for a hairdresser in a traditional salon.
Two main elements are to be weighed in a hairdressing salon: price and quality. If some customers want flawless quality, others are looking for good deals. But in any case, we prefer quality rather than a low cost because, in hairdressing, we do not build loyalty with the price; we do not forge a reputation by practicing only low prices.
Price is the main reason spontaneously cited by customers, encouraging them to frequent their hairdressing salon more often. However, the competition is not based solely on this single criterion.
Independent salons can still do well, but it is essential to develop strategies to attract customers.
Here are some strategic and marketing ideas.
How to attract customers
The first thing to do is to have a beautiful window, both welcoming and pleasant, because it is the first thing that passers-by see when they pass in the street.
The window gives a view of the living room’s interior, a living room which must have a careful decoration consistent with the image of the living room. Aesthetics is essential in a hairdressing salon!
Idea 1: Attract your future customers by distributing flyers in mailboxes in your neighborhood.
Idea 2: Offer steep discounts for your services through group shopping sites such as Groupon. This will allow you to have many more customers to fill your off-peak time slots. But beware, many customers from group shopping sites are bargain hunters that you will not retain because they are looking above all for promotions. But other more severe customers take the opportunity to discover a salon. Now you have to find the means to retain these customers.
How to retain customers
Once the clients are in your salon, you must master the service value chain from A to Z. The competition being very intense in the hairdressing sector, the client is very inconsistent, and at the slightest dissatisfaction, he is ready. To jump, without the slightest remorse, into the arms of your competitors.
The average attrition rate of hair salon customers is around 10% per year. That is to say that out of 1000 customers per year; you lose 100. Either because they have slipped away from your competitors, or they have decided to leave their hair in “caveman” mode, or you have lost sight of them for lack of a contact form.
How to retain customers
Idea 3: use the loyalty card with a free haircut or care product. It is an excellent tool to face competition. Still, it will not be sufficient because, according to the hairdressing sector’s observers, the loyalty card very often generates an activity rate of less than 50%. In other words, less than 1 in 2 people use their loyalty card in hairdressing salons. This tool must, therefore, be linked to other loyalty practices.
Idea 4: create a contact file for your customers to offer them, for example, a haircut/shampoo on their birthday, offer them a discount voucher. This file will also be used to revive your lost customers. Use the pretext of the loyalty card to ask them for their contact details, or use the guise of sending special offers to get their email addresses.
What you should remember is that loyalty comes first of all through efficient work and dynamic ideas.
How to seduce the customer
Idea 5: Promotions and special operations: this involves taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the calendar to provide special operations: for example, the week of treatment to repair the hair following attacks from the sun, the special Valentine’s Day hairstyle operations, summer color operations, the cut to put on your 31, reductions for under 25s on Friday and Saturday before the festive weekend evenings, etc.
Idea 6: set up a sponsorship system with, for example, a cut/reduction/gift offered for the sponsor and additional care for the sponsored person.
Idea 7: This idea is exciting! Please take photos of your clients before and after their styling. Then ask them for permission to reuse these photos on your website to animate your Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ page and thus highlight your creativity on social networks.
Offer your customers their photos in digital files. Sending your customers their photos is a great way to ask them for their email addresses. Finally, encourage your clients to share their photos themselves (before and after styling) on social networks. The viral nature of this action will make you gain visibility.
Idea 8: create a professional blog. Today, a blog is one of the best ways to make yourself known, and it is a very economical means and an interactive tool that allows you to animate your community of readers. A well-known blog can bring you hundreds or thousands of visitors per day, and therefore the blog is prospecting for you. For example, you can write articles on new hairstyle trends and advise on your care products, possibly including a link to purchase them online.
Finally, through a blog, it is possible to capture visitors’ emails to build a list of subscribers to your newsletter that you will use to send promotions and information to your readership.
Explore your growth drivers
Idea 9: Sell your products. In a hairdressing salon, the most classic way to increase your turnover is your hair care or coloring products’ resale. Other products can also be sold: Hairdressing accessories, fashion accessories, jewelry, sunglasses, hairdryers, or makeup products. The sale of derivative products can represent between 10 and 15% of a hairdressing salon’s turnover.
Your barbershop business plan would be an instrument that represents your organization from start to finish and back to front. We consider it a vital roadmap for Maven business plans that shows where you need your business to go and how you want to go there.
Idea 10: Develop additional services. Faced with the rise of competition, a hairdressing salon has every interest in diversifying. Suppose human resources and the context allow it. In that case, it could be beneficial to develop a service of aesthetic treatments or manicures carried out during styling; physiognomy/makeup advice is also prevalent and appreciated by customers. These services are real growth levers and help to build customer loyalty.
Idea 11: The best advice for the end. Create partnerships with local actors: photographers still need hairdressers, retirement homes also, wedding planners (wedding planners) more. And many other opportunities gravitate in your wake.
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