10 Ways for Salon and Spa Owners to Avoid the January Crash

10 Ways for Salon and Spa Owners to Avoid the January Crash

You’ve been busy through November, absolutely chaotic through December with barely enough time to breathe, and then, out of nowhere — boom! 💣 — January hits.

… Barely an online booking to be seen. Lily, your salon chatbot, is talking to herself. Your reception team are catching up on in-house hair and beauty services, rather than doing what they are meant to, and are waiting for the phone to ring.

A quiet salon is bad for everyone. Your team gets bored, they have more time o gossip, and they can become lazy. It’s your job, as a salon owner to keep morale up and things moving.

🧙 So, what to do to break the quiet spell?

January doesn’t have to mean living off December’s savings and scraping by until things pick up. If you’re smart about it, you can carry on all of that seasonal good cheer right through winter.

Ideally, you’d have started preparing for the January slump back in September, focusing on getting clients booked up in advance and planning some fabulous offers and incentives for people to take advantage of after the holidays, such as giving customers vouchers for money off or to try new services this month, as we discussed in an earlier blog.

It isn’t too late to get those sales up! Now, more than ever is the time to focus on your marketing and give your sales revenue the lift it needs.

💡 Here are some ideas to keep that momentum going:

✂ First things first. Have a sale.

It could be a few of your most premium services. You know, the ones that hardly anybody books, or the ones that take a lot of time out of someone’s schedule to perform. Even if it means taking a hit on margins, getting just a handful of clients into a service that they love and makes you money is a good thing. Go so far as to offer a smaller discount on their next booking to get them hooked. The more amount of time that your team member spends with a customer, the easier it is for them to build a relationship with them, and the more likely they will be to return.

Got leftover seasonal retail stock? Again, have a sale and get it gone. If you can, create an enticing window display of sale stock and draw people through the door, then get them booked in for treatment while they shop!

💝 Run a deal on gift vouchers.

Plenty of people still have birthdays in January and celebrate holidays. Offer 20% cashback to the people buying the vouchers, to be used in treatments with you in January. This tactic not only gets the person who has received the gift voucher through your doors, but you snag the buyer too. Sounds complicated? If you’re running salon marketing software, such as RetentionForce, it’s a piece of cake. 🍰

🕓 Expiry date in January

If you do run any offers or send out coupons, be sure they have a short expiry date — the end of January is ideal. It’s too easy for people to idle along and leave booking until the last minute before they expire, so this way, get people in while you’re quiet and have the time to service them beautifully. You can even automate your salon marketing software to send them a reminder to use them now, before the offer or coupon expires, to hurry them along a little.

🥊 Bring in a heavy hitter

Time to go through your little black book and see which superstar therapists or experts you know and get them in for a day. It could be a complementary practitioner, such as a BotoxⓇ doctor, if you’re a salon, or a color expert if you’re a hairdresser. Pick up the phone, see if you can get some of their time and have them do a ‘guest appearance’ at your place. This could be a moment where the adage ‘it’s who you know, not what you know,’ could pay dividends. And, if you don’t know someone who you admire greatly and would love to see making an appearance in your business, why not reach out to them and start a dialogue? The worst thing they will say is no.

🏆 It’s lottery time

Run a lottery through January. Anyone who has treatment is automatically entered to win a prize. This could be anything from Christmas stock (😉), to an additional service or treatment.

🆕 Introduce your new staff members

If you have a new therapist or stylist, run a promotion on their services. This not only brings people in but also helps them to build their client base and gets people coming back to see them. Use your salon marketing tool to get a flash offer out there by SMS or email.

📦 Put together some packages.

If you run hair and beauty, how about a free manicure while your client gets their hair colored? Or if you’re a spa, what about a half or full day pamper package? Bundle a group of treatments together, apply a discount and you’re good to go and get the word out via your salon marketing automation software. This can be a great way of getting your more junior staff members experienced in giving particular treatments, too. Limit the packages to the use in January, so as to ensure the flow of clients.

🗺 Look outside of your current market

You may think you know your customers, but maybe there are others who are too shy to step through the door, or who simply don’t know about you? For example, one of our clients is building a whole new element to her business by putting escorted packages of beauty and pamper treatments together for the transgender community. Quite often, they can be intimidated by a salon environment, but are really eager to try it. With one of their own there to hold their hand, they are enjoying their treatments and the salon is building a whole new group of customers who, thanks to their small community, all tell each other how great a time they had!

💸 Hold a fundraiser

With the number of crises in the world right now, use the quiet time and a good cause to bring people together into your salon. Another of our clients is holding a day in January when 50% of all profits are being donated to helping a Wildlife Charity for the Australian bushfires. They have already seen bookings come in from clients that are new to their business, but keen to support the cause.

➕ Use a ‘Try For’ offer

Use your salon marketing software and loyalty scheme to send out an offer where customers can try a treatment that is new to them at a discount. So it could be ‘Try for 20,’ where you’re cut and finish clients get to try balayage at a 20% discount. Or your massage clients can enjoy a discounted facial that they haven’t had before. The options are endless with a good salon management system to automate the work and reach out to your customers for you.

As always, getting clients — new or old — through the door is just the beginning. It’s what happens next that is critical. From a great experience with your team to an awesome loyalty program, it’s small things that can be the difference between seeing someone once and making sure that they return. A salon marketing automation software can automate processes and tailor offers and coupons to your clients makes life so much easier. After all, just because you’re quiet, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to spend that time working, right?

And talking of salon management software now is the time to go through that contact list and make sure that lapsed clients are sent a ‘miss you’ message, birthday reminders are set up and your salon automation tool is filled with offers that you want to give through the coming year.

After all of that, if you still have time on your hands, use it for team building. Deep clean your salon. Refresh your window display, Check your stock levels. Plan for the year ahead. Build your salon marketing plan. Schedule team training and find out any skills gaps that need filling. Because in no time at all, it’ll be like the quiet months never happened.