6 New Ideas for Promoting Hair Color Services in the Digital Age

Salon Marketing: Take Advantage of Tech to Promote Hair Color Services

Hair color services can become a profit center in your salon (if they aren’t already!) for many reasons. They’re a natural incentive for clients to rebook on a regular basis and open the door for more word of mouth referrals when your client’s friends and loved ones want to know where the work was done. Here are six new ways for you to promote these services in the digital age.

1. Capture and Tag a Before and After

How many times do you complete a color service without taking before and after pictures with your smartphone? Every before and after comparison you fail to capture is a missed opportunity to show off your work on social networks, tag your clients and extend your marketing reach into their networks as well.

2. Optimize Social Posts

Google’s search algorithm displays social media posts right alongside website and blog content results. Make sure that when you publish a promotional update you mention the city and state, local neighborhood, or some other local reference that people would use when searching online for hair color services (or a salon) in your area.

3. Pinterest an Online Look Book

It’s common for color clients to text or email you a photo they grabbed from Pinterest or an online magazine with a color and style they’d like you to replicate. Why not create your own look book of celebrity and style photos and add it as a gallery page to your salon’s website?

If you have a WordPress website, adding a gallery that allows you to publish your own online look book could be as simple as adding a photo gallery plugin and uploading your photos. You can also use Pinterest boards to create look books clients can access before or during an appointment – and this would be a great place for you to post your own before and after pictures as well.

Email or text your clients a link to your look book before their appointment if you want them to consider some options or pull up your gallery (or Pinterest boards) during consultations as a visual reference for the services you’re going to provide.

4. Fill Your World with Wi-Fi

Your salon’s Wi-Fi gives clients an easy option for checking in and saying something wonderful about your salon. It’s a good bet that a lot of your clients would be willing to do this at every appointment, but they just don’t think of it. As clients come in, change your welcome script from “Hello, I’ll tell your stylist you’re here,” to “Hello! Take a minute to check in on Facebook and I’ll let your stylist know you’re here!”

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (searchengineland.com). The end of an appointment is a prime opportunity for you to capture not only a check in but a positive review. After you’ve spun your client around for a 360 degree view of her new hair color, put your iPad or tablet into their hands and ask them to leave a review on Facebook or Yelp.

5. Reach Out and Stalk Someone

Email, text messaging and social media make it possible for you to keep in contact with clients in-between appointments. Use these tools to prompt rebooking, ask clients to leave reviews about your hair color services online (if you didn’t at the appointment), notify clients about specials on hair color services and color-safe retail products, and check in with lapsed clients to see if anything went wrong.

6. Stay on Top of Trends

Last year, ThinkwithGoogle.com published an article noting that searches for gray and purple hair color were among the most popular searches on Google, and that searches for rainbow hair color were up nearly 150%. Virtually all results were for do-it-yourself articles and YouTube videos – showing that there is plenty of room for salons to get in the game when it comes to discovering and marketing to consumer’s “I want it NOW!” hair color trends.

Social networks like Pinterest and Instagram can give you a peek into emerging new trends, as can online fashion and style magazines. Follow trendsetters and influencers, post photos to your Pinterest or website look books and search these social networks to find out which hair color trends are hot with consumers right now and build promotions to bring the clients that want these styles into the salon.

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