Contests May Be the Secret Ingredient for Salon Marketing Success on Social Networks

Many salon owners struggle to justify spending time and resources on social media marketing when – so often – the return on this salon marketing investment is hard to measure or simply does not materialize. But your salon’s marketing efforts can pay off and you can attract new clients to your salon by tailoring contests for maximum exposure on social networks. 

Salon marketing efforts on social networks are often limited to one-way dialogue: e.g., current offers, pictures of celebrities, professional salon photos, owners and hairdressers, amateur before and after shots of clients or announcements about last minute openings on the books.

While there is nothing wrong with these types of updates, and they should definitely be part of your salons social media marketing, they do little to encourage the social sharing or two-way engagement that can take your content viral or help you attract new salon clients.

Salon Marketing Success: Contests Provide Key Ingredient for Social Media Engagement

If you want your social media content to get shared by people in your community so that you can attract new local clients to your salon, you must do more.  You must include the secret ingredients – things people love – that can take your social media marketing from mundane to meteoric. 

People love winning free stuff. 

If you’re a social media ‘regular’ you have likely entered *contests on social media yourself that have invitations such as:  “Like” this status update and be automatically entered, “Share” this with your friends for a chance to win or “Pin” it to win it!

• Put a new take on “Before and After” photos by asking clients to send in a photo that demonstrates why they deserve to win a makeover prize package
• Hold holiday or observance-related contests awarding free services to deserving local moms, dads, teachers, clergy, volunteers, small business owner, administrative assistant, boss, military members (or spouses), nurses, etc.  Allow people to nominate themselves or a friend or family member along with a short statement about why they deserve to win
• Incentivize referrals by rewarding your top salon client referrer with a year of free haircuts or another service
• Keep referrals coming in all year long by automatically entering clients into special monthly drawings for each new client they send your way

People love visual content.

Tailor your salon promotion contest for social sharing from the get-go.  Create strong visuals that link back to dedicated web or Facebook pages outlining the details of your contest.  Make sure that you are advertising your salon promotion contest on your website, email newsletter, text message (SMS) marketing and on all of your social networks to maximize the potential for sharing.

People love doing (social) things with friends.

Why not make the prize package a gift for two?  People love doing things with their friends and this could enable you to collect even more social followers and **email contacts among members of your target markets in your local community.

People love getting their 15 minutes of fame.

Remember that “before and after” contest? You should be posting photos from among entries as well as pictures showing the stunning “after” transformations winners enjoy.  You should be recognizing and thanking clients who refer friends or family to your salon by featuring them as the client of the month (or year) in social media status updates and on your website in announcements and online press releases.  Make your clients and contest winners the “star” of online content that can easily be shared!

Bonus Tip: Any time you run a contest or another promotion requiring registration, be sure you take advantage of the opportunity to add contacts to your email, text message (SMS) and direct mail databases.

*Contests and drawings should be held in accordance with state and federal regulations.  For more information, check out this Sweepstakes guide written by the Direct Marketing Association. 

You can use contests to get more return on your salon’s social media marketing investment. Take a look around on social networks at the types of contests and drawings that large retailers use all the time to boost their numbers of social followers and email contacts and adapt those ideas to your salon.  Above all, make sure that your salon’s social media marketing is share-worthy and share-friendly!  

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Elizabeth Kraus is the author of the 2015 Salon Marketing Calendar  called “Making the Cut.” Written just for Independent Beauty Professionals, Making the Cut has hundreds of low-cost and no-cost marketing ideas which can help booth renters, salon suite owners, salon owners and salon managers engage, motivate and retain more clients in 2015!