Salon Website Ideas: Is Your Website Getting the Salon Marketing Job Done?

 

For every position in a business, there is usually a job description that includes responsibilities (what they are expected to accomplish) and duties (how they will get it done).  If you have never thought about your website from the standpoint of what it  is supposed to accomplish, and designed it in a way that will get it done, then your website may be a mere placeholder online; worse, it might even be a detriment to your client acquisition, retention and engagement salon marketing efforts.

In other words, not only might your salon website be failing at its own job, it might be making everyone else’s job harder too!

Let’s talk about some of the responsibilities (the results that a salon website should accomplish) and the duties (some salon website ideas for how results will be produced). I came up with four distinct salon website ideas based on the “jobs” a salon website should be able to achieve.

Salon Website Ideas: 4 Salon Marketing Jobs a Website Must Do

1. Deliver Client Acquisition

Giving you a chance to book new clients is perhaps the single-most important salon marketing task your website should accomplish. If it were listed on the job description as a skill, it would fall under “required skills” and not “desired skills.”  To get the job done, your website will need to do two things effectively:

• Get people onto the site to begin with
• Intrigue or engage them enough to make an appointment

A salon website that:

• is appropriately optimized for search
• displays well on any device (PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.)
• has a design that is suited to your target audience
• communicates something that generates interest or tells the reader they have found what they are looking for

will generate inquiries, phone calls and booked appointments.

If you cannot trace leads and new clients booked back to your salon website, it is not doing its job.  If it does not encourage clients to leave reviews or make referrals, it’s not doing its job.  If your website isn’t helping promote sales of gift cards (a great way to get new clients in to the salon) then it’s not doing its job.

And just like a staff member who isn’t doing their job, if your website doesn’t have the “required skills” needed to do this job, it needs to get replaced or retooled, so it can.

2. Reinforce Client Education

As a beauty professional, you bear the ultimate responsibility for educating clients about products and services and educating them about their own hair, scalp or skin needs.  That said, your website can still play a significant role in educating clients.  From new clients to clients who have been on the books for years, your website should be helping to reinforce what you tell them behind the chair and introducing them to new possibilities, options and add-ons.

To do this, a salon website has to have pages dedicated to product features and benefits that are written in such a way that it’s easy for a client to “see themselves” as someone who might need them. It needs to have content that encourages them to ask questions, try new products, or try new services.  It needs to have before and after pictures or photographs that inspire them to try something new or let you try something new at their next appointment.

3. Improve Client Retention

After a client stops being “a new client,” what then?  It’s important to understand that there is a client lifecycle and realize that – in order to perpetuate the client lifecycle and prevent its having an ending point – you must continually find ways to re-engage and re-interest clients in your salon and services.

To do this, you need to view your website from different points of view (new client, repeat client, long-time client, etc.) and decide whether your website is working to help each one move to the next level of relationship with your brand. To do this, you must map out what those next steps are in each case.  More services? More retail products?  Referrals and reviews?  Events?  There are many “next steps” that your website can help motivate people to take.

4. Add Client Value

Client value is more than the monetary value that is your average ticket, because – ideally – a client’s value will equate to more than the services and products they actually buy. For instance, you increase client value when you get them to leave a positive review about your salon on your Google Business page, Facebook profile or review sites like Yelp. You increase client value when they post about your salon on their own social networks or recommend you to their friends, co-workers and loved ones face to face. You increase client value when they forward your email or text offer to a friend. You increase client value when they turn up for events or contribute to charitable fundraising projects your salon is promoting, and so on.

Make a list of all the ways that a client can be valuable to your salon and then see how many of those items are even represented on your salon website. Do you even ask for reviews? Do you encourage clients to follow you on social media? Are you sending newsletters with inspirational ideas and offers by email and text? Is it easy for clients to subscribe?  Your website can play a big part in helping to increase client value for your salon!

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We provide services including salon website search optimization, content creation, editing and even salon website development. If you would like a free, no-obligation quote or just want to ask a question, feel free to email us using the contact form below.

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