VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Quick Holiday Idea From a Local Salon

I ran across this nice idea from a local salon that any services business could really use. On my way out the door, I was given two business cards that had offers  printed on them with a Happy Holidays message. One was for a discount on the next haircut or color, and the other was a free treatment with the next appointment. Those are great offers.

What was really interesting to me was that it was good for January - February of next year. What a great idea for them to get business back in the door in the season that might not be so busy.

These are also pretty cheap to create. It looked like they bought business card stock from Avery, then laid out and printed them right on their business printer.

If you're doing some interesting marketing for your service business let us know what it is!

Marketing Ideas for Salons

I was talking to a hair salon owner here in San Francisco about how a salon goes about getting new customers and retaining existing ones. Wow, did I get some good ideas about marketing and selling for salon owners. Do you need some ideas for your email marketing campaigns? Check out the ones below, I think they're pretty creative.

Also, check out this post for using email for appointment reminders and this post for collecting email addresses. You might even get a good idea or two if you don't have a salon so read on...

FREE is Good

For the most part there are many things that you charge for that have pretty high margins. Consider giving these products or services away for free with a higher-priced service.

• For hair salons highlights can be expensive, why not give away something of lesser value for free, like a conditioner?

• For nail salons, what about a free manicure with a pedicure? - Do you have a time during the day when you're slow? Get people in the door with a free offer.

• Free product with a treatment - The margins on products are usually great and chances are you can afford to give away something small for free.

Getting NEW Customers

• The shared restroom - Are you in a building where you share a restroom with other businesses? Why not put a coupon or a sign there so visitors know you're there and could potentially kill "two birds" with one stone next time.

• Customer trade - Do you do hair or nails for someone who works at a local magazine, newspaper or other advertising venue? Give them free treatments in exchange for advertising.

• Friend get a friend - Offer a free color, cut or manicure when you bring a friend OR bring a friend and the friend gets it free.

• Punch cards - Give your customers a card and each time they get a treatment they get a punch in their card. On the 10th punch they get a free treatment. One last idea, keep their cards for them so that they don't have to remember to bring them.

• Birthday promotions - Free treatment on your customer's birthday. Email them on their birthday week.

Need More Stylists?

• See some fabulous hair on the street? Ask them who styled it, call them and invite them in!

Get Your Information Digital Now!

• Take all of your cards you have customer information written down on and put them into an information manager. Quickbooks and Filemaker are very easy to use and affordable!

Do you own or work at a salon? Are you doing some creative things with marketing AND email marketing? Chime in with some more ideas!

4 Easy Steps to Using Personalization for Appointment Reminders

Many of you run businesses that mainly operate offline where your customers make appointments or reservations.  Do you find yourself getting stuck in the rut of having to make countless phone calls to confirm or remind people of them? This time consuming tasks can also cost you money.  VerticalResponse can help out. Why not try doing ONE weekly email marketing campaign using personalized reminders based on the specific date and time of the appointment because ONE email definitely sounds better than 50 phone calls. How do you do it? It's a lot simpler than you think.

1. At the beginning of each week have all of the appointments in one spreadsheet. You'll want email address, first name, date of appointment or reservation and the specific time, each in their own fields.

2. When you upload your list, simply select the corresponding field name for email address and first name, then choose either the field names provided or choose "custom field" like I've done below for TIME and DATE. Just remember which ones you used you'll need that information in the next step.

3. When you create your email marketing campaign you'll include these field names with curly brackets in your content. For instance:

Dear {FIRST_NAME},

We're sending you this email today to remind you of your upcoming appointment
Your appointment is scheduled for:

Date: {DATE}
Time: {TIME}

See you there!
Sincerely,
The Team at Company ABC

4. All of the dates and times that correspond to each email address when you upload your list will then automatically populate those brackets into your campaign. Voila!

And don't forget, if an email bounces back, you might want to call up your recipient to get their updated email address. Then you can remind them of their upcoming appointment while you have them on the phone.

Got any new ideas of how to use personalization? Let's hear them!