How To Attract Clients Back To Your Salon After A Visit

Your ability to attract new clients to your salon will determine your overall business success. You don’t have to be a marketing specialist or to hire one. You only need to follow some essential steps to acquire new customers and focus a little bit on keeping them coming back to you.

You need clients. The more clients you have, the more you can grow your profits, increase the prices you charge, and maximize your productivity.

Why should you focus on client retention at your salon?

For sure, it is essential to have lots of new clients coming into your salon, but what’s the point when they come once and never call to reschedule after that?

Client retention is just as important as attracting new clients. According to statistics, a 5% increase in customer retention leads to more than a 25% increase in your salon profit. 

Here’s a trick: in time, returning customers tend to buy more from a hairdresser they’re loyal. What’s more, word of mouth works best when it comes to your return customers, as they are most likely to recommend you to others. 

If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide about how to attract new salon clients, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, you’ll find out what are the most effective ways to attract new beauty salon clients and to keep them coming back. I bet that if you put into practice these strategies, you’ll improve your business for sure. It all starts with understanding how to attract new salon clients effectively. 

1. First impression really does matter

A positive first impression is the first step in building a long-lasting relationship with your salon clients. What better way to make them start a unique experience at your salon than having a well-decorated salon reception area? 

Just think about that: providing a memorable experience often leads to gaining loyal clients. If they have a unique customer experience at yoour salon, chances are they will want to repeat that experience repeatedly.

All you have to do is to create that “instagrammable” place for them. It is not necessarily expensive, but you have to spend some time searching for the right accessories to achieve your beauty salon’s ideal design. Therefore, consider checking out some salon reception area ideas when thinking about attracting new clients. They’ll look forward to take a photo in your beauty salon, and they’ll return! 🙂

2. Hand out business cards to all new clients

Business cards are a traditional promoting strategy, but it still works. They are a great way to share information about your business, like working hours, web address, service offerings, and contact info. 

Business cards also give the client a good perspective of your style and personality, as it is very easy to design it yourself. For example, with Canva, an online design tool, you can create your business card for free in just a few minutes. And just in case you’re not so talented at graphic design, Canva provides plenty of templates to personalize as you wish.

The best part about promoting yourself through business cards is that you hand them out personally, giving you the chance to sell yourself even better and make yourself remembered.

3. Send follow-up SMS

As a small business owner, you have to take advantage of technology in a smart way to attract new customers and increase your income.

By installing an appointment scheduling app on your phone, you can send follow-up messages to clients, thank them for their visit to your salon, and let them know information like salon details or a booking link for their upcoming appointments.

Goldie is an app for hairstylists that does all of this for you. It allows you to set up SMS reminders before an appointment, send thank you notes, or request feedback after service to all your clients. You can manage all these SMS communications for free in the Basic plan.

After installing the app from App Store or Google Play, here’s a list with 35 reminder messages and follow-ups you can send to your clients via the app. 🙂

4. Have an online booking system

The easier you make the scheduling process, the more appointments you’ll have in your beauty salon. 

If you want to attract new clients to your salon, it is essential to make the scheduling process easy. That means that you are easy to find, don’t have a hard-to-write/remember salon name, and preferably, you have a personalized online booking link that you can send to your clients.

Goldie, the app I’ve previously mentioned, makes it easy for you to set up your own online booking system for your salon. Clients will be able to book their appointments online, whenever they want, without having to call you every time.

5. Set up a website

If you’re struggling to attract new clients online, having an informative and easy to navigate website is a must. Generally, a person is most likely to become a client when he/she is impressed by how your business is presented online. Your website is your online portfolio.

If you already have a website, consider updating it with some professional photos captured in your salon, share details about your schedule and the services you provide, and so on.

If you don’t have a website yet, maybe that’s because you thought it’s difficult or expensive to implement it. The truth is that there are tools available out there that allow you to create your own website at a minimal cost and without any technical skills. Besides all the website-building tools available out there, I consider Wix the best idea for your salon business. 

6. Be visible on Google Maps

This is not the first step in this guide to attracting new clients, but it’s by far one of the most important ones. Just think about the last time you wanted to get somewhere and didn’t know how to get there. You check that place in Google, right? What if your potential clients do the same and they can’t find you, but they can find your competitors?

If your salon is not present on Google Maps, you don’t exist. To appear in Google Maps search, all you have to do is register for free on Google My Business. It only takes you a few minutes and saves your business forever. 🙂 Plus, you’ll attract new clients to your salon like never before.

7. Be active on social media 

Promoting your business on social media platforms is the most inexpensive and the most effective salon marketing idea. 

Interacting with your actual or potential clients on social media is essential, especially when you want to keep them coming back to your salon. When they need information, make sure you respond to their message as soon as possible and publish valuable content on your feed. If you’re out of ideas, check out these 10 social media content ideas for hairdressers. 

8. Send marketing sms to clients

Friendly SMS marketing messages remind your clients of your brand instantly. People instinctively open an SMS message received on their personal phone number, as it is way more intimate than a regular marketing message on your mail.

With the Goldie app, you can send mass/bulk text messages to all your clients with an update, a special deal, or send a rebooking reminder to people you haven’t seen in a while. Now, you can maximize your client loyalty and profits effortlessly.

Don’t forget that you need to be compliant with the GDPR policy before starting an SMS marketing campaign, meaning that you must get consent from each of your clients in order to send them any marketing messages. When you ask for your client’s personal data, like their phone number, make sure you obtain their permission and inform them about your purpose.

Conclusion

Attracting new clients and keeping them coming back after their first session is all about thinking strategically and acting smart. People can choose a beauty service from any salon, but if you want them to choose you, you’d better focus on their needs and expectations from a beauty salon.

The strategies I’ve listed in this article are some of the most effective ways of attracting new salon clients. Some are fast to implement, but some require a bit more time to be put into practice. 

Do you have any other salon strategies that are working well for you? If you do, let us know in the comments section below.