On the 6th September to celebrate winning Best Advanced Treatment in the National Beauty Awards (and achieving highly commended in a further 3 categories), we will be hosting a ‘National FREE treatment-fee day’ for all PAYG customers. You can use this day to offer clients an incentive to try their first treatment and to offer a discount on course bookings made on the day, without being charged any PAYG treatment fees. Here are a few ideas and tips on making the most out of the FREE day (Find lots of useful links and promotional material in the Facebook therapist group.
Decide on your offer
The first thing you need to do is work out what you’re going to offer your clients on the free day to entice them and make a course of treatments even more irresistible. You could offer a half-price introductory treatment, or a first treatment at a special price. Offer discounts for course bookings made on the 6th, or give a really great deal to customers who refer a friend if they both book. Another idea could be to offer the first treatment completely free if they book a course on the day. You could also offer packages with skincare or other treatments included – perhaps a free Microdermabrasion Pedicure if you book a course of Microdermabrasion Facials!
Get your marketing angle right
Do you want your FREE day to just be a straightforward offer, or is there an angle that would really speak to your clients? If lots of your clients are mums, perhaps the offer is a back to school treat, a chance for them to indulge in some post-summer skin rejuvenation? There’s no right or wrong way to approach the FREE day, as long as it works for your client base.
Communicate
If you have a pavement sign or a window display, be sure to make the most out of our promotional materials and use the space to advertise your offerings. Don’t forget social media either, and share info about your promotional day on all of your business accounts. Try posting on different days to make sure you reach as many people as possible, and use different-looking posts to make sure you grab people’s attention every time.
You can use our marketing materials for this, but if you have an Instagram account for your business, perhaps you could try doing a live stream of a demo to get people’s attention too! If you have a database of clients, and they have opted in to receive emails from you, then make sure you let them know about the promotional day, with a snappy subject line to grab their attention and all the details of what you’re offering included in the email.
Make an event out of it
You want to get bookings on the day, which is why the communication part is so important. But you can carry your FREE day on and make even more bookings with an open evening. Organise to have demos, skincare consultations, mini treatments and a discount on any courses booked that evening. This is a great way to generate interest from clients that come to your salon for other treatments, but also to attract new people – your clients could bring their friends along, or it might be the perfect opportunity for someone who’s always wanted to see what your salon is about to finally pop in! If you do organise an open evening, it’s a good idea to take a deposit that will be redeemable against their first treatment, to make sure you know your numbers, and to secure places.
Or on a smaller scale…
If your salon is a little bit on the smaller side and you aren’t sure you can comfortably host people for an open evening, then why not book people in for individual visits instead? They can have a chat with you, be shown the machine and talked through the treatments, and you can still give them a demo, or mini treatment, and a great offer on their booking, in a way that’s more manageable for you.
Pull out all the stops
Whatever you’re going to do on the FREE day make sure it stands out. This will make your clients feel as though this day really is special – no one gets excited about a DFS sale because they happen all the time, but this is rare, and they should be able to tell! Here are a few ways you can make sure that the 6th stands out.
If you’re having an open evening, advertise that there will be refreshments, perhaps even a glass of bubbly! Set the mood with decorations and displays – this can be as simple as setting out a bouquet of fresh flowers and some SkinBase products. Display before and after pictures in your salon, to show off what SkinBase treatments can do. The more you put into a promotional day, the more you’re likely to get out of it.
Image:istock.com/gpointstudio
