Marketing 101 for trade shows:Visibility and discoverability. For any of your marketing strategies to work, your salon needs to be visible in Google search results. When potential customers search for salons, cosmetologists, nail technicians, hairstylists, or any other beauty service provider on Google, 97% of those people don't make it past the first page of results. If your web content appears on the second or third page, to be brutally honest, your living room simply doesn't exist online. The same is the case with other search engines, for example Bing.
SummaryTactic #1:Get your salon on top of Google with SEO1. Register your salon with Google and other search engines2. Make good use of keywords in all your landing pages and blog posts.3. Make other relevant and trustworthy websites link to your website4. Make sure your website is fast, mobile-friendly, and secure5. Accessible and easy-to-use booking pageTactic #2:Maximize your salon's visibility on social media1. Visual content2. Sponsored content3. Optimized profile4. Geolocation5. Tagging High Authority AccountsTactic #3:Review Your Beauty Salon's Offline Marketing Strategies1. Leverage the power of repetition2. Face-to-face marketing3. Cultivate your brand identity4. Offer free workshops to establish yourself as a beauty expertConclusionBesides Google, there is another market that has a huge impact on the visibility and discoverability of your salon:social media. This market continues to grow in importance, all thanks to the ongoing rapid digitization. And because almost everyone is on social media looking for the best hairstyles, beauty tips and top salons nearby, etc., it's safe to believe that social media is a search engine in its own right. You can't successfully market your salon business online without first optimizing your social media content. It should also be noted that social media optimization goes beyond posting quality content on Instagram and Facebook. Good content is not necessarily discoverable. We'll walk you through how to make your social media content discoverable to your target audience.
And then there's the role of offline marketing in making local businesses like your salon discoverable. Even though you should invest most of your marketing budget in online marketing, you should never lose sight that the online customers you are targeting also have a life outside the internet. They live in both worlds, and so do you!
So, there are three bases you need to cover if you want to maximize your salon's discoverability:Google, social media, and offline. Let's see these three basics in three complete tactics:
For this tactic to work, you will need a professional website. A good website doesn't have to be expensive to build and maintain, especially now that there are tons of free web development tools on the internet. Web designers are also quite affordable these days.
With a website in place, now make sure it is optimized for search visibility. Here's how to get your salon in the top search results with SEO:
Google is by far the biggest search engine. For this reason, the first place to sign up and claim your business listing should be Google My Business. GMB makes your salon visible to searchers searching for "salons near me", "best nail technician in my area", and "open a salon in *your location*", among other localized keywords. You should update your GMB account with details such as your salon location, hours of operation and services offered. With that done, enhance it with images of your happy clients as well as stylists enjoying their work.
Other places where you should register your room include:
Your web content should be of great value to Google searchers, it goes without saying, but quality without relevant trade show keywords is not much help for your visibility. There are many ways to generate the perfect keywords for your salon web content:
Use online keyword generator tools.
Where to put your keywords:page titles, page headers, page meta descriptions, title tags, and evenly on each of your pages.
The phrase "show me your friends and I'll show you your character" is very relevant in SEO. Being "friends" with websites that Google trusts is enough to convince the search engine that your website is also trustworthy. That's why you should have other websites, including beauty product manufacturers and high-authority beauty blogs, linking to your website.
Note:The surest way to get links from other websites is to write guest blog posts for those websites.
How do your web pages adapt to small smartphone screens? Google understands that most of its users are on mobile, so it promotes websites with the best mobile user experience. Hire a reputable web designer to help adapt your content to the small screen.
While you're at it, make sure none of your pages take more than 2 seconds to load. Online users are so impatient that over 53% of them will drop out if your web pages take 2 seconds or more to load. You can optimize your web page load time by working with a reputable web hosting company. Another way is to minimize your use of high resolution images. Use small but quality images.
Invest in quality salon software This makes it easy for customers to check your schedule, book appointments, check your inventory, reserve products, and make payments conveniently from any device. Make sure the scheduling system is mobile-friendly, as most of your online traffic comes from tablets and smartphones. Also, make sure the booking page is beautiful and personalized for higher visual appeal.
Is it easy for social media users to find your content? First, you need to make sure your content is entertaining, useful, and relevant in order to attract lots of comments, likes, and shares. But then, as we mentioned before, good content alone will not make your social profiles discoverable. Good content is just one small cog in a much bigger wheel called social media optimization. Other cogs include:
Make sure your visuals are of the best quality, that they are trendy and that they are shareable, especially on WhatsApp. Hire a professional photographer to help you take the best photos of your customers. While you're at it, make sure your living room decor is Instagram-worthy for better visual appeal. And finally, create fun and shareable memes and GIFs to encourage people to download them, share them on WhatsApp, and add them to their Instagram/Facebook/WhatsApp stories
It's simple:use paid ads, especially on Facebook, to promote your content.
There are several tactics that will help you maximize the visibility of your profiles:
Geolocation will improve your social media visibility in two ways. First, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram will display more of your geotagged content to users living in and around your location. This makes your content more accessible to users who can actually visit your room. Second, your happy customers can geotag their user-generated content, making it easy for their followers to locate your salon.
When you mention an authority account in your photo caption, the photo will appear under that account's "tagged photos". Subscribers to this account will discover your living room through this photo. It's whether the photo is relevant, informative, and interesting enough for that audience.
As we mentioned, the internet users you are targeting with your digital marketing campaigns are ordinary people who lead normal, ordinary lives outside of the internet. So you'll give your salon discoverability a boost by investing in offline marketing tactics. Take a look at these 5 classic salon discovery techniques
First, advertise your salon in local print media, podcasts, TV, and radio. Second, harness the power of repetition through consistent, repetitive use of familiar marketing phrases and visuals. Repetition is boring, no doubt, but it forces people to pay attention.
Online marketing is impersonal. Face-to-face marketing is personal. This is why you should make an effort to meet potential clients in person. You can, for example, organize a hair and beauty event and invite your social media followers to attend. For example, you can invite your subscribers to join you when you offer free salon services to the homeless or an assisted living facility. The closer you get to people's hearts, the more they will feel attached to your salon and the more they will advocate for your brand online.
First, get a logo, choose your brand colors, and create a strong mission statement. And if you don't have a catchy name for your living room, go ahead and create one. All of these factors combine to create a recognizable visual image that sets your living room apart from the crowd.
To cultivate your brand identity using your recognizable visual image, make sure all your marketing materials display your colors, logo, and motto. This includes business cards, email greetings, letterheads, brochures, employee uniforms, and receipts. Online, make sure your website, social media profile pictures, and photo backgrounds all showcase your visual identity.
You can, for example, be a guest on a TV or radio show where you teach people about hair, nail or skin care at home. You can also write a column in a local beauty magazine. Ultimately, share your social media IDs and website URL to encourage viewers, listeners, and readers to follow you online.
Pro Tip:Connect your offline and online marketing content using QR codes. Make sure your business cards, brochures, receipts, and other documents have a QR code that people can scan and be directed to your social media profile, website, or booking page.
Here is! These 3 free tactics are easy to implement if you are willing to get started. The important thing to remember here is that improving discoverability is not a one-time deal. You have to constantly put in the work. You need to keep tweaking these tactics and adopting new ones in order to stay on top.
