Your Timely Valentine
Valentine’s Day (and the lead-up to it) can be a very profitable time for salons, spas, barbers and beauty businesses. On the flip side, it can also mean you're being run off your feet with walk-ins and last-minute gift seekers! Don't let the money turn into madness: get prepared!
Lots of people will want to look and feel their best for Valentine’s Day, which can mean anything from waxing and nails to massage or a stress-busting session with the boxing gloves! Then you’ve got the clients looking for easy gifts for loved ones. You might even get couples booking in for massages, spa days or other fun activities on the big day.
Whatever the motivation, it can turn February into a pretty big month.
Here’s a few ways you can use Timely to prepare yourself for the February wave of clients!
Pre Valentine’s Day
Doing a bit of groundwork before Valentine’s Day can help keep you sane, and get you more business. Make sure you’ve got your gift vouchers, promotions and products all sorted long before the big day rolls around!
1. Gift vouchers
Gift vouchers are almost always a safe (and much appreciated!) gift. Make sure that you’re set up to issue gift vouchers, and that you’re advertising them in your business.
Gift vouchers can be sold in a number of ways through Timely, including online. The process to set them up is simple, and gives you complete visibility over them, from creation to redemption.
We’ve got step-by-step guides to setting up your gift vouchers.
2. Service Groups
Timely allows your clients to book a group, or set, of services together.
When your clients book online, they’ll be able to select a service group from your list of existing services. To your customers, it will look like they’re just booking the one seamless experience.
Giving your clients the ability to do this on Valentine’s Day means that they can get the total package. The perfect treat, and an all-in-one experience for your clients. This is also an easy way to show off everything that your business has on offer.
3. Products
Give your product displays a little makeover for Valentine’s and Galentine’s day – lovely little baskets or bundles, wrapped up and ready to go, are eye-catching. Adding a little gift tag or bow makes it into an almost zero-effort gift, which many people will be relieved to find.
Make sure your retail products are synced with Timely, so you can easily sell them as a part of your appointment, or as one-off sales. You can take note of what you sell at the end of the month, to see which gift baskets were the most popular.
Read more about products in Timely here.
4. Walk-ins and upsells
Certain businesses will get a good number of last-minute walk-ins leading up to Valentine’s Day, especially hair salons, beauty salons, and barbers. If you know you’ll be getting a bunch of rushed people walking in off the street to get a last minute beard trim or pedicure, you’ll find Timely’s walk-ins feature really helpful. Instead of creating an entire new appointment for every walk-in client, you can use this feature to invoice them on the fly!
Check out the full blog post for more details. It’s now easy to accommodate those who after some last minute pampering.
Marketing for Valentine’s Day
Now that you’re all set up, it’s time to make sure everyone knows what you’ve got on offer.
SMS Marketing
SMS messages have endless benefits. A big one is that your clients are almost sure to see your campaign.
Most of us treat our cell-phones like an extension of ourselves. You might be willing to let an email sit unread for a few days – but a text? Probably not! We’re very rarely detached from it, which is why SMS is the perfect tool for quick marketing wins.
Setting up SMS campaigns is super easy in Timely and are perfect for appointment reminders as well.
A quick SMS with your February offers acts as a gentle nudge, reminding clients to book in for any February pampering. It’s helpful for them, and will probably bring in some revenue for you.
Here are some other suggestions on where to start with your SMS campaigns.
Email reminders
Like SMS marketing, email is a targeted and effective marketing tool for delivering your salon marketing message.
Marketing to your own email database is extremely valuable. As with SMS marketing, you can be sure that it will be seen by most of your clients, eliminating the hit-and-miss element of social media.
You can integrate your MailChimp account with Timely to manage your client mailing lists, and design stylish newsletters to catch your clients’ attention.
MailChimp also lets you segment your contacts, which can be really useful! Perhaps you’d like to send a special offer for a combination shave and a haircut to your male clients, and a different offer around products for sale to your female clients.
Targeting your offers to suit your recipients means they’re more likely to be read.
Here are a few ideas to get your email campaign started.
Co-marketing
Co-marketing is a great marketing tactic that can help you gain lots of attention, for a small price. Team up with like-minded businesses and co-market through competitions, giveaways or in-house raffles. Be sure to pair with a business that serves the same target audiences as you.
If you’re a massage therapist, perhaps you could partner with a local restaurant and offer a couple’s massage and a dinner for two as a competition prize. A spa visit plus tickets to the movies is another great giveaway. And in both cases, you get exposure to potential new clients.
Through co-marketing, you can create a substantial and attractive prize pack while splitting promotional costs – all whilst sharing each other’s customer base. Win-win!
In-house
We can get very caught up on digital marketing, but make sure you don’t forget about good-old-fashioned ‘in-house’ marketing.
Place flyers and posters around the salon advertising the Valentine’s Day deals that you have on offer. If you’re selling products and gift-bundles, make sure these are visible too.
Not only should you be showing off your offers in the waiting room, but your staff should be up-selling their products and services throughout the consult! Here, staff have plenty of time to strike up conversations about Valentine’s Day plans, and whether or not the client needs any last-minute gift ideas (like a gift voucher for a facial, perhaps?).
In need of some tips for upselling? We’ve got you covered.
Here at Timely, we work hard to make your life easier. February should be a big month for the hair and beauty industry, but these sweet Timely features will make it smooth sailing for you, your staff and your clients.
Good luck, and Happy Valentine’s Day!