Are you taking advantage of wedding season?
For a lot of our customers, the summer wedding season is in full swing (please do some basking in the sun for us, Northern Hemisphere, we’re very jealous here in New Zealand). And that means a lot of your hair stylists and makeup artists are flat out at the moment!
That also means there are a lot people starting to plan next year’s weddings.
To take full advantage of the season, you have to know the questions brides are about to ask about hair and makeup. And as we’re sure you know – they’re not the usual questions.
Choosing a stylist and a makeup artist for a wedding is a stressful time for brides. That means wedding marketing for salons needs different information on offer to attract a bride’s attention. Our own Jess (who was recently married!) said, “Most brides are flicking through a bunch of different websites on a thousand different things, so they want to the process to be as quick and painless as possible. Grab info, compare, done.”
We talked to a few brides to figure out what they’re looking for when doing their wedding hair and beauty research. This will give you a better idea of what points you can focus on when putting together your marketing, phone consultations or wedding packages.
Can you travel?
We’ll start with the bad news first: sometimes, your bride doesn’t choose you just because her wedding isn’t in town. But there are also brides planning their weddings near you who are unfamiliar with the town and in need of a reliable, professional stylist. This is a huge opportunity for you to get their business.
Scope out the prime venues – like churches, parks and halls – in and around your area. See if you can leave flyers, posters or postcards in those areas, or posted up around town in areas where brides doing reconnaissance will see them.
The ability to travel makes a difference. If you’re able to travel to nearby hotels, B&Bs or even houses to rock your skills in the wild, make sure that’s mentioned on your website, your social media profiles and any advertising you’re posting. Don’t make people look for that information.
Make some friends
The rumors are true: a LOT of work that goes into planning a wedding. Most weddings, anyway (shout out to the #elope crowd). Brides will be looking at venues, photographers, florists, officiants, caterers and (at a conservative estimate) one billion other things. So talk to them!
Partner up with some of the wedding professionals in your area and see if any of them are interested in doing a bit of cross-promotion, i.e. they give your card to clients looking for hair or beauty, and you recommend them if your client needs to find a florist or photographer. It’s a win-win, and it makes the bride’s life easier if she can get a recommendation instead of trawling through Yelp reviews to find you.
You can also check with local hotels and B&Bs to see if you can leave flyers or business cards with them to give out to any brides doing research.
Get those recommendations
On that note…recommendations are so important. Ask your happy clients to review you online, and share their love. Send a congratulatory note to the happy couple (wait a few weeks or months so it won’t get lost in the post-wedding chaos) to remind them that you exist and keep them thinking fondly of you.
Something like the below message is simple and easy:
Dear [bride and groom’s name here],
Congratulations! I hope you had an amazing wedding day, and an even more amazing honeymoon. It was an honor to do your hair for your special day.
We offer a discount for our brides’ first post-wedding appointment. Just book online (or give us a call) and bring this card when you come in :) And if you’d like to review us online, you can find us on [online listings here].
Thank you so much for choosing us! Best wishes from the whole team for a long, beautiful marriage ahead.
Cheers,
[your name here]
You could even offer them a discount for recommending you to a friend, if that’s something you’re able to do.
Show off your diverse clientele
Although it differs for each wedding, the bridesmaids will often get their hair done at the same salon, or their makeup done by the same artist. Which can be great, if you have the capacity to handle it! Are you skilled at handling a full spectrum of hair types and styles and skin tones? If all of your pictures feature one style, you might be losing out on potential bookings.
If you’re a makeup artist, be clear about what shades of foundation and concealer you have, and what types of makeup you can offer to people will sensitive skin or allergies. If you’re a hair stylist, make sure you’re using diverse models and client images in your marketing so that a bride doesn’t feel like she has to find a different stylist for her curly-haired or short-haired ladies.
Diverse marketing rewards with more clients, more bookings and more repeats.
Brag a little
And of course, experience always plays a part when attracting clients. If you have an Instagram or Facebook feed where you share pictures of your work, make sure you have a wedding picture in there every so often. Make it easy for someone scrolling through your feed to see your wedding work.
Even better, create a whole album of wedding looks in Facebook or Pinterest.
On your website, consider creating a separate page devoted to wedding pictures. It will make it much easier for brides to check out all the different wedding styles that you’ve got to offer.
Keep it simple
Since there are so many extra factors involved in wedding hair and makeup, it’s helpful to be as simple and clear as possible in your advertising. Some things brides want to know up front, without contacting you:
- Will you travel? If so, how far?
- How much are consultations?
- Is there a group rate?
- What’s the pricing for the bride vs. bridesmaids?
Several brides we talked to mentioned clarity around pricing. Kristin said that since she was comparing so many different options, she wasn’t willing to put much effort into digging through a website to find information. If a salon offered no wedding prices on their website but instead gave a number for her to call, she almost always crossed them off the list. Hiding relevant information may remove you from the running.
Wedding marketing for salons, spas and makeup artists doesn’t have to be a full-on campaign, but it doesn’t require some extra love and attention year-round. If you make sure you’re answering all the questions brides are asking, and staying connected to the wedding industry professionals in your area, you’ll be sure to have some blushing brides coming through your door.