How beauty studios, barbershops and SPAs can use newsletter?

Many of us associate letters and messages from companies only with advertising. Of course, there are commercial mailings, the purpose of which is sales, but this is not always the case. Mailings can also help to build customer loyalty. We recommend that beauty salons send newsletters to:

1. Confirm an appointment if a client has booked a time online, or a day or two in advance to remind them of an appointment. This is something that adds utility to customer contact.

2. To thank and get feedback on the service provided, the technician, or the salon in general. It is common to send these mailings the day after a visit. They tell the client to thank you for choosing them, attach a link to a feedback form, or ask them to send an evaluation by return message.

3. Communicate important information to the customer. For example, tell them that the address or opening hours of the salon have changed.

4. Congratulate or send a gift. Such a newsletter can be sent immediately after a visit or on the eve of holidays: New Year, Valentine's Day, salon's or client's birthday. If you also want to send a gift, you can add a discount or a coupon for services with a limited period of validity.

5. Remind yourself of yourself and increase client returns. Those who haven't been with you in a while can be sent a personalized offer. This could be a discount on their favorite treatments.

6. Tell about new products and promotions. Such a message can be sent to both regular clients and those who have not used your services for a long time. Tell them that the salon has launched a promotion or that there is a new service in the price list and offer to try it.

Some of these mailings can be automated if you use a CRM system. As for the mailings that are designed to tell you about new products and remind you of yourself, you need a more thorough approach.

Working with mailing lists can be divided into three stages:

• preparation,
• sending,
• dealing with responses and subsequent analyses.

Preparing newsletter
At this stage, you need to decide on the main questions: what, how, to whom, and why to send.

The purpose or why to send
Define the result you want to achieve. The goal should be specific, not just ‘more money and clients’.
For example, before New Year's Eve, the manicure and haircut places are all booked up and the cosmetology and massage room is empty. Set a holiday discount on less sought-after services and send a newsletter to fill the schedule. Or this example: you've introduced a new service - chocolate wrapping, but clients don't know about it yet, so there aren't many appointments. You could offer it to every visitor, but that's a long way off. Or you could inform all potential clients with a single newsletter.

Who to send to
Choose recipients according to the purpose. If you are sending a newsletter about treatments for women, exclude men. And a discount on an annual subscription is unlikely to attract someone who last visited the salon three years ago.

Collecting a database of contacts for sending will help special services, such as CRM or accounting systems for salons. Contacts can be filtered according to the request and make a mailing.

When collecting a database, consider two important points:

• The customer has given consent to receive mailings. You can place a user agreement with a clause about mailings on the site and provide a form where the client confirms that he has read the agreement and agrees to its terms. This is a mandatory procedure required by law;
• You do not bore your chosen customers with frequent mailings. Otherwise, there is a risk that your messages will stop reading, be sent to spam, and block the address.

There are three options: email, SMS, and messengers. Each channel has its pros and cons. We have compared the main criteria in the table:

The content of the message depends on the purpose, the recipients, and the channels to be sent out. You can write the letter yourself or engage a copywriter.

Follow the tone of voice of your salon, i.e. the tone of voice your clients are used to. Some communicate in a stern and businesslike manner and some in a friendly manner.

Follow the rules so you don't get spammed. It's easy to find a list of stop words on the Internet that email service spam filters don't like. For example, “free”, “advertisement”, “urgent”, “buy” and similar.

There is one more important thing to take care of before sending a mailing - this is notifying the administrators. They should know about the mailing and be ready to answer questions. You can make a special instruction for them.

Sending the newsletter and dealing with responses
When the text is written and the contact database is prepared, proceed to the next steps.

Layout, if necessary
SMS newsletters and messenger messages do not require layout, but emails can be beautifully designed. At the same stage, you can add UTM tags to the links in the email for further analysis. Such tags are widely used by marketers and allow tracking link clicks. Marketers use them to determine the source of traffic: contextual advertising, targeting, and email newsletters.
Date and time selection. It is not worth sending messages at night. The ideal time for mailing is from 10:00 to 18:00.

Work with responses and analyze the effectiveness of the mailing
Time after the mailing, analyze the effectiveness of the mailing. What you should typically look at are:
- How many customers opened and read the message;
- how many performed the targeted action, i.e. signed up for a service, left a review, or other;
- how much money the newsletter brought in.
In the end, you will be able to conclude whether the goal has been achieved and whether the chosen method works.

There are a few common mistakes that will reduce the effectiveness of the mailing and can drive customers away.

Mistake #1. Send the mailing to the entire base, without dividing it into segments. If a client who doesn't color her hair gets an email about a new coloring technique for the umpteenth time, she's likely to send it to spam. And you will simply waste your investment. Take into account gender, age, average check, and customer preferences.

Mistake #2. Not to adapt the text to the purpose, target audience, and communication channel. Because of this, technical inconsistencies may occur, for example, a short text for SMS mailing will not be suitable for emails. Mailing services take them as spam.

Mistake #3. Neglecting the call to action. If you want a customer to sign up for a service, leave a link or phone number to contact them.

Follow the rules, avoid mistakes and the newsletter will become an effective tool for business development. It will help to increase recognition, retain and return customers, and motivate them to buy.

Taking care of you and your business,

Bill&Tip (Bill and Tip) Team.

Want to learn more about how Bill&Tip can help your business or request a consultation from our team, simply follow this link.

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