Marketing is dead...

Marketing is dead, long live digital marketing. Perhaps I should elaborate, marketing per se is alive and kicking, but traditional marketing is dead. If salons and spas persist in solely using advertising, PR, direct marketing and other traditional activities the returns generated will deteriorate rapidly!

So what is the answer?

Incorporating Digital Marketing is the solution and arguably this is the most important element of any company’s marketing plan. Not using digital marketing is like having a hair salon and only providing cut and styles and not offering colour or treatments. Quite simply it ain’t gonna work!

So what is Digital Marketing and why is it is so important?

Digital marketing is promoting your salon and spa via the internet, mobile and other interactive channels. So much of digital marketing is web based. And the reason it is so important is unlike traditional methods of marketing is that it allows your clients to interact and communicate with you!

The core component of any digital marketing plan is the company website. Two things often happen when businesses build a website. Firstly the site is thrown together and then it never gets updated or secondly a website is built and the business then expect multitudes of people to visit and for it to generate the company lots of extra clients.

The good news a website can generate loads more clients and income. But for this to happen, several things must be in place. These include “optimising” your web site. This means when people type a relevant search into Google that relates to your business then your website should appear on the first page near the top! So for example if someone types “hair salon in Leeds” and your salon is in Leeds you need to make sure your website is up there! (This is relatively easy to do and this will be covered in the next blog!)

Websites need to be interactive, for example allowing clients to leave feedback can help your website generate more clients

79% of businesses surveyed, by eMarketer in 2007, reported
that the main benefit of consumer generated rating and reviews was
that they improved site conversion rates.

There are many other ways you can make your website more interactive, for example online appointment booking can be critical in attracting new clients and retaining current clients as they can book an appointment when it’s convenient for them.

For example email newsletters, online surveys, text messaging and many other digital marketing tools can help boost your bottom line. But, how do you start doing all these things, especially if you are not a lover of technology? Well, don’t worry there is help out there, for example Shortcuts Set and Forget Marketing creates email newsletters, surveys, email and text messaging marketing they also have online booking for your website and Facebook fan page. So there are companies out there that can help you!

You’re the Expert!
Use your knowledge and expertise! Blogging is becoming a great way to communicate so why not use your knowledge and share it with others? You can set up a blog on Google in 5 minutes, and then link it to your web site. Blogs are a great way of boosting your profile and being seen as an expert in your chosen field this in turn leads on to all sorts of positives for your business.


Interactive is Important!

More and more people use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. You may not be using them but many of your clients are! Incredibly there are about 10 million users of Facebook in the UK, which means one person in every six. So even it is not important to you I guarantee that it is very important to many of your clients.

Digital works...

This digital age is evolving all the time. After the recent elections and consequential troubles in Iran most western news agencies were banned from Iran so many of them started using Twitter to help them report on what was going on inside Iran, such is the emerging importance of sites like Facebook and Twitter.

So don’t carry on doing just the same old marketing...plan and implement some carefully chosen digital marketing that complements your current activities. This help you start interacting with your clients, and more importantly allows them to interact with you.