Renew Magazine - July/August 2008 - (Page 42)

ultimate spa business boosters says Brooks. Even if your spa doesn’t have a salon component, you can try another trick that Brooks and her staﬀ say ﬁlls the books quickly: Advertise last-minute service special “sales” on signs in front of your spa. “People see the signs, then call from their cars to say they’ll be right in!” Better yet, the businesses receive their reward in the form of a Domani Salon & Spa gift card, which they often use as employee incentives or for client gifts, bringing in even more clients to the spa. Let your conﬁrmation calls do doubleduty. “As long as you have the client on the phone” is the thinking at Spa Bleu in West Dundee, Illinois. And it’s been paying oﬀ. According to Heather Hazlett, director of operations, “When we make the conﬁrmation call, we conﬁrm the original appointment and then oﬀer a second spa service at a slightly discounted rate.” In just a few short months of the double-duty calls, Spa Bleu has been seeing an increase of $50-$200 per day in additional services.” Act locally. Billboards and newspaper ads may look good, but of the thousands of people seeing the ad, only a handful might be the your target customer. That’s why Mary Swank, owner of Simply Swank Salon and Spa in Hudson, Ohio, thought small when she wanted to reach out to the local residents in her small town who might not be aware of her salon. “We partnered with a local realtors’ group to advertise our spa in their monthly newsletter,” she says. “We supply them with 2,000 doublesided color ﬂyers promoting a special service and our Aveda retail products. The newsletter packet is then mailed to new and current residents within our surrounding community.” For a cost of just $100, Swank says the return on her investment is huge. “We average 72 clients from this monthly. Some are new clients and some are existing clients that have never used our spa. It’s been great.” n 16 17 Do not discount your retail products. Though this may be controversial, Face Works’ Galvez insists that once you discount the regular price of an item, you’ll never get a client to pay full price. However, she says, you can have sales on these products. What’s the diﬀerence? Sales are limited-time only events without prior notice, and they occur infrequently. Explains Galvez, “When they are rare, clients will act quickly to take advantage of them. And when they’re held at random times, you avoid training clients to delay purchases to ‘wait out’ the next sale.” 19 20 Build an emotional bond with potential clients. One unique way to do it, explains Blair of Sunshrine Day Spa and Salon: “All of our service providers, including our receptionist, pitch their own radio ads. We buy the time and let each staﬀer record their own 30-second clip.” The results? Fabulous, declares Blair. “Their voices really make a connection with listeners in a way that print never can. There’s something emotional about hearing someone talk personally, and this is an emotional business.” Each radio spot closes out with the spa’s theme music, which helps identify each featured service provider as part of the spa brand. Not only has it helped bring in new clients, but “current clients are over the moon when they hear their stylist talking on the radio!” Forge corporate connections for new clients and bigger sales. A brand-new client base is sitting right under your nose—or rather, 200 feet away, at the nearby oﬃce park. Think strategically, says Katie Field, marketing director of Domani Salon & Spa in Watertown, Wisconsin, who developed a “corporate club” to take advantage of the local labor force. “Our corporate club is a partnership with existing businesses in the area that allows us to send e-mail messages to their staﬀ at selected times throughout the year—such as prior to the holidays to promote gift certiﬁcate sales,” she says. “In return, the business receives a portion of the sales generated by its employees, for allowing us to use their e-mail database.” 18 42 renewprofessional.com july/august 2008 http://renewprofessional.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Renew Magazine - July/August 2008

Renew- July/August 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Renew Face/Body/Mind/Spirit Reflect Editor's Picks Your Business Spa Spotlight Decor Ultimate Business Boosters Role Models Secrets of the Solo Esthetician Green Science Solutions Inside Ingredients

Renew Magazine - July/August 2008

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