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In the beauty industry, new customers are like gold, since they can often turn into repeat customers. At the same time, it’s not always easy to find new clients; it takes a lot for someone to divorce their beloved hairdresser or beautician and find a new one, but it’s certainly possible.
But how do you attract more clients to your salon? If you’re willing to invest the necessary time, money, and effort, there are a number of ways to lure new faces through your doors.
Here are 10 ideas to get you started.
1. Make the most of local SEO.
When you type “salon [your location]” into Google, does your business come up? If it doesn’t, you have some work to do in terms of local search engine optimization (SEO).
Local SEO is the process of making your business more Google-able for people who are in your area and searching for the services that you offer. Core to this effort is to ensure you have a Google Business Profile. This guarantees that you have a listing in Google’s business directory, which helps you to be displayed within Google Maps and as a rich result on Google search.
Fill out your profile completely, update your information and post to your profile regularly, and consider advertising within Google Maps to ensure your business is seen.
2. Encourage reviews and referrals.
Speaking of Google, do you read and reply to your Google reviews? Simply put, people trust people — 88% of consumers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations. Ratings and reviews are critical for salons, as a new customer wants to be confident that they’re going to enjoy a quality service.
One of the most powerful strategies for attracting new clients is to encourage reviews. When you feel as though you have a particularly happy customer, ask them whether they’d be willing to post a Google review. Always reply to your reviews, whether good or bad. While they might hurt, bad reviews should always be seen as an opportunity to be better or to show who you are as a business.
You can also incentivize customer referrals. Consider offering a discount or a perk to a customer who brings in a friend or family member as a new client.
3. Develop a social media strategy.
Perhaps the best answer to the question of how to get new clients in a salon lies in the work you do. As a salon owner, you deal in aesthetics, spending all day making people beautiful. This means that your business is tailor-made for the content-driven world of social media marketing.
You should have an online presence wherever your ideal customers can be found, be that on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or anywhere else. You should set serious time aside every week to create and schedule posts, ensuring that your profiles always showcase your latest and greatest work. Offer a mix of content that keeps your followers interested. Along with showing your work, you can educate them with beauty tips, entertain them with fun videos, or perhaps do both at the same time. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to social media, consider hiring a freelancer or recruiting a staff member to help.
You can also invest in paid social media posts to ensure your business gets in front of more eyes than it otherwise wouldn’t organically.
4. Offer online bookings.
Calling to make a booking is the way many salons have always taken appointments and continue to take appointments. But to some, making phone calls can be an intimidating prospect, particularly if they don’t already know you and your business. For others, it’s simply inconvenient, as there can be a lot of back and forth before an appropriate appointment time is found.
But there’s a better way: online bookings. By including an online booking tool on your website, you allow new customers to browse available time slots and choose one that suits them, all in a matter of seconds. It removes one of the main barriers stopping new customers from visiting your salon.
Tools like Square Appointments allow you to set up a free online booking site, manage appointments and scheduling, and even send your customers automated appointment reminders in the lead up to their appointment.
5. Offer buy now, pay later (BNPL).
Not only should you allow your customers to book the way they want, you should also allow them to pay the way they want. And for an ever-increasing segment of the population, that means buy now, pay later.
BNPL services like Afterpay have become especially popular with younger consumers, allowing them to pay for a purchase in installments. The customer can break larger purchases — like a haircut and color treatment — into smaller payments spread over six weeks, while the business receives the full amount of the service upfront.
While Afterpay is a popular payment method for online purchases, it’s also integrated with Square Point of Sale and Square Appointments, meaning you can offer it as an in-person payment option in the salon.
6. Work with a local influencer.
While it’s a label that is used by and applied to many people, true social media influencers do what their title suggests: they influence their audience. The best influencers are authentic. They develop a real connection with their followers — one built on trust over time. And as far as the success of your salon goes, the best influencers are distinctly local.
Ask yourself: What local social media personality do you follow who a) ticks the boxes above and b) has an audience that closely aligns with your customer base? If you can’t think of anyone, search Instagram for local influencers who have a dedicated and decent-sized following. People with a few thousand committed followers, also known as micro-influencers, will be far more valuable to your salon than the Kardashians of the world.
Depending on the influencer, a free visit to your salon might be all that it takes to get a shout-out. Send some DMs and see who might be interested.
7. Post tips and tutorials online.
We briefly mentioned it earlier, but salons are a gold mine for content. Beauty tips and tutorials have been wildly popular since the very beginning of social media, and as a professional in the space, you can use your knowledge and expertise to make the most of it.
Post short clips on TikTok and Instagram Reels and longer-form videos on Facebook, IGTV, and YouTube. Consider creating non-video content like infographics and how-to guides that you can post on social media or offer as downloads on your website.
As you gain a following, you can begin to turn your audience into paying customers by feeding in promotions among your other content. Just be careful to strike the right balance.
8. Partner with a local business.
Unlike other businesses that can work remotely and internationally, your salon is a distinctly local affair. Your customers will almost always live in the same area as you, which means that they visit the same shops and go to the same events as you. This means that showing your local side can be an effective strategy to lure new customers in.
Consider getting in touch with a local business that complements yours. Day spas, massage parlors, and hotels are examples of businesses that don’t directly compete with salons but that serve a similar type of customer. You could develop a mutually beneficial deal with these complementary businesses — perhaps their customers get 10% off your services and your customers get 10% off theirs.
You might also consider sponsoring local sports, entertainment, or community events, as it’s a great way to get your salon’s name up in lights while also showing that you support your area.
9. Leverage loyalty and rewards.
Salon customers are some of the most loyal customers. The Square Future of Commerce report found that 56% of consumers (and 61% of women specifically) book appointments with the same provider consistently.
Offering your repeat customers rewards and perks through a loyalty program can help boost their spending and deepen their connection with your business. Loyal, satisfied customers who feel like they’re receiving value from a business tend to be the type to spread the word to new potential customers, whether that’s word of mouth to friends and family or leaving positive reviews on Google or social channels.
10. Experiment with new offerings.
As customers become increasingly interested in experiences, Square Future of Commerce data found that nearly half of global consumers are interested in new offerings at their local salons. That number jumps even higher for younger consumers — 78% of Gen Z and 69% of millennial consumers are interested in new offerings and experiences at the beauty businesses they frequent.
Offering new experiences, like classes or group events, is a great way to market your salon and services to new customers while getting use out of your space during non-retail hours. Think about what kind of event or offering your salon is suited for, and then follow our tips on expanding your salon offerings based on customer data and preferences.
In short, there’s not just one way to attract more customers to your salon. The options are endless, and the 10 above represent just the tip of the marketing iceberg. If you use a diverse range of strategies to attract new business, you’ll be far more likely to do so successfully and enjoy all the perks that these new clients bring.
The good news? With the help of the complete suite of Square tools for businesses in the beauty industry, the process of attracting those customers is more efficient and effective than it’s ever been before.
