In the hair and beauty industry, you are usually competing in a very crowded market. One of our clients knew this too well, their clinic had 14 competitors within 2 blocks. They were spending thousands on marketing and it just wasn’t working. When we took a closer look here are some of the mistakes we found and how you can avoid them:
- Too Similar – they were doing exactly the same marketing as their competitors, running the same product specials at the same time based on the promotion suggestions from product companies. While they are still great to run, think about making it different from your competitors who are selling the same products close-by. If your clients see your competitor’s promotions first, they will see you as a copycat.
- Inconsistency – they were inconsistent with their marketing. This is a common mistake that businesses make with their marketing, they get busy running their business and then when things get quiet is when they think of doing some marketing. The only problem here is that if your clients haven’t heard from you but heard from someone else locally, they are more likely to try them out. Your consistency in marketing (if your marketing is done correctly) will help you with consistency in sales. It also doesn’t send the right message to your clients, they may see straight through your sudden marketing ads – “ah they must be quiet”. If you don’t already have a marketing plan, start with a plan for the next 30 days. This short-term goal will just get your started without overwhelming you.
- Discounting specials are a waste of money and time – they just create non-loyal “price shoppers” who are costing you more than you are spending running the ads. This business had a number of clients who would wait until they ran the “half price” special and would only come in then. When we worked out the figures, they were literally paying clients to come in and usually because they were coming in for a special they wouldn’t spend any more than that. When you are more consistent with your marketing, forward plan your weeks then you can avoid discounting.
When you are creating any marketing piece, you need to include the essential ingredients to stand out, be more effective and give you greater results.
- Think about who you are targeting. When we start working with businesses this seems to be the one area they get confused. Remember you aren’t targeting “everyone male/female aged 18-80 years old”. How can you tailor your marketing piece to that large group of people? It just becomes generic. Your marketing needs to have the look/feel and focus on a specific target market and their fears, frustrations, wants or aspirations. When you spend time understanding more about your target market, your ad or promotion becomes so much easier to put together and your results will be so much higher!
- Have an eye-catching heading – remember you have 3 seconds to capture their attention.
- Make your image stand out (remember you don’t want to have exactly what you are telling people, what is the emotion you are trying to conjure up in the viewer),
- Have an offer or a call to action – some reason for them to pick up the phone and call you straight away (limit the number of offers or the time to create urgency).
Don’t be afraid to do something different – be a step ahead of your competitors. You’ll be the stand out clinic in your neighbourhood, the one everyone is talking about!