Looking for the right Salon marketing tools to give your salons marketing, promotions and social media a boost?
We have put together some of our favorite marketing tools for beauty salons and hair salons, with many of our choices free for you to use.
Don’t have enough time?
We totally understand but we do recommend that you have just a couple of these in your salon and spa marketing toolkit.
It will help you create a more profitable salon business in the long term.
Get to the type of salon marketing tool you are looking for quickly, click the link below:
- Client Acquisition Tools
- Client Retention Tools
- Social Media Tools
- Creative Tools
- Website Tools
Client Acquisition Tools
As with any marketing plan for salons or spas, it is essential that you have a good client acquisition strategy.
There are many easy to use salon marketing tools for you to acquire new clients and
many of them are essential to your business.
Bing Places
Key Benefit: Ensure your on Bing Maps
There isn’t just Google for Business you need to think about, there is also Bing to remember
make sure you have your business registered, together with photos, description and website url to make sure you don’t miss out on this valuable salon marketing tool.
Website: https://www.bingplaces.com
Cost: Free
Google Adwords App
Key Benefit: Fully booked? Turn off ads via your smartphone
If you are not at the top of Google natural search results, they you should use Google Adwords
Google Adwords can be costly if you do not set up your account properly but if you do set it up properly it can be a highly effective salon marketing tool to acquire new clients.
Adwords allows you to target by phrase like ‘hair salon manhattan for instance or you can do it by geography for such search terms as ‘hair salon near me’ allowing you to target to potential clients close to your salon or spa.
Website: https://adwords.google.com
Android app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adwords/id1037457231
Cost: Dependent on keywords chosen and certain quality rules
Google My Business
Key Benefit: Add promotions & respond to reviews
Website: https://www.google.com/business/
Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.vega&hl=us
iOS App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-my-business/id853371601
Cost: Free
Facebook Ads Manager App
Key Benefit: Manage your Facebook Ads on the go
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook-ads-manager/id964397083
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.adsmanager&hl=en
Cost: Free for app (Facebook ads cost dependent on campaigns)
Facebook Audiences
Key Benefit: Target potential clients that match your existing client
Never heard of Facebook Audiences?
This could be one of the most important marketing tools on this (apart from Google My Business) and can help you target your clients and potential clients more effectively.
Facebook have two ‘audiences’ that you should know about, ‘Custom Audience’ and ‘Lookalike Audience’. Custom Audiences allows you to upload your client list (old and current) to the Facebook Advertising Manager. Once you have uploaded these, you can then target adverts to that specific audience, which is great to promote new products, services or to win back old clients with a promotion for example
Lookalike audiences are great because, once you have uploaded your existing client database, Facebook will then make your existing client with yes your guessed right, a look a like audience, so those Facebook users, who have the same interests etc as your existing clients.
Expect Referrals
Key Benefit: Use existing clients to bring more clients
Looking to generate more clients from your existing client?
Well you need a client referral program as part marketing strategies for beauty salons, hair salons or spas.
Expect Referrals allows you create a client refer a friends tools, such a discount coupons, unique links for clients to share on their social media profiles to allow them to get discounts the more new clients they refer to you and much more.
Basically everything you need to run a successful salon or spa refer-a-friend program.
Website: http://expectreferrals.com
Cost: $25 per month
LiveChat
Key Benefit: Convert more website visitors into appointments
If you have a salon or spa with a full time receptionist or front of house team, have you ever thought about how they can make you even more money?
Yes we read lots and lots of blogs about how reception teams can increase retail sales but there is one way which they can increase revenue, which many many salons and spas do not even think about……
and the answer is to use live chat on your website!
Live chat isn’t something that is confined to the use of big online stores or banks anymore, you can use it for salon or spa also.
LiveChat is a a simple software solution, you can be up and running on your salon or spa website within minutes but just copy and pasting two pieces of code to your website.
If you are using salon software which allows online booking, live chat could help you get even more clients booking through the website and may be even spend more.
Website https://livechatinc.com
Cost: $16 per month
Client Retention Tools
It will payback in the longterm if you have some of them as part of your marketing strategies for beauty salon
Belliata Salon Software
Key Benefit: Keep track of your clients & reduce no-shows
Knowing more about your clients is the most important element of an spa or salon marketing strategies. If you don’t know how often your clients are visiting or even if they are not visiting you anymore, who do you know how effective your marketing is.
Belliata Salon Software allows your to keep track of all of your clients, how much the spend and how frequently they come to your salon or spa.
Website: https://belliatasalonsoftware.com
Cost: Free
Stamp Wallet
Key Benefit: Improve client retention & increase retail sales
Research by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, the guy who invented the Net Promotor Score (the score that ask you on a scale of 0 to 10 how much would you recommend a company to friend or colleague) has shown that improving customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%
So with this in mind, it could be important to your salon or spa that you have a client loyalty program in place.
Stamp Wallet allows you to have a loyalty program for your spa or salon. You are able to run a points based system, or a program where a client buys a certain number of services or product to get redeem for something.
Website: https://www.stampwallet.io
Cost: $24.99 per month
Get Response
Key Benefit: Keep clients up to date with promotions to improve profits
Communicating with your clients and keeping them up to date with promotions and other marketings in your salon or spa is key growing your business and keeping clients loyal.
To do this, you need a good email marketing tool and one such tool is GetResponse. They have created an easy to use tool to send, track and measure how well your email campaigns are working. Another advantage is that is that there are hundreds of templates you choose from (including mobile optimized layouts), simple upload of your email list, makes it an ideal solution for every salon or spa.
Website: https://getresponse.com
Cost: From $15 per month
Google Forms
Key Benefit: Use client insight to improve your products & services
When did you last carry out some client research?
Never?
Don’t worry, probably most salons or spas have carried out client research!
There is so much you can’t find out about your business, such as; client satisfaction, why do client no longer visit you, why they don’t buy products from you to help you increase retail….
there are many many more
and Google Forms make it easy for you to launch your survey in a matter on minutes and for free.
Website: https://www.google.com/forms/about/
Cost: Free
SMSAPI
Key Benefit: SMS is the most direct form of communication available
Want to win back your old clients? Or send a survey to improve client retention?
Of course you do!
Well you could always try SMSAPI, a leading platform to send bulk SMS and they able to send messages to clients wherever you are in the world and only takes 30 seconds to open an account.
With SMS being so direct, you can use it to send promotions, birthday messages and client feedback surveys to your clients.
Other benefits of SMSAPI include a URL shortening service (aka bit.ly), scheduling of messages and delivery reporting
Website: https://www.smsapi.com
Cost: Dependent on volume sent and country
Yelp Business App
Key Benefit: Manage your Yelp reviews on the go
Make managing your Yelp profile easier by using the Yelp Business app.
You are able to manage your business information, get statistics on how well profile is performing, check and respond to client reviews.
Website: https://biz.yelp.com/support/mobile
Cost: FREE
Facebook Pages Manager App
Key Benefit: Respond to posts & reviews on the go
Looking to manage your Facebook Page on the go and keep up to date with your latest Likes and people taking about your salon or spa?
Facebook has an app which allows you to view and reply to review comments, post updates and view page insights
Website: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/managing-facebook-pages
Cost: FREE
Social Media Tools
Post Planner
Key Benefit: Informs you on trending social media ideas
Looking for inspiration to your social media marketing? Post Planner is a nice salon marketing tool you won’t want to be without. Put it in your search term and away you go, it will come back with trending images and posts which you can steal …
(I mean borrow for your own marketing)
and watch your social media engagement grow.
It is also allows you to schedule your posts for future dates and this make sure you are not having to remind yourself to keep going to Facebook or Twitter to keep posting your updates.
Website: https://postplanner.com
Cost: From $9 a month
If This Then That (IFTTT)
Key Benefit: Let IFTTT do all the copy & pasting for you
Looking to get some things that you do on a regular basis, regarding social media?
IFTTT is a free service that allows users to create triggers, which are based on changes to other web services such as Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, and Pinterest.
For example you might want to automate the sending an e-mail message if the IFTTT user tweets using a certain hashtag. Or, if the your salon or spa is tagged by someone on Facebook, then that photo will be added to Google Drive.
Website: https://ifttt.com
Cost: FREE
Trello
Key Benefit: Keep track of your marketing plan
Website: https://trello.com
Cost: FREE
InstaMessage
Key Benefit: Find people close to you on Instagram
Looking for for possible clients to follow on Instagram and that close to your salon or spa?
Salon marketing is all about hyper-local marketing and there is no other hyper-local marketing then finding people in your local to you
With InstaMessage, you are able to Follow and Like people those who are close to your salon or spa.
iOS App: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/instamessage-meet-chat-hangout/id555260595
Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.futurebits.instamessage.free
Cost: FREE
Hootsuite Mobile
Key Benefit:Manage all your social media profiles
Looking for a tool to manage all your social media profiles and keep track of client comments and get some statistics?
Hootsuite is the worlds largest social media management tool, with a range of great tools which include: scheduling, content suggestions and basic reporting
Website: https://hootsuite.com/plans/free
Cost: FREE (3 profiles)
Healthinomics
Key Benefit:Ready to use social media posts
Don’t have time to develop your own social media content?
Well there is an easy way..
Healthinomics is a great salon marketing tool which makes it easy to post pre-designed content speficially designed for health and beauty.
So if your a look specifically for beauty salon marketing tools this is ideas for you.
Website: https://www.healthinomics.com
Cost: $20 per month (for 1 pack of 20 bundles)
Key Benefit:Get inspired by other people pins
This may seem strange to have this in the list but it is a great place for you to find great inspiration for you to improve your marketing and promotions within your salon or spa.
If you have never tried Pinterest, you will be able to find boards covering salon marketing ideas which makes your life a lot easier.
Website: https://pinterest.com
Cost: FREE
Buffer
Key Benefit:Posting at the right time for your profiles
One of the biggest questions is when is the best time you should post on Facebook or Instagram for your salon or spa?
The TRUE answer is there is NO answer
Knowing the best time to post, very much depends on your audience and a smart social media posting tool called Buffer has taken out some of the guess work for you, watching when you have the best engagement with your social media posts and times them to go at the right moment.
With Buffer, you are able to post to all the major social networks, including: Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
Website: https://buffer.com/awesome
Cost: From $10 a month
Creative Tools
Canva
Key Benefit:Easily make great looking social media posts
Canva has become the go to place for you to create great graphics and images for your salon or spa marketing and social media campaigns. With Canva, there are hundreds of free templates for you to choose from, as well as low cost (i.e. $1) images and pre made stylish templates which will ensure your campaigns are looking perfect.
Don’t know what the correct dimensions are for a Facebook or Instagram post? Don’t worry Canva has all of these ready made, so you click on what post you want to design and it has the correct dimensions.
Coming from the salon and spa industry, you know that being visually good is everything and images have a xx% higher engagement rate then.
Website: https://canva.com
Cost: Free (you can buy images and elements to create better images for $1 each)
Pexels
Key Benefit: Find great looking images to use for free
Looking for great pictures for your social media posts are website
Pexels is an easy to use website which allows to you to find nice looking images and they are all totaly free to use for any purpose….
which is unusual, as when you find free photo stock, that there it is free but as a hair salon or beauty salon and therefore a commercial business, then they are not free!
Website https://www.pexels.com/
Cost: Free
WeVideo
Key Benefit: Easy to use video editor
Video is becoming one of the key elements of an salon marketing strategy. With more and more people watching YouTube & videos on Facebook then you need an easy tool to get your videos online easily.
WeVideo is a simple editing tool which you use on your desktop or smartphone to get nice looking videos for online
Website: https://www.wevideo.com
There are also Android and iOS app available
Cost: $4.99 a month
Picmonkey
Key Benefit: You don’t have to be a pro to make great looking photos
Looking for photo collage software for your salon? You could use the many iOS or Android apps out there but most of them don’t allow branding to be added and if that picture goes viral don’t you want to make sure your salon and spa gets the marketing it deserves?
Picmonkey is an easy to use photo collage tool, which allows your to put together your choice of photos, add your logo etc and then it is ready to post on Instagram and Facebook or wherever you wish to post them.
Looking for an easy to use Photo editing tool to edit your shots before posting on social media?
Picmonkey allows you to add filters, touch up pictures to remove wrinkles, brighten eyes and more
Make sure your images sell your salon or spa and this tool will ensure you give your photos a professional touch
There are also Android and iOS app available
Website: http://picmonkey.com
Cost: FREE
($3.33 basic plan)
Grammarly
Key Benefit: Dno’t mkae sepelilng msitaeks aigan
Website Tools
Google Mobile Test
Key Benefit: Ensure your website works on a smartphone
More and more people are finding salons and spas via their mobile devices…
in fact 60% of Americans use their smartphone to find a local business, so make sure you salon or spas website works on a mobile device.
But there is an even bigger reason why your website should work on a mobile device…..
Late in 2016, Google released a change to how it searches websites and now it checks the mobile version first for what should appear in the search results and…
if it doesn’t work on smartphone
Then you will not appear so high on Google search results
which is not good for your salon or spa
Website: https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly
Cost: FREE
Unamo
Key Benefit: Track where your website is on Google
Making sure you salon or spa is at the top of Google is vital for business success these days.
So making sure you are showing up on Google Maps and the normal search results, can make or break your business.
Did you know that 61% of clicks on the search results go to the top 3 results?
Unamo allows you to track where your salon or spa appears on Google, including Google Maps, as well as the desktop and mobile versions of the Google search results. It takes just five minutes to add the right keywords for your salon or spa and away you go… it’s that simple.
You should read our blog post on which salon keywords to choose for your salon, it explains how to choose the right salon keywords to drive more new clients.
Website: https://unamo.com
Cost: $19 a month
Google Analytics App
Key Benefit:Check your website traffic on the go
If you have a website (which you should have) then you need to know how many people are visiting it and where they came from…
No salon or spa website can be without Google Analytics.
With this free analytics tool from Google, you can monitor traffic to your website, what pages they looked at and what pages they left on. Using this tool allows you understand what parts of your website are working well and what ones you ned to improve on.
Website: https://www.google.com/analytics/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.giant&hl=us
https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/google-analytics/id881599038
Cost: FREE
Wix
Key Benefit: Easy to make a good looking website
Looking for an easy way to get online?
Wix has a range of templates to get your salon or spa online in a matter of minutes
Website: https://wix.com
Cost: $7/month
Weebly
Key BenefitEasiest way to get online
Blah blah
Website: https://weebly.com
Cost: $8 per month for website with domain name
WordPress
Key Benefit: Use the worlds biggest website template
Did you know, according to W3Techs that 25% of the worlds websites are built on WordPress?
Although it WordPress isn’t the perfect system it is a cost effective way to get online
You can either use WordPress.com which manages the hosting for you or your can choose your own hosting and manage it all yourself.
Website: https://wordpress.org
Cost: Dependent on your choice of theme and hosting or use WordPress.com from $2.99 per month
Let’s remind ourselves of our choice of the best salon marketing tools;
- Google Mobile Test
- Unamo
- Get Response
- Post Planner
- Canva
- LiveChat
- Buffer
- Google Analytics
- SMSAPI
- Facebook Audiences
- Belliata Salon Software
- Picmonkey
- If This Then That
- Instamessage
- Hootsuite
- Yelp Business App
- Facebook Pages Manager App
- Bing Places
- Google Adwords
- Wix
- Weebly
- WordPress
- Google Forms
- Pexels
- Healthinomics
- Picmonkey
- Expect Referrals
- Stamp Wallet
- Flok
- Google My Business
- Facebook Ads Manager App
- Trello
- Evernote
- Grammarly
Are we missing something?
Tell us in the comments below your favorite salon marketing tools
The post 35 Salon Marketing Tools Your Salon Shouldn’t Be Without In 2017 appeared first on Belliata.
