Christmas promotions to help maximise a super-successful salon season

Whether you haven't put your seasonal marketing together yet, or you're concerned that December isn't going to be the shot in the arm that your salon business could use, I've got your back. Join me as we put together your Christmas promos. Hello, hello, hello my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your eyes and ears again with another dose of my Wise Owl Wisdom. But before we get started, of course, we have listeners and watchers all around the world. And I want to acknowledge that not everybody is going to be putting Christmas on their marketing calendar. But you know I'm here for you wherever you are in the world and whatever you choose to put in place in your business. But most of our listeners will be looking to Christmas for a bit of a shot in their arms. So it would be remiss of me not to put this episode together. It used to be that Christmas was the shot in the arm that salons needed. Many salons having scraped by for the previous 12 months and finally it was time for them to make a decent profit. Over the last few years though, those predictable patterns of spend have gone by the by. And last December in particular over here in the UK was very disappointing for lots of hair and beauty and aesthetic businesses. That said, it can be an absolute game changer. And I certainly think that we need to do as much as we can to get some money through the till in December. Because generally, either January or February will give you a bit of a kicking. It tends to be a fairly tough month as far as cash flow is concerned. So if you haven't already, let's put together your marketing plan for December. And yes, I've actually managed to get this episode out in November, so you've got time to put some of these things in place. Firstly, I want to talk about putting bundles of service together. Gifts with purchase, getting retail with service is a fantastic way. Firstly, to add to the appeal of your services and make them feel like a bit of a no brainer. Secondly, it means that we're not discounting too heavily. We're not putting huge discounts in place to keep you busy through December. And thirdly, it's also a really good way to switch people on to retail products that might otherwise not be using professional products at home. So put together some bundles. Now, I know sometimes these things can feel a little bit cheesy. I know sometimes it feels like, oh, God, another Christmas promo. But I promise you the easiest way to market is to enter the conversation that's going on in your customer's mind.

What do you mean by that, Uncle Phil? Well, what I mean is trying to talk about anything apart from Christmas in most salons is going to be really, really hard work next month. So it's much better if we can give things a Christmas flavor. So by all means, start bringing out Santa Claus or maybe putting together some kind of Advent on the run up to Christmas and tap into what's going on in the customer's mind already. Now, I have put together Advent promos before. So we have run Advents where basically we had 24 promotions running on the 24 days before Christmas. That's a lot of work and a lot of promotions and not something that I would want to do again, I have to say. Then we paired that down and simplified it and made it a 12 days of Christmas promo. So there were 12 promos instead of 24. A little bit simpler. Then we paired it down even further over the last few years and did three gifts for Christmas. So there were three different promos to choose from. But honestly, the simpler I make it, the more effective the promotion tends to be. So my encouragement would be not to put too many bundles, too many packages together. I would also suggest that you look at putting some kind of Christmas events together, whether that be in salon where you get the mince pies and the mulled wine out and show people the kinds of things that they could be purchasing over Christmas. Or whether you do an online event, which is becoming more and more popular, as, of course, most of our customers are very comfortable with video conferencing and Zoom calls now. Sometimes you don't even have to appear on screen. I have a couple of clients that put together their Christmas shopping event in a closed WhatsApp group. So basically they open up the group for signups on the run up to the event. And then during the event, they're putting together exclusive deals and discounts. They release one, say, every 10 minutes for about an hour and a half and then close down. And it's a really good high profit exercise in terms of being able to sell lots of products and service, but without too much time commitment or asking your team to stay behind for a live event. So have a think about putting some Christmas packages together. Next, I want to talk about gift card promos, and I wouldn't run this if you've put a gift card promo together for Black Friday. But gift cards can be a really useful addition to help boost your cash flow in December.

Now, bear in mind, anytime we're selling a gift card, we do have to service that client. We will have to fulfill our part of the deal a little bit later on. But usually gift cards, if they're going to be used, will be used in January and February. And generally in most salons, one or the other of those months will have lots of spare capacity, lots of utilization for you to use up. So I think a gift card promo can be brilliant for your cash flow. It also helps all of those useless husbands who have forgotten to buy their wives something over the Christmas period. It helps them with some last minute gift ideas. I would also suggest putting gift cards together, not just for amounts, but also for particular services. Sometimes it's a little bit easier for people to visualize how pleased a loved one is going to be if a gift card is attached to a service rather than just a nice round amount. What I quite like doing rather than discounting gift cards over the festive period, though, is giving a bonus voucher. So, for example, you could sell a £100 or $100 gift card and give a bonus gift card of, say, £10 or £15 or $15. And then the person can choose either to give that to the loved one as well or perhaps even sneakily keep the smaller gift card for themselves. Also, don't neglect the smaller gift card amounts because if people are buying colleagues, let's say, a £10 or £20 gift over the Christmas period in their workplace, then a smaller gift card can actually be a big tick in a box. Next, I want you to take a look now at what your bookings are looking like for December. If you've got plenty of white space, it might be an idea to offer an incentive for people to book now. So this episode is coming to you in November. There's still time to get this out on email and social media. Why not offer people something in exchange for booking their Christmas appointments? Now, you've got to be careful here because what we don't want to do is annoy the organised people who booked their appointment a month or two ago. So we've got to make sure that we're treating our customers fairly. Now, it might be that you are so quiet in December that you want to offer some kind of booking discount. And as you know, I tend to fly in the face of some other coaches who say you should never discount your services.

I think discounting your services is OK in certain circumstances. So where we're swapping a shift in behaviour for a discount, I'm OK with that. So if you're getting people to book an appointment they wouldn't otherwise book or you're getting them to book further ahead than they normally would, I think it's OK to offer a discount. That said, what will keep your profit margins more healthy is if we offer some kind of bonus. So we upgrade people's services or give them an add on or even a gift with purchase. So there's still time. I think if you're looking really gappy in December, maybe put together an email campaign. I would do maybe two, even three emails. So basically release the fact that you're offering this bonus, this incentive in exchange for people booking. Of course, if it's email marketing, you should be able to target only those people who don't have bookings already. And then I would close that off maybe at the very end of November. So I'd send another email perhaps on the 29th just saying if you don't take advantage of this now, you're going to lose this exclusive discount or this exclusive bonus. And let's get a few more bookings in. Incidentally, I was talking to a salon owner, a hair salon owner the other day, one of my coaching clients about how Christmas used to be. And it used to be that Christmas Eve was an absolute buzz in the salon. And we always used to do fancy dress on Christmas Eve and the mince pies were out and the mulled wine was there and everyone was in a very jolly mood. Lots of our clients were popping in, even if they didn't have appointments to drop off cards and gifts or Christmas tips. And we used to turn the music up a little bit and everybody was fighting for those appointments. And my client was kind of wringing their hands and saying that things aren't how they used to be. But do bear in mind that it's your job to bring the atmosphere back and it might take two or three years to get back to that place again. But what we need to make sure is that the salon is the place to be on Christmas Eve and make sure that we're delivering such an exceptional experience that it's such great fun that actually a visit to the salon is the perfect way to kick off your Christmas break and actually make it so that people want to be there. The thing is, people are so good now at doing their own hair services or beauty services that actually a trip to a salon needs to feel like an occasion. And it's your job to make it feel like a very special occasion, particularly if you're struggling. So bring back the atmosphere. Let's turn the music back up again. Let's make sure that when people are coming into the salon on the run up to Christmas, they want to make it a feature of next Christmas as well. Yours won't be the only business in your town looking to maximise profits during December.

It's the perfect time to reach out and start collaborating. So start having a look at the local business landscape. And what you're looking for is businesses that complement yours. So what that means is they're not in direct competition with you. They're offering products or services that don't clash with yours, but they have a similar target market. So whether that be local restaurants or coffee shops or whether that be something a little bit more on the retail line as far as, let's say, a clothes shop in your town is concerned. They've got a similar clientele to yours. Why not start putting bundles of services and products together across businesses? You get two or three of you working together. You can put together some amazing, amazing bundles or deals. And also, it's a really brilliant way of tapping into other people's clientele. Now, you're not going to be able to email other people's clients because GDPR and all those good things and people are entitled to have their details handled very delicately these days and quite rightly so. But that doesn't mean that that business or service could not be emailing about the bundle that includes your products or services. So they could be emailing their clients, telling their clients about your amazing experiences. My advice here is to stick with the independents, stick with the smaller businesses. They're the ones that care more and they'll do this properly, as I'm sure you will, too. And finally, what if December is already super healthy? What can you help us do, Uncle Phil? What should we be marketing if we don't need to fill the white space? Well, aside from your gift card promo, which I think is brilliant because it's a way of getting more money through the till without having to carry out service. Why not look at running some kind of festive contest or competition? It could be a brilliant way of getting email addresses that you can market to in the new year, in the quieter months. So put together a tasty prize, but reach out beyond your usual clientele. Try and get some new client details ready for us to market to in the new year. Be generous with this kind of thing. Think about how much each extra new client is worth to you. I personally would have a generous prize, but then why not also offer a small discount to everybody who entered to encourage them through the doors in January, February. So what are you doing? What have I missed? What amazing ideas have you got to market your salon business this December?

Reach out and let me know. You know, I love hearing from you anyway. My email address at the bottom of the screen, phil at buildyoursalon.com. Also reach out if you would like to be a guest. I want in 2025 to get some salon owners onto the Build Your Salon podcast to share their story, to describe their journey through this incredible industry. And I would love to hear from you. Also reach out if you have questions for my regular Q&A slot. Anything you want to ask me, please ping it over in an email or reach out to me on Instagram at philjacksoncoach. Just seven short days until the next episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. And until then, take care. Bye. Bye.