Empty Columns? Run This 7-Day Gift Card Promo Today

Are you having a mid-year money wobble? Do you need a little financial pick-me-up that doesn't mean prostituting your salon on Facebook? You are in the right place. Today, we're looking at how to run a clean, quick, classy gift card promo that gets cash in your pocket fast. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons. Coming in your ears again with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom and welcome to wonderful May. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. I hope that April was kind to you. Lots of good results to report from the salons that I'm dealing with. How was it for you? Reach out and let me know. You know I'd love to hear from you anyway. And welcome back to the Build Your Salon podcast. And if your salon is feeling a little malnourished this month because maybe you didn't have an amazing April, then don't panic. Or if you're looking ahead to May, and I do like people that look ahead in their businesses, and seeing a few empty columns and you could do with a little shot in the arm, then I think this might be the episode for you because I've got a cheeky little gift card promo episode to help you get some money. In the bank. And actually, it could be good timing for some of you because I've been saying that over a quarter, I think there's always a good month, a bad month and something in between. And if you've had a good month in April, but weren't expecting it, then May might be just a little bit tougher. It's very rare that we get to go from strength to strength in our businesses. So we might just need that little financial shot in the arm. And I'm not saying that gift card promos can be your year round profit strategy. This isn't about long term scalability or building legacy income. This is a short, sharp money in your pocket campaign. When you need it most, it's your financial espresso, my loves, quick and strong, and gets you through the slump. And making sure that the money actually ends up in your pocket is super important too. So stay tuned for a quick word a little bit later on about my Get Paid Properly program. So let's break down exactly how you can make gift cards work for you. And in my mind, there are two types of gift card promo. There are service-based gift cards and there are amount-based gift cards. And we're going to go through both of those in turn.

But running a gift card promo can be one of the easiest ways to get a bit of cash flow fast. Why is that? Why are they so useful? Well, it's because you're not restricted by how many days you're working or how many hours that are available or how many team members you've got on the floor. You can sell 100 gift cards if you wanted to without opening your salon doors even or bringing a single client through the door. It's brilliant for slow months, brilliant for prepping for holidays if you know you've got people that are taking vacation and you need to get some money in quickly. Really good way of doing that. Also a really useful way of filling some revenue gaps before you make any big investments. And my favourite thing is, of course, that it's all available to you online. So you can promote it while you're binge watching your reality TV and sipping your spicy margarita. I've even known salon owners that have run a gift card promo while they've been on vacation. So they've been monitoring the salon and seen the figures take a dip while they're away. And they've managed to bank a few hundred quid and keep the bank balance looking healthy all the way from the Costa del Sun. So it's a very flexible, very versatile way of bringing money into the bank. And what I particularly like about anything that we run online, if you have a team, you will appreciate that teams aren't always amazing at doing the job that we want them to do with promotion. So I like stuff that doesn't rely on team members at all. And I do like promotions that hit everyone, whether they come into the salon or not. So if we run it as an online promo, we can tap into those customers who haven't been through the doors rather than upselling to those who have already got bookings. So first of all, let's jump into service based gift cards. And these are my personal favourite. Why? Because they give you a lot more control over how and when they're redeemed. And they also, I think, tend to feel less like discount promos. So what do these look like? Well, you're thinking about bundles, basically. So think about a glow up package, for example, that's got a facial and a brow tidy and a retail product or a complete hair refresh or get set for spring where we've got cut and finish and a retail treatment and a gloss treatment.

And these are great for gifting, but most of the people, let's face it, is a bit like the gift packs that come out at Christmas. Most people are going to buy them for themselves, but we can make them sound sexy. They're easy to market and you're leading with experience and value. But also you can control when they're booked or who they're booked with. So they're a really good way of funnelling people into quieter days or emptier columns. But the only thing I would say on this is that terms and conditions will hurt your promotion. So the more restrictions you put on a promotion, the more of a discount people will expect. So if you're saying that it's only available certain days, certain times and with certain team members, it's going to have to be a much more generous promo than if you were making it available with anybody, any day, any time. And the same goes with the services that you bundle in. So and actually hairdressers are the worst for this. Sorry, my stylist friends, but you're the ones that I see trying to bundle in, you know, oh, let's do a perm promo. Well, that's not going to exactly set the world ablaze, is it? If the priority is getting money in the bank, keep it generous, but keep it also focused on services that people actually want. Let me guess, your appointment book is full, but your bank account isn't. How long are you going to let that go on for? Isn't it time that you got paid properly? My Get Paid Properly program isn't just another course. It's your roadmap to boosting your profits, increasing your takings, finally getting rewarded for the hard work that you do. With nine straightforward modules, my foolproof pricing spreadsheet, and I'm even throwing in a one-to-one coaching call to answer any questions that you have about the training or anything else that's getting in the way of your incredible success. Head to getpaidproperly.com forward slash podcast, and you can save a hundred pounds on your sign up and get that bonus coaching call with me. The program is backed by my signature 90-day no-quibble guarantee. Take the training, take the coaching call, and if you don't feel you know enough to confidently set your prices profitably for the future, I will coach you myself until you do. Head to getpaidproperly.com forward slash podcast, lock in that saving, and finally take strides in the direction of getting rewarded for your hard work. Next up, let's talk about the promo that I've got mixed feelings about,

and this is when we're doing some kind of promotion on amount-based gift cards, and we see this kind of thing everywhere, where you buy a £50 gift card but only costs you £40. And yes, it can create urgency, and yes, people will bite, but darling, if you're not careful, you're going to end up giving away a big chunk of your profit, it's for the hope of a future appointment. So it does need a bit of careful handling. Also, it needs a bit of careful messaging, because this is always the promo that I see when salons are having their last gasp. When they're so close to closing their doors, and they're desperate to get cash through the door, we seem to always see a gift card promo. So it needs a bit of careful handling. Personally, I like a cap on how much you're going to sell, or a target. And I personally would also shorten the redemption window, but that's not always easy with amount-based gift cards. Sometimes people get a little bit funny if you try and put any T's and C's on an amount-based gift card. The other thing I would say is that there's going to be a limited number of new clients that would jump in. What we tend to end up doing with amount-based gift cards is discounting to our regulars who would book services anyway. So it's not the sexiest solution, to be honest with you. I'd rather sell fewer but sexier service-based gift cards. But hey, you do you, boo. Your business, your rules, you do what you like. The one thing I will say, though, is we've done this very successfully over Black Friday for years now. So what we do on that one is we have three or four tiers for the promo. So there might be, let's say, a £50 gift card, a £100 gift card, and a £200 gift card. And they come with a bonus voucher. So if you buy the £50 gift card, you get £10 free. If you buy the £100 gift card, you get £25 free. And if you buy the £200 gift card, you get a whopping £75 free, for example. So it gets more generous the more people actually invest. But here's the kicker. What we do, because bear in mind this is going out in November for Black Friday, what we do is say the bonus gift card can only be used in January or February. So we can afford to be very, very generous because there are restrictions around when that second voucher can be redeemed. The other thing you always want to make sure with the bonus voucher, by the way, is that we're not allowing redemption against retail products because the profit margin on retail usually means we can't afford to do very much

in the way of discounting at all. If that sounds useful to you, by the way, darlings, reach out and let me know. And sometime on the run-up to Black Friday, rather, I'll talk you through the entire promo. We'll do a whole episode on that. So amount-based gift cards can work very, very well. But the trick isn't in just selling gift cards. It's about making those redemptions actually work for you. So here's how I think you can level up on your gift card promo. And the first way is to make sure that gift cards are actually redeemed. I hate seeing salons that are happy to just take the money and run. So if they've got, let's say, a 12-month redemption period on a gift card, 11 months, if it hasn't been redeemed, put a reminder out. Let's get the people in, shall we? What wonderful customer service to actually make sure that people get the redemption, that they actually get the value from what they've spent. You've had the money, my love. It's time to cough up and give over the goods. But when people do come in, do train your people to upsell. Train your team to upsell. Because the gift card might not actually cover a huge amount of profit for you. But if we start adding on extra services, you know, let's say they come in for a haircut, but we get to sell a conditioning treatment or sell some retail on the way out the door, then suddenly that turns into a much more profitable visit for your salon. If you can steer redemptions to your quieter days, that helps balance your diary out, avoids burnout a little bit. But do treat people like VIPs. We don't want to feel resentful when people come in. Particularly if they're new clients, that redemption might well be their very first experience with you. Let's blow them away, shall we? And how about a few quick do's and don'ts to see us out of this episode? Well, firstly, I would make sure that this is time limited. I like a flash promo. The more generous you are, the shorter you want that to be. You know, you could even do a seven-day flash promo, which really builds some fear of missing out. But don't make it a false deadline. If you're doing a seven-day flash sale, then it gets switched off after seven days. And if people miss out, well, what we're doing is training them to take quicker action next time. Promote it across all your platforms. But honestly, email and in-salon is your friend here.

I don't think you're going to sell a huge number of gift cards from Instagram promos, Skywriting, whatever else is that you're using. But email promo tends to work really, really well. And also, make sure you're tracking your redemptions so that you know what's working. Don't over-discount. Don't bleed your business dry. And on that note, don't forget, this money hitting your bank account is not pure profit. All of those redemptions are going to cost you some money in terms of your product, in terms of your wages, when the time comes. Don't over-sell. And I've seen this before where people have done an amazing promo where they've absolutely cleaned up on gift voucher sales. But then everybody comes in and redeems in the same month and then hits the salon really, really hard in terms of cash flow when it comes to redemption time. And don't forget your boundaries. Let's keep it strategic. Keep it profitable. Let's make sure that it's a win for you and a win for your customers as well. And before we wrap up, another quick shout-out about my Get Paid Properly program. If your pricing isn't built to hand promos like this or your cash flow is making you sweat, then please head to getpaidproperly.com and learn how to build a more profitable salon overall. So there we are, my lovelies. Time to take action. Time to build your own seven-day gift card promo. Build it out. Get it ready to go. Even if you don't need it this week, being able to pull the trigger on a promo like this when you do need it is an absolute joy. So pick your angle. Are you going to do a service-based gift card or an amount-based gift card? Make a clear, compelling offer. Get your promotional materials together. And if you need it right now, then promote it like mad. And when you do, please tag me in your promo post or drop me a DM at philjacksoncoach with your results. I'd love to give a shout-out to some of the best ones that I've seen on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. Also, reach out if you'd like to be a guest on a forthcoming episode. phil at buildyoursalon.com is my email address. I would love to hear from one of my salon owner friends anyway. So go forth, make some money, just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears again. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.