Spa Clientéle Marketing Tips

Spa marketing lessons at Starbucks today

While standing in line at Starbucks today, I noticed a new message on their promotional chalkboard: "Fall into Tradition.  Our Pumpkin Spice Latte is back!" 

I had two reactions:

1. Isn't it a little early to start marketing the fall?  It's going to be 95 degrees today!
2. What a brilliant example of consistent and credibility-building marketing.

Starbuck's has clearly established their marketing plan for the year and then they just replay those promotions that are successful.  You can probably name of them:  Eggnog Latte, Pumpkin Spice Latte, Peppermint Mocha and all those summer Fraps that seem to change according to trends.  Having seasonal promotions you do year after year is a wonderful marketing strategy for a few reasons:

• It is easier!  You don't have to think of something new to do because you did it last year. 
• You can measure your success.  Compare to last year and you'll see a trend -- good or bad -- in the effectiveness of your marketing promotion.
• Scarcity marketing creates urgency.  When there is a limited time or limited amount of spaces, this boosts sales as clients clamor to schedule that service while it is still available. 
• Creates a tradition and loyalty.  Having an annual promotion that loyal clients can expect every year builds trust and credibility.  Showing and reminding the community that you have been around for a while is a good thing.
• It is an opportunity for a press release. Gotta love that!  Create a simple announcement about your seasonal promotion and include a client quote.
• It is an excuse to talk to your clients.  Hearing about new or exclusive things is something most clients welcome.  You can include in your e-newsletters, ads, website or do a postcard mailing about the limited-time promotion.

A word of caution about product manufacturer seasonal promotions and too many toys.  Many product companies that will help you with seasonal marketing for their latest and greatest new product, I recommend you choose your seasonal marketing ideas somewhat independent of what they'd like to help you with.   It is nice to have the "latest" but sometimes as you add, add, add new products it becomes difficult to maintain staff enthusiasm and sales on the products you already carry.  If you have kids, you can relate to the similar and constant need to recycle toys and clothes-- if you don't get rid of the same amount of toys or clothes that might be received for birthdays or the holidays, you and your child will be overwhelmed with choices and storage problems.  A good rule of thumb in toy and product inventory management is to remove one for every new one you add on. This makes it easier for your staff and clients to navigate your selections and not become overwhelmed.

Back to Starbucks, there are many excellent lessons to be learned from that company in both marketing and business.  These are my favorite books about their successful approach to business.

If you'd like help crafting your own marketing plan, schedule a free 30 minute marketing consultation with me.  We can talk about your marketing goals and how I can help you reach them.

Visualize This: Gateway to Your Core Values

I wanted to let you know of a 90 minute teleseminar being held in October by my colleague Laurie Massarella. She is a talented business and life coach. Here's the information on the class...  

You have a vision for your business. However, it has become unclear to you lately. You want more passion, clarity and satisfaction in your business, yet don’t know how to get it. Knowing your true core values, or the essence of who you are, will help you become more clear, fulfilled and satisfied in your personal and professional life.

During this 90-minute TeleClass, Inspirational Business Coach™ Laurie Mazzarella will teach you to:

• Discover 5 personal core values through guided visualization             
• Align your core values to your business
• Explore ways to use your values to make better decisions
• Experience greater productivity by honoring your core values             
• Match the inner you with your outer business actions

Program Cost: $49.00

 

Date & Time:

Tuesday October 9^th at 5:00 pm PST

 

Call Instructions:
When you register, you’ll receive an email with the conference telephone number.

Click Here to Register

Toes for Timmy: Charity and PR working together

As a way to keep the memory of a childhood friend alive, Krista Martin started an annual campaign "Toes For Timmy" to raise money for his memorial scholarship fund.  For one month, $10 of every pedicure is donated to the fund by her business, Pure Esthetics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Read the full article here

Very heartwarming and sincere, this is also an excellent example of Why adopting a charity is good for your your business. Things to note that make this a win-win:

• Sincerity and personal connection.  Krista had a personal reason for this mission and the sincere desire to help fund education for promising teens.
• Focused.  The time limit of one month is long enough to raise a good amount of money, motivates clients to come in to help with the effort and has a distinct end.  The impact of having an ongoing contribution would be higher financially, but would have much lower capability for publicity and a spike in business.
• Multiple community connections & human interest.   In addition the spa, there is community involvement with the school, police department and a focus on seat-belt safety.  There is magic in connecting communities with like-minded objectives. This is how buzz starts and builds.
• Publicity. The article was one of the better ones I've seen that covered a spa's community involvement.  I don't know how the story came to be -- whether the reporter approached Krista or if Krista pitched the story to the paper. Regardless, it was great coverage with her name and business listed multiple times and her spa address and phone number. 

Several readers have inquired about my previous post because they were having trouble finding that "right" charity to adopt.   I found that there is a natural tendency to have more than one, yet this can be distracting and confusing for your clients.   Keeping it simple and selecting one charity makes it easier for you.  This also increases the focus and attention on your charitable cause, increasing the opportunity for publicity.

On Location Promotions: Profitable Prospecting

Dear Spa Clientèle Solutions,

I am an esthetician that just started working at a new Med Spa. We sometimes do on location promotions like mini-services on Tuesday and Thursday nights at a martini bar. they want us to come out and to the bar and do like demos or something.  The doctor is going to be bringing a volunteer and doing Botox. They are asking what I can do. I'm not sure I could do facials, but do you have any ideas of what i can do doing at these events?

Marie

Marie,

Your promotional opportunity sounds both exiting and possibly burdensome!  For your sake, I hope you aren't doing these promotions twice a week every week.  You are smart to realize that facials are not a good fit here, yet it is worth exploring along with other service ideas.

First, let look at the goal of your time spent at the event.  If you are doing free services or demonstrations, you want to make a goal of scheduling enough clients to pay for your time.  While you may be happy with one, I would recommend setting a goal of 3 or 4 new clients per one hour of free demonstrations.  With that in mind, you (or your med spa) should have some incentive to schedule an appointment printed on a postcard or flyer that observing can take with them or read about while they are there.

Second, determine what services you want to demonstrate or perform.  I do recommend that if you are doing these services on observers, and if allowed, that you charge a nominal fee.  This would be considered a mini-service and many people will pay discounts to have on-the-spot services.  Here are some ideas and considerations for on location mini-services:

• Makeup application: full face or only eye makeup instruction
• Lip or eye intensive treatments
• Eye brow shaping with tweezers -- no waxing.
• Manicure or pedicure
• Glitter tattoo application -- I only mention because you'll be in a martini bar.  I would only do this for a fee, not for free.
• For LMTs: Massage: neck rubs, foot rubs, no more than 15 min.
• For hair stylists -- blow out and style

If you are not permitted to charge, I recommend bringing a volunteer along with your doctors.  Or perhaps use the same volunteer so that there isn't a split in attention from the crowd for the demo.  This will build the desire to "have it done to me" in the audience and they'll need to schedule (and pay for it) in order for it to happen. Using a volunteer allows you to do a more complex service and spend more time educating the audience as to the steps.

• Facial using warmed towels only.  Talk through every step you take and explain why -- think of how they do facials at tradeshows.
• Makeup application.  Create different looks for evening, day, special events on the same volunteer.  Explain post-peel or post-operation makeup application tips.  If you do permanent makeup, consider a demonstration.
• For LMTs: Using a table and bathing suit clad volunteer, demonstrate hot stone vs. deep tissue vs. other modalities.
• For hair stylists: Perform a more technical cut and style.

Finally, promote any every event you do like this with a press release an other free online publicity tactics.

Best of luck,

Heather

If you have questions you'd like me to address, email me at: heather at spaclientele dot com.  Or if you'd like more information on how to plan and promote an event like this that will pay for itself AND attract new clients, I'd like the opportunity to be your virtual marketing department.

Unhappy client? Convert them to a loyal client

When you have a client that is unhappy about their service or perhaps a product they purchased, how do react?

Is an unhappy client a good thing for your business?  Or do you see it as a negative experience?

I try to view unhappy clients as an opportunity to develop a loyal client.  Sure, being told that you or your staff failed to meet expectations is not a "feel good"experience.  But once you have weathered the storm, you have a wonderful opportunity to immediately gain more trust that you'd earn if all things had been up to par. 

Let me explain.

In every human relationship there comes a time of adversity.  One where two people either disagree or one hurts another.  Sometimes this adversity leads to a break in the relationship -- when the hurt or disagreement is not resolved. However, if both people are able to resolve the problem and move on, then the relationship  is stronger than it was before the problem occurred.  It builds a level of trust that cannot be built any other way.  In our personal relationships, we sometimes refer to this shared experience as "been through it all together."  Or "hung in there in good and bad times." 

This type of trust can be built with your clients as well.  I'm certainly not suggesting you go and intentionally screw up so you can be the hero and fix it later.  But simply shifting the way you view an unhappy client can make the storm easier to deal with.

Remember that most business conflicts are not a personal attack. There is so much heavy emotion around anger, that is it easy to feel personally threatened.   And frankly, sometimes you will have an irrational client that is verbally abusive. [That kind of anger rarely has anything to do with you or your business.]  But that is not the norm.   Stay conscious of any personal defensive mechanisms going up, or the urge to finger-point while you are actively listening to a client complaint.  This will go a long way in allowing your client to be heard.  You don't have to automatically take the blame, but simply try to stay as objective as possible so that you can jointly find the appropriate resolution for the problem.

You many not win them all over.  And that is okay.  There may be clients that are justifiably upset and apologies simply don't apply.   There may be clients who thrive on control and will try to take advantage of you.  Pleasing everyone simply isn't a healthy or realistic goal in business, or life, for that matter.   But switching the way you percieve unhappy clients can be very healthy for both your business and you.

The next time you or your staff receives a complaint, look for the hidden possibility of a newly loyal client.

A whale, er...elephant of an idea!

In preparation for her performance in front of a crowd of thousands, Nicole received an avocado facial from Bliss Spa in Dallas.  It was such an extraordinary facial, that it was covered by the local Dallas TV and in the local newspaper.

Why?

Nicole is an elephant!  I read about the Dallas Morning News story in a weekly newsletter from Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound.  Joan always has wonderful tips and ideas about publicity for all businesses and this week highlighted this under-leveraged spa publicity story.

While it appears to be a resounding PR success, Joan had some pointed critiques that we can learn from when planning a publicity event. 

• Make it easy to find and talk to the owner or person in charge of publicity.  There wasn't an easy to find media contact on the local spa website.  Make this clear in your website's press information, don't bury it in the press releases themselves.
• Make sure front line employees understand the delicate nature of media inquiries. Have a plan for handling reporter or media calls professionally and quickly.  In the case, Joan called the spa directly and they didn't know how to get her to the right person.
• Leverage the story on your website.  The local spa had no reference of the story anywhere on their website. This adds credibility to clients and confirms to inquiring media that they have the right place that was covered in a story.  Have a link to the story on your website, if it is a video, try to get a copy of the video so you can put it on a free video host (e.g., YouTube, Google).  Sometimes publications will take down videos after a while, and you want keep that video up there until you want to take it down.

Bottom line, work that story as much as you can.  If the story didn't have a press release already, write one.  If there are other similar events you can plan (massage for other mammals?), do them fairly quickly.  Can you create a theme around this idea that ties to your adopted charity? 

Don't be afraid to be "out there."  Clearly, you don't have elephants as regular clients.  (Although that would be a dream spa concept for my friend Jaya.) The point is to get mentioned on the evening news for free awareness, and this usually requires well-planned creativity.