Jessica Turner With the silly season, Valentines Day and Mother’s Day behind us, now is an opportune time to winter-proof your biz.
This means optimising your retail, digital and treatment menu to entice a steady-stream of customers through your doors when it’s rainy and cold, and naturally, people are less inclined to visit.
SPA+CLINIC call on the experts to brainstorm ideas and share their top tips:
Refresh The “Look”
“If clients aren’t tanning as often or as worried about hair removal, you need a good reason to get them into your business, and you need retail sales more than ever,” says Matt Williams, director of professional beauty solutions.
“It is really important for spas, salons and medi-clinics to frequently update the look and feel of their premises frequently enough for their customers to notice that things are new or different.
“The change in season is an opportunity to mix things up and create a new look for your space, as is stocking a colourful collection such as Pure Fiji with a distinct “mood” that’s easy to ‘extend’ throughout your offering.
“You can extend the feeling of a new product range with fresh flowers, points of sale posters, displays and even the configuration of the furniture.”
Raise The (Makeup) Bar
From product launches to workshops to VIP nights, having a “makeup bar” is a great excuse to hold special events and thus, drive foot-traffic into your business.
Australian makeup brand, The Runway Room, is a fully stocked and merchandised cosmetics concept, available to spas and clinics.
“By adding a makeup bar to a skin-focused aesthetics business, you can potentially double your profits,” says Alex Fevola, owner of The Runway Room.
“This is because it’s another income stream, that is highly profitable and can feed off existing clients, after treatments.
“The synergy between an “anti-ageing” client and a “make-over” client is perfect – it’s about education and consultation for the client to achieve a new look entirely, so not just stopping at the fillers, skin rejuvenation but finishing with a fresh, glow and youthful make-up look that they can achieve at home.
“Product sales, with a make-up service, are super high compared to most other salon services – 92% of clients will purchase lashes with a makeover and 63% will purchase a lip product.
“To have an edge in this super-competitive industry, businesses need to diversify and offer more.”
Step-Up Your E-Commerce
Despite the bread-and-butter of most aesthetics businesses being service related, there are benefits from having an e-commerce platform as an extra revenue stream, to sell retail products and gift vouchers.
And, considering economical, user-friendly e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, implementing one is easier than ever.
Nikki Auton, an Australian business coach specialising in spa, salon and clinic marketing says:
“Traditionally, spa clients have only purchased their products in-house, and sometimes when wanting to purchase more, have gone to another spa, salon, or clinic or changed brands completely – so an online store will ensure that existing customers don’t purchase their home-care products anywhere else when they run out.
“Your online shop can be one of your most powerful marketing tools – potential customers searching for certain products, or specific brands can seek out your online store stocking their favoured products, and if you’ve developed it well enough, it can attract those clients to book appointments.
“It also gives businesses another opportunity via their website for content marketing as the more information that you have on your website (that is current and containing key-words) that your customers and potential customers will search for, will give you even more traffic flowing to your website.
“Just like the rest of your website, your online store must be fresh and refreshed continually – this means a bit of creative thinking on your part.
“Market your seasonal specials and promotions in conjunction with individual products in your store – for example if a visitor is looking at an exfoliation product in your online store, identify an in-spa treatment offering professional results in a pop-up box, or highlighted in the product information.”
