How Does Growth Work as a Spa or Salon?
You can grow your salon or spa business in many ways to make it more successful. Growth can have different meanings and interpretations.
But in this context, we can mainly measure growth in 3 ways, which are revenue, number of clients booked, and overall spending per customer.
Revenue is the most straightforward approach, which can easily be done by diversifying your income sources.
Selling retail products is one of the ways that you can use to grow revenue, something which we’ll talk about more later on in this article.
Raising overall spending per customer is an awesome way to scale because you can earn more revenue without having to schedule more appointments.
Not to mention, you don’t have to spend too much on marketing for this to work, but good planning and execution!
Booking more clients almost always means more money but you’re usually going to need more manpower, marketing, and materials to go along with it.
The next section of this article aims to give you actionable strategies that you can use today to grow your spa or salon business!
Incredible Ways to Grow Your Spa or Salon Business
Increase Your Average Spend Per Customer
Increasing your average spend per customer is a great way to grow your spa or salon business, without needing more clients through marketing – which is very cost-effective.
Upselling naturally comes to mind, which is partly true but it might not be the best way to do so. Let us explain.
Upselling only works well if you do it naturally, whereas many people make the mistake of trying to hard-sell.
You should aim to provide value and educate your customers before providing a solution.
Perhaps you can give tips on how to relax their back after a long day and subtly suggest that you might have an add-on or product that might help.
Remember, at the end of the day, you want it to come off as a thoughtful suggestion and not a hard sell!
You can include training for your staff to upsell properly. It’s not necessarily sales training either, but training on your services.
Knowing exactly what services to recommend for specific situations is an underrated skill to have to upsell naturally!
Incentivize Your Clients to Refer Friends & Family
Many customers don’t actively recommend places like salons and spas unless the topic is brought up.
Word-of-mouth is a powerful marketing tool because we as humans trust the recommendations of people around us.
So, what can we do to actively let customers incentivize referrals?
Well, one effective way is to have a referral program. Referral programs are great because they’re a one-and-done thing, which will generate organic referrals naturally for a long time.
The key is to make sure the rewards are good enough to be worth their time and effort.
A good practice and structure to follow is to make sure both the referrer and referred are rewarded, a win-win.
This makes it easy for the referrer to refer and it also incentivizes the referred to take up on the offer.
A referral program gives you the power to decide your terms and conditions, such as rewarding only after the referred person has used their benefits, and so on.
A Loyalty Program is Amazing for Repeat Customers
On top of the referral program, you can include a loyalty program to reward customers for their loyalty and to scale your business with a steady stream of loyal customers.
You can reward your clients through incentives like points, discounts, free add-ons, or anything else you can think of!
You can also use the data from your loyalty program to expand your business.
For example, you can find out the most preferred service by a specific group of clients, and the peak and off-peak times to customize and vary your working hours.
Through this data, you can make each client experience more personalized and keep them engaged – thus leading to more sales in the long run.
For spas in particular, you can opt for something like a stamp-based loyalty program, because the overall value per session is on the higher end, so encouraging them to come more regularly is a strategy that could bring in more revenue.
You can sprinkle in freebies like add-ons on the stamps to keep them motivated to keep going.
Remember, make sure your rewards are worth earning and aligned with your client’s preferences.
You can also make it more sophisticated by offering different rewards for different groups of clients after you’ve divided them, to boost the overall loyalty rate.
After all, demographics like men over 50 and women under 30 have different preferences when they go to a spa!
Make It Easy for Clients to Book & Rebook
A good way to grow your spa or salon business is to make the experience as seamless as possible.
Think about it, if you run ads on platforms like Google or Instagram, let’s say your conversion rate is 2% on average, when you funnel them to a standard third-party app.
Having customers download an app is another hurdle that they have to cross and most of them might just give up.
On the other hand, if you funnel them to your DMs, you might lose out because of a lack of trust.
So then, what’s the proper solution?
In our opinion, nothing beats a web-based booking system. The fact that it’s available on a web browser, means that anyone across any device can make a booking fast and easy.
Our exclusive booking system, KlikNRoll, is one of the most reliable and robust on the market. We’ve made it easy to use and highly effective.
And trust signals? We got that covered. You can customize every part of the interface to suit your brand.
And the data that is gathered is yours to own and study (something that many common booking engines won’t let you do).
If you’re interested, click the button below to check out our product page to find out more!
Create a Group Package & Make It Your Flagship
Creating and selling group packages is another powerful way to grow your business.
The main idea is to offer a package that includes a few appointments that customers can use anytime at a lower price.
The catch is that customers will have to pay in advance, which makes them more committed.
These packages are great because you get steady cash flow to invest in other things like marketing while only having to give a session in exchange.
This way, you can get customers to purchase packages while giving them a discount for buying in bulk.
You can also predict how many sessions you have to fulfill in advance, and manage and assign staff accordingly.
Make sure you have an expiry date and other conditions of use, such as appointments only being bookable some time ahead, appointments not being refundable for cash, and appointments not being valid after the expiry date of the packages – to safeguard your business.
Diversify and Sell Retail Products Through Your Spa or Salon
Instead of relying solely on the services provided, you can opt to diversify your income stream through retail products.
So this can be things like hairspray, hair wax, and grooming kits for salons. As well as specialty lotions and soaps if you’re running a spa.
Most of the products that you’ll be selling might already be what your business is already using to service clients!
This means that they’ve already experienced those products before through your services, which makes it easier to sell!
You can also reduce your cost price by buying these products in large quantities, which also lowers your service expenses!
Besides that, you can also offer these products online – in addition to having them in your spa or salon.
You can do this through online platforms like Amazon or your own e-commerce store that’s connected to your booking system!
Our system also has a feature that lets you sell products, which you can use to your benefit!
Again, click the button below to find out more about our online store module!
Vouchers Are Great for Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Vouchers are a lot like packages but a bit more unique. This is because vouchers can be given to friends and family. This can help promote your business to more people naturally – again.
Besides that, you can also offer vouchers during special events like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day – boosting your total sales.
Again, like the point about packages, you have to offer your voucher for less than the worth of the voucher.
So a $100 voucher for maybe $85. Again, this gives you cash in advance, which improves overall cash flow.
How are you going to make vouchers, you might ask yourself?
You’re not going to believe this, but we also have a voucher management and generation module in our system!
It allows you to generate and validate both online and offline vouchers seamlessly.
Online vouchers are more and more popular and the cool thing is that with our system, you can send a QR code voucher that is scanable directly to the recipient’s email!
You know where this is going, click the button below to get started on voucher management for your spa or salon business:
Have a Paid Membership Program
Having a paid membership program is a great way to increase revenue while keeping clients committed.
If you’ve ever heard of the wholesale giant, Costco, you’ll know that they have a membership system as well.
Did you know that they make a bulk of their money through their membership? Up to 74% of profits in 2023.
As a result, they’re able to lower the cost of the goods they sell because the membership offsets it.
So what you can do is charge a membership and members get a discount on all or selected services. Make sure it’s worth your client’s while, and that they’re getting a good deal.
Unlike Costco, which only allows members to shop at their stores, you can have a hybrid option where non-members and members can both buy services and book appointments but members get perks like discounts, complimentary snacks, drinks, etc.
You might be losing out on overall revenue just a little bit, but it’s a long-term strategy that is amazing for retaining customers and making it less likely that they’re going to go to your competitors.
Not to mention, this is very predictable revenue for spas and salons as you won’t have to rely too much on trying to book as many clients as possible.
Invest in Email Marketing and Data Collection
In service-based businesses like spas and salons, email marketing is one of the most important ways to scale because the average spend per customer is on the higher end, as we’ve talked about earlier.
Also, email marketing is a great and inexpensive way to encourage rebookings that could be worth many many times the cost of sending emails.
If you use a good booking system like ours, that can be integrated into any CRM of your choosing, you can have a remarketing campaign and boost your ROI.
We have an article about restaurant email marketing that we highly recommend you check out.
Yes, it’s catered towards restaurants rather than spas or salons – but the information is still incredibly useful!
Use a Loss Leader to Expand Your Business
A loss leader can attract a lot of clients because it draws people inside.
If you don’t know what a loss leader is, it’s a product or service that is sold at a cheaper price than the competition.
The aim here is to lure customers at a loss to take them away from rivals. Then, they can try to recover that loss by selling other services.
A salon or spa might offer a free haircut or a low-cost massage as a loss leader strategy, hoping that they’ll ask for extras that have the normal price like maybe hair coloring, or waxing.
This strategy is ideal for salon and spa businesses because the average spending of customers is high, which means they often come back if they’re satisfied.
A loss leader strategy acts like a funnel that brings more people in, in hopes that they’ll turn into loyal customers in the long term while being able to upsell them in the meantime.
Conclusion
To grow your spa or salon businesses, you’ll need to adapt strategically and satisfy your customers.
You can do stuff like expand your business by diversifying your income sources, improving your service quality, and using creative marketing methods.
You can also increase your client loyalty and revenue by offering new products and services that meet their needs.
The secret is to use a comprehensive approach that combines both old and new strategies to keep up with the changing market and achieve lasting success!
Hey there! I’m Jeffrey Hau, and my journey in the digital world started after I wrapped up my psychology degree at UCLA. Imagine coming back to the bustling streets of Hong Kong from the tech haven of Silicon Valley – it was a whirlwind of inspiration! Seeing how social media platforms were evolving at breakneck speed and realizing the limitations of traditional advertising in this digital age, I decided to dive in.
In 2012, I laid the foundation of Prizm Group. From our humble beginnings, we’ve now blossomed into a global powerhouse with a team of over 200 passionate professionals. Our HQ is right here in Hong Kong, and we’ve spread our wings to SG, AU, NZ, JP, and China.
As a digital problem solver, our team found that several industries are in need of reservation systems, especially for F&B, Hotels, Beauty, and Medical sectors. Our digital magicians started crafting reservation systems tailored to cater to these specific needs. We extended our expertise to e-commerce, voucher management systems, and campaign management systems, combining them into KlikNRoll – an all-in-one solution. We deep dive into various industries, understanding their unique challenges and developing innovative solutions.
We’re not just a company; we’re your dedicated partners in transforming how you navigate the digital landscape. Our passion lies in providing businesses with intuitive and tailored solutions using KlikNRoll’s powerful capabilities.
Ready to embark on this exciting digital adventure with us? Let’s make your brand stand out in the digital jungle!
