The beauty industry is currently still emerging in terms of technology. It has been a very traditional craft that has relied mainly on a high street presence and word-of-mouth. Over the last couple of years and after a worldwide pandemic, we are seeing more and more beauty businesses running from home or units in more remote locations, missing high street traffic. The industry has also become very competitive. In the past, beauticians, nail technicians, and hairdressers enjoyed almost guaranteed loyalty, but with the explosion of social media, customers are more easily swayed than ever. To fit in with your customer’s busy lifestyles and obsession with their smartphones, sms marketing is the next logical step for any beauty business.
The introduction of sms marketing to your business, will show you that there is more than one way to attract new customers and keep your existing customers coming back for more. With our helpful hints and tips, adapting your business to incorporate your new sms marketing tools is so simple.
What do modern customers expect from beauty and hair salons?
Many of us are turning to technology as a communication tool for most of our daily business, it can be difficult to continue to deal with a company that doesn’t fit into our busy world. So what do customers want to experience when making beauty appointments:
- Easy booking facility
- Instant booking confirmations
- Reminders
- Hassle-free communication
- Last-minute appointment opportunities
- Loyalty bonuses
Customers are now able to manage all of these things via sms marketing in the vast array of industries they deal with and they much prefer it to telephone communication and appointment cards. If your competitors are offering a more streamlined service, then it is time to rethink your strategy.
Why sms marketing is preferred by customers
Sms is the fastest and most efficient way to reach your customers and potential customers and is now the preferred method of marketing and transactional communications. With an open rate of 97% and a fast read rate within minutes, you can see why.
Did you know that 23 billion text messages are sent out globally every day? It makes perfect sense when you consider that in 2021, 3.8 billion people owned mobile phones and that figure is set to continue to rise in the years to come. In the UK alone, a staggering 92% of all brits already have a mobile phone and we look at them on average once every 4 minutes. The number of different mediums of communication we have access to on these little mobile devices is ever increasing. Quite frankly, mobile phones have taken the world by storm and are by far our favourite way to interact with others. When dealing with businesses, we are now partial to a non-invasive approach. Marketing text messages and two-way communication via sms interaction is right up our street.
Sms marketing is a growing trend
It should come as no surprise that statistics show that 48% of people prefer to receive marketing and transactional communications by text message. By contrast, only 22% prefer email marketing and email alerts, 20% pay attention to app notifications, and a meagre 8% would now welcome direct mail. Many businesses have already upgraded their marketing strategies and adjusted their budgets to keep up with the growing trend of sms marketing. They know that traditional methods are no longer hitting the mark and are more costly and inefficient.
Not only are sms campaigns the obvious way to reach your target audience, but it’s also cost-efficient. You will not find a cheaper way to interact with your clients or advertise to your potential customers. The return on your investment (ROI) is nothing like you have ever experienced before. As the description suggests, Short Messaging Service marketing messages do not take a lot of time, effort, or design to create, which will have a positive impact on your labour costs. With the use of two-way sms interaction, staff costs are cut down further as there is less need for calls to your clients, organically reducing your phone bill.
Getting started with sms marketing
If you are new to building an sms campaign, then TextAnywhere can help you to navigate your way to success. There are strategies for building and growing your business through text. Here are some tips to get you started:
- Build your database – You may have a list of clients all ready to add to your database, but to be able to send out text message marketing, all of the people you wish to reach must be opt-in subscribers. This means that they need to consent to receive your sms marketing messages. The exception to this rule is transactional messages such as appointment confirmations and reminders.
- Engage your audience – When building your database and collecting subscribers, you need to find a way to draw them in and make them want to opt-in to receiving your messages. This can easily be achieved by incentives, competitions or by using your close relationship with your existing clients. There are easily accessible tools to help you to grow your subscriber list such as social media and data capture (forms on your database where an opt-in tick box can be added).
- Feedback – Find out from your existing customers and market research what your subscribers want to receive? Ask people what kind of interaction they would expect and what they would welcome in the future.
- Assess your target market – Find out which segments of your customer base are going to be suited to sms text messaging and interaction. Understanding which clients would benefit from sms marketing is just as important as finding out which clients would prefer it. There are different tiers to promotional texts. SMS marketing campaigns are more successful for the younger target audience from age 16 to 44 years, but that is not to say that those over 44’s are not using sms messaging services to benefit from their business communications. Booking confirmations and reminders are equally important when looking to grow your beauty service.
- Good timing – Once you get up and running with your sms marketing campaign, you may quickly get carried away with your text messages. Think about your target audience and decide when is going to be a good time to engage with them. Take into account their ages, lifestyles, occupations, etc. With TextAnywhere, it is possible to separate your subscribers to receive different deals at different times based on their demographic.
Ways in which beauty businesses can benefit from sms marketing
At TextAnywhere we know just how to help you get started with sms marketing and have a wealth of knowledge about how you can use it to interact with your customers to maintain loyalty and also how to encourage prospective clients:
- Bookings and booking confirmations – Customers can send booking requests via sms and when linked with your database they can receive automated message replies containing available slots to choose from. Once appointments have been made by whatever means, the system can automatically send out a confirmation that can even be added to the client’s calendar.
- Appointment reminders – Once an appointment has been confirmed, automatic reminders can be sent out to the client to reduce the incidences of no-shows and last-minute cancellations.
- Vouchers and special offers – This is a great way to keep your subscribers engaged and entice prospective clients in. Tempt them with vouchers and text offers.
- Fill empty appointments – Make sure you are never without customers. When last-minute cancellations occur, you can send out a text to your subscribers to let them know that you have a free slot. With beauty salons often booked well in advance, your less organised clients will welcome the opportunity to get last-minute appointments.
- Send out your price lists with automated sms – Subscribers will often want to find out the price of your treatments, which usually requires you constantly having to answer the phone to deal with their enquiries. You can free up some time and have less interruption when you send price lists via text. You can add keywords to your gateway, so if a client texts “cost of a dry-cut”, the automated sms can pick up on the word and send out the list without you having to act.
- Track your progress – Once you are up and running with regular beauty salon text messages, you can track the success of your engagement with your subscribers. Whenever you send out a marketing text message, you will receive instant feedback to your PC about how many people opened the text message and how many clicked on a link. This will give you an idea about what works and what doesn’t for future promotions.
- Tailor your subscriber list – You don’t need to send all of your marketing content to all of your subscribers at once. Although, with bulk sms, you can send out your text messages to as many people as you wish all at the same time. There will be some texts that not everyone will appreciate. For example, if your clients are both male and female, your male clients may not want to hear about promotions on bikini waxes and your loyal customers will not be impressed with your offer of welcome discounts to attract new clients. With TextAnywhere, you can separate your clients by interest and send out the right offers to the right recipients. Tailoring can help discourage subscribers from opting out.
Features of sms for beauty salons and treatment services
So many businesses are now benefiting from sms marketing and as we have learned, customers prefer it to all other forms of marketing and communication. Your business may be thriving but as the beauty industry is growing at such a rapid rate, it would be sensible to streamline the client experience to keep your loyal customers loyal. Don’t let them get lured away by someone else’s great deals or streamlined booking process.
If you are just starting with your beauty service, sms marketing is a great way to grow your customer base and get your story out there. Let people know what you have to offer. Here are some great features to help your business to grow and evolve through sms messaging:
- Better planning – Reduce the amount of time you spend picking up the phone and booking clients. Text messaging allows customers to request booking via text and receive an automatic response with your available dates. Cut down on no-shows by offering last-minute appointment slots to other clients with the click of a button. You can also let clients know if you need to cancel their slots in the event of unforeseen circumstances. For example, a power cut. Reminders will also ensure that your clients are turning up to their upcoming appointments at the right time and on the right day.
- Cost-effective – Not only does using a text messaging system to engage with your clients cut down on labours costs and phone bills, but it also reduces marketing costs. Many beauty professionals still use flyers and pay for ads in local pages. Sms marketing is the cheapest way to advertise your business, with the fastest reach.
- Boost sales – customers will welcome the efficiency of sms bookings and interactions which will generate repeat business and help to enhance your reputation with prospective clients. Text campaigns will bring in new business and encourage referrals when discounts are passed on. Being a responsive business will give you the edge with new clients who are looking for information and prices. Encourage customers to come to you, don’t give them the chance to search elsewhere.
- Nurture VIPs and loyalty – To ensure your clients feel special and send them exclusive offers. Managing your database can help with this so that certain subscribers receive appropriate discounts. Get repeat business and boost customer loyalty with vouchers and offers, give reward points and send out reminders to let clients know when they are close to receiving a freebie.
- Personalised experience – One of the things about beauty treatments, is that for many of us, it’s a very personal experience and we want to feel special. We can build a very close relationship with our beauty therapist so, personalised text marketing is a no-brainer. Seeing your name on messages about your treatment along with the dates and times makes sense.
Some common SMS messages to send to clients and prospective clients
If you are struggling to think of how sms marketing could help to boost your beauty services, we have put together a list of our top most commonly used text marketing messages to give you the idea:
- “Hi Kate, your Bio-Gel appointment is confirmed! 25th Feb at 10.30 am” (link added for address)
- “Hi, Jayne, a reminder that your eyebrow threading appointment is tomorrow 05th May at 4.30 pm. Please reply “YES” to confirm and “CANCEL” if you can no longer make it.”
- “Hey girl, we have a last-minute appointment slot available for laminated brows this afternoon at 3.15 pm and noticed you are on our waitlist. Reply “YES” to take the booking or “No” if you can’t make it!
- “Matt, great to see you at the salon today, get 20% off if you book your next appointment with Susie by midnight tonight.”
- “Get a 25% discount on all male grooming products this Saturday”
- “It pays to have friends! Pass this text onto a friend and you will both receive a 50% discount off your next treatment”
- “How did we do today? Rate your experience and click on the link below to be entered into our prize draw to win a free treatment of your choice”.
- “We love special occasions, so let us know if you have a birthday, anniversary, or any special events coming up, and enjoy a complimentary glass of bubbly at your special appointment.
Grow your business and achieve a seamless customer experience now!
If the customer service at your beauty salon or beauty service needs a kickstart or refresh, why begin your free trial with TextAnywhere today. Share discounts, vouchers, news, and beauty tips straight to your customer’s mobile phones. Manage your bookings, stay stress free and let sms marketing do the hard work for you.