The situation because of COVID-19 looks very gloomy and unpredictable. Particularly, the Salon Industry bore a major impact and received severe beating due to this crisis.

Here is the second part of the 7 points strategy to ensure your Parlor or Salon bounces back after COVID.

5. RETAIL PRODUCTS

Since, the whole country is in Lockdown and it may take a while to open the Salons / Parlors, all clients are at home, but want to get their regular services.

This is a wonderful opportunity to help them to get some of the services done by themselves. An example would be facial, where you can teach the clients how to do self facial and also provide them the products required for doing the facial. A few ideas on this aspect

• You can create a self facial kit and retail it to your customers.
• You can provide Pedicure Kit (like pedicure bombs, etc)
• You can provide hair care kit and retail them.

Put your mind into this and you will be brimming with ideas on how to create kits and products for home use. Provide guidance on using and necessary accessories like cotton wipes, tissue, etc. so that they don’t have to search for these kind of products.

Make kits for 5 facials for a period of 5 weeks or 3 facial kit, etc. Similarly for other services like pedicure, make kits that can be used more than one time.

The advantages of this is that you have your clients in your contact always and hence they don’t forget you. They will be happy that you helped them during the lock down. This rapport created during the lock down will go a long way even after the COVID Crisis. Ensure that you guide them on the product usage and provide various tips for them. To take it further, you can give referral benefits to your customers, if the refer other people. It all depends on how you create the relationship and maintain it.

And don’t worry that the customer will be used to self service and they may not visit the salon after lock down. People always like to get services from parlors than doing it self. Since, you improve the relationship by helping them, they will surely visit your salon when you reopen it.

6. DO NOT DISCOUNT, BUT PROVIDE BENEFITS

Discounting is a silly way of marketing. Discounting tarnishes the value of the product as it has become a standard practise. If there is a product of really good value, that product will not have any discounts.

So, do not give discounts in services, but offer other services as benefits for the customer. e.g. If they book for 3 facials after lockdown and pay 20% now, you will give an additional service (like pedicure, extra pack, etc) as an addition. This kind of offers will help you book clients even before you open the Salon and you will have a list of clients waiting for you to open.

Other offers like 1 for 1 service consisting of the same service can be provided. The fact is that the customers get the service at 50% discount. But since it is 1 for 1, they get 2 services done. If you offer 50% discount, then you will end up doing 1 service only that too at 50%.

Creating offers and marketing them is the trick to get customers. Stick to a set of offers consistently for a period of time and keep marketing the same offers consistently. If you keep changing the offers frequently, people tend to wait for the next offer you will provide. So, do some homework and create a few offers and ensure that your offers reach the maximum number of people. Focus on the day when the Salon reopens and not now when the customers cannot come and utilize your offers.

The same offers can also be applied to the self use products which was covered above and can be implemented even during the lock down situation. Think about that.

7. CONDUCT CONTESTS

People always like to get involved in activities. The percentage of participation grows exponentially when there is a reward. The reward can be simple products, mention in your FB page, appreciation letters, etc. Whatever the rewards are, it has to be edified in the Contest Campaign.

Contests has a lot of advantages, where the user participates with real involvement and also talks about their participation to their friends. In many situations, their friends will also participate in your contests, thus increasing the user base. By conducting contests, you can increase your prospect database, and can be used for marketing your Salon Services or even the products you sell. The winners of the competitions tend to showcase their reward to all their friends which will further increase your visibility and may result in more customers.

A few pointers on conducting contests:

• Identify your target customer and create contest as per their age.
• Contests should not be very easy and also not very tough.
• Rewards if declared in the beginning, should be edified.
• Rewards can also be kept as suspense, but it should be worth the waiting.
• Have forms or some other mechanism to collect information of the participants (e.g. phone, email id, Fb page id, etc) which can be used for Marketing later.
• Keep a deadline for the contest which is around a week to 10 days.
• Market the contest with your Business name in all Media.
• Be very enthusiastic about the contest even if it is a simple contest.

With this we come to the end of the 2-part series. We hope you will get benefited by using few or all of the tips provided. Wishes for a wonderful bounce back and a great business.

Feel free to contact us for any queries, suggestions at Whatsapp : +91 7708960727