Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Top 10 Salon & Spa Promotions and Marketing Ideas

1. Networking and Connecting to gain the Leading Edge.

Getting out and making a name for yourself is important. It's not enough to place a sign out front and run an advertisement in the paper and wait for the phone to ring. You are more likely to get business from people who have made contact with you or know you. Participate in your community and join groups where you can network with people in your suburb or town, you'll be able to make connections, get the word out about your salon and spa and bring in some new clients. Get out, meet people and increase your business visibility.

2. Stealth Marketing

Top 10 Salon & Spa Promotions and Marketing Ideas

Use Viral Marketing to build your brand awareness and enhance your marketing efforts. By using pre-existing social networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter you can get the word out and create buzz for your salon and spa. Stealth marketing can encompass social networks, text messages, blogs and blog posting all with the purpose of gaining visibility and increasing your marketing objectives.

3. Email Marketing

As a day Spa, Beauty or Hair Salon owner your client list is a precious asset. Consider the lifetime value of a client. How much does each of your clients spend on average per month, per year and over a lifetime? It costs anywhere from 5 to 8 times more to gain a new client as opposed to retaining your clients. Therefore, you need to place a strong emphasis on keeping existing clients. Keeping in touch with your clients to stay top of mind is important to gain repeat business. Email Marketing is a highly effective way to build and maintain relationships.

4. Praise from Happy clients

The marketing giants use celebrity endorsements (testimonials) to expose their products and give their products credibility and appeal. You too can get testimonials from your happy clients. Identify people who can influence your target market and get them to endorse your treatments and techniques. Get key leaders within your community to try your products and treatments for free and get their feedback in writing. Get their permission to use their feedback, comments and photos in your promotional material.Endorsements can come from friends, the most powerful endorsement is when friends and clients recommend your product or service to another friend. This is powerful word of mouth advertising and more believable than any other form of endorsement.

5. The Power of Free!

We all like getting a little bonus, a gift, a little something extra. Your clients do, too. The acronym "GWP" stands for "Gift with Purchase". As the name suggests, a GWP is an item that is given to your client when she spends above a specified amount on beauty treatments, hairdressing or skin care products. The Gift with purchase (free item) could be anything from cosmetics, skin care products, hair care products, salon voucher, product samples, etc. Free offers for example Buy 10, Get One free, Buy a Facial and Pedicure and Get a Free Manicure adds transactional value and enhances allure. Free introductory offers entice clients to trial a product.  Free offers help with the buying decision and increase sales. 

6. Referral Programs

Getting clients through referrals is one of the best ways to build your business. Have a referral incentive program in place to encourage clients to refer business to you. Having a specific referral program gets people thinking about who they can refer to you. A referral program encourages word of mouth advertising. Make it a habit to ask your clients for referrals. Tell them you would really appreciate it if they could recommend you to anyone who would be interested in a cut/colour/any service you provide." And of course tell them about your referral incentive program - let them know what's in for them. 

7. Effective Words that Sell

Copywritingis the use of words to promote your salon and spa. You know the saying, "It's not what you say, but how you say it. You can tell clients we cut hair, do facial and waxing. Or you can start defining your product or service in a whole new light. Literally turn the spot light on what you say.

Before: We sell xyz products

After: The Best Clinically Proven Anti-ageing Formulation for Fine Lines and Wrinkles.

Before: We do Facials

After: Our Facials will Rejuvenate your Skin, Leaving it Looking Radiantly Healthy and Feeling Absolutely Fabulous.

Every word in every single message, advert and presentation forms a perception, either good or bad. Choose your words wisely. Too many salon and spa owners study what the competition is doing and do and say the same. Make you words count, make them unique, succinct, persuasive, enticing, juicy and delicious.

8. A Niche Strategy to Focus your Marketing efforts

Don't try to be everything to everyone. Focus on your specific niche. Know what makes you different from your competitors. Analyse your competitor's strengths and weaknesses. Offer more value by differentiating your specific treatments and results. One of the biggest niche strategy advantages is the ability to quickly become a dominant player your specific area of expertise. There are salons that cater specifically for rejuvenation, slimming, tanning, hair design, waxing and massage. Niche marketing can be a focused strategy at a niche group such as pregnant women, teenagers, couples, men. A massage and relaxation niche may encompass Yoga, Shiatsu, Meditation and an array of Massage techniques such as deep tissue, Swedish, aromatherapy and Thai massage. Spas are increasingly offering unique services and products to differentiate themselves from the usual facials and body treatments. A new spa niche may be carved out with Asian healing practices and rituals.

9. Win them over and Build relationships

Treat each client like they are special. Listen sincerely to their concerns. Communicate with your clients, what are their interests, likes, dislikes. Educate your clients on the many benefits of your service and products. Have promotional tools such as educational Pamphlet/Flyer/Email/Booklet/Blog/eBook which includes interesting and useful information. Make sure your clients are pampered, comfortable and give them your full attention. Recognise that you serve clients, that client relationship is part of your job. Be helpful, friendly and courteous at all times.

10. Bold & Beautiful Business.

Who gets the attention? Attractive men and women, the loud mouth and the exceptional offer. Start attracting attention to your salon and spa. Have attractive staff with flawless skin, well groomed with full make-up. You think I'm joking, but its fact that good looking people attract more business. And as a salon and spa, you are in the health and beauty business, so your people need to look the part. Would you go to an overweight personal fitness trainer, or would you want the lean muscular trainer? Who gets the attention? The budget salon with posters on the wall or the salon with a gorgeous reception, water feature, glossy magazines, top notch furnishing and finishes. We know that packaging is everything; clients pay big money for professional skin care because the marketing messages tell us its special and the packaging supports the message. Is your salon and spa supporting your marketing message? Attractive people, places and objects are attractive because they literally attract attention and interest. Is your salon and spa attractive and attracting attention? Attractive refers to everything: your marketing messages, the way you answer the phone, answer questions, the way you present yourself, your advertising. It all needs to be bold, beautiful, attractive, and appealing to draw people in.

Top 10 Salon & Spa Promotions and Marketing Ideas
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For more Free Salon & Spa Tips, Strategies and Ideas, go to http://www.salonprofit.net

Friday, January 25, 2013

Article Marketing - Is it the Best Way to Market Online Products and Services?

Many folks swear by online article marketing, of course, many industry consultants, manufacturers, and analysts once believed in writing trade journal articles to establish themselves as experts using informational marketing strategies - it's a pretty old concept, but does it work in the new paradigm online? Yes, it appears to work well, unfortunately, there are a lot of people doing it and so it's not working nearly as well as it once did.

The newest players often are not real experts, rather they are expert SEO search engine optimizers and experts at getting people to click on links to their websites and getting their articles and information out in front on the search engines. This poses a bit of a dilemma for the reader online, as to who really knows what they are talking about and who is a trickster selling trinkets on the Internet?

Interestingly enough, I do a bit of online article writing, but I am not attempting to promote anything. Moreover, I am writing because I want to get at least some of my thoughts out to the world and give the world information, ideas and innovations.

Article Marketing - Is it the Best Way to Market Online Products and Services?

As far as promoting services or products, yes, well I guess, article marketing is a great way to do this. There are many ways to marketing your products or services online or offline for that matter. Article marketing is just one way, not sure if it is the best, especially with so many people now doing it.

Before there was far less competition, fewer articles and it was amazing how great it worked, today, I am not convinced it is the best business marketing strategy, but it is certainly one of many good strategies to consider. I would not skip it, but I also would not put all my eggs in one basket and think that will solve all your needs either. So please consider this.

Article Marketing - Is it the Best Way to Market Online Products and Services?
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Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. Lance Winslow is also Founder of the Detail Guys, a cool little Franchise Company; http://www.detailguys.com/founder.shtml/.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Article Marketing - Free Advertising and Article Services

Article marketing is so important today that article services are becoming more significant to your online success than even a high Google listing. The reason for that is very simple, although before going into why I say that, I should stress that I have written a highly regarded eBook on search engine optimization (SEO) and how to use it to get almost immediate and high listings on Google and the other search engines. This is therefore contradictory to my own products.

What that means is that not too long ago I regarded search engine marketing as being the best and most profitable way of promoting and advertising your website and products or service. That, however, has all changed. While SEO is still important, it is not on web pages that you should focus your efforts, but on your writing. If that puzzles you, then read on and learn how article marketing and article writing services can make you money without any expenditure.

By writing articles you can promote your products in many different ways. You can use articles to promote your website much more effectively that spending a lot of time or money on search engine optimization. Although SEO is a very important aspect of most online marketing campaigns, have you ever stopped to think, and checked up on what is actually being listed on Google above you - assuming you can even find your own web pages on Google, or any other search engine?

Article Marketing - Free Advertising and Article Services

Probably not, but if you did then you are as likely to find articles published on article directory pages as you are regular website pages. These days, search engine listings are just as likely to be article directory pages, and for free advertising you should write and submit articles that relate to your website or product. Article services sites can do it for you if you can't write your own, and the article directories have SEO professionals to give your article the best chance of being listed above any website covering your niche. Article marketing is the new way to the top!

Article marketing is taking over from regular SEO and website marketing very rapidly, but most people are going to miss out because they make use of neither online article services, nor the article marketing advice that is available to them. They will spend on ebooks about tag an ping and the inane writings of one rich jerk or another, and miss the bigger picture.

In fact you have no need even for a website if you are having your articles listed on the search engines. You can sell products, and make a lot of money, only by writing articles. That is literal fact and it can be proved. However, this is not the place to do that. What is important is that you don't get your head turned too much by the traditional SEO sharks offering you a Page #1 position for anything from 100 to 1000 bucks!

What would they do if 11 customers asked for a Page #1 listing for the same keywords: the whole thing is ludicrous. Unless their page is on Page #1, who are they to do it for you if they can't do it for themselves? Article services sites can do a lot more for you by teaching you modern article marketing techniques that really do work.

Here are the steps to take to get free advertising for your website without doing anything but write. Not one single page on your site need be optimized for any keyword if you use article marketing as an advertising technique, only the articles that you write.

1. Do some keyword research and find the most used keywords for your niche. Also find those that have the least supply - that is those keywords and phrases that are used the least by your competitors.

2. Use both kinds, irrespective of the supply of the first, or the demand of the second, as titles and topics for your articles. Then write an article based on the best keyword you have found.

3. Use the keyword in the title, first 100 characters and also again in the first paragraph (which should be of about 50 - 70 words). Use it in the last paragraph and once again for each 300 words in your article.

4. Provide information in your article, and write so that anybody reading it will want to find out more about what you are writing about. Just as I am doing now. After all, this is going to make you money without you having to pay anything out. It's free advertising.

5. Provide a link at the end of your article, or in the 'Author's Resource Box' if one is provided, that leads back to a page on your website directly relating to the topic of your article. Mine here will lead you to a page explaining how to write articles, market them properly and make money from them whether you have a website or not.

Most people have no idea what article marketing can do for them, and article services websites can help you to achieve your goals by providing articles for you if you cannot write them effectively yourself.

Article marketing is the new SEO, and websites are rapidly taking second or even third place to article directory pages, Squidoo lenses and MySpace and You Tube listings. Get into the modern world and use article marketing and article services to get your site and products advertised and starting making some real money.

Article Marketing - Free Advertising and Article Services
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Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
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For real help in how to use article marketing to advertise your website free of charge, check out Article Czar, and get a free gift for visiting. You can also use Article Services to help you with a low cost but high quality professional writing service.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Text Message Abbreviations - SMS Dictionary Examples

Basically, this is just another expression for SMS dictionary, or SMS shortcut. These abbreviations are simply the text messaging shortcuts that people use each and every day to make sending SMS messages so much quicker and easier. Some of the shortcuts below are only used for instant messenger messages, or at the end of a text message to convey the mood of the person sending the text message. Some of the txt msg shortcuts are good examples of how people shorten words when they send text messages.

So let's take a look at some common text message abbreviations, then.

SMS Abbreviations:

Text Message Abbreviations - SMS Dictionary Examples

Anything - NTHING

Are you OK - RUOK?

Are - R

Ate - 8

Be - B

Before - B4

Be seeing you - BCNU

Cutie - QT

Date - D8

Dinner - DNR

Easy - EZ

Eh? - A?

Excellent - XLNT

Fate - F8

For - 4

For your information - FYI

Great - GR8

Late - L8

Later - L8R

Lots of love/laughs - Lol

Love - LUV

Mate - M8

Please - PLS

Please call me - PCM

Queue/cue - Q

Rate - R8

See/sea - C

See you later - CU L8R

Speak - SPK

Tea - T

Thanks - THX

Thank you - THNQ

To/too - 2

To be - 2B

Today - 2DAY

Tomorrow - 2MORO

Want to - WAN2

What - WOT

Work - WRK

Why - Y

You - U

------------

Happy/Smiley -:-)

Angry - :-||

Very happy - :-))

Confused - %-)

Tongue tied - :-&

Sad - :-(

Saintly - O:-)

Laughing - :-D

Crying - :'-(

Surprised/shocked - :-O

Screaming - :-@

Kiss - :-*

Pig - :@)

Clown - *:-)

Wink - ;-)

There are more SMS shortcuts that could make up a so-called SMS dictionary, but the more words you use the less effective the shortcuts are as people stop understanding what you're actually saying.

In this case, a short 'vocabulary' is best so everyone knows what is being said.

Text Message Abbreviations - SMS Dictionary Examples
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And you can find more SMS text message abbreviations at TextMeFree.com's SMS Dictionary page

Discover new free SMS sites by subscribing to TextMeFree's FREE newsletter, The TextMeFree Times, available at http://www.textmefree.com/newsletter.html

From Steve M Nash - Site owner of TextMeFree.com

Friday, January 4, 2013

Article Marketing - Brand Management With Article Writing

Do you know that you can effectively promote a brand with article writing? A brand is about how your customers perceive your business. Do they trust a brand enough to want to remain as loyal customers? If they have a positive perception, they are likely to buy from the same brand again and again. But if they have a negative perception, they will avoid buying any products labeled with the brand. Here is how you can manage a brand effectively with article writing.

Tip 1: Pay attention to quality.
Tip 2: Provide professional advice.
Tip 3: Provide scientific stats and figures.

Tip 1: Pay attention to quality.

Article Marketing - Brand Management With Article Writing

Brand management starts with quality management. Without quality, no amount of brand advertising will help. Customers will try a product, and then come to the conclusion that the product is a poor quality item. Everything goes downhill from there. It's very hard to convince a customer that the product is from a good brand if the quality is not there. Therefore, always make sure that your articles are of top quality. Reflect your product manufacture principles in your writing.

Tip 2: Provide professional advice.

Be a recognized authority in the market space. Customers will come to see you or your Company as the authority as long as you are willing to provide expert tips and advice. For instance, if you are selling milk powder, you can always write about nutritional tips.

Tip 3: Provide scientific stats and figures.

There is no need for self-promotion in your articles. Use scientific facts and figures to support your products. Everyone can say that they sell the best products. So instead of adopting the same approach, set yourself apart from your competitors by publishing results from the scientific community. For example, you can write something like "Clinical research has shown that DHA is beneficial to children [in such and such a way]". Such publications help to build up the image of your Company.

Article Marketing - Brand Management With Article Writing
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Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Want to learn how to get to the top of Google using Article Marketing? I have the tools, knowledge, and resources to help you achieve your traffic and income goals.

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