Running a successful salon is no easy feat. From making sure products are fully stocked to taking care of staff to booking clients, you may find your head is spinning by the end of the day. All of these tasks are vital to your business’s longevity, but so is marketing your salon.

If you want to bring in new clients and widen your reach, marketing should be a priority. While it might seem scary to add yet another task to your long to-do list, we’re hoping this list of simple ways you can market your salon will help you get started.

Find what makes your salon unique

A good place to start is to extrapolate on what makes you unique. What do you offer that no one else does? Look at your local competition and pick out the facets of your business that set you apart. If you can’t find any, it might be time to create some.

Offering a high-quality product or service that your clients can’t find anywhere else around is a great way to differentiate your salon and keep your clients coming back.

Make sure you’re in online directories

Most people looking for products or services will check online before actually entering a store, and as much as 90% of them will also read online reviews before visiting your salon. It’s vital to register your business on directories, such as Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook, to make your business easy to find online.

Not only can these platforms help you show up in search results when people look for local salons, but they give your clients a great space and opportunity to leave reviews.. 91% of consumers are more likely to use a business with positive reviews, while negative reviews will put off a whopping 82% of them. Likewise, the average consumer will read 10 reviews before deciding on a local business.

After you register for online directories,  encourage your current clients to leave honest reviews. It can help you rate higher and reach more potential clients.

Utilize social media

Build your brand

Building your brand on social media is a great way to keep your loyal client base updated on your day-to-day happenings and give them a direct channel to communicate with you. With various social platforms to choose from, there’s no shortage of opportunities for creating and publishing content.

Depending on your target audience, your social media strategy should include a Facebook page, an Instagram account, maybe a Pinterest business account, and, why not, a TikTok presence.

Create a specific brand image for your salon and carry that throughout all your content on all your platforms, ensuring that when someone runs across your content, they’ll know exactly who’s content they’re looking at.

Use hashtags

Research some salon-appropriate hashtags and incorporate them into your social media posts. Here are some examples you could use: #hairdressersofinsta, #hairdressersofinstagram, #hairdressersjournal, #hairdressing, #haircolor, #modernsalon, #balayage. There are hundreds of hashtags you can play with to reach the people that matter to your business.

It’s important to know your ideal audience and understand what they may be searching for when they’re scrolling through social media. Meet them where they are with your content and make it easy to find you with the right hashtags.

It may also be worth the time and effort to create a hashtag unique to your business or specific services. This can help group your content into specific services, offers, or categories.

Create platform-appropriate content

While it may be tempting to share the content that you created for Instagram to your Facebook and LinkedIn pages, resist the urge. Each channel has a unique audience and a certain type of content that will be more appealing. Tailor your content to reach each platform audience with visuals and content that they’re comfortable sharing online.

Highlight testimonials

Different from a review, a testimonial will go more in-depth into your services and your company. Taking the time to gather positive testimonials and then highlighting them on your social channels is a great way to show your audience what your services look like from a client’s viewpoint. It also helps your client feel heard and seen.

Offer a loyalty program

Chances are you’ve built relationships with your clients. You know whose child is graduating high school and who just got a new puppy. Your clients are likely coming back not only for the great service but for the relationship. Give them even more of a reason to return by offering a loyalty program. Everyone loves to save money. Add that to the relationship you already have, and you have the perfect recipe for guaranteed repeat clients. Offering a punch card or a virtual loyalty program based on collecting points is a great place to start.