The art of beauty salon promotion and day spa marketing

When you run your own salon or day spa business, no other topic is as all encompassing as marketing. It involves just about everything you do and is determined by your perceptions of, and attitude towards, the world at large. How will the people around you perceive you (and everything to do with you and your business)? It's a topic that excites and motivates the savvy salon and day spa owners above and beyond any other aspect of running their beauty business.

Let's look at what beauty salon marketing means for your business. In a nutshell (as I've already said), it's all about everything! Too often salon owners believe marketing is only about the advertisement placed in a local newspaper, or the layout of their website, and while that can be a component, you really need to see marketing as being everything you do. It's the how, why, when and where of the following.

o You and your uniqueness
o Your work style.
o Your décor and design.
o Your pricing.
o Your product distribution.
o Your selling and promotion.
o Your after-sales service.
o Customer satisfaction.
o Training.
o Human resources.
o Your business structure.
o Accounting and business management style

To cut a long story short, there's so much more to marketing a salon than just media advertising, sponsorships, brochures, signage, business cards, referrals, direct mail-outs, etc.

Marketing can be either external or internal.

o External marketing involves every conclusion that can be drawn about your business from the outside looking in. It's not just clients who will judge you on your external marketing - it's the whole world outside the walls of your business, from your suppliers, accountants and bankers through friends and family to (most importantly of all) your rivals.

o Internal marketing encompasses the opinions formed about you by your work colleagues and other staff who may work within the salon, not to mention your significant other and perhaps your children. It's to do with everyone on the inside, everyone who, whether directly or indirectly, is on intimate terms with the business in some way or another.

So, marketing is also about perceptions: how people perceive you and your business. Therefore, it's up to you to take a proactive role in determining what those perceptions are. Too few in the industry, salon owners and day spa owners alike, make a deliberate effort to market themselves. Rather, they go about their business and their marketing almost 'by default'. If I can get you to understand only one thing about marketing, it's this: you're doing it, for good or ill, all of the time, whether you're aware of it or not!