Marketing is essential to keep your tanning business successful. To do well in your marketing efforts there are a really only a few things you need to do well, but it is amazing that so few are even trying. Even if you are happy with sales today, effective marketing dollars still need to be spent to keep new customers coming in the door, otherwise your salon will slowly fade into obscurity.
The tanning business is a luxury experience and by selling this experience your salon should be focusing on three main points which are image, escape and convenience.
Image is the primary element of the tanning business because beauty is what the customer is paying for in order to look good. Provide some higher end equipment and develop marketing to emphasize a professional image and your bases are covered. Just as importing as presenting the image in your external marketing efforts, your internal marketing should convey a higher-end image as well. You can do this by keeping your facility clean, professional attire such as polo with logos and organization.
Escape refers to giving people a place to go and relax, even if it’s for just a few minutes. The escape your salon provides is a bar or golf outing so you customer can get away and do something for themselves. To illustrate the features of your escape angle, your employees need to cater to the customer and make them feel special. Nothing will kill the escape more than the employee sitting bored at the counter and acting indifferent when the customer comes in the door. Hammer home in your training that every customer gets the star treatment. Escape is also a feature to sell to the customer who is preparing for vacation. While they are now a short-term customer they may turn into a long-term one. Consider directing some marketing dollars towards brides, limo services, catering and travelers. You can also discuss cross marketing with salons, travel agents and others to promote each other’s services.
Convenience is the other prime area to focus your marketing on as many people come in during a lunch hour or after work before heading home. Make sure your staff is prepared to assist people in getting in and out quickly. Too many delays and no matter how good your equipment is, the customer who is on a tight time schedule will leave for the competition who is better organized.
Here are a few tested ideas to help market a tanning business:
Remember that the regulars are the bulk of your business and also stabilize income during the slow season. Make sure these people feel special and consider freebies and discounts after every certain number of visits.
Pricing and delivery needs to be smooth and easy enough for any employee to talk with the customer. If you have to be there making every sale or there are too many options, you will ultimately loose customers. The more choices you offer and the longer and harder the sale is to make brings anxiety to the customer and takes time from helping paying customers who will end up feeling intimated and not come back.
Your current database of customers is a marketing goldmine. The further it has been since the client last stepped foot in your salon increases the likelihood they are not returning. You list is good up to 18-24 months. Try to find out why they left and what you can do to get them back. Direct mail responses provide a.5%-2% return. Make sure when they do return, you have fixed the issues that caused them to leave, otherwise your direct mail dollars are wasted.
Develop incentives to get people to keep coming into your salon. Whether it be discounts or free visits if they come in more often, you are increasing the likelihood of them remaining a loyal customer and spreading positive word of mouth along with selling lotions, etc.
Target your advertising to potential tanners and not the general masses. Potential tanners include people who focus on beauty such as gym members and hair and nail salon customers or people preparing for a special event such as travelling, getting married, going to prom, etc. Get you marketing to what the customer is interested in and get them coming in the doors. Look at cross referring with these other businesses and even providing a free initial visit to make the offer strong enough to get a response.
Don’t promote yourself by the brand of bed you have. This just generalizes your beds with the competition and customers will merely compare prices by the type of equipment you have.
The customer doesn’t care nor understand anything about watts, UVA, HP, etc. but they do care about getting a tan. Some will care about price, others time and the rest on quality. Trying to market to all three will be a losing battle so choose one.
Make sure your salon is immaculate. Even with all the marketing dollars in the world promoting your tanning salon as a luxury experience, a dirty facility will eliminate that image quickly.
Word of mouth in key for the tanning businesses success but it will take years to achieve. Please don’t have this be your primary source of advertising listed in your business plan. It’s just not how it works.
Always ask the new customer how they heard about you. Advertising is expensive. If you want to be successful it is imperative that you know where your advertising is working and whether it is profitable.
In targeting your direct mail advertising keep within a three mile radius of your salon and more heavily in the one to two mile radius.
Advertising for a tanning salon averages (keep in mind this is a rough average and what works for one salon may not work for another) but most new salons spend 12% of revenues (and factor much more for the grand opening) and then drop to 10% after that to keep new customers coming in the door.
The tanning business is selling the tanning experience not the tan so having a solid plan is important to create the best possible experience. There are many elements most importantly packaging, Great equipment, fresh lamps, effective easy to understand affordable pricing, well trained courteous staff and a beautiful salon. Consistent effective advertising, and constant communication with your clients.
The question you need to be asking yourself before starting on any advertising program is how are you going to sell the experience and what makes you different from the competition. There had better be something different and compelling enough to get people to notice your tanning salon. Today’s consumer has so many choices of tanning salons to go to than they did just five years ago and just putting out a sign and handing out some fliers is a recipe for mediocrity.
If you are into internet marketing, utilizing LinkedIn would be a wise decision. LinkedIn is referred to as the professional face of other social media sites namely Twitter and Facebook. It works on a basic principle of trust.
LinkedIn has over 35 million users in over 170 countries. It is fast becoming the foremost site in the world of business. It makes it easier for those engaged in internet marketing to find what they need. Read on to learn more.
Like all social media sites, LinkedIn’s goal is to build connections between and amongst its users, which can be divided into three types:
Direct connection- it is composed of friends, family, college buddies, co-workers.
Second degree connections- they are the direct connections of your primary connections.
Third degree connections- they are the direct connections of your second degree connections.
To gain secondary and third degree connections, you would have to be introduced by your direct connections. They would act as middle men in this network. It would prove useful in internet marketing since the more connections you have, the greater your chances will be to land that perfect job or find a good client.
Your Profile
Creating your profile would be the first step in using LinkedIn. A well made profile page is important since this is the page that will be viewed by your contacts and customers. Include a picture when making your profile. This will show that you pay attention to the smallest details, which can be considered by potential customers or employers as a good quality to have.
Include information about your education, your job and a short summary of your work experience. Anyone who views your profile would be able to see the kind of work experiences that you have had. Consider it as a cyber resume. Your potential employer or clients would be able to learn a lot about you or your company in viewing your profile. This profile makes internet marketing easier.
Unique features
LinkedIn has a unique feature that can include recommendations to your profile. It is another way to make use of the connections that you have. You can ask your former boss, clients, co-workers to write recommendations about you and their experience working with you. It makes internet marketing much easier since the more number of glowing recommendations, the better your chances of getting the client or the job.
In addition, it is also essential since in a normal resume, it would act as the recommendations page. Here, the potential clients or employers would be able to find out if you are competent enough for the task at hand. In internet marketing, this feature would save both parties a great deal of time and effort.
The idea of a network marketing company that sells silver coins has been sweeping the industry with the explosive growth of Numis Network. In reality, Numis is only one of the players in this market segment, others include Silver Snowball, Preseveration of Wealth and XAG Network. Today I want to do a side by side comparison of these companies to help you in your evaluation of whether their opportunities are right for you.
Numis Network – Numis Network has used its powerful marketing presence to grab the spotlight in the silver coins mlm market. Numis has been able to attract some of the top names in the world of online network marketing, which has helped them grow at a rapid pace. Two distributor levels comprise the Numis Network opportunity. The base level is $75 to join and includes one MS70 graded silver coin and access to the complete suite of sales tools. The Executive level is $499 and comes with a coin, a display case, coupons for having coins graded by a top level grading service. The ongoing cost for a distributor is approximately $110 per month. This includes the shipment of a new coin and the subscription to the back office suite of business building tools. Numis uses a binary compensation plan with a coded bonus structure.
Silver Snowball – Silver Snowball is the senior program in this market segment. Silver Snowball is not actually an MLM company, but instead an affiliate program. Silver Snowball works on a membership basis. For a monthly subscription of $39.50 + 6.00 shipping you receive a new ungraded Silver Eagle coin. For every 2 coins purchased by customers through your website, you receive an additional coin. The purchases of your direct referrals can also be used to the lower the cost of your coin purchases. An affiliate can also request payment by check in lieu of receiving additional coins.
Preservation of Wealth – Preservation of Wealth was launched at approximately the same time as Numis Network. Preservation of Wealth also offers two levels of distributor starting packages. The basic package is $50 and includes the back office and marketing suite of tools. The Silver Level distributor program has a starting cost of $249 and includes 2 silver coins. Preservation of Wealth has no monthly fees, but simply charges an annual distributor fee. The “optionship” is not a requirement, but those participating at $50 per month will receive one MS69 graded Silver Eagle coin each month. Customers can also purchase gold and silver in bullion and graded offerings. Like Numis, Preservation of Wealth also uses a binary compensation model, but it does not include the coded bonus component.
XAG Network – XAG Network is the newest entry into this field of the network marketing world. XAG offers three membership levels: Direct Sales, Marketer and Collector/Marketer. The membership levels range in cost from $5 per month to $37 per month. All levels receive access to the back office and marketing areas of XAG Network. A new silver coin is received each month at the Collector/Marketer level and also includes a $4 shipping and handling charge. Each month members receive a new coin graded up to MS69. XAG Network is set up as a 5 x 8 matrix compensation plan. At the Direct Sales level a distributor earns $3 per member on the first level with no earnings from any additional levels. Those at the Marketer Level earn $4.50 per member through 4 levels. Those at the Marketer/Collector Level earn $4.50 per member through all 8 levels. You also earn 10% commission on all sales made by your direct referrals.
Although this is a basic overview, the information provided should assist you in determining if a silver coin network marketing company is right for you.
Is statistics just a class you avoided in school or is it one of the tools you use to run your business? Either way, statistics is a tool you can use to grow your business.
A prime example is right here in EzineArticles. Did you know that you can use articles you submit to know what topics are the hottest in your market? Statistics are available right here. Go to Author Tools and view Article Reports. Information is available on Views, URL Clicks, Click Rate, Published, Emailed, Comments, Votes, Rating and Published Dates. This is a lot of feedback on what you are writing. I use this information to direct my articles to my target audience. One of my articles has had 644 views and a star rating. Doesn’t seem like a real good marker for what I write? I think so.
Another way is to check on Google Trends. Go to Google Trends and look up how your business market is being affected by current events. It even has graphs to show what events trigger certain topics to peak. If you have a business that relates to any of those trends, you can direct your marketing and business direction toward what is current today. You are either growing your business on a daily business or declining. There is no such thing as just standing still in today’s business market.
A current topic for almost every business these days concerns going green. You can search trends to see if any of those techniques can be applied to your marketing. Think outside the box here. Your business may really benefit from just a bit of new information and direction.
A tip I heard the other day connects with trends based on what Oprah is talking about on her show. People in media such as books and entertainment along with clothing and other purchasing trends can benefit just by seeing what is being talked about in that market. You don’t have to be an Oprah fan to use the information presented on her show. Check it out in Google or go to the website if you don’t want to watch each show. You could even have someone watch and analyze it for you.
Another free service is Google Analytics. If you have a website, make it a point to check out this service. You can’t know how your marketing is being received without knowing how your audience is reacting to what you are doing. If you don’t know how to do these things, you can find someone who does and get their assistance. Knowing your target before you aim is pretty good advice in most situations.
There is so much information online, you only need to harness it to be able to organize your business marketing and sales force to grow in today’s economy. Use current tools and trends. The information is right at your fingertips.