Building a clientele is not an overnight thing. It takes months and years of hard work and relentless efforts to create a trusting bond. While working on their hair, nails, hair color, makeup etc, you become a part of their special nets. Whether it is giving them their dream bridal makeup look or just a fresh haircut after their breakup. You become a part of their highs and lows. To make a loyal customer base, relentless work hours go into making them look perfect after every appointment. 

Before COVID-19, you might have met new customers for the first time. Were you active on social media and working on new customer acquisition online? Then all your invested time, money and effort you put in building a virtual handshake for your beauty salon marketing might have gone to waste. Because of lockdown force closure of salons, spas and other businesses have wreaked havoc in our lives. 

But despite all this, you need to work on staying connected with your client base by going back to the basics. Just like you stay connected to friends and family who move abroad, or maintain long-distance relationships, you need to find ways to stay connected. 

There is no single or the one perfect way to do it. It varies according to people, their interests, age group, location etc. Be it financially, physically or mentally, COVID-119 is taking a toll on all of us. Amid all this, “How can you stay connected with your clientele?” Read ahead for a brief sneak peek into the world of keeping in touch with everyone and working on your salon marketing strategy from the comfort of your home.

Part 1: Strategies you Need to Work on to Keep your Clientele Engaged

Think about ways you can show your support of your clients without shaming their at-home salon efforts. People are already fed up without their monthly hair, skin and other treatments. We are not asking you to encourage them to cut their own hair, but if and when they do try to reassure them and work on the salvaging the blunders that are bound to happen. Social media can help you here. You can work on tips and reassuring quotes to post on your social media for your followers. 

A few salon marketing ideas to keep you going:

• Live sessions on social profiles: Try to go live on Facebook and Instagram throughout the week. Try to engage your customers by asking them to participate. Keep a Q&A session where your salon clients can ask their questions, queries etc. you can even get professionals to join your live sessions to make it more interesting. Give online consultations and product recommendations. 
• Regular social media updates and personalized notes: You need to record videos, make posts and write blogs regularly. Post all this on social media to make sure that clients do not forget you. You can use the Digi salon inventory for enticing posts and ideas, it is the complete salon marketing solution. If you are in the green or orange zone and you are shipping retail products then you can send special thank you notes to your customers. It will give them a personalized experience. 
• Polls and surveys find out about what people want to hear or topics they need advice on from you. You can do regular polls, surveys and quizzes online to get the basic idea. E.g. Instagram stories are a good way to start this. You can even Talk about the safety measures you and your business is ensuring to help your community during this crisis. E.g deep cleaning your salon, raising funds for people in need, thanking healthcare workers by donating gloves and masks etc. 
• Emails and SMS: You might have collected emails, numbers and other contact details from your clients, Keep in touch with them. Give salon marketing tools a try. You can work on email marketing and SMS campaigns with them. Segment your client based on their demographic and psychographic attributes before sending any information. Try to get in touch with your loyal customers for a quick chat and ask them how they are coping. Just be there for your clients. Everyone is feeling lonely. Just a simple hi will go a long way to ensure that your salon clients know that you care. 

If you are looking for more digital marketing strategies for your salon, read our another helpful blog: Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Beauty Salon

Part 2: Encourage your Customers to Keep in Touch With You

Stress and anxiety are up the roof during this lockdown period. Nobody knows how long it will take to get back to how things were before this pandemic hit us. You need to be proactive and encourage your customers to stay in touch. Everyone is fighting their own battle right now but show them that you are here for them if they need you. 

• Encourage your salon’s clients to book for future appointments, get home delivery of retail products, if allowed in your region.
• You can even ask them to review your salon marketing app on play store and rate you on your social platforms based on the services they received in the past. 
• Advice them to shop for gift cards because once all this is over, the salon business is going to shoot up. 

Final thoughts

COVID-19 has made us reevaluate our thinking of supporting big brands. In the time of crisis, local businesses need as much support as they can get.For most salons and beauty spas, the client base is within the city limits because it doesn’t really make sense to drive 4 hours just to get a haircut. This is the reason why salon clients have always supported local businesses when it comes to hair care and other beauty treatments. So you do not need to worry a lot on that front.  However, we advise you to stay connected with your users virtually to maintain trust and friendship. Digital marketing for beauty salons is the need of the hour for business to survive. Hang in there, everything is going to be okay. Stay home, stay safe!