Salon Marketing: Messaging Tips for Beauty Businesses of All Sizes

Make your messaging more effective across all channels, from email to TikTok and everything in between.

A salon without clients is just an empty building (or soon to be one). The best way to get new clients and grow your business is by developing effective salon marketing messages and then delivering them through all your available channels.

If you’re looking for actionable marketing advice, look no further — our guide will walk you through the essentials, from building a website to creating social media content and connecting via email.

Building your salon marketing from scratch? Start here.

Every salon has to start somewhere. However, with limited time and resources, you need to prioritize the channels where you’ll make the biggest impact. These three steps will help your salon marketing efforts hit the ground running:

• Build a website: Your website is the central hub from which all your other marketing efforts flow. It’ll act as the source of truth for your hours of operation, business location, and contact details so clients know exactly how to reach you. This information will also feed into Google search results, allowing future clients to find you as they search for salon services in their area. Add self-booking features to your website to lock these clients in with minimal lift. 

• Get social: With your website in place, it’s time to start promoting it. Open up accounts across the social media platforms where your clients are most likely to congregate — places like Yelp, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are great starting points. Also, don’t forget your Google Business Profile, which will boost your presence on Google Maps and other Google-related products. Take some great pics of your business — inside and out — and some snapshots of your handiwork and add them to your social profiles to sell your services.

• Encourage client referrals: It’s difficult to overstate how powerful word-of-mouth advertising is. A Nielsen study found that 92% of respondents trust recommendations from friends and family over any other form of advertising. Leverage that power by offering your clients perks for bringing in their squad, and watch as your client base continues to grow.

For more get-started-quick inspo, read 5 Salon Marketing Ideas for Building a Clientele Fast.

Make your salon advertising pop

There are a lot of ways to get your message out there, from hand-written signage to multi-month social media campaigns. Want to make your salon marketing efforts more impactful? Keep these tips in mind:

• Match your salon’s vibe: Does your salon aim for an air of luxury that would make the celeb set jealous? Or do you offer a laid-back experience that’s welcoming for families and clients of all ages? Whatever your vibe, your marketing channels and advertising should reflect that atmosphere. Otherwise, your clients may feel emotional whiplash between the vision they’ve seen online and the experience they get when they walk through the door.

• Meet the cultural moment: Is a celebrity hairstyle blowing up on TikTok? Consider demonstrating how to replicate the look on your own channels to show that you’re clued into what your clients want.

• Make the message fit the medium: A video designed for your YouTube audience will not hit the same with your TikTok followers. Creating a single marketing message is fine, but make sure you customize it to fit the unique needs of each platform you advertise on.

Read 7 Super Easy Tips for Hair Salon Advertising for more ways to connect with future clients.

Crafting compelling social media content

Making Instagram stories and TikToks will likely be a core part of your salon marketing efforts. Before you start, though, you need to establish your brand voice and set achievable goals. Make sure that your social media content matches your tone, and determine whether you’re looking to boost your follower count, capture more bookings, or sell more product.

With these goals in mind, you can then work to develop content that will help you meet them. Consider the following ideas as a starting point:

• Post before and after glamour shots showing off your salon’s handiwork.

• Give your audience a first-person salon walkthrough.

• Show off the latest products available at your location — maybe even give a brief tutorial video with results shots showcasing how well they work.

• Film in-salon styling tutorials to tell your audience how to achieve the hottest trending looks on social media.

• Introduce your team members and shine a spotlight on their expertise. 

With every piece of content you create, always include a call to action that drives clients toward your goal. A quick message like “follow us for more tips” or “visit our website and book today” will direct your audience exactly where you want them to go.

Read Hair Salon Social Media Strategy: A Complete Guide and discover more ways to build more value from your social media accounts.

Nailing salon marketing promotions

Everyone loves a discount. However, running giveaways and handing out coupons without a goal in mind may just be a fancy way to throw money down the drain. Here are a few ideas to help make sure your promotions land with impact, whether that’s boosting short-term revenue or long-term retention:

• Consider your community: You’re not just building a beauty business — you’re building part of your local community. Partnering with other local businesses on promotions will help solidify your salon as a pillar of the local economy while boosting your reach into untapped markets.

• Be there during the busy seasons: Seasonal discounts during the holidays will entice clients to take care of themselves as they care for their friends and family. And if they can lean on you during these hectic times, they’ll be more likely to come back for follow-ups later on — and tell their friends in the process. Don’t forget about leveraging other seasonal opportunities, like prom during the spring and wedding season during the summer months.

• Offer free samples: Want to encourage clients to pick up some additional product when they visit? Consider throwing in free samples and showing how to use them. Make sure you have some full-sized products available to purchase once clients see the results to maximize sales. 

Level up your salon marketing efforts by reading 5 Hair Salon Promotions That Bring In Clients.

Email marketing best practices

Email is a critical channel for connecting with your clients and keeping your salon top-of-mind. Here are a few ways to get the most out of every message you send:

• Build your database: Whenever there’s an opportunity to collect your client’s contact info, make sure their email address is included. This will allow you to build your contact database and reach clients directly with more personalized messaging.

• Keep your emails snappy: You don’t have much time to hook email readers before they toss your message in the bin, so get right to the point. Subject lines should be under 50 characters and immediately express the value clients will get from reading your email. Keep the body of your email brief, cutting long paragraphs down to a line or two to convey the essence of your message. Finish with a call to action that drives home concrete results for the reader if they take the next step.

• Consider a dedicated email marketing platform: An email marketing suite will do more than send out your marketing messages. It’ll help you automate entire campaigns, filter and send out messages by targeting specific audiences, and offer deeper personalization options to add that extra-special touch.

Boost your email open and conversion rates by reading Salon Email Marketing: Tools, Tips, and Tricks. 

Salon marketing is as much a science as it is an art. Try new things, explore new platforms, and experiment with messaging and delivery strategies. Then, lean on the data you gather from running these campaigns and adjust your marketing efforts to maximize their impact. A little more effort now could mean many more full chairs in the months to come.