7 Strategies To Increase Your Beauty Salon Sales & Profits

Are you looking to increase your beauty salon sales & profits? While salons typically operate on thin margins (on average 8%), there are a number of strategies you can use to increase your beauty salon business sales and maximise profits.

In this article we’ll go through 7 proven strategies you can implement today. Let’s dive in!

For more information on beauty salons, make sure to read our guides below:
How To Open a Beauty Salon In 11 Steps
How to Write a Beauty Salon Business Plan: Complete Guide
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Beauty Salon?
How To Build A Financial Model For a Salon?

1. Sell Gift Cards & Vouchers

Gift cards are a great way to open a new revenue stream and even acquire new customers. What is interesting about gift cards is that not only will you get paid in full immediately, but also, if a person receiving a gift card is not showing up, you don’t have a liability to repay the person who purchased it in the first place.

Of course, you will need to advertise your gift cards. The best places are store windows and the counter. If you have a website (which you should), you can advertise them on your site and even allow customers to purchase them directly from your website.

You can take it a step further by offering special discounts on gift cards during Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. For instance, you can sell a $50 gift card for $45.

2. Introduce Frequent Flyer 

Frequent flyer programs work like a charm. In fact, many beauty salons are effectively using different variations of the frequent flyer program to attract new customers and even increase the loyalty of the existing ones.

For example, you can offer a free body massage or a milk peel for a person on his 10th visit. You can offer a 50% discount on the 5th visit. You may even offer unlimited basic facials in one month for a specific fee, and so on!

In fact, you are free to come up with anything unique that you think is going to attract your customers.

3. Sell Membership Packages

Membership packages are a little different from frequent flyer programs. Here, your customers can subscribe to certain services and prepay on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis.

Such subscription plans help to maintain a cash flow for your business. From your customers’ perspective, they do not need to worry about booking appointments or worry about arranging cash.

Membership packages are a recent strategy to increase beauty salon sales. Indeed, it’s more relevant now than ever: a 2017 study found that millennials are 28% more likely than baby boomers to subscribe to a beauty membership.

You can introduce perks like members-only discounts such as a special acne treatment with a 20% discount. The perks you offer should be for procedures with big profit margins. Offering discounts on procedures with small profit margins might not be sustainable over the long run.

4. Use Referral Program

Good referral programs can do two things – increase customer loyalty and get new customers. The modus operandi is pretty simple. An existing customer refers a friend to your salon. If the person shows up, both the referrer and the referee gets rewarded in some way or the other. 

The reward can be anything like a discount, a free consultation, a free service, a free product, or anything that you are offering.

And you get a new client, who can potentially become a loyal customer!

However, be strategic when it comes to selecting the reward. You don’t want to provide a service that takes too long to complete or give a product that is too expensive.

And don’t forget! People love immediate gratification. Making a person refer 10 people before qualifying for the reward is probably a very horrible idea. Such a referral program is bound to fail.

Instead, consider giving the reward almost instantly. Since it is a salon business, giving a discount to the referrer on the very next visit after a successful referral is a great idea.

5. Find a Specialization Niche

Do not try to specialise in everything. People don’t necessarily like that. If you start offering all services, there will be nothing unique about you. This is where you need to think of a niche that has enough demand or at least the potential to generate demand.

For instance, you may introduce an exotic oriental massage that none of your competitors are offering. Maybe, you can come up with a natural product for painless body hair removal.

This might not be easy. You may need to do some research and see if there is a gap in the market, or if there is a market that is left unaddressed in your area, you can capitalize on that.

Once you do your market research and you identify the target audience and their needs, you can directly address those needs. But you need to focus on your content marketing voice, find employees to serve the specific needs (or upskill your existing employees), find & stock relevant products, and so on.

6. Social Media

If you are ignoring the power of social media, you will lose to your competitors. One easiest way to get traction is to use the power of YouTube. Many beauty salons are successfully doing it.

There are many strategies you can use to boost your salon’s visibility and increase sales via social media. You can upload a wide range of videos on your YouTube channel including DYI hairstyles, haircare & skincare tips, funny moments of your salon, etc.

Running your own YouTube channel comes with dual benefits. First, your business gets noticed, thereby increasing the chances of getting new clients. Secondly, you can monetise your YouTube channel and generate an income stream.

Don’t just target YouTube: instead you can also harness the power of TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

7. Try Online Booking Software

This isn’t a hidden secret. Online booking is becoming popular because of many reasons. From a customer standpoint, many people prefer to book online from the comfort of their home, especially during non-business hours. 

From a business standpoint, online booking allows businesses to collect payments immediately. This also reduces no-shows and eliminates blocking out times that could otherwise be used for revenue generation by attending to other clients.

Salon software can help to save time & increase efficiency, retain existing clients, attract new clients, increase visit frequency, and more.If you don’t know where to start, Salonist, Meevo, and Zenoti are great options you can consider. If you are not satisfied with these, a quick Google search can help you find more similar salon management software.