Every business strongly relies on the customer base, so attracting new and retaining existing customers is a priority. What’s more, returning clients spend 67% more than new customers. If you can design and run an effective customer loyalty program, you will keep gaining new customers, retain existing ones happily, and boost your salon’s revenue. Therefore, an outstanding client loyalty program can work wonders for your salon business. In this article, you will learn how to build a membership program for your salon.
Why do you need to set up the loyalty program?
- Getting a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. If building a loyalty program for your salon will help you achieve both, why not create one?
- Customer loyalty programs get more customers to visit your salon more freque
- Hair salon membership programs are a surefire way to grow and nurture a strong base of repeat customers.
- Rewarding your clients with attractive discounts and freebies is a great way to ward off the competition.
- A hair salon membership program encourages customers to spend more money on the products and services provided by your salon.
How to build the loyalty program
1. Know and understand your customers/clients
The first step to building a loyalty program for your salon is to know your customers or clients. You can do this by focusing on your clients’ purchase history to understand their buying tendencies.
These details will help you figure out:
Discounts or money-back offers: How much are you willing to set the discount?
Term/Cycle: How often do clients typically return? Clients that come to trim nails once in 3 months will probably not be interested in a monthly membership.
Benefits: Know what services your clients appreciate the most. Membership benefits are ideal for clients that appreciate variety. What are the most popular services? Brainstorm ideas that will make them visit your salon often (e.g. free trims after scalp massage).
Offer type: If your client base is teenagers, offering a discount on anti-ageing products/treatments won’t appeal to them. Alternatively, your teenage clients can benefit from offers on treatments like facials or manicures & pedicures – these are relevant to teenagers and the elderly.
Add-on: If your clients appreciate spending time with their friends, you may consider offering a discount to their friends any time they come in together.
Restrictions: If you are fully booked, you will still attend to clients in your membership program.
The details mentioned above can help you determine what sort of rewards and services they expect from you.
2. Set objectives before designing the loyalty program
Having defined your audience, the next thing you need is to outline your objective. What do you want to achieve with this salon membership program?
Check out what I mean by objectives:
Do you aim to increase your customer base every month? If so, offer referral programs and ensure it generates ten new customers every month.
Do you aim to increase the spending capacity of your customers during each visit? You can set a target to entice customers to spend a minimum of a certain amount (say $70) every visit and then offer a reward.
Do you aim to build trust? Set a target to accumulate a minimum of 20 five-star ratings per month.
Do you want to increase the frequency of salon visits? You can set a target of getting each customer to visit your salon at least three times within three months.
Once you have a clear objective in mind, you will know what rewards to offer.
3. Choosing your loyalty program type
Salon loyalty program comes in different ways. Before developing a reward system for your salon, adopt one that aligns with your targets and product/service offerings.
Punch card loyalty program: This simple reward system allows salon businesses to hand out a salon loyalty card to their customers. For every purchase made, salon staff can punch a hole through its surface. The customer will be rewarded with a specified gift or discount when all the punches are filled.
A significant drawback to using punch cards is that customers might often forget to bring their cards whenever they have an appointment at your salon.
Point-based loyalty program: Point-based loyalty program involves assigning a certain amount of points to a customer each time they make a transaction. The higher their spending, the higher the issues they will get. When the points accumulate to a certain number (as specified by the business owner), it will translate into some reward (e.g. a discount or free service). After the reward, they start over from zero points again.
Tiered loyalty program: A loyalty program based on tiers gives customers small rewards for being members of the program. As customers climb the loyalty ladder, their reward increases, which encourages repeat customers. Here is how to go about a tiered loyalty program:
Set at least three tiers, e.g. Platinum, Gold, and Silver
- At the Silver level, the customer needs to spend $100 per month in the salon to qualify for a reward
- At the Gold level, the customer needs to spend $180 per month in the salon to move up
- At the Platinum level, the customer needs to spend $250 per month in the salon to get rewarded
Coalition loyalty program requires you to collaborate with businesses that offer services you don’t provide. For example, enter a strategic partnership with local businesses around your demographic like bakeries or gyms, to offer your clients a reward.
Paid/Premium/VIP loyalty program: We saved the paid for the last. Successful salon businesses dish out paid salon membership cards to customers. These VIP cards give customers access to special perks, exclusive rewards, and unique opportunities in return for a monthly or annual fee. Some exciting rewards for VIP members may include home service, out-of-store service, etc.
4. Personalize customer experience
Choosing your loyalty program isn’t enough; personalizing customer experience can be gratifying. Check out some ideas to adopt when adding a personal touch:
- Address customers by their first name when sending SMSs or emails.
- Up-sell and cross-sell.
- Introduce offers specifically tailored to each customer’s experience.
- Send messages to your customers on special occasions like anniversaries, birthdays, etc. Further, strengthen your relationship by offering discounts on these special occasions.
5. Actively promote the loyalty program using the right channel
While you have taken the time to build a loyalty program for your salon, you also need to let the customers know what you are offering. How do you promote your hair salon membership program?
- Place posters and brochures in and outside your store.
- Create a dedicated page on your website for the loyalty program.
- Use attractive pictures and engaging videos to promote the salon membership programs on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other relevant social media platforms.
- Create loyalty program invitation cards or pamphlets for publicity.
- SMS/Email the salon’s subscribers to notify them about current special offers/discounts.
- Regularly upload photos of rewards on social media.
Try to get clients to discuss the program’s benefits in a video and use this testimonial to attract new clients.
NOTE: Remember to train and incentivize your salon staff to promote the program actively. There will be a reward for any staff that brings up a new customer.
6. Evaluate the performance of the loyalty program
Many salon owners get it wrong by stopping at the 5th point and evaluating the performance of your salon loyalty program, which opportune you to analyze and make amends where necessary. Salon businesses need to review the effectiveness of their loyalty program, identify the challenges (if any), and come up with practical solutions to make the beauty salon loyalty program successful.
Let’s say you have identified that your customers are unaware or don’t understand what is being offered. In that case, you can design a pamphlet explaining the rewards offered, post it in your studio, and promote it on social media. Your staff can also describe how the program works to each customer visiting your salon.
Bonus Tips
Building a loyalty program for your salon can help you attract new clients and retain existing ones, but your salon furniture and equipment can provide the required comfort while customers are in your studio. Getting quality salon equipment isn’t farfetched. OmySalon is a fast-rising salon equipment service brand dedicated to providing quality and durable products for salons, barbershops, spas, mani-pedi centres, massage parlours, and skin-care businesses at reasonable prices. Visit https://www.omysalon.com/ to discover more.
WRAPPING UP
Turning your customers into loyal ambassadors of your brand isn’t an easy feat. It would help if you had to understand their needs, set achievable goals, and design an outstanding customer loyalty program to make your salon stand out from competitors. Now that we’ve shown you how to offer enticing rewards that can appeal to your customers’ minds, hearts, ad purses, it is time to work something out for your salon. One thing is sure; creating a loyalty program for your salon is rewarding.
