7 ways to use email marketing to grow your beauty salon business

Email marketing is alive and kicking, and is as vital to growing your beauty salon or spa business as social media. However, knowing how to write engaging emails is the tricky part – from creating clickable subject lines, to cracking the code of what to write when you don’t know what to write.

Ryan Power, founder of beauty coaching brand Salonology, explains how you can use email marketing to boost your beauty salon business. 

7 tips to make email your most powerful marketing tool:

 1. Write your salon emails as if you’re emailing a friend

“Ask yourself, would you rather receive an email from one of your friends or from a big business? Those big corporate newsletters just don’t work as well as they once did – they get stuck in spam filters, don’t look good on mobile and often the images don’t even load. It comes off as a thinly veiled sales pitch,” explains Power.

“Split your salon news into four plain text weekly emails – no formatting, pictures or fancy templates – and then write them as if you’re writing to one person. Don’t be too formal about it, try to be personal. Use your client’s name where you can and if not, a simple ‘hey’ will do just fine.”

2. Don’t talk business all of the time

“This is one of the areas I see salon owners trip up on the most. Clients want to know the person behind the business, so don’t be afraid to talk about your life occasionally,” says Power.

“Pull the curtain back a little because, believe it or not, business can be fun. This will make you stand out too because people want to buy from people not from brands.”

3. Your email should tell a story

“As human beings, we are hardwired to respond positively to stories, so tell clients tales about you, your team and your client treatment successes in your newsletters. Your clients will be interested in this information and you’re going to stand out because the competition won’t be doing this,” advises Power.

“In your newsletters, it’s also worth using open loops and cliff hangers. Think about the TV soap opera Eastenders – they leave it open-ended at the end of every episode. Why? Because they want people to tune into the next episode. You need to do this with your emails so clients continue to open them.”

4. Don’t sell all of the time

“If you do a hard sell all the time then you’re going to condition your clients to not open your emails. Instead, adopt the 80/20 rule – 80% of the time give ‘value’ to the client (via skincare advice, masterclasses, tutorials, etc), which then earns you the right to do a soft sell on salon services the other 20% of the time,” explains Power.

 “For example, if you want to sell foot cream, create an email detailing ‘five footcare tips you can do at home this summer’, which is really helpful. At the end of that email, you can add a ‘P.S. If this was useful to you, here’s a foot cream that we recommend, too’.” 

5. Promoting offers or last-minute spaces all the time is a no-no

“Think about the message you’re sending to your clients when all you focus on is last-minute offers and limited spaces in your emails. Are you telling them to wait for a deal or, even worse, that they don’t even need to book an appointment to see you? If so, then there becomes no incentive to make regular appointments with you,” says Power.

6. Put your personality in it

“Nowadays, the most valuable resource of the modern age is attention. Clients get thousands of email marketing messages fired at them a day, so you’ve won half the battle if you capture their attention,” advises Power.

“If you make your email different and add your personality in there, then ultimately you’re going to get more sales, your open rates will increase, you’ll build stronger relationships and you’ll go from being an inbox pest to a trusted friend.”

7. Sell the click

“The most important part of any email is the subject line. The sole purpose of the subject line is to get someone to open your email, not to summarise the email in under 10 words, which so many people do. Don’t let clients know the whole purpose because then no one will click it,” says Power.

“Using questions in the subject line are great because it uses intrigue – it's something that’s a bit unusual and interrupts the pattern. It’s all about enticing them in, then you can use as many words as you need in the actual email. Also, test using emojis and people’s names in email subject lines as these can work quite well.”

Examples of different types of emails to send out to clients:

1. The “top tips” email – offering advice on a certain skincare concern
2. The “Q&A” email – where you answer an array of questions you’ve received from clients in the past few weeks
3. The “meet the team” email – letting clients’ get to know your therapists a bit better
4. The “what do you want to see?” email – asking clients directly what they want to see more of in salon, on your treatment menu or on your social media
5. The “take a look at this” email – which shows off a new video or blog you’ve made.