Beating the salon gift card surge this festive season

The season of gift cards is just around the corner, so the salon software experts at Shortcuts have devised these four easy steps to help prepare you for the upcoming flash sale of festive offers.

1. On Your Marks  

- Decide on the timing – about one month before any major events such as Mother’s Day and Christmas is ideal.

- Choose the offer – incentives such as “double your money”, i.e. spend £100 and get a £200 gift card work well. You could offer a smaller incentive such as buy a £100 gift card and get something free.

- Train your staff – let them know the details of the offer, and teach them different ways to bring it up in conversation with clients.

 

2. Set and Forget

- Set up your email marketing and schedule it ahead of time. Shortcuts Marketing makes this super simple.

- Send a few teaser emails to start to generate interest.

- Get social and spread the word via Facebook and Instagram – the more excited you are, the more excited your clients will be.

- Create some signage promoting the flash sale and put it up around the salon.

 

3. Stock Up

- Make sure you have enough gift cards. Order more than you think you’ll need, just to be on the safe side – you can always use them later.

- Roster on extra employees so that you won’t be short-staffed on the day. Trust me, you will need someone just to answer the phone – it will be ringing off the hook

- Make sure you have lots of pens at the ready so that you can write on the gift cards. This is something we almost forgot!

 

4. Go!

- Kick start the sale with an email and a post on Facebook and Instagram.

- Let your clients in-salon know about the exciting one-off promotion.

- Keep everyone updated throughout the day via social media – include a countdown to the end of the sale.

- Keep the team working hard by offering a special incentive for the employee who sells the most gift cards.

- And finally... Relax! Congratulate your team for a job well done.

Shortcuts is offering an extra 20% FREE on all gift card orders of 500 or more, to be sure you are fully stocked for the upcoming holiday season. But you better hurry, it’s for a limited time only – until the end of November. You can find out more here.

If you’re interested in learning more about Shortcuts, get in touch or book a demo to try it out for yourself.

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 Kirstie Stafford is the director of Woohoo salon and worked in partnership with Shortcuts to create this feature.