A beauty salon — sounds like a girl’s dream. No doubt, the field of beauty is an attractive (ahem) business! A person can turn a handy profit from this business if run smartly. From licensing and health inspections to financing, equipment, accounting, and marketing activities, there’s a lot to consider.
Looking for a guide?
In this article, we have to break down some of the important aspects of starting a beauty salon business. Here are the essentials.
Franchising or other opportunity
The choice of an opportunity often depends on finances. Franchising is probably the simplest way to start a business. The company brand is already famous so that marketing costs are significantly lower. But to maintain those high standards, a person really needs to work hard. Moreover, the franchisor gives full support at the starting period: training, instructions, and tips.
Secondly, a person can buy a well-reputed salon that was on sale. There could be any reason for selling: from an owner’s fatigue to retirement, from having made enough money …or bankruptcy. However, the last one comes with more challenges, as a new salon owner will need to clear the brand-name.
Thirdly, a business owner can launch his or her own salon. There are many things to do; developing a new concept, marketing, searching for a hallmark to attract customers, etc. Costs for a new startup aren’t easy to estimate for certain. And it’s essential to have a detailed business plan that includes start-up, running cost, financial projections of a salon and much more.
* Search for the best business plan consultants in the United States.
Legal issues
Red tape is inevitable. In the USA, all businesses––including beauty salons, must be licensed. Another crucial point when opening a beauty salon is a health inspection. If a person fails to comply with the sanitary rules, he or she will have to go through strict punishment, to the point of being shut down.
Location
Half of a beauty salon’s success depends upon a good location. The most obvious options are malls, shopping streets, business centers or other best places that enjoy high traffic. Avoid situating just near the competitor. Typically, beauty salons operate on a ground floor because the site requires appropriate electrical outlets and extra plumbing.
Services
The list is immense. Nail bar or hair studio, full-body or facial spa — a salon owner can offer a full range of personal care services. And weigh all aspects: cost of equipment, location space availability, and estimated profits. Make a separate department for each service so that clients prefer visiting one place to have facial, hair, or nails done.
Marketing
Target the right new beauty clients
The most common mistakes salon entrepreneurs usually make is throwing time and money at attracting the wrong type of client. Remember, an ideal client is not who walks through the salon door prepared to pay you money.
An ideal client is:
The person who is perfect for
- Beauty treatments or hair services
- The salon location
- Spa facilities
- Team’s talents and strengths
Why?
Because of an ideal client
- love the treatments salon offer
- is easy and pleasant to service
- the book regularly (and often)
- refer salon to friends giving owners a stream of new clients
However, to be honest, attracting new salon clients is a massive topic. Salons that succeed in attracting a large customer base do these 8 things very well:
- Target the right audience.
- Get found on Google (focus on SEO).
- Build brand awareness with Facebook and Instagram.
- Target new clients with traditional advertising
- Convert lookers to bookers on the website.
- Partner with local businesses
- Online reviews persuade new clients to book
- Ask for referrals to friends & family
Facebook and Instagram prove to be the best advertising location due to the huge surfing of beauty news pages. Small salons, self-employed stylists, and market leaders — everyone owns a page that is regularly updated with the latest news, images, promos, and videos.
Tips for creating an Instagram or Facebook profile:
Never use a personal Instagram profile and always set up a new business profile because:
- It helps an owner to advertise on a business account and reach out to the maximum audience.
- An owner needs to get detailed stats on what is and what’s not working to attract people.
- It makes it easy for clients to contact.
Have a professional website
We enter 2020! Those business owners who don’t have online presence face a lot of difficulties to attract new customers. Even if a person owns a small beauty salon, it is imperative to build an attractive website loaded with eye-catchy beauty images and related content. It helps to engage visitors and persuade them to book an appointment.
Improve an engagement:
- Besides uploading beautiful visuals, one should also maintain a blog section that includes compelling posts about a salon owner’s story; how he or she gets into the beauty business, so followers can learn about the hard work and feel a connection with an owner. This also helps build trust and creditability among followers.
- And use hashtags for each post to show up on searches, and this is how a bigger audience will be able to see a business. A person can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram, but avoid using much as it can look spammy. It is advisable to choose 5 specific hashtags that are concise, targeted, and relevant.
- Ask questions, join in conversations, reply to comments to build ‘trust’ and persuade people to come for their first appointment.
Last words
Get found on Google
Social media platforms haven’t taken over the world. Google is still alive. So you need to be found’ on Google by potential new clients. It’s very simple. Learn the following 3 ways to boost your chances of being seen on search results.
- Check your beauty salon listing on Google My Business.
- Pay to advertise on Google Ads–––Pay Per Click.
- Rank highly naturally with the help of organic SEO.