The 5 Biggest Mistakes Barbers Make In Their Marketing By Nick Bendel

The most important activity in any barbershop is sales, because even if you’re the world’s greatest barber, your business will fail if you can’t make sales.

So what generates sales? Marketing. Which is why the second-most important activity in any barbershop is marketing.

In other words, marketing is essential to the profitability, and even survival, of your business. So if you think marketing is an activity you don’t need to take all that seriously, you’re wrong.

With that in mind, here are the five biggest mistakes barbers make in their marketing.

1. Not doing any

The biggest marketing mistake barbers make is not doing any, either because they don’t like doing it, they don’t have the confidence to do it or they don’t make time to do it.

Whatever the reason, not doing marketing is a big mistake, because it means your barbershop will attract fewer customers.

Generally, the barbershop that does the most marketing wins. If there’s a rival business in your suburb or a neighbouring suburb that’s doing more marketing than yours, can you really complain if they steal your customers?

So set aside time to do a bit of marketing each day. Ideas include:

• Writing educational social media posts and blogs (about hairstyles, hair trends, hair maintenance tips and grooming products)

• Writing newsworthy social media posts (about what’s happening in your local community)

• Writing promotional social media posts (about your products, services and specials)

• Recording videos (covering all the topics mentioned above)

• Taking photos of your customers (with their permission)

All those ideas are free, which means lack of money is not a valid excuse to avoid marketing.

2. Taking a short-term approach

What’s the best way to approach marketing? The same way you’d approach fitness or bathing.

Marketing is like fitness in that you can’t do one good act and expect immediate results. To succeed, you need to practise good habits for an extended period of time.

Marketing is also like bathing in that it’s not something you can do once and then you’re done. To succeed, you need to do it regularly and forever.

That’s why the previous section recommended daily marketing. If you can do a little bit of marketing each day, it won’t amount to much in the short-term but it will add up to a lot in the long-term. Marketing isn’t about immediate gratification. It’s about playing the long game.

3. Not having a proper website

Newsflash: it’s 2022, which means you need a website. Not a Facebook page or a free Google website, but an actual website.

If one of your rivals has a website and you don’t, they’ll seem more professional and will rank higher than you in Google searches. Both those things will cost you business.

Chances are, if you don’t already have a website, it’s because you’re uncomfortable with technology, which means the idea of building one must seem scary. So here’s some advice:

• Do a Google search for barbers well outside your local area (i.e. non-rival shops)

• Make a list of five websites you really like

• If the web developer’s contact details aren’t located at the bottom of those five websites, contact the barbers, explain who you are and ask for their web developer’s name and number

• Contact each web developer and ask them what it would take for them to build you a website just like the one they built for the other barbershop

4. Being a sheep

The best way to market your shop is the same way every other barber markets their shop, right? The aim of marketing is to stand out, and you don’t stand out by looking and sounding like everyone else.

So ignore what your local rivals are doing. Or, if you can’t avoid checking them out, make a point of publishing different types of content with different messages.

5. Publishing corporate propaganda

Heed these wise words from advertising legend Howard Gossage: “People don’t read ads. They read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”

In other words, if you publish interesting marketing, people will consume it – not because it’s marketing, but because it’s interesting.

Conversely, if you publish ‘corporate propaganda’, in which you boast about your “passionate staff” or “world-class customer service”, people will ignore it – just as you would if it came from a plumber, dentist or accountant.

The key to avoiding the corporate propaganda trap is to resist the temptation to talk about your business (aside from the occasional promo) and to instead focus on your customers. If you provide them with information they consider interesting, relevant and helpful, they’ll happily consume your marketing. But if you provide them with information they consider boring, they won’t.

Nick Bendel is the director of Hunter & Scribe, a copywriting / content marketing agency that writes blogs, social media posts, website text and other content for businesses.