7 minute read
How To Get Ready For Christmas by Kara Lehmann - The Beauty Bioss VA
Christmas was always my absolute favourite time of the year in my salon. The excitement I had going into the last few months of the year was something I always looked forward to. The push to raise the bar and see how much abundance we could attract was always a fun challenge for us as a team. Christmas was easily a 6-figure event for us and with the right strategies and tools, you can set your business up for incredible success too!
Often, I hear how overwhelmed beauty business owners can feel about Christmas and what they need to do in order to bring in abundance for their business. So why do we become overwhelmed? With many of us leaving it until the last minute and hoping for the best? After a difficult year with COVID -19 Lockdowns, the personal care industry is set to soar this Christmas, but that won’t happen by chance. You have to have a plan.
Advertisement
So, what is it that salon owners need to do in the lead up to Christmas?
When should they be starting their marketing?
What type of gifts should they be promoting?
Let’s break it down for you right here, right now. So that you can have your best and most relaxed Christmas yet. I recommend starting your Christmas strategy as soon as you can. Having more time to take action and roll out your marketing, the less stress you’ll feel and the more enjoyment you’ll have during the process.
The number one thing you need to start with is who is your ideal customer and how are you going to attract them into your business. When you think of your top 10 clients, do they have any similarities? Who do they purchase gifts for and who purchases gifts for them? Once you have a better understanding of this, you can create a strategy for your Christmas marketing that speaks directly to your ideal customers and those who will be purchasing a gift for them (Yep - that’s an important one!)
The next step I recommend is setting your goals. How much are you going to makeover the Christmas period? When it comes to setting your goals, ensure you are excited and motivated by that goal. If it doesn’t inspire you, you won’t find it motivating. Set one personal goal (YES, you need to celebrate your own success and reward yourself), and one team goal. Then break it down into measurable weekly and daily targets. You can even break it down further by setting yourself a gift voucher sales target, with a set number of vouchers you’d like to sell. Then you can break down your service target and then a product sales target. If you’re aiming for a figure that you know is safe and you have done before, then it’s time to dig a little deeper and find a way to push your goal a little higher.
Once you have your goal set it’s time to review your Christmas sales from the year before. This is vital in knowing where your customers spend their money when it comes to both seasonal services and gift-giving. Do you sell lots of products, gift sets, gift vouchers, pamper packages or a mixture of all of the above? Do you see an increase in your seasonal services? If you find that you don’t see much change at this time of the year, it’s time to get creative and see how you can entice your clients to try something new! Now not only is it important to look at what went well, but it’s also important to look at what didn’t do well. Did you end up purchasing a bunch of skincare gift packs that you struggled to sell (maybe even 6 months later)? Did you impulse purchase and regret it later?
These are all really important aspects of your business to consider when planning for Christmas. If something went well, don’t be afraid to do the same thing again. If something didn’t work well, then don’t go there again. It’s not worth the time or money you invested in it.
Ask for feedback. Start asking your clients right now what they’d love to see over the Christmas period. Social media is a fantastic way to gain insights into what your customers want from you. Start with some fun and interactive polls around Christmas and gift-giving. Then take this information to help create a plan and strategy for success.
The sooner you can start rolling out your Christmas strategy the better. Now that’s not an invitation to go and spam your clients with salesy content and marketing campaigns before November even hits. Yes, it’s important to create awareness, but we need to be aware of how we are communicating this to our customers. We need to build relationships and show our audience why we can help make Christmas giftgiving easy and fun!
So, what can you do to create a great strategy for Christmas? Some of my favourite ways to create brand awareness at Christmas time are:
• Communicate your offerings. Showcase what you have on offer through beautifully presented marketing material. From posters to social media, create a marketing toolkit that showcases a consistent brand message and offering this Christmas.
• Email campaigns - make these fun, engaging and ask your clients to reply and chat with you! Email is one of the easiest ways to build strong relationships within your business.
They don’t have to be all about sales and nothing else. Show them how you are going to help them.
• Social Media - start mapping out your social media content for the months leading up to
Christmas. As the weeks become busier and busier, you will have a suite of scheduled content to use. You’ll feel relaxed knowing you don’t need to scramble to get posts out to your audience when you become busy.
Pre-record as much as you can so that you have a library of content to use for stories and reels as well.
• Don’t be afraid to go LIVE on your social media platforms and showcase your business to your audience. This can be so powerful, especially when you add value and teach, share and show your audience what you can do to help them. • Bring some FUN into your business. What can you do to add a little flare and festivity into your business over the Christmas period? What can you do to make your salon experience different to every other business that your client visits?
• Host a VIP Party or Christmas Shopping
Night. There are so many ways you can host an event, even a virtual event to celebrate is possible. I always like to suggest thinking of it from the client’s point of view and ask yourself, what would I love to experience for a VIP event if I was the client? This always made the planning so much more fun and the event a huge success!
• Showcase your gift-giving experience. Many of us take the time to beautifully wrap and present our gifts in our businesses. Don’t forget to share and communicate this with your audience.
• Create a gift-giving strategy around corporate gift ideas and help to create brand awareness of what you can offer other local businesses and community members for Christmas.
• Visually communicate the experience of your business and the services you provide.
• Collaborate with other local complementing businesses.
• Incentivise your clients to spend just that little bit more with you. How can you increase the average client spend? There are so many creative ways that you can drive purchases up over a certain amount.
Now that we have some really exciting ways to help drive customers into your business, it’s time to keep your team accountable. Start scheduling out time for weekly team meetings if you haven’t already. The team must be aware of what they need to do to show up as their best each day. Help and support them and make sure they are feeling valued. I found when my team felt looked after and supported in reaching their goals, they naturally showed up to a high standard.
Success at Christmas time isn’t just a one size fits all system either. What works for some may not work for others. It’s important to understand your business and what drives people to you. Once you understand this, a strategy isn’t difficult or overwhelming to create and if you aren’t sure, there’s always help out there to outsource this to someone who can help you create a strategy for success.
