MARKETING - The Circles Way by Sharlene Lee

By Sharleen Lee

Hello, my beautiful hair friends!

Let’s delve a little deeper behind the smoke and mirrors to look at marketing. So much confusion and intimidation around this little word but there are so many people and resources that can help you to make an impact for your business, and you can start close to home. I’m going to run through a few of the marketing principles we stand by here at Circles and then a few examples of past marketing strategies, with a case study thrown in for good measure, to show how we have maximised the power of marketing to translate into actual bums in chairs.

To preface all of this, so much of what we do involves the power of digital marketing and AUTOMATION. I put that in caps as we are not using it enough! This is my personal area of passion as far as my business focus and I regularly present on this. This column unfortunately isn’t quite long enough to provide a masterclass in digital marketing automation, but I highly recommend dedicating some time in 2021 to ensuring you are moving towards full automation wherever possible. While I wish I could guide you all face to face, that may be a little far off- thanks COVID. However, there are plenty of online resources. I love the HubSpot Academy as well as anything from the SEO master Neil Patel who has a wealth of articles online you should all be reading. Also make sure you are up to date with the Search Engine Land site and Martech.com, for marketing info, as we know time is changing rapidly and we need to keep up more than ever. I could go on and on here so make sure you do your own research and learn from the best.

Now, here are some of our core marketing principles:

EFFECTIVE DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

Our clients are online and so are we. We are reachable 24/7 across all social platforms, which are used for meaningful and valuable dialogue. We focus on balancing the merging of old school WOM and the increase in peer review, with the ever-changing digital landscape.

FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY

Important to our clients, important to us. We are leaders in our home state of WA and continue to educate and inspire those around us on best practice and how to be involved at all levels from other salons through to our clients.

AUTHENTIC INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT

This area is more important to us than most as our core demographic are heavily influenced by peer review and recommendation. We work closely with them, instead of just ‘doing their hair’ we work with them on new innovation e.g. trend focused colour work and extensions, as well as utilising them fully for in salon collateral and education and we currently have access to around 2 million followers.

AUTOMATED SYSTEMS

We effortlessly drive engagement through multiple channels from one platform, tracking customer touch points. This inbound system helps organise, track and nurture every easily visible journey. We tailor landing pages with strong calls to action and personalise our blogs, while building good fit leads by generating relevant content. Our goal is simple- spark new relationships and rekindle old ones!

INNOVATION

We never stop pushing when it comes to marketing innovation within the industry. I recently created an exciting innovation with Shortcuts as, quite frankly, if I can’t find it, I’ll try to make it!

So, to show how we put a lot of that into action, here is a little case study.

One of our most important marketing highlights shows not just the power of planned marketing, but also how an unexpected event can have such a huge impact when leveraged quickly and effectively. Our transformation of actress Katherine Langford became a global sensation and we were able to generate a concrete impact on our sales and client acquisition ongoing. Katherine sits right in our core targeted demographic. She came to us looking to do something a little adventurous with her hair as she was on a break from filming commitments, with the challenge to create an attention getting look which wasn’t so dramatic it would affect continuity for her next round of filming. Following her consultation, we decided to take her natural brunette through to a rich copper- just enough of a transformation to make waves! Following her visit, we kicked into marketing mode.

My goal was to position ourselves as trend leaders and innovators, leaving existing clients proud of Circles and new clients curious to convert.

THE EXECUTION:

• We leveraged imagery and a transformation video across social media channels, after obtaining permission of course. • We encouraged Katherine to provide credit when revealing her new look to her fans, which thankfully she did! • We sent a Press Release to media with follow up interviews then scheduled after they saw the new look. • Then, our automated digital strategy drove

engagement through multiple channels from one platform, tracking customer touch points. This inbound system helps organise, track and nurture every visible journey allowing us to see which elements of this activity triggered responses. • We created tailored landing pages with strong calls to action around Katherine and then personalised our blogs to feature the transformation, while building good fit leads by generating relevant content. • At the end of the day we wanted to see a benefit to the bottom line, so we managed conversion of leads to sales through building multiple roads through site and $50 off promotion on capture of details.

THE RESULT:

• Coverage across newspaper, radio and digital globally including Elle, Girlfriend, In Style, MTV,

Pop Sugar, Who, Nova, Perth Now, Teen Vogue,

Cosmopolitan, Pedestrian, Refinery29, W

Magazine, Spirit Radio, The West, Marie Claire,

Bustle, StyleCaster and Elite Daily to name a few. • Our editorial coverage reached over 3 million people at minimum, those numbers now thanks to ongoing searching for ‘copper hair’ and ‘Katherine Langford’ will have seen this spike even further. • Exposure to Katherine Langford’s over 14 million followers. • Over 87,000 people reached via Instagram promotion • 50,000 views on our transformation video • We kept track as new client acquisition and enquires peaked in weeks following transformation, all of which were maximised through quick responses and our automated system. • We were able to leverage increased colour requests and sales based on her look for many months afterwards, and even now can still use it as a perfect go to for people thinking of experimenting with colour.

Now, I realise that not everyone has the opportunity to get access to a millennial actress at their salon, but many of the above elements can still be leveraged within your own salon with other clients or amazing makeovers. The celebrity aspect gave us the added global coverage, but an incredible transformation can still have momentum locally. It’s all about having your automated systems created and ready to put into action.

We also obviously work to develop an extensive 12-month marketing calendar, but always make sure we remain nimble to change. Here is a glimpse at a couple of past strategies:

ENSURE REPEAT BUSINESS, REFERRAL AND CLIENT SATISFACTION VIA CLIENT RECOGNITION AND REWARD

Our demographic respond to public recognition more than any other. They want to be seen by us and acknowledged as clients and part of the Circles family. • Respond rapidly to loyal and new customer reviews and survey results • Automated referral rewards which are tailored to time of year with desirable cash value • Share Circles clients across social media (when suitable!) • Provide ‘money can’t buy’ opportunities such as experiencing life coach Charles Marcus at a VIP event • Facilitate trial with regular social media competitions that reward tagging friends with a variety of prizes and incentives both inside and outside of salon • Rotate across various marketing platforms to enable vast data capture which in turn facilitates client profiling and future targeting

ENGAGE AND BUILD TRUST AMONGST CORE MILLENNIAL DEMOGRAPHIC THROUGH MEANINGFUL BRAND EXPERIENCE

Our audience is savvy. They have a wealth of information at their fingertips, too much at times, so it is important for us to filter this and provide high quality information and highly targeted content options.

• Build strong local influencer and brand relationships- this has been an ongoing focus and we now have a coveted portfolio of supporters • Create and bring to life a full online Eco Hair

Guide which is available via download after providing an email address and then brought to life in salon with eco-friendly options and alternatives • Use social media as platform for education, not just images • 60-minute online responsiveness to all enquiries- no exceptions!

We aim to be dynamic when it comes to marketing. It should be exciting for both the team as well as your clients. Get inspired and try something different! Next issue I’ll be tackling the big stuff- the bottom line. How do you ensure your salon is a financial success today and tomorrow? Hopefully a few of my tips will help!