According to EventTrack’s 2021 report, over 40% of consumers feel they become more loyal to brands after attending their events and experiences and 91% of consumers say participating in events and experiences convinces them to purchase from the brand.
Looking for some ways to get people into your salon? Here’s a few event ideas that could work for you:
Salon friendly events
How to workshops
Easy to do virtually or in-person, how to workshops on some of the simpler aspects of haircare can be really helpful and empower your customers. Whether you do them as group sessions or one-on-one, it’s a great way to connect with new people and showcase your skills. Consider masterclasses on styling hair at home or lessons for parents on how to care for their kids’ hair – braids, ponytails and more!
Charity event
See if there’s an organisation such as Little Princess Trust which use hair donations to make wigs for children experiencing hair loss and offer a free haircut for anyone who is donating for charity. Alternatively, you can have a week where a certain percentage of all fees for services go to benefit a charity. Helping a good cause can inspire people to give your salon a try if they’ve never been in before.
Art opening
If you’re looking to refresh your salon décor and host an event, consider becoming the venue for an art opening. If there’s a local artist near you, you can host the initial opening and then offer to have their art hanging in your salon so that customers coming in for regular services can buy it later on as well. This allows you to network with artists in your area and may help make you salon stand out by having unique art in it.
New product/service launch
If there’s a certain hair product brand that you use frequently and would definitely recommend to your clients, see if you can have a product launch when new items come out. You can advise customers on how to use the product effectively and what the benefits are as well as enjoy a few canapes and bubbly.
Promotion days
If there’s a certain day of the week that you notice is particularly slow for your salon, consider having promotion days that fall over those days and hopefully help drive your foot traffic up. Think about what kind of audience you want to attract and what will appeal to them. Maybe your best choice is a simple percentage discount on slow days or maybe you want to try offering a free kids’ haircut for every adult haircut to try and entice families to try your salon.
How to choose the right event for your salon
So, you like the idea of hosting an event in your salon but aren’t quite sure what to choose? A little bit of analysis may help you work out which events will provide the biggest return for you:
Goal for the event
Think carefully about why you’re hosting the event and what you’re hoping to get out of it. Goals may include:
- Raising awareness of your salon location and services
- Boosting retail sales or appointments booked
- Creating stronger links between other local businesses or the community
- Getting media coverage & positive word of mouth chatter
- Thank existing customers for their loyalty and reward them
The likelihood is that you can’t achieve all of these goals at once, so you may want to choose one or two to focus on. For example, if you want some media coverage and to connect with the local community, then maybe a charity event will be your best choice. Alternatively, if you want to boost retail sales and appointments then you may opt for promotion days instead.
Cost vs benefit analysis
Crunch some numbers on how much the event is going to cost you and see if the potential benefits are worth that to you. If your goal is to increase bookings, find out how many new customers you need to gain to cover the costs of the event. This will give you an idea of whether the desired results are feasible.
Some goals may not be as easy to analyse – for example media coverage doesn’t directly correlate to a number that you can track or estimate the value of. For that, you may want to look at the costs of simply taking out an ad in the newspaper vs the costs of running an event and getting organic coverage and think about the benefits/drawbacks of each. That at least gives you a comparison touch point to base your analysis off of.
The audience
You know your current clients well and if you want to attract more people like them, then consider running the idea by some of your customers when they’re in the salon. Find out what ideas they’re excited by and what would really wow them at an event. Also consider if you event is meant to attract every customer at your salon or only certain ones.
For example, the free kids’ haircut along with an adult haircut is obviously geared towards families, so make sure you market it as such and that your salon is ready for family clientele! If you’re looking for high-end clients with a bigger budget, then a VIP product launch event may be better suited for the people you’re trying to attract to your salon.
How to plan an event for your salon
- Choose event: With the steps above, you’ve hopefully got a good idea of what type of event you want to run. Once you’ve got that top level idea, it’s time to start building it out more.
- Set Budget: Start making a detailed list of every expense that will be associated with the event and begin research how much each may cost. It’s always worthwhile getting a quote from at least two to three places so you can compare prices and make sure that you’re getting a good deal. You may want to add a 10% to 20% buffer to your budget for unexpected expenses.
- Organise your team & set a date: Speak with your team and your customers to figure out what days of the week and times will work best for them. Start to consider how many staff you’ll need for the event and book them in early so that there’s not an emergency staffing issue closer to the date.
- Master Plan: Start building a timeline of everything that needs to be done before the event in order to make it happen and then build your timeline of how the actual event will run. You pre-event timeline should include when any permits/insurance policies need to be submitted, when event registration opens and closes, when marketing campaigns need to go live, etc.
- Get the word out before: Start talking about the event to everyone that you know – friends, family, current clients, etc. Use your social media accounts and email lists to get the word out, post flyers in your store and partner with other retailers where applicable. Any way you can expand the reach of your message is helpful.
- Confirm the details: As the event day gets closer, confirm with any speakers, partners or vendors just to ensure you’re all still on the same page. If any parts of the plan have changed in the planning process, be sure all the relevant parties are up to date.
- Work the room day-of! When the big day comes, you’ll need to be on your best hosting behaviour. Try and speak to every person in the room as much as possible and really connect with people. If you make attendees feel special, they’ll remember you and your salon next time they’re looking for a haircut.
- Post-event marketing: Don’t forget the follow up. If you’ve met loads of great people at your event and managed to get contact details, get in touch within the following week to thank them for attending. If you got photos during the event, post them on social media so that people who attended feel more involved and those that didn’t attend want to come to the next one!
In general, events can really help make your customers feel more involved with or appreciated by your salon and may lead to more frequent visits. In return, make sure you protect your partners and customers by ensuring your salon insurance covers all eventualities.
All links are checked and valid at time of publishing, 14 September 2022.
