Despite the economy, and other business owners spouting “doom and gloom” all the time, we just KILLED IT during our most recent holiday promotion. Almost DOUBLE over what we did last year. Why? How? Am I lying? …no, I’m not lying. Things are going well, up, up & up. People say “flat” is the new “growth” in these times, I say “Bah! Humbug!” to that. GROWTH is GROWTH.
Here’s a study of a recent blog post, that highlights part of the reason for our success.
We received a recent email from a soldier in Afghanistan, asking about a spa day for his fiance’ on her birthday so she wouldn’t be alone. Our blog post about it is here if you haven’t seen it yet: Our salon spas blog story
1st – We were willing to do the work. We went back and forth and back and forth with emails getting everything lined up. Not only did we have to get the day decided upon service-wise, but then scheduled, paid for etc. This is no biggie, but took a while via email. Then we had to coordinate gifts. He had a gift shipped to our home. Flowers shipped to the spa. We went out and picked up his favorite champagne for her. There was definitely some “above and beyond” going on.
2nd – We were lucky enough that he shot a video for us and put it on youtube. I told him how to title the headline (titled for search terms, not the name of our spa), with a backlink url in the description (to give us google juice via a link back to our site).
3rd – Then we made sure to take some good candid shots when she was here. This personal touch I think is vital since it shows not only how much the clients enjoy us, but us as people. The more people know, like & trust YOU, the more they’ll buy from you. 
4th – The VIDEO of her, toasting her man Eric, is Very moving and powerful. It shows love, it shows emotion, it conveys a STORY… which we all enjoy. It also shows that a spa day for a birthday gift is a Good thing 
5th – The ENTIRE blog it’s on is keyworded for search terms. The blog itself, the post headline, the keywords, all of it… will show up in the search results when someone searches for “gift certificates” or “birthday gifts” in our city. Then what will they see? They’ll see her crying with joy. THAT is the perfect testimonial… and there’s our link waiting to be clicked so they can buy their own gift certificate and spread the circle of joy.
6th – Not only do we now have a GREAT keyworded page online (& on youtube), I’m now going to distribute this to a few hundred video sharing sites, use it as a testimonial and share the blog post to our facebook group.
7th – We ask for comments. This shows popularity (or “social proof”) to other readers AND to google, who gives us brownie points in the search results. Also, if YOU comment on this blog post, you can put your url back to your site, giving you more google juice.
…it goes deeper, but you’ve got the gist of things.
If you want to know more about the magic I work with facebook, check out our facebook course for salon spa owners here.
“Who loves ya?”
-Christopher
P.S. Don’t forget to comment below because you deserve some “google juice” for your salon spa too!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The “GROUPON deal concept has really taken off to gain new clients but here is my problem, all of my current staff have established clientele
and work on a 50% commission rate, and feel that there working for free when they do this type of promotion
My question to anyone who has run the Groupon deal how do do pay your stylist / tech for doing the service when it’s already been discounted by 50% or more to attract new business. like I’ve said, we have had a great response but it also is starting wars in our salon!
I’m considering doing a ‘deal of the day’ with Teambuy, their take is a bit lower than the other ones and I can put a cap on it. We have just moved our business of 7 years to a wonderful new location and we want to get the word out. I’m looking for advice on how to make this a success. I am thinking of doing a ‘detox special’, focusing on services like the infrared sauna and ion foot cleanse and mini massage, that way it’s not so labour intensive and expensive.
Can you give any tips?
Thanks, Lara
It’s not worth undermining your industry and getting every other salon in town to jump on board too. Don’t you have a client list of 7 years you can market to?
Yes I do, what would be a good marketing campaign to get some of those customers back who haven’t been in awhile?
Christopher,
Great post full of great ideas. Talk about combining media to build awesome content. Oh, and I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of Groupon. It’s bad for everyone involved and is completely unsustainable, plus salon/spa’s just don’t have the kind of margins for the discount’s and fees that groupon demands!
Thanks!
Chris