Marketing advice for Spas, Salons and Massage Therapists

Use Your Blog To Build Business

April 12, 2014

A blog is a great tool to help you build your online business persona. It’s a simple way to connect with your current (and potential) clients on a regular basis in ways that you can’t do elsewhere on your website or in your physical business.

A blog is also a good complement for your website, which is why all our dynamic websites come with blogging functionality already built in. Posting to your blog is an easy way to generate new content to strengthen your SEO and drive new traffic (& potential new business) to your site.

Let’s discuss just a few of the ways you can use your blog to build your business and your relationship with your clients.

Set yourself up as an expert

A blog is a great way to set yourself up as an expert in your field, with interesting and informative posts about all aspects of the spa lifestyle. You own a successful business because you know how to do certain things well. And you’re always happy to give your clients tips or tricks when they are in the spa. So why not share some of that information on your blog as well? From explanations on the benefits of certain treatments and services to the importance of certain aspects of self care (such as changing up your skin care routine with the seasons or the benefits of a facial), you and your staff have a lot of great information to share. Set yourself up as the spa experts with interesting and informative posts, and your clients will not only keep coming back for more, they’ll recommend you to their friends as well.

Offer Tutorials

Offering tutorials on your blog can be a great way to share new trends with your readers as well as feature new products or services that you offer. Tutorials such as how to produce a healthy skin care routine, create a smokey eye look, or even do a mini treatment at home (using your products, of course) offer your readers useful information. But they also create interest in services and products that you offer and can help bring clients in the door.

Promote Activities and Events

You have a lot going on at the spa, with changing treatments, new staff, and great new products every season. So why not share that information on your blog and get your clients excited about all the great new things you have going on. From new spring makeup colors, to the hottest hairstyles for weddings, letting your clients know what is going on can be an incentive for them to come back sooner.

Share exclusive offers or discounts

Your blog is a great place to offer special discounts or offers just for blog readers. This can also help grow your blog readership early on, by offering an incentive to keep reading. Then you can follow that up with great blog content and recurring offers or promos.

Okay, so you’re ready to do a bit of blogging. Let’s talk about how easy it is to set up and start posting.

You can find the Blog functionality on the Marketing Tab in your SpaBoom account
From the Marketing Tab, just click on “Blog Articles” in the left column
If you have not turned on Blog functionality yet, you will be prompted to “Enable Articles” – click Go to turn on the blog
Once you have turned on Blogging, you will see a list of articles
To create a new article, click on “Add Article” in the lower left hand column
You will be taken to the “Add Article” page, where you can create your article, add photos, and also schedule it to post to social media

That’s it. You’re blogging!

A blog is not only a great way to promote and grow your business. It is also a great opportunity to start a dialogue with your clients. Having a blog is a great way to bring more people to your website on a regular basis and to share information. And once they are at your website for that, it’s easy for them to check out all the services you offer, and call to make an appointment.

Need help getting your blog turned on and set up? Give our support team a call. We are always here to help.

Joy Of Spa News: The Many Faces Of Motherhood

April 11, 2014

Joy of Spa News: The Many Faces of Motherhood, our Mother’s Day 2014 edition, is ready to fly. As always, we encourage your tailoring the introduction to your liking.

Introduction:

Mothers, by their very nature, support and nurture others. Reminding them to take the time for self care, preserving their individuality, and embracing modern technology to help simplify the day-to-day is what this edition of Joy of Spa News is all about. Happy Mother’s Day! Team Joy

Our Mother’s Day edition of Joy of Spa News encourages mothers to find the time for consistent self care, for preserving their sense of individuality and well being, and to take full advantage of the miracle of modern technology as they manage the myriad of details each day presents. This edition will launch over a three day period, April 19th-21st, unless you’ve opted to change the date it goes out. Be sure to make any changes prior to that date! (And be sure to send yourself a test email after making any edits, and remember that Events that encompass the date on which your email is sent will be included in the email as well.)

Note: The articles that accompany this edition of the Joy of Spa News will appear magically in your test email, and in the real deal come April 19th.

Creating specials to accompany this edition of the Joy of Spa News will make it a no-brainer for your readers to respond immediately to the theme – rejuvenating, revitalizing and nurturing treatments – and enjoy your services! Remember, the Joy of Spa News is branded with your spa’s logo and when your client clicks to read more, the website is branded with your logo, too! Not yet signed up to send a beautiful, branded newsletter to your clients on a regular basis? Now is your time to get onboard! Go to Setup, Basics to put Joy of Spa to work for your spa. (As always, give us a call if you need help turning on the Joy!)

Connecting With Your Community

April 10, 2014

Charity feels good because it serves a need to help others while sharing our abundance. Just the process of reaching out and sharing nets another benefit as well – it connects us to our community and anchors us in very positive ways to an effort much larger than our own.

Connecting to community with your small business by providing services to a select group of community members can accomplish numerous ends, including securing your spa, salon, massage therapy or esthetician practice a very positive position within the local consciousness.

Benefits of providing pro bono services to a great cause:

Helping the charity you’ve chosen provide their members with much needed help.

You feel proud of sharing the benefits of the hard work you’ve done which means caring sharing is now possible.

Your staff feels increasingly connected to their community – a benefit that can engender loyalty, respect and support for your business as a result.

Your community feels that you’re giving back. They support you, you support their causes – it’s a beautiful circle where everyone wins.

What types of services would your local charities value?

Hair styling – Many shelters are helping their guests regain footing, literally and figuratively. Part of the rebuilding process means helping people feel good about themselves, wherever and whenever they find themselves.

Massage therapy – Finding anyone in the world who doesn’t need a soothing, rejuvenating and healthy massage would be nearly impossible. Providing such beneficial therapy to the less fortunate, the hospitalized, those working to re-establish a foundation in the community – helps to fortify and rebalance while allowing moments to safely enjoy the healing power of human touch.

Spa services of any type – Manis or pedis, makeovers, facials – all of these feel good and help to encourage a strong sense of self. Who doesn’t feel better with pretty fingers and toes, or skin that feels silky and glows after a lovely exfoliation and hydrating lotion?

You know what you do. You’ve worked hard to define your business, and to grow it and survive in spite of stormy economic weather during the last few years. Take a little time to contemplate where your services might fit into an established charity’s needs and get connected. It’s easier than you think, and once you have a starting point/event, you may be pleasantly surprised at how supportive your staff will be. After all, the need for connection is fundamental to humans. Being part of that in a workplace might just encourage staff to reach out in other ways in their private lives to help where they can.

It’s a beautiful circle where everyone benefits.

Good Leaders Develop Over Time

March 25, 2014

Are you lucky enough to have a mentor? If you are, you know how great it feels to have someone knowledgeable and experienced to guide you along your professional development path. You know that you can draw upon that amazing resource as you evolve and face challenges along the way. Mentors are gifts, and help give us confidence to find our own way, to become leaders and entrepreneurs and practiioners of many disciplines. I have been extremely fortunate in my career to have several extremely experienced, generous and insightful mentors who have shaped me and built my confidence and skills through the years. I am grateful for their patience and tutelage, and only now recognize how incredibly influential they have been in my professional development.

In an increasingly competitive and mobile workplace, however, mentors can be rare, which shouldn’t stop us from becoming the best leader we can be, because experience itself, hard work, a firm sense of self, and a dedication to continual improvement can provide the basis on which to build a successful career.

Experience – It pays to keep showing up day after day

Working long hours in your profession, reaching milestones, and overcoming development challenges will hone your abilities while you mature as a future leader. Malcom Gladwell, in Outliers, repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule,” claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. That equates to roughly 5 business years practicing your profession. Dogged persistence, patience and sheer tenacity go a long way to shaping an individual, one who can then impart that knowledge upon less experienced yet equally dedicated individuals as they make the trek from rookie to expert in a given arena.

Know thyslef, embrace thyself, to thine own self be true

You’ve seen the sayings, and unless you’re tuned into your more foundational tenets, you may not have given them a whole lot of credence. After all, catch phrases are everywhere and mean little, right? Well, maybe so, but only until they are relevant to you. And leaders who succeed, and in the process engender respect and loyalty in their colleagues and employees are those who have defined, and honor their true selves. The road to success is busy and full of distractions and an infinite number of ways to stray from simple, personal beliefs, but those who hold true to theirs have a much higher chance of becoming leaders that deserve respect – their own, and from others.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses as a leader is also very important. None of us are strong in every area, so recognizing early on where our true strengths lie allows for honest work in weak areas, and sometimes delegation of those aspects of our projects that others can, and will, handle much more adeptly and well. The ability to delegate, instead of ‘just handling it all ourselves,’ not only demonstrates self-awareness on our part, but allows others to grow skills and confidence in a larger group setting. It’s healthy to play to everyone’s strengths, and the end result is far superior, always. Delegation is also a time management component that can mean the focus is on producing the best result, not just protecting one’s ego by refusing to let go.

About the ego. Anyone who wishes to become a strong leader needs to embrace the greater good and let go of the ego as quickly as possible. Many, many bad decisions have been made throughout history by fearful, insecure leaders, and those decisions have often been to the detriment of their followers’ well being. Regardless of the setting – political, corporate, business, private – ego will interfere many more times than it will benefit the bigger effort. Does this mean lose your sense of passion and risk running out of steam to meet your leadership goals? No! It means be true to yourself, which, if you are dedicated to becoming a strong and compassionate leader, means letting go of that nasty little voice that always insists on being right, no matter what. That voice is short-sighted and seflish, and seldom supports the longer goal.

Most leaders take decades to develop, but knowing first that you wish to lead rather than follow others is the first step. The rest boils down to dedication, hard work, and keeping your eye on the long ball even when that feels impossible.

No Pressure, but It’s Your Content vs 27,000,000 Articles – Every Single Day

March 18, 2014

Your content matters more than ever. The quality. The focus. The voice. It all helps to differentiate you from the many other voices in your space. And in this time of information glut, that can be the difference between winning and losing the attention of your audience.

There is a new and controversial theory out there, Content Shock, defined by Mark Schaefer, that goes like this:

“The emerging marketing epoch defined when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it.”

Numbers speak, and what this phenomenon is describing is the unprecedented volume of content that is being generated every single day – 27,000,000 pieces of it. To put that in perspective, at the rate we are currently producing content, depending upon which study you choose to believe, we are doubling the web-available content every 9-24 months.

Take a second to digest what that implies.

Consumers, on the other hand, are quickly reaching a threshold of content saturation due to a finite amount of personal bandwidth, ie available waking moments in every day. They simply don’t have much more available processing space for new information.

For the first time in web history the supply of good (I know, relative term, but whether it’s good or bad content takes up space/bandwidth) content is greater than consumer demand. And from an economics standpoint, we all know that when supply exceeds demand, prices fall and other market forces kick in to adjust and re-balance the environment.

What can you do about this? Follow the guidelines we have shared since we began talking about content and the importance of generating solid, relevant, interesting and compelling reading for your audience. Given that you probably don’t want to read back through every article we have ever written on the subject, a summary follows:

Be your bad self. Now is the time to identify what makes you special as a business and groom that concept. Put it out there in your blog articles and social media posts. Find your very special voice, one that differentiates you from your competition and develop that until you become the local authority on what you care about.
Make influential friends. No we don’t mean you have do a House of Cards manipulation thing, that would be icky. But identifying a few players in your space that have a voice that resonates for a sizable group, then making friends with those players and asking them to contribute to your blog and offering up helpful expert tips and tricks that they may choose to incorporate in their work will go a long way to keeping your head above water in a choppy sea.
Create content that your audience will want to share. It’s no secret that when we read something of value, we tend to share it with others. I do it all the time because a good piece of content discussing a topic that matters to me and mine is worth sharing.
Don’t reinvent the wheel every time you need a piece of content. SpaBoom created our content system to intelligently leverage each and every piece of hard work you do. Write an article and you automatically generate two social media posts. Easily generate an email linking back to a blog article that you’ve written (that also contains a link to your instant gift certificates page – a transactional opportunity). Every time you sit down to create a piece of content, know that it can be sliced and diced and artfully applied in more than one place. One piece, many products.

You are in a unique position to really decide what you want your business to represent. Once you have nailed that let the message that works for that idea flow through every single piece of content you generate, from your website content to your service menu descriptions to your blog articles to your social media posts to your email marketing campaigns.

Competing in a noisy market isn’t for the feint of heart, but with some thought and careful planning you’ll be ahead of the competition if you take a deep breath, stay calm, and find your voice.

Marketing Lists – What They Are and Why You Should Use Them

March 13, 2014

Your email list is the most important tool in your marketing toolkit. There is no better way to connect with your clients, wherever they are and on their own time, than through email communications. But if you are only using one giant email list, then your email communications have to be one size fits all. And we all know that your clients are not all the same, so why send them all the same marketing?

Marketing lists allow you to break down your overall email list into subgroups, based on your clients’ different personas. You can then use these lists to send emails targeted specifically to their individual needs & wants rather than having just one blanket email that covers everyone.

So clients who are your top VIP clients can get emails geared to them, and so can those clients who only come in for specific services or have specific needs. Being able to target your email marketing to each of these groups will bring better results and make your clients more interested in reading your communications.

SpaBoom has the ability to create marketing lists built into our system, so you can create marketing lists and start targeting your client subgroups today.

Here’s how:

Go to the Marketing Tab:

Click on “Lists” in the left hand column to go to the Marketing Lists page
You will see all your current marketing lists
To add a new marketing list, click on “Add Marketing List” in the lower left column

From here, you can create a new marketing list:

Give your list a name
Choose a Type – this indicates when someone can be added to this list. They can either add themselves during the email signup process, or you can choose to keep the list internal, which means you control who gets added to a list
Choose a Parent – this is optional and refers to making this list a subgroup of another list
Click save and your list is ready to go
Now you just need to assign some clients to it

To assign clients to a list:

Go to the Clients tab
Pull up their client record
Check the marketing lists you want to add this client to (this is towards the bottom of the page)
Click save

Don’t forget that your client has to already be signed up for email marketing and have confirmed their signup in order for them to receive email communications. If the “send email marketing” box is not checked, their email signup is not complete and they will not receive email from you.

And that’s it! You are all set to start effectively targeting subgroups of your client list. Targeted marketing is proven to be more effective and lead to more interest, so why not start using it today?

Need help figuring out how to segment your overall email list into marketing lists? Or just a little bit of help setting things up? Give our team a call. We’re ready to help you utilize our effective marketing tools.

The 411 On Facebook’s Newest Marketing Tweaks

March 11, 2014

Marketing in the digital age means employing media in a multitude of ways. Social media is a prime example of one, and Facebook is a huge player within the social media arena whose algorithms change on an astonishingly regular basis.

Why should you care? Each time Facebook changes algorithms, the rules for using the social media venue to promote your business change a bit. Ignoring algorithmic adjustments means you’re shooting yourself in the marketing foot by losing visibility with your posts. We all know how much emphasis modern marketing strategy places on social media in the mix, and we encourage regular, creative posts. We encourage interaction with your followers vs throwing content out there and then forgetting it. This takes time, energy and effort, so losing any ground or not having your work seen by as many followers as possible is highly annoying and a precious resource drain as well.

Modern marketing requires flexibility and a commitment to uphold the implied promise you make when sharing pearls of wisdom – you need to invite response, and respond timely and consistently in order to nurture and encourage the trust required for solid relationships. Facebook’s latest tweaks to their EdgeRank algorithm determine who and how many see your company’s posts. In fact, you may already have noticed a decline in your business’ organic outreach since the newest adjustments were put in place in January.

What should you do? Since the changes are about both images and content, you’ll need to adjust how you’re handling both. First, with images, you need to use a very compelling image that draws your followers in and compels them to read the content that follows. With regard to content, fresh is best. You don’t have to write great volumes of compelling copy, but you should be consistent with interesting and relevant pieces that keep your followers coming back for more. Facebook values new content highly, which will translate to more eyes on your words which means more visibility for your business, which is kind of the point to begin with.

These are the biggies. Now go find some great images to accompany your well-written, regularly scheduled posts. And stand by for more updates – as we hear about them, we’ll share!

The Benefits of Having a SpaBoom Website

March 3, 2014

Your website is your store-front online. A place for your clients to check out your latest offerings, give you a call, and even make appointments right from the site. Our dynamic websites do so much for you everyday to make it easy to promote your business online, leaving you free to focus on running your business. But what exactly is a dynamic website and what makes it so special? Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of having a SpaBoom Dynamic Website.

The Beauty of Dynamic
A Dynamic website is one that is always changing and updating, offering your clients the most up to date information and offerings in real time. Using our powerful marketing engine, your website is automatically updated with your current promotions, features, and specials. No more worrying that you didn’t have time to change your specials once Valentine’s Day was over. Your dynamic website already made the necessary updates to feature your newest specials and active offers.

Making Changes to Your Website is Easy
Gone are the days when you needed to contact your web designer and wait for them to make the changes to your site. Your dynamic website is simple for you to edit and changes are seen immediately, the moment you make them in SpaBoom. You can easily change the content or swap out photos at the click of a button with no need to learn fancy coding. If you can edit a Word document, you can easily edit your website.

Changing Your Service Menu is Simple
Whether you are expanding your Service Menu to include new treatments, or need to remove the holiday packages until next year, SpaBoom makes it easy to do. Create a new service and it is instantly seen on your site. Hide an old package and it automatically disappears until you need it again. No more worrying that your clients might see something you no longer offer or are missing out on a new service that they can’t see online. On your dynamic website, your service menu is always up to date.

Search Engine Optimization is Built In
You hear about it a lot and about how important it is for your website and the Google ranking for your business. But you’re not sure quite what it is. Well, no problem, because your dynamic website is built from the ground up with SEO in mind. Your dynamic website is already taking care of it for you without you even having to think about it. From the way it targets your keywords, features current and updated content, and even lists you on Google Places, your website is taking full advantage of SEO and helping you build an even stronger online presence.

Your Website Looks Good on Mobile Devices
These days, people spend more time on their mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, than they do on their computers. So you want to make sure your website looks just as good and is just as user friendly on a mobile device as it is on a computer. No problem! Our Dynamic Website is automatically optimized to look and work great on mobile, allowing your clients to do everything from check out your service menu and specials to call you directly from your website or even make an online appointment.

Having a dynamic website sets you up for success from the very beginning. It’s an effective and powerful tool that allows you to communicate effectively with your clients, create a successful online presence, and focus on growing your business rather than worrying about your website.

Joy of Spa News: Looking Forward

February 20, 2014

Joy of Spa News: Looking Forward, now ready for you to customize, is complete as is, but you are always welcome to make it yours by playing with the introduction, which follows:

As Winter’s darkness begins to lift a tad, it’s time to focus on preparing the spirit, the body and the heart for warmer days to come. We’ve included tips for the bride-to-be, gifting ideas, treatments sure to enliven and rejuvenate, and great foods to enjoy that nourish and energize. Happy (almost) Spring, everyone! Team Joy

Our early Spring edition of Joy of Spa News offers up helpful sanity tips for the bride-to-be, provides helpful gifting ideas, discusses great modalities for preparing the body and spirit for the warmer weather to come, gives yummy food ideas and thoughts on nourishing our spirits as we emerge from deep Winter. This edition will launch over a three day period, February 23rd-25th, unless you’ve opted to change the date it goes out. Be sure to make any changes prior to that date! (And be sure to send yourself a test email after making any edits, and remember that Events that encompass the date on which your email is sent will be included in the email as well.)

Note: The articles that accompany this edition of the Joy of Spa News will appear magically in your test email, and in the real deal come February 23rd.

Creating specials to accompany this edition of the Joy of Spa News will make it a no-brainer for your readers to respond immediately to the theme – experiences vs just stuff – and enjoy your services! Remember, the Joy of Spa News is branded with your spa’s logo and when your client clicks to read more, the website is branded with your logo, too! Not yet signed up to send a beautiful, branded newsletter to your clients on a regular basis? Now is your time to get onboard! Go to Setup, Basics to put Joy of Spa to work for your spa. (As always, give us a call if you need help turning on the Joy!)

Surprise Treats Net Big Loyalty

February 19, 2014

Making people look and feel terrific is an art form that you have perfected. Our hats go off to everyone who chooses to spend their energies making the world feel better and simply shine with gorgeousness!

Engendering loyalty in your clients takes effort, as you well know. It means you not only meet, but exceed their expectations every time they come in for a service. It means your staff is professional and adept at what they do, that your facilities are inviting and nurturing, and that the services themselves meet the promise that you’ve made in your marketing and promotion.

Client loyalty is an interesting phenomenon, and one that requires continual attention to ensure. Sometimes going one step further is just the ticket for taking a client relationship from solid to ‘wow’ worthy.

Case in point, adding something special to your services. You don’t advertise these special somethings, in fact they don’t appear in writing anywhere- they just happen, and enrich the experience for your clients in the process.

My personal story along these lines is pretty simple, but honestly, I wouldn’t even consider leaving the relationship that my stylist and I enjoyed for many years as a result of their inclusion of an a.mazing neck massage, with aromatic oil, before every style. Cut, color, highlight, didn’t matter, they included it and for some reason I never thought about it until I was in the chair, often right after a hectic day at the office, and I felt myself relax into the soothing massage before I enjoyed a great style experience.

Every time I went in I felt the same way – that the five minutes they spent relaxing me transformed me from stressed out and anxious to relaxed, mellowed and ready for some pampering in the form of a great hair treatment.

How much did that cost my stylist? Very little. How much did that additional effort on that part gain them? Tons. I told everyone I knew about how amazing that simple treat felt, and in return my stylist enjoyed not only my deep loyalty but a considerable number of new clients as well.

What can you do to surprise your clients? What little thing can you provide that will reinforce the wonderfulness of what you do and permanently place you in the ‘irreplaceable’ category in your clients’ minds?

A little creativity and consistent follow through are all it takes to enjoy the benefits of happy, happy customers.

So, what’s your plan?