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    Time for a Tune Up Series

    September 9, 2014

    People working cogsIt’s that slower time of year, the calm before the storm of the holiday madness. Now is a great time to get your business tuned up so you’ll be ready for the wonderful craziness that the holiday season always brings. This article is part of our “Time for a Tune Up” series to help you tune up your business practices, get ready for the holidays, and think about your business and marketing strategies, both for the rest of this year and heading into 2015.It’s not too early to start thinking ahead, and now is the time to start preparing for even more success. But first, a bit of housekeeping.

    We are all in and out of our SpaBoom accounts fairly regularly, but how often do you stop and double check that all your information is correct and that everything is set up correctly. Take some time this week to check on the following information in your SpaBoom account (you can find it all under the Setup tab):

    • Check your contact information — You can find your contact information under the Setup Tab. From there, click on “Basics” in the left hand column. Make sure your address and phone number are correct.
    • Are your locations correct — If you have multiple locations, make sure they are correct as well. You don’t want to lose a sale because the wrong address is showing on your website or your second location is missing entirely. You can check those (& add new ones) under the Setup Tab, by clicking “Locations” in the left hand column.
    • Double check your hours — Make sure your hours are correct. This is also where you can go to change your hours if you start to run extended hours during the holiday season. You can check your hours by clicking on “Hours” in the left hand column under the Setup tab.
    • Who has access to SpaBoom — Double check who can access your SpaBoom account. Each person who has access to SpaBoom needs to have their own login. Nobody should be sharing one. By clicking on “Professionals” in the left hand column under the Setup tab, you can make sure your professionals are correct, add new ones, or delete old ones.
    • Are your services up to date — Review your service menu in SpaBoom to make sure it is up to date. You don’t want to go into the holiday season with old services that you no longer offer, or new services missing from the menu entirely. You can check your services by clicking on “Services” under the Setup tab.
    • Take a look at your gift certificate designs — We are updating and adding to our gift certificate design library all the time. But if you don’t go in and check the offerings, you will never see the new designs. Take a moment to check what designs you are currently offering and see if there are any additional designs you would like to add. You can check your gift certificate designs by clicking on “GC Designs” under the Setup tab.

    Take some time today and double check that all of this information in your SpaBoom account is correct and up to date. It will save you lots of time and hassles down the road.

    That’s it for today’s tune up. Be sure to keep an eye out for the rest of the articles in our Time for a Tune Up series, as we help you get ready for the holidays and the new year.

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    Filed under: General, Salon Marketing, Spa Business Management, Spa Marketing, Spa Technology

    Building Brand Advocates

    August 20, 2014

    CRMSuccessful marketing is, first and foremost, about building relationships. Building a good relationship with your clients can turn them into advocates for your brand, increasing your reach and helping you to build a solid reputation and business through referrals.

    But creating brand advocates takes time and effort to not only build that client relationship but to nurture it. Here are some effective ways to build a relationship with your clients and help turn them into brand advocates for your business.

    Deliver Good Customer Service
    I say it all the time. Good Customer Service is the foundation of every successful business. Every experience your clients have with you should be a positive and well delivered one. From the moment they first visit your website or Facebook page, call to make an appointment (or book one online), or walk through your front door to receive their service, every moment is an opportunity to deliver a positive, and consistent, experience to your clients. That should always be the first step in building a relationship with your client. Before a client can become a brand advocate, they have to be happy with their personal experiences with your business. And if they are happy with your business, they’ll go out and tell all their friends about you.

    Keep Your Clients Engaged
    Keep your clients engaged on a regular basis via social media, your blog, or in email. Different people want contact in different ways, so make sure you are covering all the bases. Give them content that is interesting to them (and most definitely more than just promos or specials). Offer them expert advice, ask them questions that encourage feedback and interesting discussions, or share information about what is going on with your business and your staff. If you set yourself up as a trusted resource, your clients will start to view you as an expert, and they’ll tell all their family and friends about you as well.

    Focus On Your Clients
    Your clients know what they want and need from your business. So take some time out regularly to focus on what your clients need or want from your business. Regularly ask them for feedback and really listen to what they have to say. Then act on it in whatever ways work best for both your business and your clients’ needs. If your clients feel like you really care about what they think and what their needs are, they are not only going to be happier, but they’re going to go out and share that with their network of people.

    It’s not a huge leap from happy customer to brand advocate. Many of the things you do everyday to help grow a successful business are the same things that can help turn happy clients into advocates for your brand. But it does require a concerted, genuine, and focused effort on your part. Building and maintaining good relationships with your clients is key to creating a successful brand, and satisfied clients who are happy to advocate on your behalf with their family and friends.

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    Filed under: Creating Customers, Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

    Finding Your Brand’s Voice

    August 8, 2014

     Young girl shouting into megaphone and text come out
    We all have a voice. It represents who we are as individuals. Your brand has a voice as well, based on its personality and style, and it is important for it to be a consistent voice. But, just like you don’t speak the same to everyone in our daily lives, you don’t want your brand to do so either. And that is where tone comes into play. While your voice is always a consistent one, tone changes based on both the situation and the person you are speaking to.

    So let’s talk a little bit about finding your brand’s voice first and then we’ll focus on determining tones.

    Your voice represents who you are as an individual. For your brand, it will represent who & what your brand is. What that voice sounds like will depend on what your brand’s personality is, and we’ve already discussed creating a personality for your brand. It represents your style and helps your brand stand out in the sea of competitors. Finding your brand’s voice goes hand in hand with finding your brand’s personality, and so the same questions will come into play again:

    • Describe your business or brand with one adjective. Is it luxurious, trendy, hip, upscale, contemporary, etc?
    • What is the spirit of your brand? If you had to define the essence of your business in one word, what would you choose?
    • If your brand was a person, how would you describe him/her?
    • Who is your audience?
    • How do you want people to feel about your brand?

    Once you’ve defined your brand personality and voice, it’s time to think about tone. Tone is very distinct from voice and probably the most important part of communications with your clients. You would not use the same tone to speak to your three year old as you would to speak to a business leader in your community. And your brand should not be using the same tone for everyone either.

    Tone is tailored to the specific situation and individual to whom you are speaking. It is the single most important thing for making your communications not only feel authentic, but also empathic. Hit the right tone with your clients and you will come across as not only relatable, but also like you fully understand not only where they are coming from, but also what they need.

    Determining your different demographics is the most effective way to determine what your different tones should be. So take some time to think about the different demographics of your business and the differing situations in which you need to communicate with different groups of clients. Your communications with your VIP clients should sound very different in tone than the communications with your summer Teen Spa  clients. But your brand personality and voice should shine through to both groups.

    Defining your brand’s voice and tone is the single best way to humanize your brand. This means you can better communicate with your clients (& potential clients) and makes it easier to start and maintain a conversation with them. Nail those two things and you are well on your way to building a relationship with your clients.

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    Filed under: Salon Marketing, Spa Business Management, Spa Marketing

    Creating A Personality For Your Brand

    August 7, 2014

    One in a millionBrand Identity and Personality are distinct but closely related. Your brand identity is the visual image you create to communicate with your clients, including your logo, color scheme, or other repeating visual details. It is anything that your client (or potential client) sees that allows them to visually identify your business as distinct from your competition. Your brand personality is the emotional association that a client (or potential client) experiences when they think of your brand or see your logo. Personality helps create the emotions your client (or potential client) feels when they think of your brand or see your logo, as if they are thinking of a person rather than just a brand.

    Knowing your brand personality can help determine how you communicate with your clients and how your business stands out in the community, especially compared to your competitors. Brand identity makes you recognizable. Brand personality makes you relatable.

    Having a brand personality ensures that your communications will all look and feel like they are coming from the same place. It also allows you to be a storyteller and to become a business that people want to get to know better. People will always be more eager to speak about “a someone” rather than “a something”. By giving your brand a personality that comes across as more authentic in communications, you’ll get your clients excited and they’ll want to talk about you with their family and friends.

    But how do you figure out what your brand personality is? Here are a few questions to consider when creating (or discovering) your brand personality.

    • Describe your business or brand with one adjective. Is it luxurious, trendy, hip, upscale, contemporary, etc?
    • What is the spirit of your brand? If you had to define the essence of your business in one word, what would you choose?
    • If your brand was a person, how would you describe him/her?
    • Who is your audience?
    • How do you want people to feel about your brand?

    These questions should start to give you an idea about what the personality of your brand looks like. From there you can start to craft a personality to represent your brand.

    Once you have created your brand personality, now is the time to cultivate it through your social media interactions, your blog, and your email marketing. It is a powerful social media tool for creating a relationship with your clients and for attracting the type of clients you really want. Don’t forget that brand personality is about the emotional association your clients feel when they see your logo or think about your brand. It is more about fostering a relationship with your clients rather than them just being able to identify your logo.

    By having a strong brand personality, your clients will start to feel more like they have a personal relationship with your brand rather than just recognizing and liking your business. It gives your clients someone to talk about rather than just a brand. And that makes it much easier for them to become an advocate for your brand.

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    Filed under: Creating Customers, Salon Marketing, Spa Business Management, Spa Marketing

    Creating A Strong Brand Identity

    August 5, 2014

    Fingerprint green treeYour brand is so much more than just a logo or a name. It is a representation of what your business is and the experience you provide through your products and services. Your brand helps to differentiate you from other businesses in your area.

    Brand management is the analysis and planning of your brand in your market, including planning out how to focus on your target demographic & how to maintain a good reputation for your brand. Knowing how to effectively manage your brand is key in this economy to ensure that your business continues to flourish.
    But how do you make sure your brand is effective? Let’s take a look at some of the key things to consider when creating and managing your brand identity.

    Develop a Personality and Image for your Brand
    Your brand elicits emotions in your clients (both current and potential) when they see it. What sort of ideas and emotions do you want your brand to convey? An easier way to think about it is this: If your brand was a person, how would you describe their personality? Relaxed, luxurious, pampering, trendy, etc? From there, you can start to think about what your vision is for the brand and what your long-term goal is. In other words, what is your mission statement for your business and who is your target audience? All of these things put together help you develop the personality for your brand.

    Create a Memorable Logo and Tag Line
    Your logo is the most effective tool in building visual recognition for your brand. So take some time and effort to make it the most effective logo you can. Once you have developed the personality or image for your brand, creating a logo is the next step. Working with a graphic designer for this step can help you create the most powerful logo & color story to go with it. But don’t just stop there. Make sure that all of your communications with clients contain your logo and the color story drawn from that logo. Whether it is your website, social media, email communications, or even your collateral such as flyers, signage, or business cards, make sure your logo and color story carry throughout. Being consistent in your color story and logo will make your brand much more recognizable, and therefore more memorable.

    Develop a Voice for your Brand
    Developing a voice for your brand, one that matches your brand image, is the number one way to come across as authentic in your communications. You want your voice to reflect the personality and image of your brand. For instance, a luxury spa will have a very different voice than a trendy nail salon. By matching the voice of your brand to the personality and image of your business, your communications will come across much more effectively. This helps to tie your communications into your brand identity and makes your brand, and your business, much more relatable and recognizable.

    Creating a powerful brand and managing it effectively is key to distinguishing yourself in the marketplace. It can help to focus your business and makes you more recognizable to clients (both current and prospective). It also gives you a strong foundation upon which to leverage and grow your business.

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    Filed under: Creating Customers, Salon Marketing, Spa Business Management, Spa Marketing

    3 Healthy Marketing Habits To Start Tomorrow

    July 18, 2014

    3 StarsYou work so hard to build your business and you want to help it continue to grow. Here are 3 healthy marketing habits you can start today to help you strengthen and grow your business in this economy.

    Provide Excellent Customer Service
    First and foremost, you want to make sure your clients are receiving excellent customer service every single time they interact with your business. From trying to find something on your website, to speaking to someone on the phone when they call, or the actual experience they have when they come in to make a purchase or receive a treatment, every interaction is an opportunity to build your relationship through stellar customer service. It should be the foundation of your business and an important part of staff training. Providing excellent customer service is the greatest indication of future success. It also allows you to build a relationship with your clients and that can make them even more loyal.

    Be Consistent with your Branding/Marketing
    Whether it is at your physical location, on your website, or via social media or email, make sure that your clients are receiving a consistent message with consistent branding. Make sure your logo is used across all communications. Clients are often much more comfortable with a uniform recognizable format to your blog posts or email communications. That way, they know as soon as they see it in their inbox that it is from you.

    Maintaining a consistent message across all social media platforms makes your message even more powerful. This is not to say that every single place should have exactly the same format. A twitter message is very different from a blog post or a longer message on Facebook. But they should all boil down to a consistent overall message across all platforms.

    By being consistent, you make yourself more recognizable. And by being more recognizable, your clients start to feel more familiar and comfortable with your business overall.

    Analyze Your Marketing
    You put a lot of time and effort into coming up with your marketing campaigns and then promoting them in-house and via social media, email, and your website. But many people spend all their time coming up with marketing and leave little time to analyze what worked and what didn’t. And that is a big mistake. If you don’t take the time to figure out what is working and why, you’re just wasting a lot of your marketing time, energy, and dollars. So run statistics on what promo gift certificates are redeemed the most. Pay attention to your stats on Facebook and your website to see what posts are the most viewed or have the most responses.

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    Filed under: Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

    3 Secrets To Successful Promotions

    July 11, 2014

    Gold keyPromotions can be an effective way to build your business. A good promotion creates buzz and can help bring in new clients or introduce your regular clients to new services. A great promotion allows you to do the same without costing your bottom line.

    But a mistake many of us make is that we don’t devote enough time and thought to designing our marketing strategy and planning out our promotions over the course of the year. We get caught up running our business and leave planning of promotions to the last minute, which can lead to lost opportunities and promos that just aren’t effective.

    A little bit of planning goes a long way. Set aside some time to lay out your marketing plan and plan out your promotions for the next year. Identify promo opportunities, such as holidays, local events, and specific times of the year, that might otherwise slip through the cracks if you wait until the last minute. Having a plan in place allows you to maximize your resources and gives you more lead-time to design effective promotions. Creating a plan also gives you the opportunity to revisit it regularly to review what is and is not working and then make changes to improve it.

    This is also a great time to involve your staff. Utilize their creativity & expertise when putting together the plan. Successful promos will come from having a staff that not only understands the purpose behind why the promotion is being offered, but also feels like they had a stake in coming up with the ideas.

    Here are three key things to think about when planning promotions.

    What is the purpose of this promotion?

    Promotions can have a number of purposes depending on the needs of your business at any given time. Targeting the focus of your promos allows you to drive your customers to do what you want them to do. The most common reasons to have a promotion are to:

    • bring in new business
    • create value incentives
    • feature a person, product, or service
    • boost business during slow hours, days, or months

    Who is your audience?

    Knowing your audience allows you to tailor the promotion to meet their needs and expectations.

    • Are you offering this promotion to your entire email list or just to a select group like your VIPs?
    • Perhaps you are looking to bring in new business

    Figuring out your target audience allows you to design a promotion that fits their wants while fulfilling your business needs.

    What is the incentive?

    Incentive is the piece of your promotion that encourages your audience to do something. In this case, it is to take advantage of your promotion. The most common incentives are:

    • Price savings – offering a service for a discounted amount or bundling it into a package deal
    • Value-added offers – offering add-ons to a purchase, such as extra services or a gift with purchase
    • Coupons – a percentage or dollar discount

    When considering the incentive, be sure to take into account how the incentive will affect your bottom line. A successful promotion has an incentive that makes both the client and you winners.

    So you’ve created & run what you hoped was a successful promotion and now it’s over. Now is the time to you go back and evaluate the effectiveness of your promo. Some questions to ask:

    • Did the promo successfully meet the purpose?
    • Did we get the expected response from our target audience?
    • Did the promo bring in more money than it cost to run?

    This is the perfect opportunity to figure out what worked and what didn’t work and use that information when creating future promotions.

    By taking some time to create a marketing plan, and then devoting just a little bit of time on an on-going basis to evaluate and update that plan, you are setting yourself up to run successful promotions designed to help you grow a successful business.

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    Filed under: Creating Customers, Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

    Using Collateral To Manage Your Brand

    July 9, 2014

    Code EyesBrand identity is so important when putting together any sort of marketing or communication for your clients. You always want to make sure that you are including your logo and that it is consistently presented across all platforms. From your website, to emails, social media platforms, and even in your business, making sure you have a consistent brand identity not only makes you more recognizable, but can also make you feel more familiar to your clients.

    SpaBoom provides you with many powerful tools to allow you to manage your brand and market it effectively. One of the most powerful modules for doing this in your business is our Collateral module.

    The Collateral module of your SpaBoom account makes it easy for you to create and print comment cards, email signup forms, and even signs or promo inserts for all your marketing needs. We’ve already put several different beautiful designs into your SpaBoom account. And the best part: your logo is automatically included when the collateral is created, helping you maintain and grow your brand identity throughout all those communications with your clients.  All you need to do is choose the design you like and print it out. Here’s how:

    • Click on the Marketing Tab and then select collateral from the left hand column.
    • You will see a list of templates with names like “4 per page: BEVELED, TOP Logo, with 
gift offer”. These are just names for slightly different layouts.
    • Click on one to take you to the “Edit Collateral Piece” page. On this page you can make 
minor adjustments to the paper size and the format (how large each piece will print). If you make a change to either of these, don’t forget to click “Save” before you print or review your collateral.
    • Want to see what your collateral will look like? Click on the link at the bottom that says “Print or view your collateral piece (PDF). This opens up the collateral and lets you see what it actually looks like.
    • When the pdf is open, you can choose to print it to your printer in the office right there. OR, you can save the pdf to your computer and then send it off to your regular print shop.

    It’s as easy as that! Collateral is a great way to promote feedback and interaction with your clients at the perfect moment: when they’re standing in your business.

    It is also a great tool for managing your brand identity and a great way to easily create and print out signage for sales you’re having or inserts for upcoming promotions to include in the bag with any purchases, all with your logo included in the design. Why not get started today?

    Need help editing or creating a new piece of collateral? Give our support team a call. We are always happy to help!

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    Filed under: Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

    Are You Fully Harnessing The Power Of Local Search?

    June 18, 2014

    Keeping up to date onlineDeveloping a strong online and social media presence has become critical to competing in the modern business universe. SpaBoom was founded on the premise that not only being online, but being innovative, interactive, creative and effective out there are really the point of the online exercise.

    Driving traffic into your brick and mortar via your website and social media interactions remains the goal, as does developing a strong, trusted brand that evolves constantly with your audience expectations. Again, the measure of success is nurturing relationships and enjoying the financial benefits of doing so.

    One of the big challenges we all face is not just developing our websites and social media presence, but in fact garnering an audience to see how innovative and creative and interactive we are – without being found we’re like sailboats adrift in an endless, windless sea just hoping for a stiff breeze.

    The local search and online recognition playing field is full now, with a litany of names coming immediately to mind – Google, Bing, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube and FourSquare, to name a few. We’ve encouraged you to claim your identity, to always keep your business information current, and to avail yourselves of any additional features that make sense for a small business wishing to promote itself. The importance of current business information has never been greater – your audience expects to be able to find you not just with specific searches of your name, but also with categorical searches in your area which means you need to ensure your listings and keyword criteria meet those needs.

    One of the most interesting recent additions to the search formula is geo-location. Smart phones are where most searches initiate, with iPads and other personal devices close behind. I was reminded of just how important considering the geo piece is when describing one’s service location when I saw yet another Google Maps car driving around the other day – how cool is it for someone to simply click on an address that provides a detailed map to your brick and mortar business? Technology has made big strides when it comes to ease of being seen, found, and for your audience to pinpoint you with broader searches.

    The onus, then, remains for you to know where you’re visible online and keep that information cutting edge current 24/7. The key is constant vigilance, and remembering that you’re building relationships, not sending out a telegram of information from time to time.

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    Filed under: Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

    Do You Market Wellness?

    May 27, 2014

    Clearing the tension and negative thoughts from her headAs trained professionals, you have become adept at observing, closely, your clients’ hair, skin, and bodies. Identifying when something just isn’t right, or isn’t as it should be, comes with the territory. Sharing that information with your clients in a non-medical advice way can deepen your relationship and add a level of credibility that you might not have felt existed.

    Case in point?

    Lovely tresses provide a psychological boon, and simply make us feel well kept as well as stylish. Hair also speaks of overall health. Dry, brittle hair may point to a need to supplement and add nutritional elements that a person may be lacking. Loss of hair, depending upon where the loss is, how severe the loss may be, and when it occurs, may point to deeper health concerns that require medical support to address.

    Massages support overall wellness, reduce stress, faciliate lymphatic movement and support a healthy lifestyle.

    Regular pedicures can not only beautify the tootsies, but can also support healthy feet. Preventing ingrown toenails, softening and reducing callouses, providing foot massage which not only feels heavenly but also reduces stress and calms the mind..these are a few of the benefits.

    Professional aesthetics help in the fight with age, provide a way to identify any skin changes that may deserve an appointment with a dermatologist, and make us feel fabulous. How can a smooth, soft complexion NOT improve a person’s day?

    The wellness benefits of regular hair, body and skin care are extensive. Historically the focus has been on the pampering and more superficial enjoyment that comes from good care in these areas, and really, that is great. But there’s more, and it’s deeper.

    Do you market the wellness benefits of your services? If you don’t, you should. Not doing so means you’re missing out on a way to position your services as not only feel good, but beneficial on a deeper level. From a competitive standpoint, being seen as not just providing the fluffy stuff, but actually imbuing health and wellness into treatments will encourage deeper client loyalty and prevent casual straying. Positioning as an expert that gets all aspects of hair, body and skin treatments will engender trust and help foster client retention.

    And retention, unless it’s water (which, interestingly enough could be reduced with lymphatic massage!), is a good thing.

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    Filed under: Creating Customers, Salon Marketing, Spa Marketing

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