April 2018 - Wynne Business | Spa Consulting and Education

Ten Spa Email Marketing Best Practices

With all of the buzz around social media, email marketing may not get as much attention as it used to from spa marketers. But spa email marketing still has many compelling things going for it. Here are a few persuasive statistics on email usage:

44% of consumers made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email they received.
91% of consumers use email at least once a day.
For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25.
When asked which medium they prefer to receive updates from, 90% of consumers prefer an email newsletter.

The challenge is that your customers’ inboxes are already overflowing with marketing emails from all kinds of businesses. This requires that you be strategic about cutting through the clutter. Here are 10 spa email marketing best practices to follow when developing your email strategy and content.

Ask permission. Don’t randomly add new clients to your email marketing list—ask them to opt-in. Otherwise, you run the risk of clients marketing your messages as spam. If you receive too many complaints, your internet service provider (ISP) may start blocking all of your messages.
Make it compelling. Asking clients to “sign up for emails” isn’t a very good hook. But inviting them to “sign up for exclusive news and offers” is a lot more enticing. Let prospects know how often you’ll be emailing them (monthly is usually good) and what kinds of content you’ll be sending.
Make signups easy. If you want clients to join your list, you need to make it easy. You can have a signup form right on the homepage of your website, include a signup tab on your Facebook page, and even post a paper sign-up list at your front desk. You may even give someone extra loyalty points for signing up on the spot.
Be mobile friendly. Mobile usage continues to grow at an astounding rate; some studies say that almost half of all emails are now opened on mobile devices. Your email template must be responsive—that is, designed in a way that it’s easy to read on both desktops and mobile devices.
Invest in subject lines. The email you carefully craft will go to waste if it never gets opened. The key to getting your readers’ attention is a great subject line. Experts recommend subject lines under 50 characters, with limited use of capital letters and symbols. One new trend is towards very brief subject lines, 10 characters or less, that really stand out. It’s a smart idea to test a couple of versions for each mailing to see which performs best.
Provide value. Make sure your emails are informative and useful to the reader. For example, your monthly newsletter could include recipes, beauty advice, and industry news they won’t want to miss, in addition to special offers for services and products.
Segment your list. You’re already collecting information about your clients’ preferences. Using that information to segment your list will allow you to target your messages to a specific group of readers. For example, you send a special offer on facials to clients who have previously had facials with your business, or extend a discount on a specific product line to clients who have purchased that brand in the past. The more relevant and specific your content is, the higher your results will be.
Test your send times. In general, emails tend to have higher open and clickthrough rates on the weekends or later in the afternoon. As with subject lines, try testing your email send times to see which day of the week and time of day yields the best results for your clients.
Use a consistent voice. Readers expect a consistent experience with your brand, and that applies to your emails, too. Having one person in charge of communications and a strong brand voice will cut down on ambiguity and help reinforce your spa’s “personality” with clients.
Make opting-out easy. Not only is it the law, it’s also a good business practice to make it easy for clients to stop receiving your emails. Its okay to ask them why, but don’t make them feel guilty. Spend that energy on making your communications so interesting and compelling that no one wants to opt out!

The Bottom Line

Don’t sound the death knell for email marketing yet! It’s still a highly effective way to communicate with customers and drive repeat visits to your spa. Make sure to use email marketing judiciously and follow the guidelines above, and you’ll start to see success with your campaigns.

Email marketing is a valuable component of your spa marketing plan. If you want to create a powerful marketing plan to grow your spa business, talk to us. Schedule a free 30-minute needs assessment here.

This post appeared first on the Booker Blog.

Client Retention: How to Keep your Spa Clients Coming Back for More.

Not having client retention tactics in place is like having a boat with a hole in it that you refuse to patch. What is your spa’s client retention rate?

You’ve got great spa services! Don’t forget to create a strategy to keep your spa clients coming back.

You’ve gone through a lot of trouble to create a wonderful spa environment. Your spa is beautifully decorated, your staff is well-trained, and your marketing plan is bringing in new clients. It costs a lot to keep that cycle going.

Did you ever think about how you could offset those costs if you could improve the retention rate of your existing clients?

Think about how the mobile phone companies have all of those great offers for NEW clients. Yet you have paid them a huge chunk of change every month for the last five years, and what do you get for that?

Pretty much nothing.

Your spa’s clients may be feeling the same way: unappreciated. Especially in a spa environment, where building a rapport with guests is key to success, there must be a plan in place to keep guests returning to your spa, instead of sending them to the numerous competitors that you may have. Here are a few proven tactics.

Implement a guest welcome strategy for your spa.

The first thing to do is have a plan to welcome new guests into your “family,” and make them feel special. Your spa software should allow you to flag appointments of new guests in a particular way, but unless your staff is aware and taking action, nothing will happen. Train everyone, not just customer service staff, to take special care of new guests; show them around the facility, go out of your way to say hello, smile, ask if they need anything. Use their name as often as possible and appropriately.

When the new guest checks-out, your retention-building efforts should swing into action. Studies have shown that the likelihood that a guest will continue to do business with you increases exponentially on and after their third visit to the facility. A yoga studio that I frequent has this down to a science; at the conclusion of the first class a new student completes, they are presented with an envelope with their name on it, containing information on the studio, the class schedule, and a voucher that allows them to take unlimited classes for the ensuing week for a set price of $25 (regular drop-in rate is $17). For cost-conscious consumers, like the friend that I brought with me last week, that is a compelling deal.

My friend went back the next day and will go again within the week, and therefore she is much more likely to continue to frequent the studio. The key is striking while the iron is hot. For spas, a similar offer would be to give new guests a voucher for a promotionally-priced service on their next visit, and perhaps an even larger promotion on a service or retail item for the third visit – and those next two visits should be within a six-week period.

A client who visits the spa three times in a year doesn’t help the business as much as someone who comes three times in two months, so make sure you put an end-date on promotions.

Add new clients to your spa communication channels.

After that first visit, when the client has been welcomed into the spa family, be sure to add their email address to your database, after getting their permission. Let them know that you only send a monthly newsletter with special promotions for existing clients only and that you never share your list, and you should not have trouble getting them to participate.

Loyalty or rewards programs are another excellent way to encourage clients to consolidate their purchasing with your spa business. Let them earn points for each purchase, whether services or products; 10 or 100 points to the dollar spent is typical. Look at what a “good” client spends in a year, and set a threshold for the redemption of those points, say after they’ve amassed 7000 points, which would likely be after about six visits. You can also use the points as leverage to encourage specific behaviors; double points on Tuesdays, or for appointments before 11 am, for example.

Social media provides the perfect way to continue a dialogue with your guests, well after their service has been rendered; frequent posts or polls on Facebook, compelling imagery or recipes on Pinterest, and fun photos of happenings at the spa on Instagram keep guests engaged at the level that they choose; just be sure not to inundate them.

Schedule your client’s next spa appointment before they leave this one.

When the guest checks out the first day, with their Welcome Bundle, that is the time to ask them if you can book their next treatment before they leave your spa. Pre-booking is an activity that can also carry reward points to encourage participation, and it develops that beneficial habit in your guest.

You’ve heard the statistics; it costs 7 to 8 times more to snare a new client than it does to keep an existing one. Imagine if every client you serviced in a week made a return appointment; you would be able to put a lot less money and energy into prospecting for new clients. This is doubly beneficial since “regular” clients know how it works at your spa. They do not need a lot of hand-holding or client care, and so, not only do they bring in more revenue but they cost you less, as well.

If you put some of these efforts into place throughout your spa, you will certainly see a client retention rate that is steadily increasing, along with your bottom line.

For more ideas, read Guest Checkout That Maximizes Retail and Retention.

Spa Services Pricing Strategies: Are you leaving money on the table?

When it comes to spa operations, one thing that I think is often taken for granted is the service menu. Often with spa services pricing treatments are priced and listed, and then no one looks at it for a couple of years. But how would you feel if a restaurant you frequented NEVER had anything new or different to offer? A little menu re-engineering is in order on a regular basis, so that neither your customers nor your staff gets too bored with what you are offering.

The recessionary environment has somewhat faded, but it was an important wakeup call for many spas. The treatments and products that we offer are not essentials, and consumers are still very careful with their discretionary dollars. Retail sales average increases of about 3% each year, consistent with what they’ve averaged for the last 10 years. In other words, not a lot. And yet, we still have to make sure that we do raise spa prices occasionally, just to avoid lulling our customers into thinking they’ll never change. And the fact is, the treatment menu should be a major sales tool.

Spa Services Pricing – Strategic Change is Good

First, consider the “what” that comprises your menu. It can be helpful to run a sales report for the previous year, and consider eliminating any treatments that you sold less than, say, 25-30 of. That’s only one every other week, obviously not a big seller. Clearing out a menu item makes room for another that may have better turnover, or margin, or both.

If you haven’t raised prices in a couple of years, it is likely time to examine the current environment and weigh your opportunities. Begin by creating a spreadsheet listing your competitors and their prices on basic services, and add yours to it. You want to be able to see at a glance where your price for a basic facial or 60-minute Swedish Massage lies in comparison to others in your area. Look more closely at spas or salons in your competitive set, but don’t neglect massage studios and facial clinics – they’re competing for your customer too. Make sure that your prices are consistent with your position in the marketplace, whether you are you a high-end facility, value-priced, or somewhere in the middle.

Once your ideal ranges are created, you can consider raising prices on a few specific treatments. For now, if you are adding services to the menu, since they are new you can set them at the high end of the range you want to create. Avoid raising prices on all of your treatments at one time, this can have a greater negative impact on clients who typically enjoy 2 or 3 different services. Try raising some nail prices in the spring, and perhaps bring up a few facials or massages in the fall. And by the way, there is no law that your prices need to end in “0” or “5”! Try pricing some treatments in a more random way; $68, $76, $83. This probably looks more realistic to a client than having symmetrical pricing.

Remember, if your clients never say your prices are too high, they’re not quite high enough. Don’t price yourself out of your market, but make sure you charge what you are worth.

Delving Deeper into Menu Logistics

It’s helpful to enter the entire contents of your existing menu into an excel spreadsheet, which makes it easy to view and manipulate your data. Plus, you can use the spreadsheet to create treatment rate or commission tables for your compensation plan at another time. Group services together by department; looking at your menu in this more abstract way makes it easier to determine retail prices for services. Once you’ve created the spreadsheet, re-order the services, and make sure to start with the highest-priced item, and let the others fall into place in order of price, ending with the least expensive. Spa menus always seem to start with the lowest priced service in a category, and most clients don’t read any further. Show me a sales report in which 80% of the facials performed are the entry-level facial, and I don’t need to see the menu to know it is presented in this way. Starting with the higher priced items will likely encourage clients to read more about their options; they may settle on a service priced somewhere in the middle, but not as low as the entry-level price.

Support for Upselling

Next, and perhaps most importantly, consider your technician compensation plan. If your plan emphasizes performance metrics such as average ticket, does your menu provide the structure to make upselling of services easy? I recently encountered a service menu with no facials priced between $85 and $135 – that’s too big a jump for 90% of your clients, who will all stick with the less expensive option. If your price structure on facials is $85, $93, $98, $103, and $112, and you add in a menu of micro treatments priced from $8 to $22, you’ll be able to find the sweet spot for any customer and give multiple upselling options to your staff. When the service providers have a menu that supports upselling, they are more likely to practice with every client, and they will be transformed from order-takers to sales creators.

For more help with spa retail strategies, watch our short video about the positive side effects or spa retailing.

This post appeared first at spastandard.com.

The Importance of Branding Your Spa

Do you have a readily available “elevator speech” when asked to describe your spa business?

Are those few sentences capturing the essence of your brand?

In a crowded market, the importance of branding your spa is paramount in maintaining your market share. If you have not invested time or effort in carefully crafting your spa’s brand message, it’s not too late to start.

What sets your spa business apart from your competition?

It’s the intangibles such as your reputation, your client care, and the way your spa connects with clients. These are components of your spa brand that are the cornerstones of any marketing efforts but are too often after-thoughts in the development of a spa business.

Sure, your treatment menu offers facials, massages and body treatments, but so do many others. Sell retail products? Check. Use high-quality skin and body products? Check. With so much competition available for discretionary dollars to be spent in the spa, and with so many spas bombarding clients with marketing messages, it has never been more important for your spa brand to have a clear identity that stands out from the crowd.

The goal of branding your spa is to attract the right clients.

Your goal with strong branding is not to attract all clients – it’s to attract the right clients, who relate to your brand and the way you do business. This deeper connection does more to keep clients coming to you than fancy décor or staff training programs can, because it connects them to your meaningful purpose. But in order to know what you “stand for,” that has to be clearly articulated at many different touch points.

For example, let’s imagine that your original intent was to create a spa business based on holistic health. You would carefully select a name for the spa that communicated your concept; maybe something like Spa 360, emblematic of a continuous circle. You would have a logo designed that would likely incorporate some sort of circular graphic, to reinforce the concept visually. You would want to make sure that your emails and your receipts have your logo printed on them. You would likely choose a plant-based product manufacturer that offered options that were organic, as opposed to something packed with chemicals and artificial preservatives.

You would develop a compensation plan for your staff that had components such as a contribution to health care coverage, and paid time off, to ensure their health and wellbeing. Your website will probably have a tab for “community,” where you can share a calendar of upcoming events that are important to your clients. These are decisions that support the meaning behind your spa brand; in and of themselves, they are not significant, but they add up to a sum greater than the total of the parts. The feel of the brand that you create resonates with your target client, and that is why they continue to do business with you.

Spa branding should be a constant component of your operations.

Once you have breathed life into your spa brand, that identity must continue to be nurtured and evolved, and should be a constant component of your operations and marketing plans. Take a look around your spa; is your brand personality clear? The colors and ambiance should, at least subtly, reference the brand identity. Internal signage, retail wrap packaging, staff uniforms, and printed collateral such as menus and other marketing materials, all should share the look and feel of the spa brand you are striving to create.

The same holds true for your external and internal client communications; invest some time and energy creating e-blast and newsletter templates that reflect the brand personality. Although the look and feel of these materials is the more immediately obvious reference, a strong brand connection has to go deeper. Back to our example of the holistic spa, used above; your monthly e-newsletter would include educational and informational bits, such as introductions of new staff members, an article highlighting a community event that your staff participated in, and perhaps a recipe for a healthy, easy make-at-home soup, as well as product and service sales promotions.

As you grow, you may branch off into different directions.

It’s important to be aware that brands change and evolve over time; even if you did have a major premise and set of core values at the center of your spa personality, as the business grows, it is common to branch off into new or different directions, which may not be as firmly linked to that central identity. At least once per year, you and your management team should be holding an off-site retreat and candidly evaluating your market position and the effectiveness of your communications. Have you strayed from your original message, or is it time to make adjustments to the brand identity? Sometimes a simple logo refresh by a graphic designer can do the trick, but at other times, you may need to make choices that better articulate your company values.

Remember, there are approximately 26,000 spas in North America alone; what will encourage a client to choose yours over all of the others, at least on a repeat basis, goes beyond the price of your standard facial. Having a clear brand identity and developing it over time will help your business to stay true to your original intent and to stand out from your competition.

This article was published first at blog.booker.com.