* Marketing Ideas - How To Make a Hair (Hairdressing) Salon Successful

Writing a marketing plan for your hair salon is not just about thinking up ways to promote your business. You also need to consider the threats that could hurt your business and what you cab do about them.

A threat is anything that could damage the profitability of your business. It could be a new hair salon opening up next door, or a new mobile hair stylist. But it might not be that obvious. What about the local college courses teaching moms how to cut their kids' hair? How will that affect your business?

To help get you started with you hair salon's marketing plans, read the example below. The threats your business faces will be different. But hopefully this story will teach you some basic principles that you can apply to your own business.

Claire runs a hairdressing salon. She works regular 9 - 5 hours, employs two other stylists and a junior, and makes a liveable income doing a job she enjoys. But since the local economy took a down turn, business has slowed, and Claire needs to squeeze every cent of profitability she can out of this establish enterprise.

In the hairdressing salon, there are two things concerning Claire: A new salon has opened up in the next town and it is open evenings; and she looses a lot of business during the school holidays.

Hair Salon Marketing Idea: Extended Opening Hours

Claire doesn’t like to work evenings, so she shuts the salon at 5pm. Between 5pm and 9am the following morning, Claire is employing no staff, using no power, and using no water, so she assumes this downtime is costing her nothing. But she is wrong.

There is an opportunity cost to having the salon shut, as there are plenty of potential customers who also work between 9am and 5pm, and would love to get their hair cut in the evenings, instead of at weekends. If Claire’s salon does not offer evening opening, these customers will go to a salon that does.

If Claire doesn’t want to work evenings, she should use a member of staff that does, and can be trusted. The salon would not need the same level of staffing during the evening as it does during the day - let the answer machine pick up calls, and the junior can clear up in the morning. Just one, good, trustworthy stylist will be enough to keep the salon ticking over.

Initially the salon should hold a special late-night opening once each month. When that session is fully-booked, they can start to offer more evening opening times.

Hair Salon Marketing Ideas: Meeting The Clients' Needs

During the school break the salon suffers a slump. Mom’s do not want to get their hair cut while they are trying to get their kids to behave themselves in the salon. Instead they either go without their regular hair appointment, or they use a mobile hairdresser who comes to their home. If the mom doesn’t much mind her hair growing a little longer than usual, perhaps she will permanently cut back on the number of hair appointments she makes. If the mobile hairdresser is really good, maybe Claire will lose that customer forever. These are the threats to Claire’s business.

There are a number of ways Claire can overcome these threats and keep her customers loyal:

• The evening opening times may help, as moms can get their hair cut after the dad gets back from work;
• Claire could ask one of her stylists to go mobile during the holidays to reach out to customers who cannot make it to the salon. This service may also be useful for customers who have limited mobility, or no access to transport.
• The salon could install something simple to keep kids of all ages entertained, like a TV, games console, or coloring sets.

Work with your business partners and employees, twice a year to identify the threats to your business, and what you can do about them. Be sure to check back on threats you identified in the past, and how successful you have been in dealing with them.

To make a hair salon successful, you need to remove every barrier there is between your potential customers and your cash-register.