ken cohen, Author at Pro Beauty Suites

6 Tips Using Facebook As a Key Communication Tool to Promote Your Studio

ken cohen — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 07:01:55 +0000

Facebook provides the perfect way for you to share your services, post photos of your unique nail art or create contests or giveaways to promote brand loyalty and spread awareness of your brand.

In today’s Facebook era, it is rare that you would find a customer who isn’t a member of the social media site. Therefore, it is the perfect medium to communicate with customers. The following are tips for marketing your salon on Facebook:

Write relevant posts that engage consumers – Write posts that customers want to respond to and will enjoy giving their opinion on. An example of this would be to ask questions like “Summer has officially begun! What will be your summer hair cut of choice?” This type of conversation starter is relevant, personalized, and something that majority of salon-goers would enjoy discussing.
Post pictures, and lots of them! – One of the best ways businesses can use Facebook is as a visual medium. Your salon should be showcasing the work that it is most proud of. Whether that be fun holiday-themed manicures or gorgeous bridal party hairstyles, pictures provide an outlet to show what you can do. As a bonus, pictures are engaged with more than text-only posts, in fact 120% more , therefore these can also help to bring new referrals through your front doors as your current customers share the photo with their own personal networks.
Treat your Facebook Page as a miniature website – When customers arrive on your Facebook page they should be able to find all of the information they may be looking for. Use the various Facebook tabs to show your salon locations, services, photos and reviews.
Engage customers through Facebook contests and giveaways – In general, people love free stuff. Whether that be a $50 gift card to your beauty salon or a discount on a beauty package for Mother’s day as seen in the picture below, your customers will love the ease of being able to enter or receive the promotion while on Facebook. Also, they will likely comment on the contest page post or share it to their own Facebook friends, creating more awareness for your business.
Provide Facebook Fans with exclusive deals – When Liking a business on Facebook, customers like to feel as though they’re getting something special in return. You can entice them to like you on Facebook by offering 10% off their next visit or by sharing the Page on Facebook to receive a gift with their next purchase. In addition, you can provide discounts to Facebook Fans which are only redeemable by mentioning the specific Facebook Ad, as seen in the example below. By knowing that these offers are only to Facebook Fans, customers will want to follow your Page more closely and will likely tell their friends when they do score an exclusive deal.
Target your Ads – Use Facebook Ads to their full ability through targeting. You may want to only target people located close to your salon, or those who like related Facebook Pages. An example would be those who like Aveda Canada who would likely want to try your nearby hair salon that uses Aveda products.

The post 6 Tips Using Facebook As a Key Communication Tool to Promote Your Studio appeared first on Pro Beauty Suites.

7 Tips Using Instagram to Promote Your Salon Suite!

ken cohen — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 16:23:05 +0000

With over 200 million users in just 4 years, Instagram is the newest member of the core social media family. Pictures are a great way to market your salon and show a wide variety of your work as well as fun, quirky photos that follow your brand’s theme.

Stay on trend – Use trending hashtags to draw more users to your Instagram profile and to find out about your salon. An example would be to use #happyeaster as one hashtag to gain more views while showing a picture of a holiday themed manicure and showcasing the salon’s services.
Use geography to your advantage – Use hashtags to point out your location. That way future customers looking for a salon nearby may stumble upon your photo and your salon. For example if you own a hair salon in the district of Burlington, you may follow your other hashtags and caption with #Burlington and #Fairview, so that those looking for a haircut that day can locate your business quickly.
Use before and after pictures to showcase your stylists’ talent – Reviews and testimonials don’t need to just be a text post when it comes to social media. Use Instagram to show results in your salon. Before and after pictures show transformation and can grab users’ attention.
Be fun and quirky – Instagram users tend to be young and on trend, and enjoy fun, quirky posts in addition to just product or service-related posts. Once in a while a feel good post can engage your customers and you can use specific quotes or pictures that you feel defines your brand.
Do exclusive Instagram contests – One great aspect of Instagram is that you can have contests that involve user-generated content. Hold photo contests among your Followers, such as “Post a picture of your new summer manicure with the hashtag #Ontrendnailsalon and be entered to win your next manicure for free!” These engage customers and are easy for customers to participate in by simply uploading a picture and including the proper hashtag. If you have always wondered how to get more followers on Instagram, you will find out that a contest is one of the best solutions.
Post promotions on Instagram – Post promotional photos on Instagram so that customers are always aware of new things going on at your salon. An example would be to post a picture of a child with writing saying “Back to School Special: 30% off all kids haircuts from now until September 5th.” This informs customers about the promotion or acts as a reminder to those who may have heard about it in the past. You can also make the promotion Instagram-exclusive by telling customers that they have to show that picture in the salon to receive the promotion discount.
Provide incentives for Instagram word-of-mouth – Provide incentives for customers to upload a picture of what they had done at your salon such as “Have a new hairstyle or cut from Dropdead beauty salon that you just love? Upload it to Instagram with the hashtag #dropdeadnyc and receive 10% off your next visit.” Word-of-mouth is crucial in the salon business as trust is such a key factor when it comes to hair and beauty, therefore having friends share pictures with their own Instagram network is a great way to stretch your brand awareness. You can do this really easily using Wishpond’s Instagram Photo Contest App.

The post 7 Tips Using Instagram to Promote Your Salon Suite! appeared first on Pro Beauty Suites.

How We Started!

ken cohen — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 18:23:43 +0000

My father started in the professional beauty industry back in 1968 when he opened a small beauty supply store. Since then we saw the industry grow from several small neighbourhood salons in every region to an industry where you would find several salons, spas, and nail boutiques on every major intersection and plaza throughout Ontario. The professional beauty industry has grown at such a fast pace, since our inception we have grown from a small business of 1 employee to an organization of 50 employees.

However, over the past several years we began to see gradual changes in the industry where we had flourished over the past 50 years. Too many salons and spas opened and expanded too quickly over the past 20 years, which resulted in an over saturated marketplace. As a result, there became a shortage of trained, experienced stylists available to hire. The average salon went from a staff of 4-6 skilled stylists to a staff of 1-3 inexperienced stylists. To make things worse, the results of the real estate boom began to filter in and the average cost to rent retail space went from $10-$20 a square foot to $30-$40 a square foot.

The cost of staffing and real estate has practically doubled in the past 20 years yet the prices salons charged barely changed due to the fear of losing business among the fierce competition. As a result, many salon owners were no longer making a profit running their businesses, were still feeling the struggles and pressures of operating their establishments and were deciding life would be easier and more profitable to shut their doors and go rent a chair from somebody else or work from their home.

I had daily conversations with experienced salon owners who loved the hair industry but were now frustrated because they could no longer make a good living practising what they loved to do. As a result, in 2014 we decided to rent a location twice the size of our original store and construct beauty suites attached to our store to fill a new demand which had been created in the market. Our new concept gave business minded individuals an opportunity to be self-employed, to continue practising their passion without the overhead and management of running a traditional business. Hence the birth of Professional Beauty Suites.

Ken Cohen
President & Founder, Professional Beauty Suites

The post How We Started! appeared first on Pro Beauty Suites.