For the beauty business, and salons in particular, December is the busiest month of the year. Your clients love all the deals that come their way and are even willing to spend a little more.
Well, as a salon owner, you have to accept the fact that this period is not going to last forever. The glitter will settle and your business will experience a January slump.
The period post holidays is usually a sleepy time and clients need to be woken up from their slumber. Seeing fewer chairs occupied in your salon can make you feel dejected at this time.
After the festive rush, and holiday hustle and bustle, a lot of businesses find it challenging to maintain momentum.
Well, as a beauty salon software provider, we’ve churned out some of the best ways to get over the sales slump after the holiday season.
With our post-holiday retention strategies, you can definitely get over a slow January and February, and bounce back faster than you know.
Key Takeaways
- As a salon owner, you need to accept the fact that January slowdowns are normal. Instead of feeling dejected, look for ways to increase revenue during this period.
- Don’t offer heavy discounts that make your brand look cheap. Instead, rely on bundles, gift card promotions, add-ons, double loyalty points, and so on.
- Shift your focus to retail sales in January and February. Clients will want to purchase gifts for Valentine’s Day.
- To get a deep dive into your business, leverage salon and spa software.
Post-Holiday Sales Slump: Tips to Thrive during the Slow Season
Tap into your Client’s New Year Resolutions
The beginning of the year is usually synonymous with goals and self-improvement. Your salon should focus on being a part of your clients’ self-care journeys. Tap into their New Year resolutions. You may not know exactly what they are but make sure your promotions are shaped around them.
For instance, consider rolling out “New Year, New Look” packages. A few popular services you can include are haircuts, deep conditioning, damage repair, head massage, and so on. Keep in mind that January is all about wellness and by offering services that focus on making clients feel refreshed, they will want to visit your salon and spend more.
You can use salon computer software to send out a message blast regarding the campaign and share posts on social media. By running a campaign that focuses on wellness you can get a large chunk of loyal clients through the door even during off season.
Boost Retail Sales with Clever Campaigns
January is the peak season for repair, rest and rehabilitation. Think of what services your clients crave for in winter months and shape your campaigns accordingly. As a salon owner, you should use seasonality as a sales tool.
If you’ve noticed, most end of season sales start in January. If big brands go on sale, why should your salon be an exception?
This is a great time to clear your excess inventory. The best way to boost retail sales during the slump season is by slashing the prices of your retail products.
During winter months, you have a great opportunity to boost seasonal sales because skincare products are in high demand during the dry season. With great positioning, you can boost sales. Use terms like “winter damage repair”, “holiday skin recovery kits”, “hair damage repair”, and so on.
After all the holiday heat styling and makeup, clients definitely want to fix their hair and skin. Thus, by creating retail product bundles, you can make it easy for clients to pick-up.
Also, clients tend to face decision fatigue in January. Their mind doesn’t tend to work. By addressing their concerns and needs with appropriate products, you win their loyalty.
Encourage Clients to Pre-book
Appointments in your salon in January are going to be unpredictable. Your hairstylists and nail technicians may even be sitting idle.
Well, it’s true that your cash flow depends on the number of appointments booked. Encourage your clients to pre-book on your salon appointment booking software.
Train your team to upsell appointments. They can use phrases like “Book your next appointment so that you don’t lose out on your preferred time slot”.
Pre-bookings and re-bookings can considerably help you maintain revenue even after the busy holiday season.
Also, your front desk manager has to do nothing. Clients can use the online booking feature on beauty salon software to pre-book appointments on their own. Ideally, you should have encouraged clients to book their appointments for January and February when they came to you in December. However, in case you didn’t, don’t worry.
Use salon marketing to your advantage. Clients who got their hair coloured in December will need a root touch-up by the end of January.
Use the software to track which clients are in need of a root touch-up and send them reminder emails. This encourages them to schedule an appointment during January.
When your staff makes consistent efforts to encourage pre-books, it may be a good idea to incentivise them.
Offer a small bonus to the stylist who has the highest rebooking rate or if not that you can even call out that staff member who brought the highest number of rebooks that particular week.
By recognising your staff, it boosts their morale and they start considering your salon brand theirs.
Launch a “Smart” Loyalty Program
Always remember that January isn’t a month for loud promotions. If clients are not coming in, don’t desperately start discounting. This only devalues your brand.
What should you do instead?
Well, your salon already has a loyalty program in place. You can tweak it slightly so that it works better for you in January.
When a client avails any service, they earn loyalty points. Only for the month of January, you can let your clients know that in case they visit, they will earn double the number of loyalty points.
Only for this, your loyal clients will ensure they visit you in Jan. Further, in case you have a set of regular clients, you can even incentivise them. Offer them a complimentary service.
During the slump season, your staff tends to be idle. You can give them an instant morale boost by keeping them busy all through the day.
By going an extra mile for your clients, they will always remember you. This is a time when they don’t want to spend much and when you offer them more than they want, they will be thankful.
Use Salon Data for Smart Remarketing
The holiday season would have probably been a busy one for your salon. You would have all kinds of clients visit you – regulars, loyalists and new faces.
At that time, you would have been so busy servicing clients that you wouldn’t have got a chance to interact with them.
Now that the holiday season is over and all the dust has settled, it’s time to leverage insights from the holiday season to target new clients. These are the type of clients who would have visited your salon, availed a service and left.
However, remarketing is key in order to turn these potential clients into regular clients. Computer software for beauty salons usually comes with a CRM feature. This accurately and precisely stores client data.
You can run segmented email and SMS marketing campaigns to target these clients based on their service and purchase history.
The only way to bring them back during this slump period is by launching enticing offers. Start by launching remarketing ads on Google and other social media platforms.
These small but effective measures can help you generate revenue even after the holiday season is over.
Embrace “Boring” Themes
When nothing works, boring themes to your rescue. If you look up the internet, every month has a theme.
January is usually associated with wellness, new beginnings and a fresh start whereas February is mainly focused around Valentine’s Day which can be a huge opportunity for your salon.
To create some buzz on your social media platform, it’s best to create mini campaigns around these moments. When your clients find these themes relevant, they’re more likely to engage with your business.
Also, winter can be a monotonous time as it’s cold, dry and right after the holiday season. To wake up your clients from this lull, it’s best to keep them engaged in different ways on social media.
When they see you’re making an effort, they too will want to instantly book an appointment with you.
Don’t just Survive – Thrive
The post-holiday slump in the beauty business is real but let it not deter you from maintaining your revenue. During the months of January and February, shift your focus towards offering your loyal clients valuable experiences.
During this time, you can even invest in a salon refresh or training programs for your employees. When you use the time wisely, you will realise that January isn’t just about maximising profit. It’s about achieving stability, and gaining back momentum.
Salon360App, beauty salon software, can help you protect revenue and set up demand for the future. It goes beyond being a mere booking tool. The smart scheduling tool helps fills gaps, ensures future appointments are rebooked and helps you track accurately what’s actually helping you make money.
During the slump period in the beauty business, clear financial visibility is a must and salon software makes that possible.
