Creating good marketing strategies for barbershops is truly a great competitive advantage. Unfortunately, not all barbers or managers know how to apply good marketing strategies. With this in mind, we created this content with strategy tips for you to develop and grow your barbershop. All you have to do is read this content and apply your new knowledge.
How does a marketing strategy help your business grow?
Marketing is a set of actions used by companies to optimize profitability. Whether by improving performance, optimizing the cost or use of materials, or even increasing the number of clients, marketing aims to bring better financial results to companies.
As such, no matter the size of your business, by defining good marketing strategies for your barbershop, you will certainly be able to improve performance and make your barbershop grow.
When we talk about strategy, it is interesting to think about continuity, so that the result is constant. Freedom for testing and continuous application of what works best is also highly relevant.
To do this, we need to create an environment that is fertile ground for ideas. We will talk a bit more about this below.
Preparation: knowing your business
It is very important that you know your business and the market in which you operate to create a differentiator from your competition. And when we talk about knowing the business, we are referring to target audience, competition, products and services, etc.
Target Audience
You need to know your target audience, as they represent the customer you want to sell to. Therefore, it is important to know how this audience consumes content, what they like to see on social media, what their consumption habits are, and so on. The more you know, the better.
You can find this out by talking to your current clients, doing a survey, or even analyzing the consumption profile of your current clients. This will be highly relevant when we establish the Marketing strategies. You can learn more in our post about target audience.
Competition
Knowing your competition is just as important as knowing your audience or your own company. Knowing what your competition does is an important differentiation factor. If your competitor runs an action, you can learn and run a different action, thus betting on differentiation. Or, you can get inspired and do better with the same type of action.
Look at your competitors' social media, websites, and posts. Knowing how to use information generated by others also helps your business grow.
Marketing Strategies for Barbershops
A Marketing strategy involves a few steps. You already know the first one, which is gathering information about your own company. In addition, one of the most important factors is establishing good planning.
Plan your company's marketing before applying actions:
This means that for you to get a positive result from your strategy, it is important to plan all the steps, know how to apply all the actions and tactics that are planned, and know how to understand the results.
It all seems complicated, doesn't it? As soon as you have the planning in hand, you will see that it is very simple to keep the marketing for your company running. Below we will talk about some marketing strategies for barbershops that you can apply with great ease.
1. Social media
Social media is the great showcase for brands. Creating content that is relevant to your audience can make them choose your barbershop instead of the competition. Hence the importance of knowing your target audience.
You already know your audience's content consumption habits, now all you have to do is create content accordingly. You can opt for publication formats that generate engagement with consumers. Polls are a good example.
To be successful with this strategy, it is important that you develop what we call a publication calendar. That way, you can put your ideas on paper and correlate the topics. Remember that the most important thing is to deliver valuable content to your potential client.
Take photos or short videos offering tips on how to style hair or beard, for example. Or how to choose the right cut for your face shape.
In addition, you can create exclusive promotions for your social media followers, such as discount coupons, bonuses, freebies, among others. It is worth remembering that creativity is a big bonus when it comes to making content for Social Media.
2. Loyalty Program
This doesn't even sound like a marketing strategy, right? But taking some data into consideration, we realize that it makes perfect sense to dedicate time and attention to establishing a client retention strategy.
According to Philip Kotler, the greatest Marketing specialist in history, the cost of acquiring a new client is 5 to 7 times higher than retaining an existing client. In other words, keeping your clients returning to your barbershop costs less than acquiring new ones. Of course, you should accept and seek more clients, what we are saying is that keeping current clients is easier and more advantageous than always looking for other clients.
Thus, you should create a loyalty program with real benefits for your client, but that is also advantageous for you, by trading their loyalty for rewards at your barbershop.
The simplest of strategies you can apply is an exchange system. For example, for every ten times your client gets a shave at your barbershop, they get a free haircut. Or, they will receive discounts based on frequency.
Be creative when offering a proposal. Make your client feel special for being loyal to your barbershop. Thus, in addition to being recurring income, they can become an ambassador for your brand, which is what we will cover next.
3. Referral Marketing
Now let's talk about how to turn your current clients into promoters of your brand! Yes, this is possible, and it is one of the best marketing strategies for a barbershop to apply. Think about it, who better than a satisfied client to refer your services?
In this way, Referral Marketing can be applied in three steps, which we will see below.
Delight
In this moment you serve your clients in the best possible way. In this stage, you must delight your client with the best you have to offer. This can be quick service, after-sales, or even the way you chat with your client. They must feel satisfied enough with the investment they made.
Incentive
Now that your client is satisfied, they are the best friend of your business. Often you don't need to do anything to generate a referral, but a good incentive doesn't hurt. Thus, you can bet on loyalty programs, ask for testimonials, or ask them to post photos on social media tagging your barbershop.
Control
In this phase you have the opportunity to monitor and test your strategy. You can offer a discount coupon per referral, for example, and then review referral rates, return data, and how many referred clients were retained. Oh, and always use this information to optimize and improve the strategy.
4. Ads
We have reached a marketing strategy that is avoided at all costs by many professionals. Why? Because it requires a direct financial investment. However, this strategy is worth the investment if it is well-planned and executed.
Ads are paid advertisements, usually made on social media platforms or even on Google. To do this, you need to follow a few steps within the respective systems, and thus, configure the ads to be run.
You can configure these ads to reach only a portion of people, those who match the interests and behaviors of your target audience. You can select several targeting criteria for your ads.
This is an excellent strategy to reach people who have not yet had contact with your company, which is why it requires you to have knowledge of your audience.
Although ads are not complicated to create, they require some knowledge of the platform, the market, and the audience, so we will leave two tutorials below: How to advertise on Google and How to advertise on Instagram.
5. Online Scheduling System
Hold on, how can an online scheduling system be a marketing strategy? That's right: online scheduling is itself an excellent marketing strategy, since you can share your scheduling link virtually anywhere.
You can put it on your social media, in your ads, create a QR Code for your link, and leave it at the storefront of the barbershop. And these are just a few ideas to apply.
In addition, scheduling systems are usually capable of recording booking information, frequency, average ticket spent, and much more information. This way, a system like Belasis for Barbershops becomes an excellent ally for your barbershop's marketing.
Imagine having all your target audience's information gathered in one place, displayed in reports in the order you choose. In addition, you can use the system's other modules to optimize your company's performance.
Ready to make your company grow?
Now that you have an idea of how to create and apply marketing strategies for your barbershop, it's time to start! Remember to plan, execute, and review your actions.
We have selected some more materials that can complement the growth of your barbershop.
You know when your client always asks for discounts? Check out this course to understand how to get rid of the Discount Culture.
Learn more about the benefits of a loyalty program in your barbershop.
We hope you enjoyed this content, and if you want, share it on your social media!
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