Male Waxing Blog

Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

I believe this may be the first course of its kind, and one that many in the health and beauty industry have been calling out for. It is a one day workshop that shows therapists how to make the most of our the Internet and their websites for building their client base.

Traditionally, in the days before the Internet clients would rely on word of mouth referrals, local listings such as Yellow Pages, or even newspaper adverts. As technology moved on so did how clients find therapists. For example when was the last time you were looking for a local business and the first place you turned was a telephone directory? It is more likely to be Google or another internet search engine.

A lot of therapists and salons will set up their own website, and that is great! But it is only a small part of the task – you need to get your website out there. Clients, and most importantly, potential clients need to be able to easily find your website when looking for a treatment.

But before you get onto that you need to spend some time looking at your website. They come in many styles, many layouts, and many colours and as with everything in life – many levels of quality. Your site must reflect your business and what you are trying to portray. If it doesn’t clients will be put off and won’t come to you for an appointment. Never underestimate the importance of a good website. And this is where the workshop starts, looking at your own website and doing a peer review so that you can get some independent feedback on the design and content.

The workshop aims to demystify the world of online advertising and Search Engine Optimisation. It is structured and designed to be taught without jargon and techno-babble, topics covered include:

• Website design – How to ensure a salons website appeals and gives a professional image
• Google Advertising – How to setup and run AdWords campaigns
• Facebook – Setting up a salon business page, how to use it to communicate with clients, including using Google Places
• Facebook Advertising – Paid advertising and how to get the best value for money
• How to use sites such as Groupon and Living Social to your advantage.
• Twitter, Blogs, YouTube Videos and online articles – how to use these to promote your salon

The workshop was developed after hearing too many stories of salon owners who had paid companies to run SEO or advertising campaigns. These companies often charging hundreds of pounds for work that a salon owner could do in a few hours a week at a fraction of the cost.

You can find out more about it within the Training section.

I constantly get phone calls from companies offering me advertising deals. And 75% of the time I immediately know what it is … a scam. Then 20% of the time it may be genuine but just of no interest to me, and maybe 5% of the calls I may investigate further.

First of all a quick look at the 75% of calls. These generally follow the same patter, starts off from a call centre with the line “I’m phoning on behalf of [Name] Doctors Surgery”, or it could be a dentist, medical practice or something. The company then claims they are responsible for the advertising on the surgeries appointment cards and they have one of their sales team “in the area tomorrow” and would I like a meeting with them.

I have not had an appointment card from my local dentist, doctor or hospital for about ten years now, and why do I want to waste my time with a sales guy? I always do one of two things – tell them I’m not interested, or say I am but can they first post me details and examples of the appointment cards and I’ll call back. After ten years in this business I am still waiting to receive a single example! I have heard horror stories of salons paying hundreds of pounds and never seeing anything.

If you get one of these calls, and if you are in the industry long enough you will! Before you sign anything always do several things. Ask to see samples of the products and previous campaigns that other companies have run, ask for the name of the Practice Manager who as authorised them to sort out these cards and call them directly (check the phone number on Yell or in the Yellow Pages) to verify they will be used and how many are given to patients / clients.

There are many different versions of this, calendars, wall planners, diaries … I’ve had them all over the years. Never have I seen an actual example of the final product.

A new advertising / promotion has surfaced in the UK in recent months and they intrigued me enough to fall into the final 5%. Groupon / MyCityDeal offer upto 90% discounts on restaurants, spas, wellness and fitness.

Isn’t it interesting how these companies always target small independent restaurants and salons / beauty therapists?

The process is simple, you put together a deal or package for potential clients and agree to sell a given number of them. They then feature them on their website, the client buys a voucher through the website and then Groupon pay you the cost of the voucher taking off their charge as a percentage. Great – nice and easy, sounds quite good … until you realise that they won’t accept anything less then a 60% discount! They actually try to get you down by 70 – 90% where they can. And they like bundle packages, for example a treatment or two with a retail product maybe, or discount on products purchased at the same time as the treatment.

It’s great in theory, you don’t pay for any advertising fee’s, you only pay for what you sell and then you get loads of new clients.

It’s less great when you think about the numbers. For example a Salon on the site at the moment is currently offering a Massage, Indian Head Massage and Deluxe Facial for just £18, and in addition to that you get 20% off any retail products you buy! The treatments usually cost £90 so an absolute bargain for the client. They have currently sold 8, not a bad way of getting 8 new clients is it?

Or is it? Those 8 packages would normally cost £720, instead the salon is taking £144 (before fee’s). This means they have lost out on a potential £540 of income! But it’s not a problem, those clients will surely come back regularly won’t they? How many times would you accept a 500% increase in price for a product or service? Because that is what you are asking these people to do. Most people who use these vouchers will be driven purely by price, and so if they can’t get the same price again they won’t come back.

When looking at advertising or promotions don’t undersell yourself, and don’t just give money to companies promising the world. Think about the costs, talk to everyone associated with it, ask for references from previous advertisers.

The Back and Beyond are just starting a fantastic new advertising campaign! Over the next three months for about 18 hours a day the above image will be driving around the Plymouth area on the back of a bus – now if that doesn’t get the attention of the passers by not much will.

I think this is going to be a really interesting campaign, the image itself is brilliant, but what it has is originality. How many bus adverts usually just have films on the side of them? Most of them so they all look a bit boring, but a huge WAX sign like that with will definitely catch the eye as it passes. And as I posted yesterday, a lot of women prefer their guys to be smooth so this works in letting the men know there is male therapist around who specialises in waxing. Also visually it appears to the ladies who will probably have a giggle and talk about it, but then mention it to their fellas.

I look forward to hearing how it goes. So if you are in the Plymouth area looking for a waxing give Jason at The Back and Beyond a call.