April 2009
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Accidental Marketing
Elizabeth Brown | elizabeth @ 12monthsofmarketing.net
Be InPulse Branding, Marketing and Design | beinpulse.com
April 15, 2009
I had a series of conversations with small business owners over the last two weeks where we brainstormed quick, fun and easy events they could do in-salon in order to bring in new clients, groups of girlfriends, and generate more ‘bring a friend’ business. It wasn’t rocket science, it wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t complicated.
As we discussed marketing messages, email and direct marketing, and ways to craft offers, I found myself saying over and over again, “do (x, y, or z) and just by accident you are bound to attract new clients or sell more retail.”
I was starting to feel a little embarrassed at the lack of strategy reflected in the statement until a salon owner clued me in to the fact that the majority of you are doing marketing by accident.
When asked by distributor consultants about your marketing, the vast majority of stylists and other industry professionals confidently assert, “I’m already doing marketing.” When asked what you are doing you reply that you are doing “word of mouth marketing.” When pressed for definition, you reveal that what this means to you is that you feel you are such an incredible stylist or create such an amazing experience for your clients that they simply can’t wait to get out of the chair and go and tell everyone they know about how wonderful you are.
This isn’t word of mouth marketing – this is accidental marketing.
To give you an idea of how effective it is, would you do accidental bookkeeping, hoping that clients remember to pay you, and pay you the right amount, without giving them the bill? Accidental accounting? Tax reporting? Accidental haircuts or color?
There are many components to your business that you approach intentionally and you do on an hourly and daily basis. You know that these are mandatory tasks and you dedicate the time and energy required to do it. But somehow when it comes to marketing, you do not believe that it is a legitimate, mandatory part of your business planning. Marketing should receive the same level of focus and attention that all of the components of your business do – from your professional education to your bookkeeping and billing to your technique – but it rarely does.
Are you employing the type of “strategy” where you open your doors and wait for the phone to ring, wondering where all the customers are? Where you provide great retail products that sit on the shelves collecting dust waiting for a chance to “sell themselves?” Where as a single chair operator you wonder why your salon owner isn’t out there getting business to walk in the door for you?
You are, in fact, not marketing, but hoping for accidental success.
Meanwhile, those of you who are actively and successfully engaged in building business know that it takes actual, intentional action in order to produce desired results.
Accidental marketing is not a valid “word of mouth” marketing strategy.
You see, to generate word of mouth referrals, invitations, and buzz, you have to do something that is, in fact, buzz worthy. Waiting for business to come to you accidentally might feel safer and more comfortable to you, but it is just about the least effective strategy you can employ to build your business.
Try one new thing this month. Hold one event. Offer your clients one special promotion. Communicate with them proactively rather than waiting for them to contact you. Send ‘thank you’ emails to your clients (this implies that you are collecting emails and building your contact database) at the end of each day, genuinely and personally thanking them for their time and their business. Let them know that you are accepting new clients, and you would be honored if they would consider referring a friend or co-worker to you, and create a simple reward for them for referrals (and a special offer for the individuals they refer.) Lorinda’s Salon and Spa in Mill Creek, Washington, offers a simple ten dollar reward – ten for the referrer and ten for the new client – applied to the next service appointment of each. They then follow up with the new client with a thank you and additional reward they can use on their second visit.
You might accidentally get a new client!
The 12 Months of Marketing Manual, available for purchase online at 12monthsofmarketing.net or from Salon Services consultants and showrooms in Washington, Oregon and Idaho is an intentional, action-oriented manual with all of the tools that you need to develop a non-accidental marketing plan - a plan that can propel you to growth and success.
7 Steps to the Perfect Marketing Plan - entrepreneur.com
Follow these seven simple steps to build the perfect marketing plan:
Narrow your market focus. Position your business. Create education-based marketing materials. Never cold call. Earn media attention. Expect referrals. Live by a calendar.
Turn Marketing Into a Game - openforum.com
You can set targets and goals without an ultimate or at least short term destination in mind. If you are going to start tracking what matters you have to, well, know what matters. By that I mean you need to have some picture of where you want your business to go in the next year, three years, five years. You must be able to see, quite clearly, what it’s like to run your business in the future. Before you can set action steps and tactics, you must have the vision and the strategy that will make it real.
Not Rocket Science: The 'Mystery' of Success Revealed - ceostrategist.com
My first piece of advice on success today for anyone willing to listen is simply to turn off all the news networks that are sensationalizing everything negative in our economy on a minute to minute basis. Each and every one of us has an obligation to protect our attitude. Ask Tiger Woods or any other professional athlete for that matter about visualization. If you visualize failure, in effect, you can create your own failure. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. By the same token, the “Law of Attraction” also works. If you visualize success you increase your chances of creating success. You will view things differently, recognize opportunities much quicker and actually generate creative ideas to act upon. Those actions then drive your success.
"Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams."
Design a Series that Will Keep Clients Coming Back More Often
10 cents or maybe 25 if they include electronics. That’s what one source estimates the average cost to fast food chains is for the toys they distribute with kids meals, which they've used to create rockstar style demand (like with Beanie Babies) keeping customers coming back on queue. The idea may not be new, but it's proven, and you can adapt the principle to keep your clients coming back for more, more often, too.
Ban the Cliché, Get Back to Creative
We have heard the phrase “stimulus package” so many times that to me the words now carry a negative connotation. The public wants and deserves relief from the bad news of the day, the month and the year. It is fine for stereo warehouses, appliance hawkers and used car salesman, but it’s not ok for an industry which by its very nature is supposed to provide creative solutions to their clients, a moment of escape, respite, relaxation and beauty.
10 Things to Do While You're Waiting
Here are 10 things to do while you are waiting to let people know you are open for business.
How Stores are Luring in Shoppers
Retailers are hoping special events, classes, screenings and professional workshops will inspire shoppers to keep on shopping during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. "There's a sense of community here, a sense that we're in this recession together," Bowe said. - latimes.com, associated press
10 Things (You Never Thought) to Add to Your Menu
Here are 10 things that you could add to your menu for clients at little to no cost or investment, and with the added bonus of creating effective partnerships with other businesses, sharing and growing prospect lists, and sharing the costs associated with cooperative marketing and events.
What is it Going to Take?
You find yourself at the end of another day at the end of another week at the end of another month well into a year where business is just not what it used to be. You can continue with a "'wait and hope for the best' mentality, or you can take control of your income and business back into your own hands.
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