12 Tips for Effective, Engaging Holiday Merchandising
by Elizabeth Kraus – adapted from the
Top 12 Visual Merchandising Tips
posted online at www.theretailersadvantage.com
by Rick Segel (January 2009)

1. Work from the outside-in.
The exterior windows and doors and the other areas leading in to your salon or spa (on the sidewalk, in the walkway or mall, etc.) should help work to entice shoppers into your business. If you are part of a business park, mall or set of shops, work together to create a special holiday wonderland or other holiday theme to help draw customers in.

2. Set the mood.
Your windows, doors, and entrance should begin to set the mood – and that mood should match the feeling of what you want customers to experience inside your salon or spa.

As an experiment, write down the names of the 4 businesses (stores, restaurants, public venues, or even office buildings, etc.) that you most enjoy simply being in, because of how they make you feel.

Visit one or more of those places and try to consciously observe and note what it is about those places that makes you feel something. What do you feel when you are there? Can you identify obvious and not-so-obvious things in the building, or that the employees do or don’t do that contribute to how you feel?

Conversely, think about some of the places that you go from time to time that you don’t enjoy, or which you even put off doing. What is it about how you feel in those places that keeps you from wanting to go back? What could they change to improve your experience?

Once you’ve begun to observe more consciously what it is about other businesses or places that make you feel good (or bad), take a step back and walk into your salon or spa during business hours. How do you feel when you walk in? Which factors in your salon or spa work to create the mood? Which are working against the mood you want to create, and how can you change things to purposefully create the mood you intend for your business to stimulate?

3. Identify everything.
Customers are in a hurry and they are bombarded with holiday shopping messages, so make decisions easy for them. Set up displays to draw the eye that have signage pointing them directly to what is most important for them to see. Tell them specifically what, and how much, to buy, and for whom.

Don’t assume that customers can look at your merchandise and translate the products they see on the shelf into gift form – or even that they can visualize how to use your retail products as gifts, or to whom they should be given.

4. Embrace all of the senses.
There’s a reason that stores like Nordstrom have invested thousands and thousands of dollars on fragrances – not for the cosmetics counter – but for release near the entrance to their stores. There’s a reason they spend money on grand pianos and to hire real, live people to play them in their stores. They know that really great merchandising embraces all of the senses.

What messages are you sending with the music, scents and other environmental factors in your salon or spa? To create extraordinary holiday merchandising, appeal to all of the senses (sight, smell, sounds – even tastes, like giving clients holiday special holiday goodies, and feels, like ‘try me’ products).

5. Show customers how things will look at their house.
Take a lesson from the old commercial (for Calgon Bubble Bath) with the woman in the great big bathtub overlooking greenery, flowers, etc., and the feeling that was stimulated in your own mind when she said, "Calgon, take me away!" You knew, at that moment, what Calgon did for her, and translated that into expectations about what it would do for you.

The advertisers didn't show you a line-up of products sitting on the shelf, they showed you the experience so that you could imagine yourself as the commercial's star. They knew something important, and it was this: Don't assume that your customers know how to translate the products that they see on your shelves into personal use at home: Tell them what they should buy, how to use it at home, and what to expect when they do.

Create merchandising displays (or signage) that demonstrate how a prescribed grouping of products would look in their home, whether it's a selection of skin care or makeup products, a selection of hair and scalp products, a selection of bath/spa items, etc.

Stimulate the customer's imagination with displays (including visual display as well as scents, sounds, texture, etc.,) that gets the customer all the way to wanting to feel how they would feel if they already own these products - this is something that a floor to ceiling set of shelves lined with products cannot do!

6. Group like with like.
Another “don’t assume your customer knows” moments!

Rather than lining your shelves with rows and rows of products, group products according to use – or at least create groupings for the end caps, central-shelf set-aparts, merchandising tables, etc., with groupings of products that work best together or that you would normally prescribe to maximize client results (such as curl enhancing shampoo, conditioner and styling products, or smoothing, volumizing; or products meant to relieve scalp itch and flaking, etc.).

Create signage that shows recommended product groupings (such as skin care and makeup products appropriate for sensitive skin, to reduce rosacea, for skin/eye color types, etc.).

7. Group by lifestyle.
Beyond product types, create displays by lifestyle or service area.

Make it obvious to clients who love massages which products they should take home to maximize the relaxation and pain-relief benefits that your services initiate.

Make it obvious to clients who are manicure or pedicure regulars which products they need to extend their results between visits.

Be blunt with clients about what they are doing to damage their hair, skin or scalp, and what products they need to help remedy the damage or restore health.

Tell hair color clients about which products they need in order to protect their color investment and which products will enhance their colors to make them bolder, brighter, shinier, and healthier.

8. Use the spotlight.
How many times have you been driving at night and noticed a spotlight waving back and forth across the sky in order to bring your attention to a concert site, carnival or even a car lot? Light attracts the eye and placing spotlights strategically on products, merchandised areas, or in window displays will naturally draw your client’s attention.

9. Change. Often.
If your retail area never really changes, chances are your customers stopped looking at your products a long, long time ago.

Change your layout as well as spotlight-merchandised areas often in order to continue to spark your customer’s interest. This applies equally to your communications, website, e-mail newsletter, postcard or direct mail advertising, even your directory listings. Change, often!

If you do renovate or redecorate your salon or spa, use it as the basis for an event – grand re-opening, remodeling, etc. Don’t wait for customers to come in and notice your changes, invite and incentivize them to come and experience them.

Can you transform your salon or spa into a holiday wonderland? Now might be the perfect time to plan to change your décor and create a special holiday event to help promote retail sales and 2011 Service Packages.

10. Don’t be afraid of color.
Just as you can use light to attract the eye, you can use color. How many times have your eyes been drawn to the contrast presented by something light on a very dark background (or vice versa)? Colors that draw the eye? Red (of course), hot pink, oranges, saturated yellows, bright greens and blues, black set on white, etc.

The secret to using color creatively is to use it in order to tell a story or take the customer on a visual ‘journey’ through your salon. Be strategic with color placement and you can draw your customer’s eyes to what you most want them to see.

11. Integrate motion.
Like a spotlight, you can use items that move to draw the customers to areas you most want them to be interested in. For the holidays, you could take this literally and create a holiday toy or train display; but you can also be more subtle and place items that move with heating/cooling vent help (such as light catchers or similar items used in garden displays).

12. Remember the rule of 3.
Work in product sets of (at least) 3 items. Create visual displays that are interesting to the eye and create a visual journey by working in (at least) 3 variations of height; in other words, don’t simply put a group of 6” products side by side, use blocks, fabrics, etc., to create variation in the height of items.

Elizabeth Kraus
12 Months of Marketing for Salon and Spa