Running your own business can be incredibly empowering, but starting out involves a lot of challenges – not least attracting customers to your newly opened business.
Nail salon owners in particular face lots of competition from other businesses, so it’s key to find ways to stand out among the crowd of salons that are already established in the same area.
If you’re looking for ways to make yourself known in your local area and showcase your fabulous manicures, pedicures and nail art, here are four easy ways to promote your salon and bag new customers.
Social media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools any business owner has at their disposal. From Instagram to Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, there are hundreds of different ways to promote your new business and connect with customers far and wide.
It’s important to remember that different social media platforms are useful for different kinds of promotion. Instagram and TikTok, for example, are the best platforms for showcasing your services visually. Instagram can be used for posting high-quality images of customers’ nail treatments on your Instagram grid or stories to pull new business in. TikTok, meanwhile, is a great tool for showcasing the process of a treatment, from the acrylic nail kits you used to the final result. Don’t be afraid to get creative on this platform.
Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are better for networking and connecting with your customers. On these sites you can share your thoughts, service menus and customer reviews as part of your promotional strategy.
Optimising SEO
All good businesses should have an attractive, easy to navigate website – but this is only the first step. If you want customers to see your website, you’ll have to SEO-optimise it with the keywords that people are most likely to search.
SEO has a direct impact on your visibility and credibility, as people tend to trust and click more on the results they see on the first page of Google. Optimising SEO will also help with searches such as “nail salon near me”. These local searches are becoming more common and nearly 80% of these are leading to conversions when carried out on mobile devices.
If you’re not familiar with search engine optimisation and you’re not sure where to start, there are many online guidesthat help startups with this task.
Customer reviews
Reviews can make or break a business, and good ones are extremely valuable for attracting new and even recurring paying customers.
You should always encourage customers to leave a review after their treatment, ideally with a photograph attached. You can help remind them to do this with business cards given to them as they leave the salon.
It’s also key to showcase your good reviews. You can do this both on your website as well as on social media.
Learning from competitors
One great way to promote your own business is by observing how your competition promotes theirs.
Obviously, you should avoid taking any copy or branding directly from the business, but it can be useful to see what kind of online posts your competitors are using, or how they present their services. All it takes are a few small actions to get the word out and provide a big boost to your business.
