8 ways to attract new clients to your salon or mobile hair, nails and beauty business

At Capital we consider ourselves partners in your business and that doesn’t stop at delivering you hair and beauty supplies. Helping you grow your business is high on our agenda, so for our latest instalment of our ‘Time to Improve’ series we’ve compiled a list of the 8 best ways to attract new clients to your salon or your freelance hair, nails or beauty business.

Let’s jump straight in!

1. Build your social following

In our previous blog, we looked at the ways you can grow your social media following and turn those likes into bookings. With the average person spending 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media every day, there are few better ways to get in front of your potential clients. Head over to our blog on growing your social media following for more on this topic.

2. Make use of listings

Once upon a time, you could find a business called “AA” in just about every industry. “AA Taxis”, “AA Chinese Takeaway” and “AA Hair & Beauty”. Why? Because it got you at the top of the list in the phonebook!

Fortunately, we’ve moved on from that now, but there are still loads of amazing places to list your business to drive phone calls and traffic to your website. From the obvious – yell.com, Google business listings and your local newspaper’s website – to the niche industry sites who not only list your business but also offer booking management, such as Treatwell. To help, we found a handy list of the top 32 places to list your business online.

3. Get a (better) website

If you don’t have a website, you’re definitely missing out on new clients. If you have a website that isnt up to scratch and doesn’t work very well, you’re probably putting potential clients off. It’s super important to make sure you not only have a website, but that it is a good reflection of who you are as a business – you work in a highly aesthetic industry, and potential clients wont trust you with their hair and nails if you put out an ugly website!

The good thing is, it’s much easier than people assume. There are options for all kinds of budgets and abilities – from using pre-built templates on Wordpress and hiring freelance web designers on Fiverr to specialist agencies who can build your website and help with marketing.

4. Optimising for Google (and other search engines)

Did you know there are over 200,000 searches every month for “hairdressers near me”? There are another 90,000 for “nail salons near me”, 33,000 for “beauty salons near me” and 200,000 for “barbers near me”. Our point is, ranking well on Google is probably the number 1 way to attract new customers (although, without a good website there wouldn’t be much point!).

Ranking well on Google is a complicated thing to achieve, and you’ll always be best with SEO experts to help you with this, but there are things you can do yourself. Writing good content for your website is the best way to rank well on Google, but we’ve found a great guide for beginners to learn more, over here.

5. Online advertising (PPC and paid social advertising)

There are lots of cost-effective ways to advertise your business to potential clients online. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and of course Google all have great advertising options that are beginner friendly.

Imagine being able to advertise your salon to people within 10 miles of your salon who are looking for a haircut at that exact moment!? You don’t have to imagine it; you can do that and so much more by advertising on these platforms. Again, there are experts in digital advertising who can help you with this, but if you’re social media savvy then there’s no reason you can’t get this going yourself.

6. Gather reviews and shout about how good they are

It’s one thing for you to say how good you are, but it’s a totally different thing for real clients to say it. Research has shown that over 90% of people are influenced by online reviews, and that number can get as high as 97% when choosing a local business.

Think about the maths there for a second – if you don’t have any online reviews for people to read (or you do but they’re negative), then you’re potentially losing out on 97 of every 100 potential clients. There are lots of ways you can gather reviews, but potential clients want to know that they’re genuine, so making sure your business is registered on a site like Feefo or Trustpilot is usually the best approach.

Then make sure you shout about the results. Have your star rating displayed prominently on your website and salon window, share the comments you get on your social media and ask your current clients to write about you online.

7. Local PR

PR is an age-old, tried and tested way of generating awareness of your business and helping to build a good reputation. You won’t necessarily get people banging on the door for appointments as a direct result of this kind of thing, but it’ll get your name out there in the community in a positive way so that when people need a haircut or treatment you’re the first person they think of.

But what can you do? Put on events in the community, training sessions, charitable work, competitions and giveaways – anything that gets people talking about you!

8. Friends & Family Schemes

Referrals, like reviews, are a great way to build business. Create a scheme where your current clients will get a discount off their next visit when a friend or family member books an appointment with you for the first time. Turn your clients in to advocates!

So, there are 8 great ways to attract new clients to your salon or mobile business. What other tips have you got? Tag us on social media @capitalhair with your advice (or even just to show off your own work!) for a chance to be featured on our page.