Step #2: Marketing to New Clients
In this Lesson...
- The dumb direct mail mistake 99% of salon & spa owners make...
- The Simple, but Little-Known Secret of marketing to your existing clients that will TRIPLE your takings
(your competitors just do NOT have a clue about this - 'my' salons, hundreds of them around the world, do. And when you complete Step #2, you will too! ) - How you can get the EXACT series of letters hundreds of 'my' salons are using to get up to 75% of new clients re-booking appointments...
- Ignoring the goldmind in your own backyard!
BOLD, OUTRAGEOUS (but true) STATEMENT COMING UP...
There are only TWO types of clients on the entire planet...
Client Type #1: The ones you already have.
Client Type #2: The ones you haven't met yet.
Makes sense, right? So why am I mentioning this? Because it has a direct impact on the way you deliver your marketing message. I'll explain...
You don't run an ad in the paper to market to your esixting clients, right? Right.
Because you know where they live!
And you don't write sales letters to clients you don't know yet because...well, you don't know where they live (doh!) That's why you have to do a bunch of other stuff to get new clients, like newspaper and Yellow Pages advertising, mailbox fliers and so on.
Now, you've probably already know this...getting a NEW client is
FACT: "6 to 8 times more expensive than marketing to your existing clients!"
So your existing clients are your 'farm' - and here's where most business owners get it wrong. They virtually ignore their own clients, and instead agonize over their desperate search for new clients all the time!
And the very best, simplest and most effective form of marketing to your existing clients is...
DIRECT MAIL!
Now, if you've ever mailed letters to your clients to promote your salon - and been disappointed with the results, I'm going to reveal a secret - right here and now -
- that 99% of business owners never, ever work out.
- that 99% of business owners never, ever benefit from.
- A secret strategy about using direct mail that can, and does, literally triple your response!
"Oh, but I've tried direct mail and it doesn't work!!"I hear you say. Well, it does work, works brilliantly, if you do it the right way.
FACT:"Hundreds of our member salons around the world are proving it day in day out."
But it probably hasn't worked for you because you are making the same mistake almost all salon and spa owners make.
Have you ever sent a letter to your clients, got a trickle of replies, and just assumed the rest simply weren't interested? You have?
Well, you're not alone. Almost ALL business owners - including me, until I woke up - make this mistake. Now when you read on, you're going to have a major realization about the terrifying amount of money this mistake has no doubt cost you over the time you've been in business.
Doing a One-Shot Mailing is a Complete Waste of Time and Money!
In fact, if you give up after just one letter, you are leaving at least two-thirds of the money uncollected!
You see, there's a simple, but devastatingly effective TRICK to direct mail that will instantly TRIPLE the response you get from your letters - overnight!
MAIL MORE THAN ONCE!
"What??...but if they're not interested the first time, they're not going to pay any attention to a reminder!" I hear you say.
Yes they will!
A great mentor of mine discovered this secret many years ago when, as a young (broke) man he got repeated letters of demand whenever he didn't pay a bill. Eventually, he paid the bill when they threatened to take him off to jail. He figured it out: "If they can get money out of people who haven't got any, without offering 'em anything...what if you used the same structure, the same sequence of linked letters, sent 'em to people who've got money...and offered 'em something they really wanted??"
Here's the secret: A carefully-drafted series of linked sales letters, sent out ten days apart - NO MORE!
(Of course, there's one very important point about writing to your clients - and that's the actual words you use in your letters! There's absolutely no point in writing to say nothing more than 'Hi, we'd love to see you again in our salon...." WORDS can be an incredibly powerful sales tool, but you have to say the right things, in the right order. More on that in a moment. First, let's hear from salon owners who are using this amazing system of direct mail.)
Here's what Julie Thorp of Reflections says about 'my' multi-step mailing strategy:
"We never seemed to realise that sending out letters in a three part series would be so effective, we always thought if they didn't respond (to the first letter) then they weren't interested, but we were wrong! Our first mail out using your template (but changing the packages) we made $1150 from this 1st mail out. The second mail-out we made $1170. The third mail out we made $1300. Plus this does not include people who came in or rang up from the mail out and bought different packages or vouchers from the letters sent out (but we didn’t keep track of these). So I would advise people who mail out only once, use this system, as it works!"
Here's a terrifying thought: If Julie had simply done what everybody else does...mail ONE letter and then give up...she would have left more than two thirds of the available money uncollected!
And here's what Sonya Moore of the Beauty Bar says about my multi-step mailing system:
"75% Response...!"
"Just using the series of New Client letters we get a re-booking rate of 75% - that is just unheard of. And when you think that each regular client is worth maybe $2,000 a year or more...these marketing tools are GOLD for us..."
Sonya Moore, The Beauty Bar, Caulfield North, Victoria. PH +61 3 9533 0733
Imagine that! 75% of new clients re-booking for more treatments...IMAGINE what that re-booking rate would do for your salon or spa's cash takings!!!
Let's do some numbers. Let's say that currently, you get an average of 20 new clients into your salon each month.
Let's say 50% of them, or 10 clients, re-book for another treatment or service immediately. But TEN OF THEM DON'T - and it's more than likely you'll never see them again.
What if...what if...you were able to get half of those 'missing in action' new clients back for more...and they stayed as regular clients. If those FIVE 'repeats' were worth just $500 each to you over a year,
that's $2,500 in extra takings you never would have had...PLUS
If that happened every month, that's THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS in extra business...just from sending out a few letters each month!
What is it worth to you to have a new
client come back again and again and again...???
$500 over a full year? $1,000?? Many salon and spa owners we talk to tell us a good client can be worth as much as $3,000 or $4,000 in a year. And yet...and yet...many salons have no system in place to turn their new clients into regular clients. Most salons make a half-hearted attempt at the reception desk, like
Would you like to make another appointment? No?
Oh, okay then, we'll see you next time. Bye!
But you don't have to rely on such a hit and miss method.
Here's an important thing about sales that most people in business never understand.
Marketing is nothing more and nothing less than any activity which brings a customer to you with a pre-disposition to buy from you and you alone, at the price you wish to charge.
And that's why direct mail is so powerful. Written the right way, it gets your clients to call you, instead of you having to persuade them over the phone or in person. Know something? When you're trying to get a client to re-book, or to buy some product from you, the typical reaction is to back away from you - emotionally, if not physically, as fast as you approach them.
But by the time your client has phoned you as the result of your strong, compelling sales letter, they have already made the decision to buy from you!
Imagine what that can do for your business!
That's why our New Client Re-Booking Letters are so powerful - a simple, but strong offer, plus a little-used proven technique that not only gets your new clients to re-book with you, but encourages them to bring a friend as well!
Okay, so that's Lesson #2 - Multi-Step Mailing... one of the BIG SECRETS to successful salon marketing that almost NONE of your competitors knows about. (And of course, you can apply exactly the same principle to any of your marketing events - Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, etc etc.)
Now for Lesson #3
- The SHOCKING TRUTH about why clients leave you! Know something? Most businesses lose clients and never know - or bother to find out - why. In this next lesson, you'll discover exactly how to get those clients back - and stop them ever leaving again!
- PLUS how to add $20,000 a year to your takings...
Continue to Lesson 3
Good marketing!
Greg Milner
CEO Worldwide Salon Marketing
