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Don’t you love the way Internet has made things so convenient? Whether you want to book a hotel room, rent a car, or buy a new laptop, you can do it all online. I often hear salon owners who are skeptical about online bookings. When you’re used to doing everything in a certain way, a change can be difficult. Do you still control your own calendar and do your costumers want to book online? The answer is yes! Here are 9 reasons why your salon will benefit from online scheduling software. 1. Save time with salon software During treatments, fewer phone calls will disturb you. This is the first advantage of online appointment software. What’s more, there will be less number of voice mails requesting for a call back. You can simply refer customers directly to the online appointment software on your website. 2. Make a great first impression Have you ever clicked away from a website because it was confusing or unclear? Then imagine what it would be like to make an appointment via a contact form. Scheduling an appointment is the first initial contact that a customer has with your salon so you want to leave a positive first impression. When costumers see your online availability, they can schedule the appointment and receive an email confirmation right away. They will definitely put this down as a good experience. 3. Available 24/7 You’re in the middle of a treatment when the phone rings, so you call the costumer back later. But there is an easier way to do this. The online scheduling software Salonized will have all the relevant details on your website. Customers see when you are available before making appointments, which will appear in your calendar instantly. You will always receive notification of new bookings, so you can plan your day accordingly. 4. Automatic appointment reminders Every salon owner dreads no-shows. These are customers who forget their appointments or show up at the wrong date or time. With automatic appointment reminders, you can avoid no-shows without having to call the customer. Salonized software automatically sends the client an email or SMS reminder so you have more time to do other things. 5. Always have access to your calendar You will have access to your calendar any time of the day or night, but we are not saying that you should be working 24/7. On the contrary, you will just have more time. If you are at home or on the road and wondering how your work schedule looks for the next day, you can easily access your calendar. Simply log in using your phone, tablet, or computer- wherever you are. 6. Appointments via your Facebook page Customers expect to find your salon online, whether it is through Google or social media. Salonized offers you many features that will increase your visibility on the Internet. For example, you can simply link the online appointment software to your Facebook page. 7. Prevent double bookings Scheduling appointments might not be a complicated task, but it requires good planning. Double bookings or poor planning can create problems, but fortunately, the online booking system Salonized is so advanced that it can handle complex schedules, even if you work with another booking system. 8. Security Are you always dealing with lots of folders or complicated spreadsheets? What if these customer files are lost or the laptop crashes? With salon software, you won’t have to worry about any of these issues. Save all your customer information, appointments, and transactions securely in your Salonized account. Because everything is stored in the ‘cloud’, you have access to your data from any device, anywhere and anytime. 9. Cut costs with salon software We know that paper-based diaries don’t cost you anything…but with all the features of Salonized software, you will save time and money on the tasks that you would otherwise be doing yourself. For example, your payments are automatically registered so you will spend less time sorting out your accounts. You will also receive automatic notifications whenever a product is out of stock, which ensures that you never miss the next order. Do you want to know more about our services? View all the Salonized software features or try the 14-day free trial now!

Who doesn’t take advantage of loyalty programs? What about your supermarkt loyalty card or the loyalty points you get at a specific store to save for services or products. So why don’t you start a loyalty program for your customers? Take advantage of our Salonized loyalty points system and your customers will receive loyalty points with each treatment, so they can save up for another treatment or product at your salon. The result? Customer loyalty and an increase in sales. Often we put emphasis on getting new customers, but did you know that existing customers spend nearly 70% more than new customers? Therefore, it is important to pay extra attention to your current customers. This is easy and quickly realized with the Salonized loyalty points system. 7 tips for an effective loyalty program in your salon! 1. Keep it simple In your Salonized you can choose on the Loyalty program page how you want to assign the points. Remember, no complicated constructions, but keep it simple. For example 1 point per treatment or 1 point for every € 10,- spent. Transparency for the customer and fewer questions for you. 2. Keep your customers informed With Salonized the customer can see the number of points earned on the invoice. However, research has shown that it is important to regularly inform customers about the program. They will be more likely to make a new appointment. That is why with Salonized it is possible to filter clients on the number of loyalty points they have earned. This way you can send targeted mailing. 3. Give small and big rewards Not all customers are the same. One customer wants to save for a treatment, while another customer is happy with a product for less loyalty points. Provide a varied program so all customers are encouraged to save. 4. Reward word of mouth Let your customers work for you by offering loyalty points for bringing in new customers. You can even choose to reward loyalty points to the new customer as well. Good for business and good for current and new customers. 5. Fill your quiet days with loyalty points specials Sometimes you have days when only 70% of your day is booked. It is a shame to not fill up the remaining 30%. You can solve this, for example, with a special promotion where loyalty points are worth twice as much on that specific day. You can do this via SMS, a newsletter or on your Facebook page. 6. Reward VIP customers Reward the customers who visit your salon often for their loyalty. For example, invite your top 10 customers, who have saved up the most loyalty points, to a special evening where they get exclusive treatments. 7. Everyone participates A successful loyalty program is supported by everyone who works at the salon. Your employees can tell the customers everything about the loyalty points program and encourage their enthusiasm. So make sure they are up to speed when it comes to your loyalty program, why do you have the program and what are the benefits for the customers. Do you need help with our new Loyalty Program? Do not hesitate to contact us. We love helping you. Jorrit Boumann | Co-founder Salonized jorrit@salonized.com | www.salonized.com Salonized creates software specifically for salons. Check out our website for further information or sign up for a 14 day free trial.

Increase your sales with targeted email campaigns. It is great to see that increasingly more salons are using email marketing. They usually do this by sending newsletters to their client base. The effect is that the recipients are more likely to book a new appointment because the email came with a great offer. But even if the client does not use that offer, he or she will have been reminded of your salon and your offerings. And yet, most salons don’t use email marketing the right way. They use so-called spray and pray tactics, which means that you send the same email to all your clients while they have different interests. I recently received an email in my mailbox with the subject line “Brazilian wax” and inside was a discount. A great offer for the ladies, but it’s not meant for me. I’m a thirty-something year-old with a beard ;-) “A consumer receives 88 emails per day on average” source This is a real shame because it won’t compel me to open the email, and about 70% of the email receivers won’t do it either. What could happen as well is that a few subscribers will unsubscribe from your mailing list, and then you can never contact them again. Eventually, you will miss out on a chunk of sales, which is why I will tell you about the importance of segmentation in this article. Firstly, make sure you have a great mailing program with which you send out your newsletters. Mailchimp is one of the best. It is completely free when you have less than 2000 subscribers and send out less than 12000 emails per month. It is also very user friendly and is easy to familiarize yourself with. Recommended! Once you’ve set up a mailing program, it is important that you segment your client list. Salonized has a special link with which you can filter your clients based on various categories. Take for example the “Bikini wax” email, and filter your clients on this treatment. You will maybe get 94 clients who once had a bikini wax at your salon. Select this group and send them a newsletter with this specific subject in the email subject line. You will see that the open rate of the emails will increase dramatically. Other examples of good segmentation you can see in the graph below. 10 advantages of a targeted email campaign. Another example is to filter out all the clients that haven’t booked an appointment in the last 6 months. Send them an email with a special “we miss seeing you” discount, or something similar. You can even apply several filters to your client base so that you’ll reach out to that specific target group. Not too long ago I talked to the owner of a hair salon who filtered her list like this: In this case, all the clients who once bought product X in her salon, and hadn’t booked an appointment in the last 40 days, received a discount on the product at the exact moment that product X was very popular. And finally. By sending the right emails to the right clients and the right time you will increase your interaction with that client. This will benefit your sales and your clients will definitely appreciate this new form of marketing! I’m gonna go book a bikini wax ;-) Need help segmenting your client base? Feel free to contact me. Jorrit Boumann | Co-founder Salonized jorrit@salonized.com| www.salonized.com | (+31) 020-8932386 Salonized creates software for salons. You can have a look on our website or try Salonized free for 14 days.

It surprises me how many salons do not have a website, or not a good quality website. A beautiful website alone is not enough. It’s great that your website looks nice, but if you can’t be found on Google it’s not of much use. But this is something you can improve by the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This means that you can set up your website in a way that leads to a first page ranking on Google. Did you know for example that the first three salons with websites on Google receive 80% of all online traffic? Here are 6 easy tips to improve your ranking in Google: 1. Find your current ranking on Google. This first step is easy. Go to Google and try to find your salon the way a customer would. For example: Hair salon London center. Hairdresser students Cambridge. Nail studio central park. Facial treatment and massage Madison Do you rank high in Google? You’re in luck! Many googlers will click on your website first and make an appointment. Is your ranking not so great? At least you know where you’re at and know that you can improve your ranking on Google. 2. Make sure your website looks good on a mobile phone. Nowadays everyone owns a smartphone with which they surf the web daily. You can assume that more than 60% of all your online visitors view your website from a smartphone or tablet. You have to make sure that your website looks good on a smartphone too! Unfortunately I see that this has not been thought through in most cases. It is usually a ‘regular website’ on a very small screen. (See below.) Visitors will quickly leave this page to search for a different website, which means that you’re losing out on potential income. Google thinks the same way and “mobile friendliness” is one of the important factors that determine your ranking. 3. Write good titles. Think about which search terms your potential customers use when they surf the web for your product or service. By implementing these popular search terms in your website you will notice that you rank higher in the search result list. Another good way to find out which search terms are used most often is by using the Google SEO-tool keyword planner. Here you can enter in different search terms to see which ones are typed in Google frequently. Remember to also look at your competition for certain search terms. If there’s a lot of competition for “Hairdresser” it might be better to use the search term “Hair Styling” for your salon. Once you’ve found the right search terms, try to incorporate these in different places on your website. Use the search terms in your meta description as well. A meta description is a short summary of every page consisting of 150-160 characters. The meta description is not visible on your website, but it will show up in the Google search results. Make sure you have a good title and description of your website. These fields are clearly indicated in Salonized so you can easily add and save the text. Example of a good META title: Studio 19 in New York – The hair salon where you feel at home! Example of a good META description: Studio 19 is an atmospheric hair salon with a fun and professional team in the Brooklyn area in New York. 4. Register your company’s location on Google. You can do this within 10 minutes by following this link. There’s not a quicker way to be found on the internet. 5. Optimize your social media profile. Did you know that you can also create, apart from a Facebook business profile, a Google+, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest account? By creating these accounts you will improve your ranking on Google. Once you’ve created these accounts, remember the following. There is a designated field on all of these platforms to describe yourself and your salon. Make use of this option and add several relevant keywords in the description. Don’t keep the description too short. Enter your contact information on these platforms as detailed as possible. Create an account on Google+ and Pinterest and make sure that you indicate that these pages are activated. On LinkedIn, fill in the line directly below your name and do the same on Pinterest with your name or company name so that you can be found more easily. Also add an important keyword. Place some nice pictures of you and your salon online. People want to do business with people, show that on your website! Use this link to see how your website ranks in sharing social media: http://smo.knowem.com/ Google especially likes Google+, make sure that your salon is well represented. 6. Write a blog. You could write a monthly blog article about what goes on in your field. Apart from that it is fun to do, your customers will also regard you as an expert in this field. Use a few keywords in your blog with which you want to be found online. Your ranking on Google will increase dramatically! And finally. The importance of a good ranking is undeniable these days. There are a few things you, as a salon owner, can do yourself. There are other things that are better left in the hands of those with more expertise. If you need help there are plenty of good companies that can assist you. Make sure that you work with a reputable company because there is also ‘bad’ SEO that can seriously harm your ranking. Do you need help finding a good company? Feel free to contact me.