As a beauty professional, you may not put much thought into marketing yourself or your services. Perhaps in the back of your mind, you think your employer should do this or it’s only reserved for celebrities, influencers, salon educators, and other notable professionals in the field. But you would be wrong. Building your brand is crucial to your overall success.
Whether you choose to work at a spa or run your own business, if you are serious about growing your esthetics business, you need to have a strategy set in place to market yourself and your expertise in a scalable manner. Below we will break down four tried and true marketing strategies so that you stand out from the competition and build your book of business.
Whether you choose to work at a spa or run your own business, if you are serious about growing your esthetics business, you need to have a strategy set in place to market yourself and your expertise in a scalable manner. Below we will break down four tried and true marketing strategies so that you stand out from the competition and build your book of business.
Build Your Personal Brand
Your personal brand is how you communicate who you are, what you do, and the value-add that you can provide people with your expertise—even when they aren’t your clients. Whenever you communicate with people, whether that is in person, through email or social media, or video—you are working on creating your personal brand. But are you being intentional about it?
Think about what your long-term goals are in your career. Do you just want to be a practitioner, or do you also want to be an influencer in the space, an educator, or even an in-house expert for a skincare brand (who knows, you may even create a product on your own)? Only you know the answer to these questions. So you will have to answer those questions first before you lay out a long-term plan. Once you have that laid out, you can work on a yearly marketing plan.
No matter which direction you decide to go, more than ever people want to connect with the person behind the service or business. Clients will do their research before they book since they will want to be assured that they are in the hands of an expert—so it is important to establish yourself as an expert and know how you want to present yourself to the public. Here are a few suggestions that you can utilize to establish your personal brand.
Think about what your long-term goals are in your career. Do you just want to be a practitioner, or do you also want to be an influencer in the space, an educator, or even an in-house expert for a skincare brand (who knows, you may even create a product on your own)? Only you know the answer to these questions. So you will have to answer those questions first before you lay out a long-term plan. Once you have that laid out, you can work on a yearly marketing plan.
No matter which direction you decide to go, more than ever people want to connect with the person behind the service or business. Clients will do their research before they book since they will want to be assured that they are in the hands of an expert—so it is important to establish yourself as an expert and know how you want to present yourself to the public. Here are a few suggestions that you can utilize to establish your personal brand.
- High-Quality Imagery: Pictures speak a thousand words. These could be headshots, pictures or video of you performing services, before and after pictures, product testing videos, and more. But the quality of the image or video is just as important as the contents inside the frame. If you are able to take good photos and videos, you could take some yourself. But, if you want headshots, action videos, or interior design photos of your workspace—you may want to hire a professional since they understand lighting and what will look good in the frame. You will want to have a stockpile of imagery and video for all of your marketing efforts. So, the more you have, the better.
- Create Content That Positions You As An Expert: The power of content can never be underestimated. This applies to all kinds of content including written, audio, and video. Content is a way for you to show your skills to the world. This could be on your blog or vlog, or social media feeds. When you talk about industry-related matters, aesthetic solutions, specific products, techniques, and so forth—you are showcasing your skills. Since your skills are vast as an esthetician, there are plenty of topics to cover for content topics. To keep your content varied, you may want to create a content calendar.
- Share Relevant Personal Stories On Social Media: If you have seen some beauty influencers and beauty professionals online, some of them get very personal by sharing intimate details of their lives. Only you will know what feels right to share. Regardless, you could share personal stories that are related to the field of aesthetics. For example, you could talk about how you got your acne scars resolved with aesthetic treatments or products. Either way, showing your personality will only help you to connect with more people and open up the potential for other opportunities—like a collaboration of sorts with another company or brand.
- Consider Creating A Website: You may not think that you need a website, especially if you work for someone else. But think of your website as your portfolio of your expertise and a means for people to find you online. You can include contact information, location, hours, services offered, pricing, reviews, social media links, blogs, events, and more to your website. Just make sure it stays up to date. If you add widgets to your website for booking or retail, it then also acts as an online store.
Localized Marketing Is A Must For Estheticians
Since being an esthetician is typically a localized business, if you decide to put some marketing dollars behind advertising your services, you will want them targeted locally. An invaluable tool for estheticians is geo-targeted advertising, which allows people to target people specifically in your area. Many social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer this feature when you run a paid ad. Facebook even offers other criteria you can target, like age, to further target specific groups who would naturally be interested in your services.
Reward Your Loyal Customers With Loyalty Cards
Everyone likes to be rewarded and your tried-and-true clients are no different. An easy way to do this is to offer loyalty cards that offer some type of reward that entices your clients to continue to keep coming back—this could be a discount or a free service, for example. You could even take it a step further and offer a tiered membership program that offers savings the more they spend with you. You may even want to consider offering a discount or free service on your client’s birthday or early access to new services or promotions. No matter what you decide, people like to feel taken care of and as if they are getting something special. Your clients are no different.
Ask Your Loyal Customer For Referrals (And You Can Reward Them Further)
A referral program is a no-brainer to help you spread the word about your services as an esthetician. It can help you acquire new clients and keep your current clients happy. Since you will be asking your loyal customer base to send you referrals, you will want to incentivize them for doing so—like a discount on a future service or a free add-on service. Referral programs are easy to implement and are a win-win for everyone involved.
