Tanning Salon Software: Making Time for Social Media Marketing

2/22/2016

At SalonTouch Studio, we’ve noticed something:

There is a common element missing from the social media marketing campaigns of many tanning salons.

That element is time. Namely, not putting in enough.

It’s actually quite understandable. After all, the most valuable asset of any entrepreneur is time.

So you’ll find many locally owned tanning salons attempting to use social media to engage their audience with different content and using tanning salon software, hoping beyond hope to motivate people into becoming new or return customers.

This is a great practice. But if it isn’t putting a dent in your profit margins, there is a reason why.

Again, it goes back to time spent. Usually it’s just that your man hours are being spent the wrong way.

We’ll look to iron that out right now by illustrating how tanning salons should allot their time to run effective social campaigns.

Take Time to Identify Where to Post

The number one reason your social media marketing generates no engagement:

Your target audience doesn’t see it. Posting all over the Web without first scouting to find out where your potential customers hang out online simply won’t work.

Every business needs to use the channels most appropriate to their industry and location. In the case of online marketing, those channels are determined by the natural activity of your potential leads.

For this purpose, we even put together a list of social platforms every tanning salon needs.

Why is this step so critical to time management?

Because it helps you to avoid two things every business owners wants to avoid when they begin marketing on social media

Firstly, ineffective campaigns.

An example would be if you sponsored post got 500 likes and 20 shares, but you don’t get any new sales, or even leads. Obviously, there’s no ROI on that, even if all you spent were a few bucks and few minutes. Here, your best-case-scenario is that you increase your brand’s awareness —however slightly.

Secondly, time completely wasted.

The bane of every entrepreneur’s existence, this is by far the worse of the two. You may have made the mistake of posting where or when no one would see it. Or worse yet, your audience saw it but it failed to resonate with them.

You didn’t only miss potential leads, but also anyone else who might’ve been interested in what you had to say.

While not identifying where to post will almost certainly result in ineffective and completely fruitless campaigns, it isn’t the only way to get there.

You also have to make sure you spend time on crafting a message your target audience will receive well.

Take Time to Craft Your Message

Your campaigns can miss the mark even if you know where to aim.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if you are found in all the right places if it doesn’t lead to the right outcomes for your business.

One of the problems for many tanning salons is that they don’t have an understanding of what those outcomes should be.

The goal of all marketing should be to increase revenue, in the long run.

But not every business should employ the same strategies in their social campaigns. Your marketing needs to fit your business. And your tanning salon might have any of several goals in mind.

Some of the most common...

Branding:
Branding is all about getting people to recognize your brand’s name. Effective branding also associates that name with your industry. The best branding also creates a sense of trust and authority.

New businesses and those under new management, especially, can benefit from branding elements in their social media campaigns.

Engagement:
Engagement campaigns are about creating raving fans for your brand. Every business wants clients that send you referrals, drop your name around town, and are extremely loyal. This increases both acquisition and retention.

Engagement is one of the best ways for brands in competitive markets to set themselves apart and increase exposure.

Promotions:
Promotional campaigns are all about getting people in the door. Social media is a great place to post discount codes and coupons. Depending on the depth of your social reach, this can generate new customers on a regular basis.

Just about every tanning salon should use a promotional strategy of some kind on social media, though they don’t go over as well alone.

Reputation:
For salons and spas, online reviews are absolutely huge. Business directories and social platforms alike allow people to give your brand public feedback. Getting bitten by the bad review bug can be devastating to businesses of all sizes.

Reputation building social campaigns are designed to encourage positive reviews and are actually a great strategy for any tanning salon, hair salon, or spa.

Most businesses need some sort of combination.

Identifying the right mix for your brand is one of the most important things you can do. Just remember to base it on what your brand needs, not on some online guide, and not on what your competition is doing.

From here, ensuring that the messaging is customized to the way your target audience likes to receive communication is a simpler matter.

Now that your message is crafted, it’s time to set your social campaign in motion.

Take Time to Analyze Results

#1 way otherwise well designed social media campaigns fail to deliver ROI:

Failing to set specific goals and rate the results of your marketing against those goals.

This mistake is entirely too common. But why?

In a way, it’s understandable. Again, the time of a tanning salon is a valuable commodity. Perhaps you could find time to break things down. Or maybe you decided didn’t want to waste time by over-complicating things.

Whatever the case may be, the excuse is a bad one. After all, how will you know if the time spent creating your social campaigns was time well spent?

Without this step, you may never know that all of your man hours are going down the drain.

Without this step, you may never find that one tweak that creates a breakthrough for your brand.

Without this step, you may never see an ROI on your social media marketing campaigns… ever.

In our experience, the only way to ensure that the effectiveness of your marketing increases over time is to take a scientific approach. Measuring results is the only way to test new ideas and figure out what really works.

If you don’t take the time to analyze your outcomes, the likelihood of actually increasing revenue over time is highly unlikely. So spend the effort to identify what has been working and how you can build upon it.

Otherwise, you’ll end up short on time and money.

Even in a world of instantaneous conversation, social marketing takes a degree of patience.

Take Time to Get It Right

No matter how many man hours you spend identifying where to post, crafting your message, and analyzing your results, you have to keep realistic expectations.

Remember, keep your goals in perspective. This is the main thing that should determine the type of timetable you’re giving yourself. To give you an idea, give yourself at least 6 months to gain traction—longer in more competitive markets

Oftentimes, you might find decent results sooner. It’s just not something you should count on as the Internet is rapidly evolving and its users are fickle. What works great today may reflect negatively on your brand in just a short time.

Give yourself enough room to get it wrong so that you can eventually get it right.

Just remember, social media is here to stay. It’s going to be a factor for businesses into the foreseeable future.

So the best choice would be to learn to do things the right way from the beginning. The way that involves spending time up front.

Do that, and your social media campaigns will be more effective than you ever knew they could be.

Have questions or comments about effective social media marketing? You can keep the conversation going below. And please, like and share on on social media.