Most B2C businesses, including spas, are leveraging social media marketing today.
And why wouldn’t they?
Consumers love social-savvy brands.
A Sprout Social consumer survey discovered that 84% of people would rather buy from a brand they follow on social media than a competitor. 75% of people tend to increase their spending with brands after they start following them.
Evidently, being active on social media is a win-win for spas.
Any challenges?
Of course, there are. With so many brands vying for limited consumer attention, the competition is stiff. Your spa needs to design a robust social media marketing plan to outshine your competitors on saturated platforms.
And to do so, you need look no further than this post. I’m going to explain eight killer strategies to help you make inroads in social networks. But first, let’s discuss why excelling at social media marketing is essential for spas and salons.
How can a spa business benefit from social media marketing? I get this question a lot.
After helping many wellness businesses multiply their revenue, I can assure you that social media marketing is ABSOLUTELY essential for spas.
From brand recognition to conversions, you can achieve almost all business goals through a solid social media marketing strategy.
Not convinced?
Then, take a look at these data-backed advantages of social media marketing:
By aggressively promoting deals and discounts on social media, you can drive traffic to your spa. This has a direct and tangible impact on your in-store revenue. Plus, you can get assured returns on marketing, which helps justify the investment.
On top of that, you can earn a lot of money by hosting affiliate programs, and promoting them on social media.
And you can’t quantify (or ignore) the returns from some things that social media marketing provides to all online businesses.
Like what?
Increased brand awareness and customer satisfaction, which can both help you expand your business income.
The reach of social media is limitless. If your content gets shared, your reach widens automatically. The people who share your posts are likely wellness inclined. They are potential leads for your spa business.
By keeping track of engagement on your reshared posts, you can reach more like-minded consumers.
The best part?
All of this is possible organically. Unlike traditional advertising and promotional text campaigns , you don’t have to break the bank for real-time lead generation. There are tools that can multiply your organic traffic for little to no investment.
If you have the budget, social media advertising is an even better bet. You can precisely target a high-potential audience and drive them to your page, or directly to your spa.
You can attend to your customers on a one-to-one basis, which increases customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Crisis management to complaint redressal and a lot more can be handled proactively with always-on social platforms.
With patience levels of consumers dwindling and competition rising, this type of customer-first approach is essential. Service-based businesses like spas just can’t afford to skimp on customer service.
Why so?
Because it speaks volumes about how much you value your customers. Responsive customer service can secure brand loyalty, repeat sales, and referrals. It is the top driver for 48% of purchase decisions.
There are social media tools that can help you perform in-depth competitor research. From the comfort of your spa, you can get a 360-degree view of your entire competition.
How does that help?
You can identify your competitors’ strongholds and replicate their social outreach as well as services. This can be a gamechanger in the competitive spa industry.
Social listening tools give you a sneak peek into what real consumers think about your business. Where are you lacking? What do your customers expect in terms of services, pricing, and perks?
Predictive social tools can even pick up crisis signs before they flare-up. Is there a dissatisfied customer ranting about your spa and driving away traffic?
Get the picture?
Good. If you are a smart entrepreneur, you can do wonders with these kinds of insights.
Social media is the ideal place to boast about how your spa business is a cut above the competition.
Qualified technicians, proprietary healing methods, state-of-the-art infrastructure, whatever your UVP is, highlighting it on social media can help you attract new customers.
Now that’s a strong case for social media marketing.
But let me be frank, you can’t draw these benefits unless you implement the right marketing tactics. Let me explain these in detail.
As you can see, social media marketing is not meant only for luxury spas and salons with big marketing budgets. The smallest spa businesses can rule social media and beat the competition, provided they follow a few ground rules.
Like what?
Maintain consistency. You can’t hope for good returns from any kind of marketing, let alone social media marketing, if you don’t invest consistent effort. “Out of sight, out of mind” could be your fate if you don’t maintain your posting frequency.
You need to build a proper social media calendar, manually or with software, and automate post scheduling. This way, you can remain top-of-mind and can draw the desired returns from social media marketing.
Apart from regular postings, there are many fail-proof tactics that can help you build a formidable social brand for your spa. Take a look at them.
You can reshare the content that your customers post about your spa. Most people share check-ins on social networks, often tagging the brand. They also like to post before-and-after makeover pictures and unboxing videos with commentary.
All of this is authentic UGC that you can reshare on your pages, (with the customer’s permission, of course).
The benefit?
This kind of social proof is a lot more convincing and compelling than advertisements. Not to mention, absolutely free. UGC is a kind of “earned media” that drives 56% of purchase decisions on social media.
Check out the post below. It was posted by one of Burt’s Bees’ customers, who happens to have 1.5 million followers on Instagram. Naturally, the brand gets great exposure on top of customer trust. Not only that, but the “#notsponsored” caption also augments Burt’s Bees’ credibility, making the UGC even more valuable for the brand.
To source after-treatment selfies from clients, you can create digital selfie stations. People love to take selfies after completing beauty treatments when they feel most confident. Selfie stations allow them to capture selfies and instantly post on social networks, accrediting your spa.
Create custom hashtags for your selfie stations so that you don't have to hunt in your feeds for UGC. Offer incentives like discount coupons or free products to clients who provide you with the best or most UGC.
Remember to thank and tag the original creators when you repost their content. For Instagram, you can use apps like Repost for accreditation.
You can also create shoppable Instagram Stories to boost your conversions through social media marketing. To leverage this strategy, you need to comply with Instagram’s commerce eligibility conditions.
So how does it work?
Here’s how:
When your clients share unboxing or treatment videos with impressive reviews, their friends will likely want to purchase the featured products/services. To make it easy for them to shop, you can add shoppable stickers and quick links to your Stories.
On clicking the stickers, users are redirected to the corresponding product pages on your website.
Such omnichannel marketing can skyrocket your sales revenue and marketing ROI.
Service-based businesses like spas need to showcase their domain knowledge and skills. Educational video demos and tutorials can help you do so on social media. They are not only compelling proof of your prowess but also engaging to watch.
By demonstrating high standards of hygiene and professionalism, you can earn the trust of potential consumers. Seeing you at work, they’ll likely feel more confident stepping into your spa.
You also have the option of going live through IGTV on Instagram. You can share lengthy beauty procedures in real-time with your followers.
Need an example?
Frescura Beauty Spa regularly posts helpful videos in which they explain home beauty regimes. The video below is about draining lymph nodes for sinus relief and to boost immunity.
Needless to say, the spa has earned an enviable position and followership on social media. They are a preferred brand for many beauty-conscious people, who rely on them for beauty advice.
More than half of people (59%) avidly seek informative and reliable content on social media. In an age of misinformation, if you share well-researched posts, you can earn consumer trust plus a lot of reshares.
Since social media users are not high on patience, serve them crisp and succinct content. Bite-sized information laid out in an infographic can get more engagement than a tightly-packed textual post.
If you’re short on infographic ideas, I have a couple of good ones. You can bust popular beauty myths. Or, put together helpful hacks for solving the everyday challenges of your target audience.
Take a cue from GoToSkincare. They coined the term “mask-ne,” which refers to acne caused by wearing face masks. Since the topic is hot and the information is useful, the post has virality potential.
You can also compile beauty hacks and quotable quotes from beauty bloggers into Instagram Carousel posts. These snackable formats garner a lot of engagement.
Don’t forget to cross-promote the content across all the platforms where your potential targets are active. If you own a beauty blog where you write in-depth educational articles, share the highlights on social media. Similarly, place quick-share buttons next to share-worthy highlights in the posts.
The key to keeping your social pages alive and kicking is by engaging your followers. Interactive content like interactive games/puzzles, ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions, and polls are simple but effective ways to get your followers talking.
And why is that important?
For two reasons. One, you discover hidden insights about your target audience, which can help you in content and product ideation. Two, you can warm up your audience and prep them for conversion.
Check out how Benefit Cosmetics got 17K+ likes on their product-decoding game. That’s pretty cool numbers for a zero-cost strategy.
You can add “Question Stickers” to your Instagram Stories. Confused about new hair services that you can offer? Ask your customers and instantly get the answers — an easy engagement opportunity with quick returns.
If you are serious about building engagement, you can set aside time for weekly uninterrupted chat sessions with your followers, like MeetEdgar below.
Twitter chat is an underrated but effective relationship-building tactic since it provides value to both consumers and brands. Brands get engagement and consumers get personalized attention from the brands they love.
If you have a reasonable marketing budget, invest in retargeting ads on Facebook or Instagram. Using these ads, you can retarget people who visited your pages or website before but left without converting. You can flash them enticing offers or abandoned-cart reminders, while they are browsing elsewhere.
Research proves that 3 out of 5 Americans take notice of retargeting ads, and 59% didn’t mind brands following them around the web.
Need an example?
I recently visited the WhiteHat Jr. website to research one of their products. And now they are flashing attractive deals in my Facebook feed.
Note how they have placed a “Book Now” button for easy conversions. You can also copy the move to let people book spa appointments without leaving Facebook.
Contests are all the rage on social media. They are fun, engaging, and cost peanuts. Staking your products, you can host social-only contests. You can also collaborate with hotels and complementary brands to make the prizes more enticing.
Anything else?
Of course.
To spread the word about your contests, partner with relevant influencers. They can write promotional posts to encourage their followers to participate.
For instance, Healthwinds Spa posted a giveaway for couple massages on Valentine’s Day. They tagged their influencer, kait.style, who also promoted the contest on her page.
However, go through each platform’s guidelines before formulating contest rules. For example, Facebook doesn’t allow you to instruct participants to tag others.
Everybody loves sales. Many social media users are active deal-seekers. You can reach, engage, and convert them effectively by promoting your sales on social platforms.
Using the “Swipe-Up” feature on Instagram allows you to redirect people to landing pages from where they can shop.
To convert followers into leads, embed lead generation forms on your landing pages. Allow people to shop at reduced rates after they provide you with their email addresses.
After that, you can nurture these leads with exclusive content via emails. This way, you cement the relationships and earn life-time customers.
That’s a lot of killer strategies for spas and salons. And there are many more salon advertising tools, such as Facebook chatbots and weekly newsletters.
If you are confused about which strategies you should use, take inspiration from your social-savvy competitors. Identify the tactics that are getting maximum engagement for them. Also, prioritize tactics that help you fulfill your business goals.
Do you need more marketing advice to ace social media? Write your requests in the comments below. I’m always happy to help my readers.
Very helpful, thanks Shane
Excellent article
Good post
Nothing is impossible with the right marketing tactics
Nailed it Shane !
Wow!!! Amazing tips!!
Really strong marketing game
Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO. He is the Co-Founder of Attrock, a digital marketing agency. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.
BBN Times connects decision makers to you. Experts in their fields, worth listening to, are the ones who write our articles. We believe these are the real commentators of the future. We quickly and accurately deliver serious information around the world. BBN Times provides its readers human expertise to find trusted answers by providing a platform and a voice to anyone willing to know more about the latest trends. Stay tuned, the revolution has begun.
Leave your comments
Post comment as a guest