WHY EMAIL?

As twenty-first-century methods of communication go, email is hardly the sexiest. Or the newest. However, it’s worthy of a place in any salon marketer’s toolkit for a number of reasons.

When my wife and I owned our day spa and salon in Bournemouth, we had the surprising secret weapon that generated us business week in and week out. It was email. It gave us a better return on investment than Google pay per click, Facebook ads or any other facet of marketing we tried. And we tried lots. Email allowed us to build relationships with our clients in a way that no other media could. Our system turned cold traffic into buyers and we soon had a database of over 9,000 engaged local residents who were our target demographic. That’s a powerful list, right there. As salons everywhere focus on the myriad of fancy new marketing tools available to them they shouldn’t overlook email;

– Open rates are up as inboxes become less crowded
– Client attention is easier to capture in the inbox than the over-saturated
and increasingly expensive social media feeds
– The whole thing costs pennies and can give you a return like no other
Sexy is great but in business, a long term relationship will pay dividends over
a short-term fling every time.

Email is your trusty sidekick. Your lifetime partner. Your marketing bestie. If you’ve not had the results you’d have liked just yet then that’s fine; 99% of people approach it in the wrong way. Within this short white paper, you’ll discover a better way.

Enjoy,
Ryan

TIP #1 : DITCH THE FANCY NEWSLETTER

I know, I know. Everyone said that you needed a flashy, all-signing, and all-dancing monthly newsletter. Everyone has one, right? Even all the big companies. And they can’t possibly all be wrong. Well, this is awkward… but stay with me. Here’s the thing. Nobody cares about your news and nobody cares about your newsletter. There, I said it. All your clients care about are their needs, wants, hopes, and dreams – and if you can help them with those then all the better. Emails with lots of big bold images and giant text say one thing to those who receive them – a sales pitch. Clients see through this now. They know there is typically a thinly veiled pitch coming. Sadly, it doesn’t end there. The email service providers can see a newsletter coming too. They also know that many of their clients don’t wish to receive them… so they file them in the junk folder. Delivery rates and click rates on these types of emails are down. Everyone has seen them before, they receive hundreds and it doesn’t stand out at all. Be different and try plain text instead. No fancy formatting. No images. Just words. Try writing your emails as if they are from one person to one person. Why? That’s how you start to build your relationship. Nobody wants a ‘Dear all’ email – that doesn’t make anyone feel special. Write your emails like you would write one to a friend. People look forward to receiving emails like that. They open them. They read them. They click on them. I know this is probably against what you may have taught elsewhere but if you want to be different then you have to stand out.

Just try it.

TIP #2 : SELL THE CLICK

What’s the most important part of any email? That’ll be the subject line. Without a good subject line then nobody is going to
read your email. All that hard work down the drain. Here’s where most people go wrong with their subject lines; they try and
summarise the entire email in less than ten words. The subject line has one purpose and one alone; to get your email opened.
That’s it. They’ll find out all of the other good stuff when they read the actual email. Plus if you summarise everything for them then why even bother opening it? They know what’s inside already! If you’ve been guilty of email subject lines such as “10% off inside” or “Our monthly newsletter” then it’s time to try a new approach. Think about what makes you open emails you receive against ones you scroll past. We’re all-time poor and most people won’t open every email. Rather they’ll open those which capture their imagination. Use intrigue. Use numbers. Heck, you can even use emojis if you want. Just make sure they sound interesting and sell the click. You’ll have more opens with titles such as “You won’t believe this rude client” or “3 insider secrets I probably shouldn’t share with you”. Just make sure the body of the email actually relates to the title. You’re not going to build much of a relationship by fooling someone. The easiest way to do this? Write the email body first and then the subject line afterward – cleverly tying the two together. Everyone writes the subject line first – but again, we don’t want to be like everyone else, right?

TIP #3 : TELL MORE STORIES

When we were all little boys and girls there was one way we ended every day. With a story, read to us at bedtime. That is ingrained in your brain, whether you like it or not. As humans we’re conditioned to respond to stories. We love them. We love to hear them. And if you want to build better relationships then you should tell more of ‘em too. Assuming you’ve followed tip one and have ditched the newsletter then you could be forgiven for staring at a blank screen wondering what the heck to type. The answer lies in a story. People will read these. They will be interested. They’ll reply. They’ll mention them when visiting. Pinky promise. You can still get over the same message as your original email – for example introducing a new team member or announcing a new service – but rather than bright flashing images to do it you wrap it all up in a story. Much like the subject line secret, you can start with the end in mind and work backwards. If you can make the story entertaining then all the better. With each story and email your clients read they’ll be drawn closer and closer to you. They’ll learn more about you. Let them in. Sign off each and every one as you the individual and not you the brand; after all people buy people and they want to know you first. Remember; this is
about harvesting a relationship.

TIP #4 : SEND MORE EMAILS

The prize for the most obvious tip on this list goes to this one. If you want to get your emails opened more and read more then simply send more. How often do you send them right now? We used to send them once a month and would send out a summary
newsletter type email which went through what was going on in our business. Lots of people still send these, and maybe you do too. Ours wasn’t great. And by not great what I mean is that it generated very little business. So we changed up the style of our emails, and we upped the frequency. We tested sending every two weeks rather than four and had better results. Same happened when we tried weekly. And twice weekly. I know, I know. You might be worried right now that you can’t fill an email once per month let alone twice per week! Start with one per week. Write them all in one sitting and schedule them using an email autoresponder (recommendation of the one I use at the end). You can even use the same points you would have used in your newsletter – just separated out and each wrapped in a story. If you’re only sending one a month then you’re missing a trick. Not everyone will open, see or even receive every email you send. Or maybe they were in the queue at the supermarket as it came through and they never got around to going back to it. Risk that and they might not see your name for another 4 or 8 weeks. That’s a lifetime in the modern era. Weekly – or even twice weekly – is your sweet spot. Don’t pressure yourself to write War & Peace each time either – some of my emails are only a few lines long. Why? Because that’s what the emails I send to my friends look like – and that’s the look I’m going for. Most people get precious few replies to their emails – that’ll change for you if you adopt these methods.

TIP #5 : THE SECRET SAUCE

So we spoke earlier on in this white paper about the most important part of any email; the subject line. Now I want to pay my respects to the most underused and underrated part. The signature. How much thought have you put into yours? You probably made it all about you, included a spam filter inducing photograph and thought no more of it. I get it. That’s what most people do.
Keep your name and your title and your awards and all those good things – but don’t overlook the opportunity staring right back at you. You can add whatever you want to your signature. Lines of text, with hyperlinks. Maybe explaining how you help people.
Maybe directing them to where you’d like them to go next. Maybe pointing to your diary. It’s up to you. This section of your email looks the same every time – and it’s a perfect opportunity for you to sell in every email you send in the most under-the-
radar fashion you could imagine. I have a line underneath my name that says, “Want a copy of my Amazon best-selling book? For FREE? Just pay the postage. Click HERE.” I’ve got a link to my Facebook group too. Salesy? No. Annoying? Nope. Causes people to unsubscribe? Never But does it drive traffic to those places? You bet. I’ll send a value-based email – wrapped in a story – and can see the clicks. People naturally enjoy the content and their eyes keep going down. However due to it being hidden in the signature then nobody is offended or feels as though they are being sold to. It works like a charm.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ve got some real value from this report.
If you’d like a copy of my book on salon marketing (an actual physical copy)
then you can grab one and just pay the postage by clicking HERE.

You can also connect with me here;
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
FREE FACEBOOK PAGE FOR SALON OWNERS
PODCAST
Over on Clubhouse – search for Ryan Power (yes, that’s my real name).
And for the email software I mentioned you can get a free account here.