This article covers:
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Set your business up for future success with a digital salon
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What services & products to offer online as well as in-store
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Why your temporary solution should be a permanent fixture
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Bright ideas to make your new digital salon a smash hit!
Secure Your Future Success
In the new age of COVID-19, many salons have gone digital, complete with virtual services and online retail. With re-openings ramping up, you may be wondering how to keep your digital salon up-to-date and give your physical salon a boost. If you want to know how to maintain (or even expand) your digital salon once your brick-and-mortar shop is re-open for business, read on!
What Should Be in Your Online Salon?
If you’ve transitioned to a virtual salon, you'll know some business is easier to conduct online like your retail sales! By taking your retail online, you can create contactless product galleries, offer clients shipping options, curbside pickup, or low-contact pickups at their scheduled appointments. Be sure to offer online gift certificates, to reduce person-to-person contact and your carbon footprint! You can even suggest live stream consultations to your clients to increase the efficiency of in-person appointments. While preparing re-opening plans, make sure to consider if there are any new digital opportunities!
Make Your Temporary Solution a Permanent Fixture
Your digital salon may have launched as a temporary solution to COVID-19 closures, but that’s no reason it shouldn’t become a permanent part of your business plan. Building your virtual salon is your lifeline in tough times but maintaining your virtual salon after re-opening is a convenient complement to your physical storefront during good times. Virtual services provide accessibility to clients who can’t make it in-store, convenience to busy customers, and gives you more of your most precious commodity: time!
Bright Ideas for More Virtual Salon Traffic
Keep retail sales robust with a digital product gallery! Gain back time behind the chair on face-to-face sales and deliver a low-contact solution for customers. Then stay on top of your email and text marketing and entice customers to browse your virtual aisles with an exclusive coupon code.
Host a live stream product demo webinar series! Invite customers to join a weekly live stream to learn about new products and explore your salon’s product lines. Give demos so customers can see the products in action, explaining why your shop loves the products and decided to sell them.
Make education part of your new service menu! Because in-person contact will be limited for a while, customers will be craving more attention. Host a free or donation-based webinar series or an “Ask Me Anything” live stream. Then have fun answering questions like “Why is gray hair coarse?” or “Why can’t I use color over color to lighten my hair?”
One-on-one sessions and in-person appointments save you time behind the chair and reduce extended contact. Perform remote color appointments save you time behind the chair and reduce extended contact. Perform remote color consultations and pre- or post- appointment steps, like pre-color rinses or at-home toning. You can teach customers everything from between-appointment bang maintenance to root tints that won’t wreck their hair.
Create a digital library of tutorials! You know how much fun it is to watch beauty tutorials on YouTube? Why not make it more personal with a tutorial library of your own? Record a series of beauty tutorials with easy tips, tricks, and hacks. Then keep adding to it! You can offer access to your digital library for a low monthly or annual fee and give your customers hours of great content.
The Future of Salons is Digital
Your digital salon helped get you through a tough time. Which is exactly why maintaining it in the good times can only help you. If you haven’t launched a virtual salon yet—isn’t it about time you set yourself up for future success? Virtual salons are here to stay, and once you’ve established one, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it! Vagaro makes it easy to get your business jump-started with a digital revenue stream that’s easy to maintain.
With Vagaro’s new live streaming features, it’s easy for you to build the digital salon of your dreams and use it to earn more money in less time. Give your customers more convenient, accessible options for everything from services to their favorite products. Use live stream to cut down on time behind the chair and connect with your customers in the comfort of their own homes. Visit our support page for step-by-step guidance to get your Vagaro account set up to start streaming and use our online cart to bring in the retail sales!
Header Image: Giorgio Trovato via Vagaro
Icons: Mia Montemayor via Vagaro
