“Everyone is not your customer,” according to best-selling author, marketer, entrepreneur, and public speaker Seth Godin. And he’s right. As a business, trying to be everything to everyone can cause you to lose your core operational values, abandon the things that make your business unique, and compromise the quality of your services.
Trying to market to everyone can result in you reaching no one— in fact, hear salon owners and educators Erin Raber and Hunter Donia on the topic as they both share their experiences on the PhorestFM podcast. The people you want in your salon or spa need to be able to relate to your business.
Why Should You Market to Ideal Clients Only?
In the earlier days of our podcast, PhorestFM, we invited Louis Grenier, digital marketing consultant and podcaster, to discuss the ‘Art Of Effective Marketing Focus.’ During the episode, he argued that taking the time to pick a select few marketing channels to focus on enables businesses to have a much larger impact on clients and potential clients, especially when clients today are being bombarded with marketing information everywhere else they look:
“It’s not necessarily only about focusing on two or three channels. It’s also about focusing your strategy, focusing on one goal, one objective. Everybody has problems. Information is everywhere. You can read any blog on any topic. It’s impossible to follow every single tactic that you learn, that you hear about, or that you listen to… Everybody else feels this way.”
The more you scatter your marketing efforts, and attempt to attract everyone through your doors, the more unsuitable clients you will attract. Do you want to spend limited marketing resources attracting clients that don’t fit your business structure? Or do you want to focus on learning how to attract and retain your ideal clientele?
(We both know the answer to that question…)
How to Define Your Ideal Salon Client
Many salon and spa owners don’t intentionally attract the wrong clients; they simply don’t understand how to target the right ones. To quote Seth Godin once again, your ideal client is one who:
- Wants your products or services
- Has the ability to pay for said products or services
To further identify these people and really understand them in your business, creating client personas can be helpful. This is a practice that business founder, writer, and consultant, MBE Sharmadean Reid spoke about in her Salon Owners Summit 2024 keynote. In this talk, she advised creating approximately 3 different personas that represent your three main “types” of clients. For help defining and finding these top clients, you can use your Phorest Reporting system, delving into your ‘top clients’ or ‘super clients’ reports. These reports show you the loyal, high-spending clients who are most valuable to your business.
Rather than focusing on these clients’ demographics as their most important defining features (e.g., age, geographic location, job title), Sharmadean recommended exploring psychographic features to truly understand what they want and, in turn, how your salon can give them that so that they turn into loyal, returning clients.
Examples of psychographic features include:
- Their personality types
- Their daily routine
- Their hopes and dreams
- Their fears or loss aversions
- Their friendship groups
- Their 10-year goals
After you’ve collected this information, work with your team to bring this ideal salon client to life. You could even give this fictional person a name, making it easier to relate to them. Who is “Erica”, for example?
- What’s their job title?
- Their goals and challenges?
- What’s their story?
With this in mind, you can better define your marketing strategy and tweak it to suit what “Erica” would want. This will, in turn, attract more “Ericas” to your business—clients who are more loyal, high-spending, and better fit than average.
Still Not Convinced?
Here are 8 Advantages to Better Understanding Who Your Ideal Salon Client Is…
- You are in a better position to tailor your salon experience to your new and existing ideal clients
- You will find it easier to plan, craft, and target marketing campaigns as you will be able to picture the person you’re trying to talk to
- Same for your social media strategy: visualising who you’re speaking to can make creating posts easier
- You will have a better understanding of what retail products to stock; i.e., the products your ideal clients are using and purchasing
- You will see an increase in client loyalty; people want to visit somewhere they feel represented and understood
- Ideal clients are engaged and will recommend you to their friends and colleagues, driving referrals and increasing the number of “ideal clients” in your diary
- Understanding your ideal clients gives you a clearer picture of your brand, boosting visibility and brand authority
- More loyal clients visiting you more often and spending more money will increase your business’s revenue — meaning you will become more profitable.
Ready to Start Building Your Ideal Client Profiles?
Focusing on your ideal salon clients is key to success in marketing, client retention, revenue generation, and overall business growth. Rather than trying to please everyone, hone in on those who truly align with your brand, and you will soon start to reap the benefits. Who is your ideal client?
Partner with Phorest to make attracting, retaining & delighting your ideal clients easier with our suite of integrated marketing tools
