Social consciousness is changing the way consumers spend their money. In a 2024 survey, nearly 50% of consumers said they were more likely to remain loyal to companies that donated to charity. Consumers want their money to go toward causes they believe in, and businesses in the professional hair and beauty industry have been significant players in using charitable donations to encourage interest and sales of their products. Can you drive that sort of impact in your salon? Sure you can, but it has to be in your salon business culture.
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Some Points To Consider When Considering to Charitable Donations
A culture of charitable giving requires a strategy of giving. Treat it with the same care you would when building your salon marketing plan: with monthly initiatives, action plans, and clear goals.
Related | Building A Great Salon And Spa Culture: Ideas & Resources
Do You Give To One Or Many Charities?
Devoting your efforts towards one charity alone can allow you to have a clear marketing focus, but after time, customers can become blind to your efforts. On the other hand, if you choose to change up your charity at set intervals and create fresh, new marketing material that advertises this, you run the risk of confusing others and brushing over your previous work.
How Will You Involve Your Staff?
Friendly in-salon competitions can be a great way to motivate your staff and raise awareness for a cause. Similarly, getting staff onboard from the start, by asking them to help nominate a charity that they would like to donate to, is a great way to boost motivation and get everyone involved and excited.
How Will Charity Involvement Motivate Sales?
Organizing a charitable donation per purchase can be a great way to bring attention to a new product or service launch. Giving a portion of retail or service sales at regular intervals can help strengthen your salon brand.
Will You Support Local Or National Charities?
The benefits of supporting local charities are that some of your clientele could be personally involved with the charity. With local charities, developing a personal report becomes more feasible, opening up opportunities for events that can showcase your staff’s skills while raising awareness and integrating your business as a strong member of the community. National charities have increased name recognition and more resources available to help make planning and marketing to your clients simpler.
How Will You Promote Your Initiative?
To promote charitable initiatives, invest in salon, clinic, or spa marketing that shouts about it. Send email or SMS campaigns, hang in-salon signage, and educate your staff so they can talk intelligently about the charity with their guests. Most importantly, make sure you choose a cause that aligns with your business values. If you believe in what you are supporting, everything else will fall into place.
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3 Easy & Unique Ways To Incorporate Charity Into Your Salon Business Culture
- Minis Giveaways From travel products to sample sets, salons, clinics, and spas are often awash with products they don’t need. Hold a team-building event with your staff to create goody-bags of products that can be donated to local homeless shelters or women’s refuge shelters. Go a step further by asking clients to donate unused, unopened products or invite them to attend a goody-bag stuffing party. Use photos of clients and teams creating these bags for your social media or a local press release to boost your reach.
- Old Linens: Repurpose your old linens, towels, and any other soft fabrics that are no longer useable in the salon, spa, or clinic. When it’s time to replace your stained or slightly frayed towels, animal shelters and art schools would love to find a new use for you.
- Partnering Up: Partner with a local charity at your next launch party, have them come out to talk about their mission and mingle with guests. Want to get your brand involved? Ask your sales rep to support by donating some products to a raffle; this gets clients interested in products while also helping a good cause.
There’s always a period shortly before and after the holidays that makes it hard not to notice new opportunities to give to charity. After all, bell-ringers with red coin buckets are so ingrained into the holiday landscape that it’s hard to imagine Christmas without them. With so many beauty businesses already taking up collections of toys or other goods at the holidays, what if you built your business culture around charitable giving year-round?
Got a question for Katt? Get in touch at info@grafinskin.com! Got feedback? Let us know in the comments below. (Pssst! We’re on Instagram too!)
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Katt Philipps is a licensed esthetician, master makeup artist, beauty business coach, and the Owner of Gräfin Skin + Beauty and Petalandherb.com in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. Katt has appeared on CNN, the BBC, Forbes Magazine, and Phorest FM episode 91.
