How to boost your Salon Business?  New treatments, exclusive deals and offers, loyalty bonuses – these are all great marketing opportunities.

But how do you advertise them?
And how do you stay in touch with your clients in a way that encourages them to take advantage of those special offers?
And how can you make sure that your customer will not miss the appointment?

Whereas emails and even ‘snail mail’ flyers are all too easily overlooked, a text message straight to your clients’ phones is far more likely to be checked and responded to.

I would like to point out five ways how you can make the most of text messaging to promote your Salon:

1. Appointments – on time, every time

How much of your valuable time is wasted due to your clients missing their appointments?

While in some instances a cancellation may be unavoidable, the classic and oft-heard, “Today? I thought it wasn’t until next week!” excuse still means that you’ve lost revenue and possibly even turned away extra ‘walk-in’ custom that could have at least salvaged some sort of return from the situation.

However, with SMS text messaging you can be sure that your clients know exactly when their appointment is in plenty of time, so if they do need to cancel and rebook then you have the chance to fill that open slot with another client.

The result? Maximum revenue, minimum losses. It also promotes your Salon as one that connects personally with its clients – a great way to boost your reputation.

2. Create your own templates

It’s highly likely that you will be sending out similar appointment reminders to different clients. So why waste time in creating fresh text every time?

SMS messaging allows you to create templates that you can save and then customise quickly and easily, saving you time and effort. Once you have a catalogue of templates it’s then just a simple case of selecting an appropriate one and changing the time, date and name before sending it to your client.

The result is a personalised text message that doesn’t require too much effort to produce.

3. Plan ahead and fill your books

For busy Salons, organising the diary days, weeks or even months in advance can be a difficult and time consuming task.

However, linking your appointments messaging service up to a calendar function means that your timeslots can be updated instantly, so you can see at a glance if there are any gaps in your schedule. This can be particularly useful if you have visiting stylists and want to ensure that their time is utilised efficiently.

4. Multiple reminders? No problem!

One of the big advantages of SMS messaging for Salons is that the supporting software allows you to import spreadsheets and set up multiple reminder send-outs to several clients at once.
Incorporated into your daily routine, this can ensure that your clients are sent updated information on any changes to appointments in one go, rather than having to contact each client individually.

5. Open up your marketing opportunities

SMS messaging isn’t just great for reminding your clients about appointments – it can be a great tool in a marketing campaign too.
Studies have shown that people are much more likely to respond to a text message as opposed to an email (as long as they’ve signed up to receive those messages in the first place!).
Using text messaging as an advertising tool is a cost-effective and efficient way of promoting your Salon. So get creative and make sure you use SMS messaging as part of your advertising campaign to keep your Salon busy all year round.

In this video I will show you how to forward your Gmail emails to your mobile phone as SMS text messages.

This is the first in a series of posts in which we’re going to look at how to design, run and measure the success of a marketing campaign using TextMagic’s various SMS services.

In this first post we’re going to think about the kind of products and services that work well with SMS marketing. In the following posts we’re going to think about the detailed process you need to go through to make the most of your mobile marketing spend, how you’ll find and use a list of target customers and manage your campaign to get an excellent ROI. We’ll see that the best SMS marketing campaigns are those that are both carefully planned and flexible.

As these posts are focused on marketing, we’re going to be thinking quite narrowly in terms of promotion and sales. Don’t forget that SMS is also a tremendously useful tool for managing customer services and communications with employees and partners. We’ll perhaps look at those topics in further series of posts later in the year.

For now, let’s get focused on selling stuff!

What works?
If you’re thinking of trying SMS marketing, the first thing you need to decide is whether your product or service is suitable for an SMS campaign. At the end of the day, you have to make a judgment based on your knowledge of your product and your customers. However, to give you a bit of inspiration, here are some examples of the type of products and services that can be marketed via SMS.

- Small businesses offering services often do well from SMS marketing. If you’re (for example) a mobile hairdresser or a freelance maths tutor and you have available slots in your schedule, you can text an offer to everyone on your customer list and then receive potential leads in real time right back to your phone.

- Retail operations with a reasonable customer base who offer small or midrange products – jewelers, garden centres, kitchen shops and similar.

- Software or digital content businesses that offer products for download. For example, you could send a text message to your existing customers (or to a bought list) that included a shortlink to a mobile-optimized product or special offer page.

- Businesses that offer service or subscription models. Say, for example, you run a second hand car business – you can send SMS reminders to customers when their cars are due for a service, giving you the best chance of winning the business. Likewise, if you’re running a web hosting business you can win repeat business by reminding customers when it’s time to renew.

- Very similar are businesses that are in a position to offer good value upgrades and special offers – again, web hosting is a good example of this.

Warm vs. cold
One lesson you can draw from the examples above is that SMS marketing is particularly good at driving repeat business – i.e., in situations where you already have a relationship with the customer. Any SMS marketing campaign based on a list of existing customers, if managed properly, is likely to do very well.

That’s not to say that you can’t also do well out of cold SMS marketing. We’ll look at cold texting a little more in a later post in this series. But if you’re in a position where you don’t have a prospect list – or you want to expand your current customer base with an SMS marketing campaign – working cold can deliver results. It’s all about having a great offer, using SMS sensibly and being very choosy and smart when you’re buying a list.

OK, in the next post we’re going to look at specific example of how a small business can use an SMS marketing campaign to grow sales.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

However you use your SMS service to engage with your customers, all businesses need to consider how SMS usage fits into the overall customer communication strategy. What’s that, you say? You don’t have a customer communication strategy? Then read on and find out if you’re making any elementary mistakes and missing valuable business opportunities.

Creating a great relationship between your business, brand and customers all points back to one core objective – which is to create a desire for what you provide via listening to your customers needs and delivering on these within a profitable framework. In terms of communication strategy, a business which puts its customers first will always rise to the top. In essence, it’s really as simple as that – but businesses, time and again, continually fail to deliver what their customers need due to a lack of understanding of basic principles. Make sure you don’t fall foul of some of the basic guidelines of customer communications by checking out our top tips below:

1. Make your customers feel wanted

As a company which already uses business SMS services such as TextMagic, you’ll already be aware of the power of communication and how this can benefit your business. But – make sure that this communication isn’t one sided. The golden rule is that business communications aren’t just about telling your customers how great you are – far more importantly, it’s about giving your customers a chance to tell you what they want and what they think about you.  You’ll learn much more about your business by listening to your customers than by any other method.

So how do you make sure your business communications aren’t one-sided? For starters, ensure your staff are trained in customer care, that they ask and listen, that they understand each individual customer’s need – even if they’ve just popped in to buy a pencil. Treat customers as individuals and genuinely care about their requirements – and particularly if they have a complaint or issue – and that’s the cornerstone in any good customer communication strategy.

2. Give your business a communications health check

How many times have you heard complaints about companies such as ‘I was on hold for hours’ or ‘I got passed from person to person’ – or even ‘I couldn’t find the right telephone number for the customer care section’?  Customers get frustrated when companies aren’t proficient at handling incoming queries, particularly when it’s regarding cancellation of a service or a product or service complaint. Make sure you don’t fall foul of this by making sure each element of your business has a dedicated phone number and email address – and more importantly, is answered promptly during business hours by the right member of staff. Don’t forget that communication channels can only be effective if people can find them – so ensure all these numbers and email addresses are clearly promoted via your website and on your advertising and promo literature.

3. Use social media to up your communications game

If you haven’t considered Facebook and Twitter as business communication channels, you’re missing out. Not only are these – and other – social networks adept at increasing footfall to your website and increasing awareness of your brand and product, they’re also invaluable for analysing what’s being said about your business and – most importantly – should be used as a customer care channel to speak directly to your customers who are talking about issues they’re having with your business. Most importantly – if you’re using social media, make sure you broadcast this via your website and advertising – and use it regularly. A poorly managed social media channel which leaves customers expecting replies which never come is a timebomb waiting to explode inside your business.

4. Give customers a reason to help your business

Business and product surveys land in our inboxes every day – and whilst they’re useful for identifying customer opinion and requirements, they can be time consuming to complete. That’s why you should always give something back to customers who take the time to help you – it’s just good manners and you’ll receive a much higher response rate. So, whether it’s a money off voucher for their next purchase with you, an entry into a prize draw, or even a free gift, make sure your customers feel valued.

5. If you’re using SMS as a one-way channel, you’re missing out on 50% of its effectiveness

There are times when a ‘one way SMS’ approach seems to be the only way to use this hugely powerful communication tool, such as appointment reminders. But, don’t forget that text messaging was developed not as a one-way broadcast system, but as a way for people to communicate effectively and concisely with each other – and this is also true of business SMS and marketing SMS use. If you haven’t done so before, you should look at unlocking the power of two way SMS usage, such as via TextMagic’s SMS Reply Service.

Two Way SMS helps build even stronger relationships with your customers, as by giving them an easy way to engage with you and your company, they feel closer to your business and also experience a sense of personal involvement and ‘ownership’ which just isn’t available via one-way SMS messages. So, for instance, if you’re sending appointment reminders, why not use the SMS Reply Service to ask for a confirmation of attendance – ‘reply with YES’ if you are able to keep your appointment’? The benefits for your business are clear to see – and you can receive replies to your mobile phone, to your email address or via the web, so you can perpetuate and expand that relationship wherever you are.

If you’re serious about customer relationships and even more serious about doing great business, you’ll put great customer communication at the core of everything you do. Maximise the potential of the incredibly powerful tool which is business SMS – and you’ll be keeping your customers happy as well as making a sound business decision.

It’s no surprise to any business marketer that younger audiences are the biggest consumers of digital marketing. Social media is now the biggest single use of the internet, with sites such as Twitter and Facebook remaining kings of the scene. So, as a marketer, you may be forgiven in thinking that you should move your budget from SMS to social media. Right? Wrong.

Whilst social media is undeniably a massive draw for the youth audience, with usage figures rising all the time, this isn’t at the expense of SMS. In nearly every mobile-marketing conscious country in the world, smartphone usage is still centred around SMS – with research showing that youth in countries such as the US have over 75% of their phone activity exclusively on SMS. The fact of the matter is that whilst smartphones have opened up the market for apps, mobile advertising and social media wherever you are, these functions have only increased the youth consumers’ dependency upon their mobile phones – and SMS is still unchallenged as a way to communicate instantly, directly and privately with a single target.

Whilst sites such as Facebook have proven advertising programmes, the mobile site versions have less focus upon advertising – meaning that Facebook advertisers are still lacking a way to really engage with their target audiences on the go. Additionally, Facebook users will typically only update their page two or three times a day at most, minimising interaction time with the platform. As for the other social media giant, Twitter, whilst it’s a great way to build brand interaction, as a paid marketing medium it’s still relatively untested – with the biggest companies getting their feet wet first of all.

So, whilst SMS marketing is, in mobile terms, the grandfather of communication strategies, it’s still the unchallenged king. That’s why SMS marketing should be the centrepoint of your business marketing strategy. Here’s a reminder of what SMS marketing can offer which other mobile marketing business strategies can’t:

1. SMS marketing reaches all mobile users – smartphone or not
Why limit your mobile marketing reach to just those with smartphones, when the vast majority of phones out there are still based on traditional mobile technology? SMS marketing is simple, straightforward and doesn’t require Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity to get through.

2. SMS marketing messages are more direct than any other method of marketing communication
When consumers receive an SMS message, they open it – nearly always immediately. Unlike advertising, SMS marketing is personalised to the point of being singularly targeted to the individual. It has the power of telephone communication without the invasive ‘cold calling’ issue – meaning that your business can reach its target directly on a personal level whilst giving them the choice to read your message as and when they choose.

3. SMS marketing campaigns are highly measurable
With SMS marketing, you can set up any number of different promotional campaigns and voucher codes with ease and target specifically towards different demographics and shopping habits – providing your business with ultimate measurability. If you’re used to emailing your promotional vouchers out to your database, change to SMS marketing instead – with an open rate of over 90% as opposed to the typical 25-35% open rate of email, you’ll be amazed just how effective a well-run and targeted SMS marketing campaign will be.

So if you haven’t already stepped upon the SMS marketing gravy train, now’s the time for your business to make the leap. With companies such as TextMagic offering simple, Pay As You Go SMS solutions with no premium rate tariffs and no contracts, it’s also one of the most cost effective ways to deliver marketing results. Not only that – there are a host of different and easy ways to manage your SMS marketing campaigns, from the use-anywhere simplicity of the web based TextMagic Online to the straightforward downloadable software of TextMagic Messenger.

For ultimate ‘one source’ functionality, you can even integrate your SMS marketing into your email system with Email to SMS – giving you two-way SMS communication right to your normal email inbox. So don’t forget, SMS marketing is still king of the hill when it comes to mobile marketing – so make plans today to make it work for your business!

Tiny mobile phone screens and keypads have historically been a barrier to many. Now, technology for the blind and visually impaired by UK company TextMagic opens up the world of text messaging to all

Text messaging has become a key part of most people’s lives in the UK over the past ten years. It’s estimated that 85% of the British population own a mobile phone, with a staggering 11 million text messages sent every hour*. It’s great news for helping the average person keep in touch with their friends and family – but less so for the more than two million blind and visually impaired people in the UK**, for whom text messaging on a mobile phone can be difficult or impossible.

Technology for the blind and visually impaired to help their daily lives

Whilst many other developments have been made in society in terms of technology for the blind and visually impaired population to help them go about their daily lives with ease, text messaging hasn’t been one of these. In contrast, as more and more people take to communicating by text rather than by phone calls, it can lead to the visually impaired becoming alienated from their text-messaging social circle.

However, good news is at hand – text messaging is no longer restricted to small and fiddly mobile phone keypads and screens. Technology for the blind by companies such as TextMagic means that communicating by text message has been made simple and easy to perform on a PC, MAC  or laptop – which opens up the world of text messaging to those new areas of society.

Online SMS technology helps the blind use text messaging services

The services offered by TextMagic, which includes a simple to use web-based application called TextMagic Online and Email to SMS software which assist users to easily send and receive online text messages from their email account, mean that this technology for the blind and visually impaired helps them to easily send and receive text messages to mobile phones anywhere in the world, in any of eleven different languages.

Visually impaired users currently using the TextMagic online text messaging service have heaped praise upon the applications and how they have helped them to communicate with family and friends. C. Landsdown, a TextMagic customer, required assistive technology for the blind and had always found it difficult to use mobile phones. In his experience, companies and manufacturers often make phones suitable for the deaf but not for the blind or dexterously impaired. He currently uses TextMagic’s PC and web-based programmes, using his magnification software to send and receive messages with ease.

It’s not just the blind and visually impaired population who struggle with text messaging on a mobile phone – there are many others who suffer with impairments or paralysation who have found more accessible software such as TextMagic a huge boon to their daily lives. Many people who have suffered strokes or other paralysis are unable to use mobile phones, but with small modifications can use computer keyboards – meaning that using the TextMagic technology for the blind, keeping in touch by text messaging is now within their reach.

TextMagic SMS technology is accessible to the disabled

TextMagic firmly believes that their software has an important place in making popular technology accessible to the wider population, particularly those who via illness or disability find mobile phones difficult to use. Their services are reliable and affordable and have the benefit of not being reliant on mobile phone signals – meaning that TextMagic is invaluable for sending urgent or critical messages, which can be a lifeline for those who are reliant upon others for assisting with their daily needs.

For more information about the simple to use TextMagic online text messaging applications and how this technology for the blind and visually impaired can help change lives, visit www.textmagic.com. Visitors to the website can sample how easy it is to use by sending a test message before signing up. There’s no contract commitment, for TextMagic operates a ‘pay as you go’ system, with a purchase of 200 credits for 250 SMS text messages within the UK costing just £19.99 – that’s less than 8 pence per text message.

Footnotes
*Mobile Data Association, January 2010
** Data from Wireless for the Blind Fund