Are you looking for some marketing ideas this holiday season? Take advantage of the busiest time of the year and generate more sales and revenue to help make up for the painfully slow months after the holidays are over.

Black Friday:

Use this day as a springboard to sell gift certificates at a discount or offer a discount to any current clients who book a future appointment in January/February. An incentive now will help motivate people to book that next appointment after the holidays which means you can be confident your schedule will stay booked solid, even after Christmas.

Cyber Monday:

This relatively new holiday has become more and more popular each year that drives people to find deals online. If you have a website or webpage (which everyone at Image Studios has already, contact us if you don’t know where to find it) you can post a deal online that offers clients a discount on product, a % off any gift certificate, BOGO offers, etc. You can have them call you to complete the purchase or you can use an easy-to-use online web form (100% free) called www.wufoo.com to create a form they fill out that will take them to a checkout page to purchase everything online. This takes about 10 minutes to do and all you need is a paypal account to accept payment. Don’t have a paypal account? It’s easy and takes 5 minutes to do, go here to sign up now.

CONTACT ME DIRECT if you want help setting up the Wufoo form and payment page. I would be more than happy to help you do this and you will find it an invaluable tool you can use for future offers down the road. Also, if you want to update your info on your webpage within the salon directory let us know immediately so we can update that for you in time for the holidays.

Christmas Gift Certificates:

This can be one of your most successful ways to sell gift certificates this holiday season. We have pre-printed blank gift certificates (Image Bucks) you can purchase here, or you can use your own. The purpose of this is to sell as many gift certificates during the holidays to your clients. Here is how it works:

• You mail four (4) gift certificates to your client (or hand to them in person), each in its own envelope.
• Three (3) of the gift certificates are blank except for the dollar value that you choose (typically $25 or $50 value), the fourth certificate is made out to your client for the samedollar value as the other three certificates.
• Enclosed with the gift certificates is a letter from you with something like this:

Dear (Client):

The holiday season is coming up quick and I want to help make your gift giving a little easier this year. Enclosed are three gift certificates for $25 each(or $50, whatever you choose). These are for you to give as gifts to friends and family and can be used for (product, service, etc) at my salon. To show my appreciation for you I am giving you the fourth gift certificate (the one you made out in their name) to you free of charge. To purchase these certificates call me at (XXX) XXX-XXXX and I can complete the purchase over the phone. All gift certificates must be pre-purchased for the offer to be valid. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

You will need to keep track of who calls and pays for their certificates to ensure none get used that were not paid for (since you are sending them blank ones with no names on them). Also, it is important that you make purchasing these gift certificates as easy and seamless as possible. You can take a credit card over the phone using Square or you can create an online form for them to go to where they can complete their purchase online through Paypal. Again, please feel free to contact me if you would like help doing this, it only takes a few minutes and once I walk you through the first one you will be set to do them on your own after that.

The idea of the gift certificate offer is to facilitate the hassle of buying gifts for so many people by putting them right in front of your clients. To show your appreciation for them you offer them a gift certificate of the same value at no charge for them to use. If you do the math you are giving 25% off all four certificates, or three at full price and one for free, whatever way you choose to look at it. Keep in mind that the three gift certificates they purchase to give to friends and family most likely will be new clients who have never been to your salon before. The value of a lifetime client is worth thousands and thousands of dollars, so never underestimate the cost or discount it takes to acquire just one new client. It pays for itself ten-fold.

In addition, these gift certificates will be given at or around Christmas time which means these recipients will be wanting to use them come January or February, typically the slowest time of the year for salon owners. This will help keep your books full after the holiday season. Best of all the gift certificates are pre-paid up front, so you get the money at the time of sale and can set this aside for the new year.

I highly recommend you take advantage of the holiday season to help generate more income for your salon!

Happy Holidays,

Jason Olsen