Your tanning salon has been getting a bit of a bad rap lately, hasn’t it? The news media hasn’t been very kind to tanning salons thanks to the poor decisions of a few who have abused the technology, which means you’ve got to be active right now with positive marketing campaigns that you can do all on your own! A negative perception caused by others isn’t your fault, but you do need to do something about it.
The first steps to take need to involve an honest approach to what it is that you do. Many tanning salons have a good established base of customers, but these marketing ideas can help your business grow and reach new potential customers to fill out your daily appointments. Are you ready to have your tanning salon reach its maximum potential?
Innovative Tanning Salon Marketing Ideas
1. Offer people value in return for signing up with a monthly tanning plan. This can be done in a variety of ways, from free tanning sessions for a month by signing up with a contract, a discount equal to the sign-up fee on a bottle of lotion, or even upgrade credits if you provide them. Even though your investment into these might be small, the outcome for a potential customer might be huge.
2. Offer a tour of all the different tanning beds you have in your facility for a price that is a lot less than you’d normally charge. This lets a potential customer try out everything you’ve got and then they can decide which one they like the best. Don’t make the discount too steep so that you lose money and make it apply to new customers only.
3. Give new customers a customized gift bag with samples of the various products that you have in the store that they might like. Samples are a small expense at worst and free at best and the gift bag helps to show your clients that you care about their business. They’ll get into the habit of using the products if they like them and when they run out, they’ll come back to you.
4. Offer incentives to repeat customers that will help both of you in some way. A referral contest, for example, could drive new memberships to your tanning salon while your existing customer base competes for something they really want, like a free month of tanning or a free bottle of their favorite lotion.
5. Put all of your offers that have value onto your social media pages so that people who might not even be customers at this very second might be tempted to participate in the marketing plans you’ve implemented. Start a Facebook page, tweet out specials over on Twitter, and utilize other sites like Tumblr or Pinterest to reach even more people with your value that is being offered.
6. Start a loyalty program that provides free products or services once a customer reaches a predetermined level of business. It could be 10 tanning sessions if they aren’t on a monthly plan or 5 bottles of a particular lotion or whatever else makes sense for your customer base.
7. Create monthly campaigns for new customers online so that they can enter a contest that will help them win a small prize in return for handing over some of their personal information. It’s amazing how many people will like a Facebook page for a small reward.
8. Get involved with your community so that people know who you are and what it is that you do. Having valuable coupons and running campaigns can help you grow from an established customer base, but community involvement will help get you new exposure.
9. Think about what’s in it for your potential prospect and then do your best to create something that they will consider to be invaluable. You need to become a brand if you aren’t already and when people see that you’re the tanning expert in your community, they’ll come to you to get their tanning needs met every single time.
10. Never criticize others publicly or privately because people will wonder what you say about them while they’re relaxing in a tanning bed. Whether it’s on a blog, in person, or on your social media pages, stay positive and you’ll find that everyone has a better overall experience with your tanning salon.
11. Make your location be as easy to reach as possible, which isn’t always the easiest thing to accomplish if you have a standalone unit that you own as your base of operations. If your retail location is difficult to access, however, people will often drive past your tanning salon even though they were going to go there because traffic was just too bad.
12. Attend Chamber of Commerce events to give out free sample tanning sessions or lotions and don’t expect anything in return. These little niceties will help to establish a relationship, gives people immediate value, and could lead to people walking into your store to experience more of what you’ve got.
13. Always add new content to your marketing approach every day, whether that is in a blog, a website update, or just in the information that you hand out to people on the street to build your brand awareness. There is value in new content and that value will lead to having potential prospects seeing you as an expert in the field. As an added bonus, you’ll get higher rankings on local search engine results with original content that’s fresh and consistent.
14. Don’t be afraid to research a potential long-term customer so that you can get a better sense of what their needs might be. If you can then provide those needs on a consistent basis, you’ll have someone who seeks you out when they want a good tan.
15. Market your tanning salon for the future instead of focusing on the present or worse, the past. Marketing is about taking steps forward on your journey, so set your eyes forward in everything task you take on.
Although millions of people visit Brandon's blog each month, his path to success was not easy. Go here to read his incredible story, "From Disabled and $500k in Debt to a Pro Blogger with 5 Million Monthly Visitors." If you want to send Brandon a quick message, then visit his contact page here.