"Before you start launching advertising, you need to determine how to spend the budget: who, how and where to show the ad. Eva Katz, owner of the social promotion agency Tokki and managing partner at the online sales agency 5 o'click (Moscow), notes that it is best to start with developing a strategy. Launching advertising without a strategy is like a blind director filming a movie. The process is ongoing, and there is a chance to get on the right track, but in fact, this is a direct blow to the business.
The essence of advertising strategy
The strategy provides an understanding of several things at once:
What is happening in the information field of your business right now?
Who are your clients - how many categories can they be divided into, where list of japan cell phone numbers to look for them and how to address each category, what should they be offered and what should be kept quiet
What do your clients think about beauty salons, what do they miss (helps to find new business niches)
Who are your competitors - how strong and weak they are
How your competitors are presented online, how they communicate with customers, what they offer, what signals they use and their unique selling proposition
Where do you stand among your competitors and where should you move to stand out from the crowd?
What signals should you use to communicate with your target audience?
What advertising tools and in what order to launch
What budgets to count on and where to move next
Let's break down the entire process point by point. At my agency, we use a checklist with explanations for each point. We develop the strategy quite meticulously and spend two weeks on it. In the end, we get a whole guide to action, with media and editorial plans for the next few months.
You can also approach the task in a meticulous manner or go over it in broad strokes for a general understanding of the market and the direction vector in advertising.
So, let's go through it point by point. So that you can also create your own checklist.
1. Information background
Analysis of the information background in an advertising promotion strategy is necessary to understand what is happening online and identify new opportunities.
If you are a business owner, this point is more useful for your employees. We use it to thoroughly dive into the topic. But even when it seems that everything is known, you can find a lot of interesting things. I know this firsthand, from discussions with my clients. Therefore, I recommend spending a few hours and studying:
latest news on the topic
articles
texts of thematic bloggers
groups in social networks. Especially groups on Facebook. They usually discuss the latest news
any other resources on the topic
Read, take out key points, and pay close attention to what people write in the comments.
An article about the harm or uselessness of LPG can become a reason for advertising other services. If authoritative sources write that LPG does not work, you can advertise a specialist certificate and an original device. Or pick up trends from major women's magazines (Vogue, Tatler, etc.) and advertise yourself based on the latest articles about something. For example, an article about massage comes out. Tell them that you offer exactly this kind of massage, place an advertisement for subscribers of these magazines (this can be done on social networks), play on popular topics and trends.
2. Information about existing clients
Continue working on the company's advertising strategy by collecting information about your clients (existing ones). Analyze what they have in common, what kind of people and what services they order. Try to ask them these questions (ask them to fill out a questionnaire), find out where they go, what websites and online communities they read, what and where they buy, what services they order from you and why. This data will help you get to know your audience better and reach new potential clients.
Based on the information, divide the audiences. At the agency, we draw a big map with branches. For example, women who want to lose weight and women who do their hair before business meetings are two different categories that need different advertising. But they can also overlap.
When developing a company's advertising strategy, the entire audience should be divided into segments, and each segment should have its own advertising campaign. Quick styling services before meetings can be offered to Forbes readers, those whose interests are "business" and "expensive cars", and so on. And economy class to simpler people.
Knowing your audience will help you manage your campaigns easily and spend your advertising budgets wisely.
For each category of people, later select platforms and forums, groups in social networks, websites, etc. And write down for everyone sample advertising messages - what to offer and when. This will help you navigate when launching advertising campaigns, writing advertising articles, hidden marketing and other advertising activities.
Important:
immediately outline the additional services you can offer. For example, if your clients only come for a haircut, offer a related service at a discount. For example, coloring, lamination, any other. The main thing here is to give the client the opportunity to expand their needs in your salon. This is especially true for regular services (coloring, manicure, etc.). A woman chooses a master and goes to him for years. Lure clients to your side.
3. Additional information
Write down all key requests, complaints, praises in a separate file (forums, groups, reviews on special sites and Foursquaer will help you). You also use this in the advertising campaign.
For example, you may find out that in your area no salon offers manual massage. This is an opportunity to introduce such a service and announce it specifically to the residents of the area.
Or clients complain about bad manicurists. Take note - use hidden marketing (reviews) to promote the services of your masters. Use advertising to declare that the masters of your salon are simply perfect, trained and do amazing manicures. The field for work in this direction is huge. The main thing is to react in time and use it for your own purposes.
4. Competitors
This is the most interesting point of working with the company's advertising strategy. It is absolutely clear that if you represent a salon in a large city, then it is very difficult to keep track of all the competitors. It is worth taking salons from your "weight category". If this is a niche area (for example, you are focused on working with eco-friendly materials), then you need to choose competitors by focus. But most often you need to select competitors by location (nearby) and price category. Do you represent high-class services? You should not consider an economy hairdressing salon as a competitor.
Select about 10 main competitors. Make comparison tables. By range of services, prices, famous masters and other points that can work in your favor or, on the contrary, reveal your weaknesses. Don't be lazy to make such a table. It will help you understand where you are losing and where you are ahead.
We at the agency also evaluate advertising. We look at whether the salon is presented in Yandex and Google, if so, what advertising texts competitors "enter" with, we write out, analyze. As a rule, the best ads work in contextual advertising. It is stupid not to use information that helps competitors make money.
We also carefully study social networks and analyze websites. In social networks, we look at how they communicate with clients, what content they post, how active they are.
