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In an esthetic environment, whether it be a day spa, medical practice or chiropractor practice, clients have become consumers of care. They are quite knowledgeable about the various types of treatments, special equipment and its use, different solutions available to treat various health or skin conditions, and different procedures available to treat cosmetic or medical concerns.
Therefore, it is important to have a staff that is familiar with all of the services that are offered and available alternative treatments, as well as uses and benefits of the skin care products lines you sell, and the latest trends in your particular area of expertise.
Education Is Essential
An educated team is essential to the success of any spa. It is important that staff members understand your particular spa’s philosophy of skin health, the benefits of the treatments provided and how they compare to other services that may be available elsewhere, as well as which topical agents are effective and ineffective when working with skin.
Educating your staff is a win-win for both the business and the team. An educated staff member is more confident when speaking with clients, is better equipped to effectively communicate and respond to inquiries in order to increase productivity through the promotion of products and services, and is up-to-date on the newest trends, competition and products and technologies available to consumers. Also, they are better suited to educate clients, which, in turn, leads to enhanced compliance, safety, satisfaction and, ultimately, client retention. The education of staff may be accomplished in several ways.
Informal Education
Does someone on your team have specific knowledge that would benefit other team members? Does your spa or chiropractor practice have a relationship with local physicians? Ask them to share their time and ideas with your staff. Would they be open to allowing your spa’s estheticians and dermatologic nurses to tag along in the operating room, examining room and at professional meetings? Studying in school has merit, of course, but there’s no replacement for the real world.
Training by Outside Vendors
Your skin care products and esthetic equipment suppliers should be able to provide advanced training for your staff. Inquire whether the suppliers can educate about everything from product knowledge to skin physiology, delivery systems and ingredient technology. Some vendors will want to educate your staff on only their products, but that’s not enough. Ask them to share their ideas on physiology or retail sales.Be sure to ask them how other spas are addressing problems. If visiting your spa isn’t practical, ask them to schedule a webinar – or find out what professional training they offer online.
Conferences
Allow team members to attend conferences or seminars within a designated specialty, such as esthetics or esthetic medicine. Consider holding sales contests to cover their cost of travel and registration, so that you are rewarding your high achievers.
Language Skills
Encourage your team members to learn a second language. Language preference should be based upon your particular client demographic.
Social Networking
Some team members and consultants are very savvy, knowing how to use social media, online marketing, and some might have even heard about link building. Even though online marketing is something that most weren’t taught in school. Now is a good time to jump in.
Everyone who starts a business has hopes of becoming the next big thing. But only some have what it takes to make it to the top. With Enloop, aspiring entrepreneurs can create a free business plan and evaluate the likelihood of their company succeeding before they quit their day job.
How to create a business plan? What does one need to get started?
Enloop makes it easy for just about everyone by providing free business plan outlines. What you need is to enter your concept, your financial resources and other details about the company you want to create, and Enloop automatically generates a business plan for you.
Whether you specialize in online marketing and link building, selling silicone rubber bracelets and tyvek wristbands, or adjustable walking canes and wood canes, Enloop uses a predictive scoring algorithm to calculate financial forecasts and scores measuring your potential success compared with industry peers.
Enloop also provides professional guidance at every step of the way, from business idea development to execution. It’s free to create a business plan and receive your score, but multiple business plans will cost $9.95 a month and up.
The key difference between white papers and webinars is the level of engagement and the ability to track that engagement. Downloading a white paper requires a minimum level of engagement. Then it is hard to know if those who downloaded the white paper actually read it.
It is more of a commitment to view a webinar, especially a live one that starts at a specific time. They often require more information to register and generally take longer to consume. Because of that, those who choose to attend a webinar are likely more interested in what you have to offer. Another point to consider is that marketers can use the information they request at registration to know which leads to send over to sales.
Furthermore, webinars capture data about who watches what for how long. They don’t guarantee that the viewer is at the computer viewing your content the whole time that the webinar is playing but, if the viewer participates in a vote, asks a question or provides a rating, you have a pretty good idea that he and she is engaged in your event.
Webinars provide valuable data that can be used for different tracking and further marketing purposes, they are a valuable tool that can be utilized in business marketing ideas.
What a great business marketing idea the “Gift with Purchase” is.
This trend started back in the 1970s and boosted sales in a remarkable way. If you purchased a product costing over a certain amount, you would receive a free gift. This business marketing idea is widely used by lots of business owners in different industries, from walking cane manufacturers, tour agencies, to mobile app development companies.
A typical scenario would be for a customer to make a purchase of $XX or more to get a cute little collection of the latest new products, absolutely free. Sometimes the free gift items seem like an amazing value, packaged well in striking boxes or cosmetic bags. The makeup or professional hair products, like Aveda, Blazilian Blowout, are usually small in size and can be very appealing. Full size products can be included as well. Nearly always the free gift includes a tote or cosmetics bag with the company logo emblazoned across it. A customer will help advertise for the company, that is the part of the clever business marketing strategy.
A drawback for a customer is that often the least expensive product in the line can be priced higher than the minimum purchase. Chances are, the customer may purchase an item that he does not really need to justify for the free gift. Incidentally, the items in the free gift may not be the items the customer needs. However, they are very tempting.
The free gift strategy works well but to offer these little bonuses, a company offering free gifts absorbs the cost by marking up its regular products. The gifts lure and attract new customers. Meanwhile the company has a chance to put a new product in customer’s hands, and it causes the purchaser to feel obligated to the brand.
It is a winning business marketing strategy that allows to promote business and get new customers.
Is your business using it?
Marketers agree: video marketing will be on of the few bright spots in advertising and innovative marketing strategies in 2011.
Media and audience research firm Magna, a division of Mediabrands, states in its report that “projected US online video ad revenue exceeded $699 million last year year and is likely to jump up to 1.0 billion by 2012″.
This innovative marketing idea is mostly used by B-to-C companies, while B-to-B companies clearly underestimate the potential of video marketing. “Video is underused in B-to-B,” says Laura Ramos, a VP at Forrester Research. “This is important since a lot of B-to-B companies have high consideration products that they are always going to need help explaining.”
Ramos says the majority of b-to-b buyers surveyed by Forrester “are relying on peers and colleagues to help them make purchasing decisions, which is something a company can easily convey in customer testimonials, with audio and video production.”
But for online video to be an effective marketing tool, it is not enough to hire a video production company, create a video and post a clip on a website or buy a video banner placement on a favorite content network. With so many companies and individuals using video, your video should really stand out and must be managed across different domains.
Be aware of the five video missteps:
- Recording – and then posting – 60 minutes of your executives giving speeches.
- Posting videos without adding some written context.
- Omitting the call to action.
- Posting video but neglecting to create buzz for what you have posted.
- Don’t try to be too shocky of funny. This may work in the b-to-c world, but unless it is really universal, it is not going to work in b-to-b.
(Source: Laura Ramos, VP, Forrester Research)
A diversity of methods is a strategy of success with online video. Marketers need to create a quality original video content but also “be curators” of content on other sites, says Christine Beardsell, VP at content integration and distribution at interactive agency Digitas.
Read more about online video tactics and video production in this blog post. Coming soon.