Holidays A-comin

[greendaylover7]

I want to start marketing gift certificates & small gift baskets NOW for the upcoming holidays. I uaually wait too late! I'm in need of some SERIOUS brainstorming. How does everyone else prepare for the holidays? Do you offer packages/specials? Where & how do  you advertise? Alot of my best business has been word of mouth, but I cant depend solely on my existing clients to get the word out. ANY ideas are greatly appreciated!

 

[Some Hot B*tch.]

Holidays A-comin

Do you have an e:mail list for your clients?How about develop a free webpage called Santa's List & make a feature for "client's name" 's wishlist, etc. Send it to your clients & tell them to fwd it to all their friends & family. Thats a cutesy idea, but you get it... use your limited list to reach X amount of new people per client address! If you have Powerpoint, you can make it like a real commercial with beautiful fades, special effects, etc.Once upon a time I made a beautiful Powerpoint Presentation & sent it out (Valentine's Day). It drew rave reviews. I probably have a backup of it somewhere in my old disks & cds. It was called "Forget the Chocolate". Holiday (Christmas) ones could be called "Checking it Twice" or something catchy.IF I can find my old presentation, I'll upload it to my pics sitehttp://msnusers.com/mrgangI also did one on Oxygen that was a good eye catcher.powerpoint is an awesome presentation tool & it can work for you in many different venues.In years before, I always offered discounted packages ONLY at the holidays... made it seem like a special event. This year I am raising my rates January 1st, so my holiday packages will be a way for regular clients to extend the old pricing into the new year.anybody else?Jill/Sagetherapist

 

[Joseph Taylor]

I usually send out a postcard mailing with a discount.  Last year I did a holiday open house that went well.  I held a summer open house this year and it was almost a complete waste of time.  Not sure if I am going to do an open house again.  I held a "mini massage class" at the holiday open house and that went well too.  I usually make white chocolate candies to give to my clients during the December holiday.  Thought about attaching a coupon to that for the clients that I have at home.I like the email idea.  I will have to add a space for email addresses on my intake form.I am in the process of brainstorming as well.

 

[Dogbreath]

Holidays A-comin

I like that candy idea. What about offering some holiday inspired treatments like a Jack Frost Massage (spearmint/ecuplytus blend) and arrange a couple little candies in a dish for your clients to take after. Or a chocolate mint massage for the busy holiday shopper (chocolate fo/spearmint) an then arrange chocolate candies in a dish for the clients to take after the massage is over.If you do anything like these you can advertise for it in your email list or print flyers and give them to your clients as they come in. What about getting your clients to do some of the work for you. Give them $5.00 off their massage if they get a friend or relative to book a massage. Print up a voucher code and give it to them after their friend or relative has come in for the massage. People always like to get free stuff and save money.

 

[LANE (D)]

We avoid outright discounts - especially during major selling seasons like the holidays, Valentine's Day and the local marathons. Discounts should drive business when it is slow, not when they are three deep to buy.Giving the client a complimentary aromatherapy upgrade - for instance - which usually costs them $10 but really only costs you a few dollars in oil is a good way to create a percieved value.Also, track your GC redemption rate. If more than 20% expire unused, then discounting is probably not  a bad idea since you make it up in free money.

 

[samld021]

Holidays A-comin

As a possibility - how about a some form of special per quarter, every other month, or every month? Just a thought.With regards to retail sales - I'm just not sure I'm ready to handle the whole state/city sales tax thing. Phew!

 

[Valeria1203]

Hi guys!I'm looking for a post-holiday review!  How did your sales of GC's go?  Did your clients enjoy the gifts?  I love the idea of the wishlist on your website...I have a gift registry type of thing for my office, but your idea seems much easier!  I may have to borrow that one!

 

[v.s]

Holidays A-comin

We managed to double sales over last year, primarily due to a heavy direct mail campaign.I don't think anyone bought a gift cert because of the free candle & lotion, but I think they will buy again because of the upgrade.

 

[RosaMario]

"post-holiday review"(by the way, kneadful things, how did yours go? You asked, but didn't tell  )I did well despite the office politics & scheming going on at our salon. I joined forces with the aesthetician at work & we made lovely Holiday Gift Package certs that were basically a 2-coupon gift cert with a perforated cut/score down the middle. That way the client can come on two separate days or share the gift with a daughter or friend, etc. We sold 20 ($2000). Last year we had a similar offer & only did 14 (100% were redeemed by the way!). On my own I also did $1800 in gift certs & holiday rate pre-pays ($5 off any gift cert or pre-pay service plus an upgrade certificate for every third cert purchased was this year's offer). That is about ontrack for me at Christmas. I try to do about $3000, or set that as my goal. I sent out 100 postcards for the offer & gave a postcard to every client I saw in December. (about a $40 investment overall). The esthetician also sent postcards out & had them available at the school district her mother works for in the teachers lounge.A new way I used to advertise this year was through professional email campaign templates. GoDaddy has a service that is very affordable, but I had absolutely 'zero' luck with that system. I couldn't even open  or receive my own test posts! They were very nice at customer service, but of no bottom-line help. The service costs $9.95 for a year (!), but until they work the bugs out, I advise to look elsewhere. I am now using Constant Contact (same www). The templates were great. They had a 60 day free trial that I used up in a nano-second (60 days or 100 subscribers). Since I have been harvesting e:addies for over 3 years, I was in & out of the free trial in the same day! ha. Their service is $15 a month for the features I chose, but still alot less than the stamps I purchased for that one direct mail campaign.I am now beginning to create my Valentine's Day campaign, so that it'll be offered with perfect timing. I lost time fooling around with GoDaddy, but that was all a lesson well-learned. By the way, on the subject of the perforation coupon/cert, etc. Go out & buy one from Michael's Craft Supply store. $20 for the rotary cutter, a scoring blade (for precise folding scores for brochures, pocket calendars, etc) and the perforating blade. I'm sure you can even get them for less with one of their coupons fom the Sunday paper, etc. IF you call around to places like Office Max/Copy Max, Kinko's & the like, they'll charge you anywhere from $40 to $58 for a 'single perf' of 1-500 pieces! The perforating rotary tool I bought has an absolutely professional cut & I now own it.... can do his & hers for Valentine's, etc.Now I just have to continue building my business, so that when I am redeeming those gift certs I'm still doing as many 'now-pay' clients as I'd like.Did I highlight enough that I *highly* recommend getting an email campaign service? Try the free trial out. You won't be disappointed. Note to self - New Year's Resolution: get more permission-granted e:addies for this type of advertising!Happy New Year everyone,Jill/sagetherapist

 

[Nilo]

Jill,You are always a wealth of info, and I truly beleive we all benefit from your input!  Thank you for the constant contact info...I just signed up and am very excited about the possibilties!And I love your direction on where to get the perforator-cutter-stuff!  Thanks very much!As for our GC sales, I was pleasantly surprised.  We broke even with our amount last year (just over $3000).  Why am I surprised?  We have a beautiful, and I do mean beautiful new resort spa that just opened up this year...less than 2 miles away.  Now, I love my office, it is very warm, relaxing and proffessional.  But it is not "posh" by any means.  This other place is amazing!  I wanted a gift certificate from there!  ;DThat coupled with the fact I took Relax/Rejuvinate's advice, and I did not run specials.  It cut back on the volume of certificates we sold, but interestingly enough, our numbers were the same in the end.  If it were the beginning of my practice, I would probably want the higher number (for exposure purposes) but at this point, I am thrilled.I've been feeling a bit burned out lately (I work way too much) and this board has helped to keep me inspired and motivated.  Thank you so much to all of you that have contributed so much diverse input to so many topics!

 

[spinner]

Jill,Thanks for the info on Constant Contact.  I'm investigating.  The way I read the "free" offer...it was "Send as often as you like to your list of up to 100 email addresses!".......seems to me you should have been able to at least send unlimited e-mails to the first 100 addresses, right?Thanks again for the info!!!!Lisa

 

[Asche]

Holidays A-comin

Lisa,Yes, that's right, but I figured I was starting my campaign late in the game. Why only send 100? I have close to 200 clients that I email regularly! So I ran a couple of tests & then decided to jump right in. Once you enter 101 subscribers into the system the trial is over.By the way, GoDaddy's email service seems to be working fine now (I sent a test to myself last night!)_. Its called something new now, so maybe they were just having glitches as they reworked the program? Guess I have 2 services at my disposal now! That's okay though... its still less than printing postcards & buying stamps! haJill/sagetherapist