What is a lead?

A lead is a qualified potential customer who shows some level of interest in purchasing your services. They indicate this interest by either calling your salon directly or filling out a form online. In the case of paid advertising campaigns, we find that a majority of leads fill out a form in exchange for a compelling offer, such as a new customer deal or a discounted service.

However, many leads that fill out a form may not be ready to book an appointment right away. They may have additional questions, or they may have filled out a form to receive an offer to save for later, or they may still be in a discovery phase where they are deciding whether your services are something that they really want and whether your business is the right choice to provide those services. For that reason, it’s incredibly important to note that your marketing efforts don’t end once a new lead comes into your system.

How to nurture your leads

You have a great website and you’ve started to generate leads from your marketing campaigns, but now what? Many companies do a good job at generating leads, but the problem is that most new leads are not ready to buy yet. And if a sales rep does engage and the lead is unresponsive for any reason, many salon owners fall into the misconception that the leads are of poor quality and stop nurturing the lead after the first contact attempt. As a result, leads get ignored, lost, or snatched up by your competitors. To prevent this, it’s recommended that salons invest in lead nurturing to build relationships and trust so that the leads turn into your customers when they are ready to buy. Some things to keep in mind:

• Lead generation can fluctuate. That is why our team focuses on monthly trends as opposed to daily or weekly.
• It takes time to optimize for the best results!
• Remember, not every person who sees your ad is ready to call or book right away. Every impression, every click matters for driving awareness and contributing to future success.
• Leads need to be nurtured. Before each customer commits to becoming a member, they need to believe in the experience and how it can help them live a better life.  

It takes an average of 7 touchpoints to turn a lead into a customer. If a lead does not convert right away, it does not mean they will not convert in the future. Therefore, lead nurturing is crucial.

When you receive a new lead via a web form, reach out as soon as possible! Don’t get discouraged if the call goes to voicemail or if your initial text message or email goes unanswered. Add the lead to a contact list for future campaigns so that you can continually remarket to them. Tools that send automated email or text message campaigns can make it easy to stay in touch with your contacts and keep your brand top of mind. Some tools can even integrate with the CyberMark lead tracking dashboard so that the lead will automatically be added to your marketing list. But if your tool isn’t one of them, you can also easily export your leads into an email list to upload.

You can also use the CyberMark lead tracking platform to Qualify Your Leads, a process that helps you understand which marketing efforts are driving the highest return on investment. Click here to learn more about qualifying your salon leads.

When nurturing leads who have not yet converted into a customer, we recommend sending highly targeted messages to encourage them to take the next step. Offer a limited time discount for last-minute bookings, or send content around your salon and what to expect, share news about new products and how they can benefit your leads, or even add a personal touch and invite the lead to consult with you personally about your services. These are all ways to continually engage the leads.

How do I get more leads online?

Gone are the days that a salon owner needed to use only outbound techniques like community events, cold calling and print materials to get leads. Today’s consumers are in control. Traditional strategies are still relevant, but digital marketing can provides a boost that is more measurable and affordable.

Your website

It’s no secret that a great website is the best sales tool a salon can have. CyberMark salon franchise websites are built with lead generation in mind and you should generate 30-50% of your leads from your website alone. However, there are additional tactics you can use to drive even more traffic to your website, such as blogging and posting relevant content on social media.

Google My Business

Click here to read our complete guide to Google My Business and then make the most of Google My Business by downloading the app! The Google My Business app makes it easy to engage with customers on the go, get insights and upload photos. Get it on iOS or Android

Digital advertising

Running ads on social channels and search engines is a great way to generate more leads for your business. When considering a marketing budget for digital advertising, go through the questions below:

1. How many new customers do I need to generate from advertising

2. What percentage of my leads convert into paying customers? For example, if you get 100 new leads every month and 25 of them turn into paying customers, your customer conversion rate is 25%.
    
3. Take the answers to the two questions above to determine how many leads you need to generate from advertising. For example, if you need to generate 50 new customers each month, you need a total of 200 leads for your salon based on that 25% customer conversion rate. If you know that you currently generate 100 leads monthly from other channels, such as your website, events, social media, etc., then you know that you need to generate the rest via advertising.

4. How much will it cost to reach my target number of leads? In the beauty industry, 7.1% of people who click on an ad convert into a lead at an average cost of $25.49. This will vary by market, but considering the average cost per lead will help you calculate the budget you need for your campaigns. If you’re just starting out, here’s what your expected budget should be if you need to generate 100 leads from advertising for your salon:

4. 1. # of leads you need to generate from advertising: 100
   2. Avg. cost per lead: $26
   3. Recommended budget: $2,600

Over time as you gather data for your specific business, you can hone that budget in and focus on driving even more effective results. You can reduce your budget by

• converting a larger percentage of leads into customers, reducing the number of leads you need to generate.
• generating a higher percentage of customers from other “free” sources (referral, organic, etc).
• reducing the cost per lead.

Our role is to continually strive towards a lower cost per lead, but this is going to vary by market, and there is only so low it can go. Once a conversion rate is above 10% consistently, we consider an account optimized. The cost to acquire a lead at that point is largely going to be determined by factors outside of our control, such as competition, seasonality, current events, how incentivizing the offer is, etc.

If you have questions about your marketing strategy, email marketing@cybermark.com.