We now have the KMS 2011 Product Range

October 27, 2011 at 8:33 am · Filed under Uncategorized

The 2011 KMS Range

If you stock the KMS range be sure to get in contact to get the latest products automatically updated into your copy of Salon Swift.  Don’t sit there and type all those products in, get in contact now and we’ll do it for you with the click of a button! :)

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SMS Marketing

June 22, 2011 at 2:50 am · Filed under Marketing, Using Salon Swift ·Tagged , ,

SMS Marketing in Salon Swift

SMS versus post or email

SMS is different from email and post marketing.  It’s considered “instant” as the client will usually receive the message within seconds to minutes.  They also have the ability to act straight away to the marketing as they are using their  phone at that time.

How to increase your chance or response

When using SMS it’s important to try and catch the client’s attention enough that they reply then and there, this is usually done by breaking your marketing message into three parts:

  1. The Offer: An offer strong enough to get their attention.
  2. Offer Timeframe: The offer is usually restricted to a certain timeframe to encourage fast action from the client.
  3. Claim Timeframe: The client must be encouraged to respond immediately whilst you have their attention.  This will also let you know if your campaign was successful or not.

Take this example workflow to determine who we’re going to send the SMS campaign to:

  • All Clients
  • Who have no future appointment
  • Who have had foils
  • Who haven’t been back in the last 3 months
  • Who I haven’t marketed a special to in the last 2 months (important so you don’t spam your clients constantly with offers)

These people are in need of refreshing their colour and they haven’t rebooked.  Based on that information, consider the following SMS campaign:

“Dear First_Name, Smith’s Cutting is offering foils at 40% off. Offer only valid this Thursday and Friday. To claim offer you must book by calling 32132123 by 2pm today”

Note the important factors:

  • Dear First_Name
    • Personalised marketing to help the client feel it’s not a large spam campaign
  • Smith’s cutting is offering foils at 40% off.
    • Lets the client know who you are and provides a strong incentive.  Of course, your incentive will be different, this is simply an example.
  • Offer only valid this Thursday and Friday.
    • This example is referring to a time when you’re not busy and need to fill a quiet time.
  • To claim offer you must book by calling 32132123 by 2pm today.
    • It provides a plan of action, gives the phone number they need to call and encourages instant response with a strict time limit on when they can respond.  Without this time limit they may think to themselves “oh I’ll call later” then they’ll get busy and forget and you lose a client.  By putting a few hours maximum on the response time limit you will get a better response rate and when 2pm does come, you’ll know how successful the campaign was and if you need to adjust your offer before trying again to a different group of people.

Below is an example taken from Salon Swift showing the above in action:

Workflow for SMS

Spend some time in your Salon Swift’s Mail Shot tool and reproduce the above workflow to get an understanding of how it all fits together.

Tagging Clients so you don’t spam them

A special thing to note is I’ve typed “special” into the “Tag Client With” box at the very bottom.  You can see this in the above image.  By doing so each client that gets that marketing message will be tagged with “special” so next time you do a marketing campaign you can tell Salon Swift to ignore anyone that’s been tagged with “Special” within a time frame (in the above example 2 months).  If you consider that too soon, make it longer, 3 months or more.  It’s up to you.

Saving money on your SMS marketing costs

If you were to simply send SMS to all your clients whenever you run a campaign chances are you’ll be sending it to people that already have appointments, people that may not be interested in that offer (men who don’t care about foils for example) and you’ll also be sending it to people that you may have recently sent a campaign to.  By following the above guidelines you can keep the marketing relevant, expect a higher return on your marketing campaign and as an extra bonus you’ll save money by not sending out as many SMS messages that simply won’t be appreciated.

We hope this guide helps in some way get a better understanding of making the most of Salon Swift’s SMS marketing tools and we recommend printing a copy of this and reading through it before your campaigns whilst you’re learning the basics of SMS marketing.  We’d love any feedback of course, so feel free to let us know if you can see room for improvement or if you simply have any questions.

 

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TechnoBabble

June 22, 2011 at 2:27 am · Filed under technical ·Tagged , , ,

TechnoBabble - cutting through the sales talk

We took a trip to Hair Expo this year to see what was happening, say hi to our clients and generally enjoy the weird and wonderful goings on of one of the largest trade shows of its kind in Australia.

We enjoyed with what we saw but we did notice a bit of confusion with different vendors trying to outsell each other using a mixed variety of ‘techno babble’.

We decided it might be helpful to do a little ‘mythbusting’ by putting some facts to some terminology being used lately and to let you know where Salon Swift stands, technically speaking. We’ll keep it simple and quick, if you’d like further info please do contact us.

The Cloud

This is a term being used a lot lately. It’s a great, relatively new technology (the last 6 – 10 years ) that basically means your software runs on a groups of computers on the internet.  You usually access your software through a web browser, but it doesn’t have to be.

The Good : You can access the software from anywhere.

The Bad : If your internet goes down, if you can’t get to internet, or if your internet is intermittent you can’t access your software.

Servers

Servers have been around for a LONG time in the computing world.  Basically you have one machine and it holds all the information. Other machines in your network connect to this server and get their information.  When a change is made it’s made on the server and all the other machines keep getting updates from the server to keep up to date.

The Good : Servers have been around forever and when up and working properly are reliable and fast.

The Bad : The same with the Cloud, if your network goes down, if the server crashes or if it has a power out you lose access to all your information.  Servers often attract higher costs.

 

What other alternatives are there?  What technology does Salon Swift use?

Glad you asked :)

These companies use Peer2Peer technology

Salon Swift uses a technology called Peer2Peer networking.  Basically each machine has its own database and they can talk to each other over either the internet or your internal network.  If one machine makes a change it lets the other machines know of that change and they all update.  There is no central server and no reliance on internet.  If you did lose your internet and the computers couldn’t talk to each other they’ll happily keep running and when the internet comes back on they simply update each other (synch) to bring each other up to date.

The Good :

  • If one computer crashes, the others are happy to keep working and sharing data between just themselves.  When the other computer comes back “to life” they will synch any data changes with that computer bringing it up to date.
  • If the network goes down, they will similarly all keep adding their own data and when the network comes back up they will all synch with each other and keep working happily.
  • There is no extra associated cost as there is no central server.
  • It’s by far the most secure and modern data sharing method in ever created.  It’s called Peer to Peer (P2P) and companies that are now using this system include Google, Microsoft, Skype, Adobe, AOL, Salon Swift, and many others.

The Bad : You have to have your laptop / tablet with you if you want to connect from somewhere (Paris / Bali for example).  You can’t simply walk up to an internet cafe and look at your data on any random computer that doesn’t have Salon Swift on it.

Is this a problem?  Usually not.  If you’re serious about your business and you’re travelling a lot, you’ll have a laptop or a tablet pc.

You can see the benefits here on why we’ve chosen this method and why, for now, we think it’s the best networking method and why we prefer it over Servers and over the Cloud.  We’re not the only ones either.  As mentioned companies such as Google, Microsoft, Skype, Adobe and AOL all have products using Peer2Peer technology.

This ‘little’ article may have gotten longer than anticipated but if you’re trying to make sense of the ‘technobabble’ that’s getting around we hope this has helped.

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Salon Swift, facebook, twitter… the yellow pages?!

March 17, 2011 at 4:13 am · Filed under client loyalty, Marketing ·Tagged , , , , , ,

your database, social media and the old school

The Yellow Pages book?!

Before we start a conversation about facebook and twitter, just stepping back in time a bit… you can spend a good chunk of money on a Yellow Pages ad. I can honestly say though, I can’t remember the last time I even saw a Yellow Pages book let alone used one. If I did have one laying around somewhere, I wouldn’t be looking for a hairdresser or beauty therapist, or any professional services business from it. I’d be asking my friends who they recommend or I’d be on the net if my friends didn’t deliver.

Current Social Media Trends:

To advertise, I could use my Facebook page to update all my services and specials to my clients, but I’d also be concerned about my clients being poached from an ex employee. All they have to do is simply browse my Facebook page and contact all my facebook “friends” (clients). Just like that, my database (facebook friends) has been pilfered.I could have my awesomely designed webpage… but then, I’d have to update it all the time (really, I would, and how would I do that?! Would I REALLY have the time?)I could Twitter! That’s what I could do! But then… don’t people just use twitter to advertise their business and network? (It’s all we use it for, and as far as I can see, it’s what most people use it for). It’s a bit of a self obsessed marketing concept isn’t it? Mmmmm, twitter, do your clients REALLY follow you on that thing?So what does that leave us?

If you want to make direct contact with your clients and their friends, don’t want your staff snooping your info when they’ve moved up the road, aren’t interested in constantly updating your website, then it leaves you with… your database.Using your database and the huge amount of info you have on your clients:Marketing to your clients directly through your database is the most efficient, secure and easy way to keep in touch with them, make offers that entice their friends to visit you and to keep them thinking about you.As long as you don’t contact them too much and become annoying, using SMS and email is still the most rock solid method.

There’s a whole list of things you need to keep in contact with your clients, yet they become “just another job” and hardly get done due to the stress of trying to keep up with everything. Using Salon Swift you can automate these tasks, reduce your stress levels, improve your business and keep your clients coming back more often.

A few examples of automated contact systems:

Consider having contact systems like this running automatically and what they can do for your business:

  • Appointment Reminder: Send an SMS every day to my clients who’s appointment is the following business day confirming their appointment date and time. This will reduce your no shows dramatically.
  • Birthday Offer: Send an SMS (or email) every day to people who’s birthday it is that day including a happy message of goodwill as well as a small gift offer to entice them in. This keeps loyal clients feeling all fuzzy and warm and it will entice a lost client back.
  • Rebook Reminder: Send an SMS at the start of the week to all clients who visited the previous week yet didn’t rebook telling them it was great to have them in, that you fill up quickly and if they would like to get an appointment that suits they can call now to make that appointment. This catches the clients that fall through the gaps and forget to rebook.
  • Lost Client Offer: Once every few months have Salon Swift email your clients that haven’t been back in a long time. (you can determine what length of time you consider a lost client.) Don’t mention they haven’t been back, that’s embarrassing. Simply let them know how good a client they’ve been and to say thank you you’ve given them a voucher to spoil themselves. When that voucher comes in you know you need to win that client back.

There’s plenty more that can be automated and setup for you (we can help you do it), but from that small sample above you can see the impact it can have for you and your business.

Surely you’re not saying Facebook is bad?!

Not at all, we have a facebook page ourselves. Just be cautious and keep a close eye on potential client theft through the readily available list of friends you have. The same goes with Twitter.So, Salon Swift is on your computer, you have one of the strongest and easiest to use marketing tools at your disposal. It might well be the time to look at utilising it as best you can as we move comfortably into the thick of this year.

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Client loyalty and reward points

February 2, 2011 at 9:49 am · Filed under business development, client loyalty ·Tagged ,

Client Loyalty System

Client Loyalty Systems

Are you rewarding your clients?  What’s been holidng you back?  Is it the amount of profits you could be losing.  Is it the difficulty in implimenting and then, keeping track of?
Your competition is probably running a rewards system.  Imagine if your client visits them whilst you’re away or on a whim.  If they have an incentive to re-visit them rather than you with a rewards system you could well lose a client.
If you’ve got an inkling to implement a rewards system I highly recommend reading this article.
There’s basically two types:
  1. Client gets X points per dollar/pound spent and can redeem them later
  2. Client gets a free service after X services (usually 1 in 10 or 1 in 8)
Both are valid and are easy enough to implement.  What you need to determine is how much discount you’re giving back.
With (2) the client usually gets a better deal, which cuts into your profits more whereas with (1) the client gets points and you can control this better, making them feel like their gathering whilst making sure they only get an exact percent of profits when they redeem.
Examples
For example, if I said 1 point is worth $0.10c and for every $1 a client spends on services they get one point, they are essentially getting 10% back when they claim their points down the track.
If I said 1 point is worth $0.05c and for every $1 a client spends on services they get one point, they are essentially getting 5% back when they claim their points down the track.
As far as the client is concerned they are still collecting points, eg: a $100 service will give me 100 points, which feels great.  Depending on what the points are worth is how much profit they take from you in the end.
What’s best for you?
As you can guess from this article I’m a fan of points rather than the (2) method of a reward card.  This is just my opinion and both are valid, you just need to make the choice for yourself based on your own requirements.
As a benefit, when using Salon Swift, the software will keep track of everything for you.  No need to have cards or try and keep track of who has how many points.
For example, when a client comes in you could prompt them “oh Jane, you have 300 points worth $20, would you like to claim them or continue to build them up?”.
It’s a great system and is fully automated.  It keeps clients happy and loyal and takes away all the paperwork and stress.
What now?
If you’re not using a client reward system it may well be the time to have a go at implementing one.   It takes only minutes to setup and you can then market the fact to your clients using Salon Swift’s marketing tools.  A great excuse to contact your clients and get them back in.

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HTML emails from Salon Swift

January 6, 2011 at 12:04 am · Filed under Uncategorized

Example HTML newsletter

Do you use a web designer or some other kind of designer to make your newsletter?  If so you may want them to read this post.

NOTE: this is a technical method of email design that usually only designers use as that’s how they are trained.  You don’t need to use this if you use Salon Swift’s word processor.  Only read or use this if you use a designer to have your newsletters made.

The Background info:

A lot of designers use what’s called a HTML newsletter.

This type of newsletter is the most popular for designers that don’t use computer programs like Salon Swift.

To allow your designer to use their designer skills and design HTML newsletters Salon Swift can import and send them.

The technical stuff (give this to your designer)

HTML newsletters used in Salon Swift must have their CSS inline, not embedded as a separate stylesheet.

The easiest way to convert an embedded HTML newsletter into an inline CSS HTML file is to visit http://premailer.dialect.ca/

This will automatically convert not only  your CSS to inline but also make the newsletter friendly to mail clients such as gmail, outlook, msn etc etc.  Here is a  list of things it does

  • CSS styles are converted to inline style attributes
    Checks style and link[rel=stylesheet] tags and preserves existing inline attributes
  • Relative paths are converted to absolute paths
    Checks links in href, src and CSS url('')
  • CSS properties are checked against e-mail client capabilities
    Based on the Email Standards Project’s guides
  • A plain text version is created

Conclusion

This was a technical post designed for your technical newsletter designer so they can utilise flexible HTML newsletter designs.

Don’t forget the easy way!

Remember, Salon Swift has a world of templates that are at your disposal and you don’t need to utilise this very technical method.  As a suggestion, we recommend asking your newsletter designer to have a look at Salon Swift’s word processor.  This is the easiest and most trouble free way to send out marketing materials to your clients!

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New product suppliers added to Salon Swift

December 14, 2010 at 5:11 am · Filed under stock control ·Tagged , ,

Aveda and Redken in Salon Swift

We’re constantly increasing our list of suppliers who’s products you can import automatically into Salon Swift so you can make use of the Automatic Stock Control tools provided.

We’d like to welcome Aveda and Redken to the fast growing list of product companies that are setup to use with Salon Swift!

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Automatic importing of stock into Salon Swift

December 1, 2010 at 4:24 am · Filed under stock control, Using Salon Swift ·Tagged , , , , , ,

salon stock control

Let Salon Swift suggest an order for you, it's fast and accurate

Salon Swift has a very powerful stock control system.  I find it’s underutilised in some salons, partucularly considering how easy it can make ordering products and keeping track of your stock.

Stock Control in Salon Swift

Manual versus Computerised stock control
With a manual system you may spend between 20 minutes and 2 hours getting your order ready (depending on your business).  With Salon Swift’s system, fully setup, you can have an order ready within 2-3 minutes and you will know how much you’re about to spend before you even place the order!

So why aren’t all businesses using the Stock System?
The main blockage, entering all of your products so you can use the system.  It’s a slow, tedious thing to do, no matter what software you use, manually entering all that stock is painful to say the least.

What’s the solution?  Do you have lists of suppliers that we can import?
That’s exactly what we have and can do.  With the click of a button we can import the stock straight into your system and all you will have to do is adjust pricing if you purchase at a different price and assign your supplier.  If you consider Goldwell or KMS as examples, they have hundreds of stock items. By importing their list of stock you can save hours and hours of work and begin using the excellent stock features of Salon Swift.

What suppliers do you have?
It’s a relatively new feature but at present we have:

Can you get other products / stock lists that aren’t in your list?
Of course we can, simply let us know which supplier / stock items you’d like to import and we’ll get in touch with them and get an automated import list ready for you.

So how can I do this?
Currently, because it’s such a new feature you simply get in touch with us and we’ll arrange to import the stock for you.

Now there’s no excuse not to use the powerful and easy stock tools in Salon Swift.  You know what you have to do now.  An organised, easy stock solution is just a few clicks away.

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Choosing a colour company

November 24, 2010 at 9:34 am · Filed under business development, hair colour ·Tagged , ,

Which colour company is best for you?

I was in a Client’s salon today, showing her how to setup her stock and get ready for using Salon Swift’s automated stock control systems.  At this point a colour rep came in (this client has a hair salon).

It sparked an interesting conversation on how to choose the correct colour company, what to look for and why you’d choose one over the other.

This particular sales rep was all about helping with business development (they had borrowed heavily their sales pitch from another well known business development based colour company).

Another company she was interviewing was all about price and another was just about pure quality of product.

Which to choose?!
It’s my understanding that when dealing with the respected, well known brands that have been around for an eon (Wella, Goldwell, L’Oreal and Schwarzkopf to randomly list a few without any favour of one over the other) you’re going to get good colour.

Primary points to consider when choosing a colour company include:

  • Price per application (how much per ml)?
  • Performance of the colour (does it cover grey, how does it handle highlights)?
  • Support from the company

Put your images where your mouth is.
Will they give you access to their images to use for your marketing when marketing with Salon Swift?  Get them to email you some examples BEFORE you sign.  It’s one thing to say they have beautiful images for you to use, but if you can see their marketing department is in good communication with their sales department then things are looking good.

Hey smooth talker!
Get them to bring a technician in for the day and take some of the Team through the range and how it performs.  Let the Team know the sales rep will be trying to win them over, have your Team focus on objectivity, not smooth sales talk.

How much… no really, how much?
Get the price per ml.  Work out how many ml of colour you’ll need to apply certain recipe’s (get this info during the technicians demonstration).

Do this with a range of colour companies, don’t just fall for the first good looking, smooth talking rep that walks in the door.  Once you’ve done your homework, written up a list of pro’s, con’s and facts on each company you’ll have a good idea of which direction to go.

Relationships
Don’t forget, if they can’t do these things for you at the start when they’re trying to get you onboard with them, there’s little to no chance they’ll help much once you’ve signed.  Date them for a while before you sign, see how they perform.  If you’re ready to commit, you’ll have done your homework and you’ll be ready.

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Don’t forget to check out our facebook page

November 23, 2010 at 1:12 am · Filed under business development, Updates ·Tagged , ,

salon software facebook

Salon Swift's facebook page

Join the others that love their favorite business tool at Facebook and see what’s been happening in the world of Salon Swift. Visit our facebook page and become a friend!

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