Beauty apps belong to a niche market of beauty services. Traditionally, beauty services businesses serve customers at physical locations like boutiques, salons and spas. Customers make appointments at these physical locations, and the businesses benefit from word-of-mouth promotion from satisfied customers. However, as mobile apps have become ubiquitous and custom software features have deepened, the beauty services industry now reaches hundreds of thousands of clients solely via their smartphones. Depending on your business’s needs, you may decide to include different functions. Today, we will discuss the ways an app developer versed in digital marketing can help implement promotional strategies for a beauty services business.
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- Target Your Local Area:- Particularly if the beauty services business has a physical branch, reaching local markets through mobile app channels helps drum up business. To target local markets, you can create Geofencing campaigns that reach a user’s phone when he or she enters a designated area like a competitor’s salon. You can also set up a Geofilter for apps like Instagram and Snapchat to serve as local, free in-app promotion!
- Employ Mobile Ads:- Users interact with apps daily, and usually for hours each day. To get the attention of app users, you can create ads for your user’s favorite apps. The key with this strategy is to target apps that potential beauty services customers use. Whether you are attaching ads to YouTube’s mobile app on videos related to local beauty services, or on apps like Yelp, you can use your ad money wisely by pinpointing a segmented, interested audience.
- Offer Discounts and Referrals:- It’s no secret – we love to save money! By offering clients discounts for actions such as customer referrals, signing up for a loyalty rewards program or even inputting a birthday, you build a sense of trust and positive interaction with your clients. If you want to incorporate social media into your discount promotions, you can set up flash sales and spread the word through social media.
- Pay Attention to Your Online Reviews:- Before using a salon or beauty service, most customers check a business’s online reviews. In order to maximize the positive effect of a review, step number one is to offer high-quality beauty services. We will assume that your business leaves many customers happy, and you should encourage satisfied customers to post a review on popular online channels. A software option you could also consider is a salon review management software, which can alert you of negative reviews and bring positive reviews to the top of a user’s screen.
- In-App Developments:- One of the best ways to promote your beauty business is to develop a standout custom app for mobile and web platforms. By offering functions like online booking and scheduling, you allow users to build appointments around his or her schedule. Spending a little extra on a high-quality UI/UX design can also leave a positive impression on a user as he or she simply browses your app.
- Take Advantage of Social Media:- With so many eyes and ears on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and more, you cannot find a better space for promotion than on social media. You might go a traditional route and buy paid ads on key platforms. You might strategically promote your services on social media by employing hashtags. Hashtags group categories of content together, and the more concentrated your content is on one genre the more that social media algorithms help you get seen. You might center your content around one theme or story to clarify your vision to interested browsers who stumble on your hashtag. Another great way to use social media is to develop video or graphic content. You put so much work into the beauty and wellness of your clients, why not show off those skills up-close for online viewers? Curated video content can build buzz amongst followers. Best case scenario, a well-made video with a well-placed hashtag can reach outside of your existing audience and draw in new business.
How OpenSource Technologies Builds Marketing Strategies, Step by Step
In order to build and implement a marketing strategy, OpenSource Technologies employs a boilerplate step-by-step strategy. This strategy applies to the beauty business as well, and when building a beauty services app with OST you can expect to follow this basic workflow outline:
- Client Business Understanding
- Understanding the Market
- Defining the Customer
- Competitor Study
- Setting a Unique Selling Proposition
- Building a Marketing Strategy
- Setting Concrete Business Objectives
- Marketing Tactics and Channels
- Budgeting
- Assessing Measurable
If you want to read about each step in-depth, check out our recent blog on step-by-step marketing for a startup here. The beauty services industry has developed through social media and mobile app channels into a significant player in local markets. Never has it been easier to see, access and even schedule appointments with salons and boutiques online. If you are a beauty services business or startup, reach out today to see how you can strengthen your business through promotional app services alongside a digital marketing and custom app development company like OpenSource Technologies.
