How to run a salon Facebook giveaway contest

Want to get your salon in front of a shiny new local audience without breaking the bank?

And persuade this audience to engage with your brand?

Ensure they get to ‘Know, Like and Trust’ your beauty or hair business.

Here’s how:

Run a salon giveaway or contest on social media.

Whether you’re a salon, clinic or a freelancer running a social media giveaway or contest is a brilliant way to promote your services, find potential new clients and ensure your followers actively engage with you.

 

Plan your salon Facebook giveaway campaign

As with all salon marketing campaigns, success lies with planning.

Let’s get started:

 

1. Choose a salon savvy prize

You want to appeal to your local target audience (your ideal client). So it’s crucial to choose a prize that will tempt them to enter.

 

2. Decide your Facebook contest entry method

You have two marketing objectives here:

1. Stay compliant and don’t break Facebook rules.
2. Encourage contest entries, and engagement.

 

Don’t breach Facebook’s contest rules:

Facebook has strict rules for running a giveaway or contest and it is crucial that you follow them. If you don’t, Facebook can take down your Business Page without notice.

Facebook has changed over the years and it can be confusing, but (as at January 2020) these are their rules:

 

Encourage contest entries and engagement

If you don’t have professional salon marketing help and a website, and/or you want to keep things simple then opt for a ‘Like and Comment on the post’ entry method.

The Like is easy, and helps push the post out to a wider audience. While the Comment element makes people think a little more about your brand as they write their Comment.

You have two choices here:

• Ask users to simply ‘leave a Comment to enter’ OR
• Pose a question for them to Comment on. For maximum impact tie it in with your salon services: ‘Which of our beauty treatments do you love best? Comment to win xxxxxx.’

 

3. Set a time period for your beauty giveaway

At this planning stage, decide the length of your giveaway contest. A sense of urgency encourages people to enter – for my salon clients I usually suggest 2-4 weeks.

Which brings me to the contest closing date:

 

4. Select the right contest closing date at the start

Always state the closing date clearly on all your social media posts (including Facebook adverts), marketing materials and website.

And don’t be tempted to extend the closing date if you haven’t had many entries.

Why?

Because it’s against the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) guidelines (and you don’t want your knuckles rapped by them). Plus it’s a sure fire way to irritate people who entered promptly, as more entrants decrease their chance of winning.

 

5. Ts & Cs for your salon social giveaway

Okay, this isn’t the most fun part of social giveaways, but it is essential:

Always set clear terms and conditions for your contest to ensure there is no room for misunderstanding.

Be clear about:

• When your Facebook contest starts and ends.
• Set out how to enter.
• Describe the giveaway prize fully.
• Confirm any contest restrictions e.g. entrants must be over 18.
• State you’ll pick a winner at random and how you will inform winner.
• Explain how you will announce the winner.

Right, you’ve finished planning it’s time to get your social giveaway contest on the road…

 

Marketing your salon social media giveaway campaign

6. Market. And market. And keep marketing.

You get the drift.

To squeeze the maximum return from your Facebook giveaway you need to shout about it.

Remember, we want to reach out to a new local target audience so they get to know about your beauty or hair business, start to engage with you and in due course convert into new paying clients.

Promote it across all your salon marketing channels, not just your salon social media. Here are my top ways:

• Choose a snappy contest hashtag and use it consistently on all your marketing.
• Create a video to kick-start your social media campaign.
• Ask local businesses you know to share your giveaway posts in return for you sharing any future contests they run.
• Ask your salon team to share your Facebook contest posts on their personal social media.
• Pop it into your salon e-newsletter.
• Create a page on your website and drive traffic there.
• Promote it in-salon with mirror talkers, strut cards and window poster graphics.
• Advertise on Facebook to a targeted local audience and increase the number of people who see your contest.

 

7. Selecting and notifying your contest winner

Congratulations! Your giveaway contest has gone down a storm and you’ve reached out to a brand new local audience, as well as keeping your loyal hair and beauty clients engaged and happy.

But the marketing isn’t over yet. Roll up your sleeves.

First, select your winner at random as soon as the contest closes, and in any event within 30 days.

Scenario One: If the winner is a salon client then presumably you’ll have an email or phone number for them. In which case I always contact them FIRST rather than announcing them on social. This way, if they don’t reply within say 21 days you can easily select another winner, otherwise you’re left in limbo. It also means you stay in control of the marketing process.

Tell them:

• They’ve won!
• Confirm what their prize is.
• Ask them to contact you to arrange to get their prize

Once you’ve heard back from the winner then jump onto social media announce your winner and congratulate them.

Scenario Two: If your winner is not a client, and you have no means of contacting them then go straight out on social media and announce them as the winner. In the post ask them to get in touch within 21 days to claim their prize.

 

8. Make a splash about your salon winner

You’re nearly finished.

Your last salon marketing task is to ensure the winner books in for their treat so you can snap some photos and get a quote from them about how much they enjoyed it. Perfect material for a couple of social media posts to boost your brand reputation.

And remember push this out on your other marketing channels too – a news blog on your salon website and include it in your e-newsletter.

 

9. Did your giveaway contest work?

These are the sort of questions to ask yourself:

• How many people entered the contest?
• How many entrants were not current clients?
• Did your website traffic increase over the period of the contest?
• How much sharing took place?
• What type of content generated the most interaction?
• How much did the campaign cost you?
• If you collected email addresses how many GDPR compliant ones have you added?