Technical marketing language can seem a little perplexing at times leaving you baffled and confused. So here’s an explanation of all the main marketing terms you need to know in plain simple English.
Oh, and I’ve thrown some salon marketing tips and ideas in too… just to liven it up.
Advertorial
A paid advertisement which is designed to look like an editorial piece. Good for launching a new salon or a new service.
Adwords
Google’s advertising network.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
Most useful for hair or beauty salons in large cities who have many competitors close-by and want to stand out in a Google search.
Banner Adverts
Adverts on a 3rd party website to drive traffic to your salon’s website and build your brand.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
When booking a banner advert always ask how many views the website/page gets per week/month and make sure you get the viewing figures for the duration of your advert.
Black Hat SEO
Using unethical search engine optimisation tools (SEO) and practices. SEO agencies using black hat techniques should be avoided at all costs.
Blog
You’re reading a blog now! Well written blogs are good for search engine optimisation and are useful marketing tool to drive traffic to your salon website. You can read more about hair and beauty salon blogs here.
BOGOF
Stands for ‘Buy One Get One Free’.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
Always make sure your terms and conditions state the cheaper item is the free one.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of people that leave your salon website after only visiting the one page they landed on. You’ll find your bounce rate in your Google Analytics (see below).
A high bounce rate is not good as it indicates visitors find your website content poor or difficult to navigate. If your website is not mobile responsive your bounce rate will also increase.
Call to Action (CTA)
Words or buttons on your salon or spa website which encourage the visitor to take a certain action. ‘Book online now for your discount’ and ‘Call xxxx to receive your complimentary pedicure’ are two examples of CTAs. Always include plenty of CTAs in your salon marketing materials, social media and website.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
The percentage of people who saw your e-newsletter or online advert and then actually clicked it. If 1000 receive your e-newsletter and 350 then click on an article your CTR is 35%.
Content Management System (CMS)
A salon website that is built so you can manage it (add articles and edit pages) yourself. We build CMS salon websites and you’ll find more ideas here.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The profitability of clients to your salon throughout the lifetime of the relationship, as opposed to profitability on one transaction. To learn more about how loyal lifelong clients make your salon more profitable check out this blog post.
Google Analytics
Extremely useful free software from Google which collects data about traffic coming to your salon website including number of visitors, pages visited, new or returning visitors etc.
Google Spider or Bot
Google’s crawler software has spiders/bots which crawl over your salon website and decide how and what to index it for.
Hashtag
Usually used on Twitter and more recently on Facebook to draw attention to messages on a particular topic.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
For ideas on how to use hashtags on Facebook to market your salon or spa take a look at this blog post.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
A programming language used to create websites.
Internal Link
A link on a web page that points to another page on the same website. You want to include plenty of links in your salon website to encourage visitors to explore your site and learn more about your salon services.
Internal Marketing
This is one many salons and spas overlook. In a nutshell it means marketing to your team.
Internal marketing ensures, for example, your team know about new products, special offers and new external (client facing) marketing initiatives. It helps keep motivation levels high as well as customer service and profits. It’s especially important for larger salons and multiple site salons.
Keyword
An important word/phrase that you want to optimise and rank your salon website for on Google. For salons an important keyword phrase is usually ‘Hair salon Brighton.’
Opt In
When someone joins your email list. Also known as ‘subscribe’.
If you’re looking to improve your salon marketing skills why not opt in to our free fortnightly salon business and marketing e-newsletter. You’ll never miss out on any of our blog posts.
Organic Traffic
Search engines display paid and non paid results. Organic traffic is the term used to describe visitors to your website who have found you using non paid search queries on the search engines.
Return on Investment (ROI)
A really important one. The percentage of profit made above the initial investment. If you invested £100 in a salon marketing campaign and earned £145 you would have a 45% return on investment.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The art and science of getting your website to gain higher rankings in Google search engine results. The higher your salon website ranks the more visitors it will get and the more new clients you’ll attract to your salon.
Social Share
When a user shares your web page on social media. Examples are clicking on a like button, tweeting about it or posting it on Google+.
Social share is important for improving your Google rankings, raising brand awareness of your salon or spa and attracting new clients. Make sure those buttons are clear on your website.
Target Audience
A group of clients (or potential clients) who all share a common interest e.g. colour service clients or facial clients.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
Having identified this specific audience you can then target the group with a specific marketing campaign. It is so much more effective than a scattergun approach to salon marketing.
Traffic
How many people visit your website.
#SalonMarketing Tip:
Your marketing activity should aim to increase the traffic to your salon website. Link back to your website from your individual Facebook posts, Twitter and Pinterest. You want all those social followers to visit your website and ideally sign up for your email marketing.
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is any internet marketing technique that gets people to pass on a marketing message to other users thus creating a massive growth in the message’s visibility and effect.
If there’s any online salon marketing term I’ve overlooked just let me know and I’ll pop up a nice easy explanation for you.
If you’d like to chat about using our salon online marketing services call +44 (0)1386 751469 or drop me an email.