Do you use emojis in your salon marketing?
No?
Well, look at these:
- Our Christmas gift packs have arrived.
- Our Christmas gift packs have arrived!
- Our Christmas 🎅 gift packs have arrived 😍.
Which one gets the excitement over best?
Did you go for the third one with the emojis?
Adding an exclamation mark instantly changes the emotion of the sentence, and using an emoji goes a step further.
Let’s look at why emojis are a useful marketing tool for beauty and hair businesses. When to add them to your social media and marketing campaigns. And, importantly, when to leave them out.
Why use emojis to market your salon
In face to face communication we use voice intonation, gestures and body language to reinforce our message and add emotion. But online conversations rely solely on the written word which is open to misinterpretation, and can lack emotion.
1. Emoji say more than words
You’ve heard the old cliché ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.
Well, that’s what an emoji is – a marketing picture.
Popping in emojis adds more emotion, meaning and excitement than just text alone. Emojis are the icing on the marketing 🎂
84% of women and 75% of men believe emoji describe their feelings better than words.
Source: Adweek
Raptures hair extensions use 😍😍😍 very effectively here to showcase this lovely glamorous look.
2. Emojis add personality to your salon marketing
Emoji can humanise your brand by adding some zing and personality.
This cool, fun Instagram post is from the highly successful NAF! nail salon.
They throw in loads of emojis which instantly adds to the buzz of their posts.
It’s a great example of how emojis can brilliantly add emotion and personalise a brand.
3. Boost engagement on your salon social media
Asking your followers to engage with your post using an emoji is an easy way to encourage interaction. Simply ask your followers to agree or disagree with a statement using the 👍🏼 or 👎🏼 emoji.
Emojis are also a handy marketing tool for creating more eye-catching lists to make your social posts stand out in social feeds like this list from our client, Aveda UK, shows.
Aveda’s target audience is interested in natural, organic and cruelty-free so littering their posts with fun 🎉🥂🎇🥂 wouldn’t sit comfortably alongside their brand position. But using them sparingly to highlight their list is in step with their brand values.
And emojis increase engagement by adding emotion and excitement to your headlines, announcements and calls-to-action:
⭐ Opening 4 July ⭐
❤️ Valentine gifts for her ❤️
Book now as appointments are limited 🏃♀️
We’ve seen why emojis are important in marketing your beauty or hair business, now let’s look at whether they are right for your biz…
When to add emojis to your salon marketing
It depends on:
- Your business
- Your audience
- Your marketing message
Your type of business, audience demographics and what you’re talking about all play a huge role in if, how and when you should use emojis in your marketing campaigns.
Let me show you what I mean:
Understanding your audience, and what they feel comfortable with, is crucial.
If you run a skin clinic or specialise in advanced aesthetic treatments scattering your social media and email marketing with 🤞😉🥳 detracts from your professional, trusted and expert brand messages.
Emojis should never be used to make light of a serious topic or situation. Your audience is unlikely to feel comfortable with emojis when you’re talking about laser treatments, injectables or fat reduction. They want to feel reassured about your expertise and experience. Not amused by your imaginative use of emojis.
Dermalogica’s social media uses very few emojis which reinforces their ‘professional-grade skin care’ message. This post uses emojis as bullet points which softens the marketing message, without sounding too fun and frivolous. A few of their posts use more, but there are far more posts which do not use emojis at all.
They use emojis slightly more in their Instagram account which I guess reflects the younger audience on this social platform. But it shows the importance of understanding the audience that you’re marketing your business to.
Sk:n take a similar approach, only using emojis when they feel it doesn’t detract from their expertise. In this post Sk:n clinics use the pointing finger 👆 as a call-to-action to followers to read their Q&A and learn more.
Given her target audience I am quite surprised that Charlotte Tilbury keeps emojis low key, using them mainly just to highlight the product, as her with her Airbrush bronzer here.
The tone of voice on her social media posts is very personalised and strong. She always starts her posts ‘Darlings’ and uses capitals a lot for emphasis, so I’m guessing her social marketing team feel emojis would make it too busy and detract from the marketing message.
How to use emojis 👏 in your salon marketing
Emojis on your salon social media
As well as using them on your social posts emojis can also work on social advertising.
Testing shows social adverts with an emoji in the headline generally get a higher click-through rate than an advert without one.
But. Just because they can boost click-through rates don’t use an emoji in your advertising campaign unless it’s a good fit with your brand and marketing campaign.
Emojis in your salon email marketing
Adding an emoji is a fun, easy way to add visual pizazz to your e-news subject lines.
Research shows emojis in email subject lines can boost open rates by about 25%.
A word of caution:
Choose emojis that are a good fit to your business and the message, because when they don’t work, they actually reduce open rates.
MailChimp recommend:
- Use no more than one emoji at a time.
- Use emojis to supplement words rather than replace them, to make sure your main message gets across.
- Different operating systems render different versions of emojis, so it’s important to test.
Emojis in beauty and hair text messages
If you use them on client SMS messages then remember they use your character count up so don’t go overboard with them.
Did you know?
EmojiTracker and Apple data says these are the most popular emojis…
The Face With Tears of Joy 😂 is most popular, and it’s typically used to convey humour or with comedy posts.
The Red Heart ❤️ is next and is used most commonly to show affection and love. It also comes in other shapes and colours, but red is the most popular.
The Loudly Crying Face 😭 has a dual meaning. Sometimes it’s used in a sad or negative setting, though it can be used ironically in a ‘so happy I’m crying’ way.
The Smiling Face With Heart-Eyes 😍 is a good one for marketing as it’s commonly used for ‘you like what you see’.
Use emojis in marketing (with care)
Emojis are fun, easy and add emotion to a marketing campaign.
Decide whether they fit your business, treatment/services and audience then weave them into your social media and email marketing.
If you’re unsure whether emojis are right for a particular social post then err on the side of caution and don’t include them.
If you’ve not used them before in your salon marketing then try introducing them in a low-key way as bullet points for a list in your post or as part of a 👉 call-to-action as we saw in the Sk:n post earlier.
Improve your salon social with my 7 step guide to creating a social media plan for your beauty, aesthetic or hair business.
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