Beauty Salon Loyalty Card Ideas

For many beauty salons, loyalty cards are an excellent way of marketing their salons. In this article we give an overview of how you can use loyalty cards to promote your beauty salon.

From coffee shops and supermarkets, to hair dressers and beauty salons, loyalty cards are used by all kinds of retailers. There’s a reason that most of us have a little collection of cardboard loyalty cards in our bags. Loyalty cards are an incredibly advantageous marketing tool when they are used effectively.

Loyalty cards are a great way to keep clients coming back to your beauty salon. Offering rewards and discounts for loyal clients is a simple way to grow your salon and hold on to your customers.

Everyone likes to think they are getting a good deal, giving loyal customers offers and sales on treatments if they have a loyalty card ensures customers feel like they are getting the most out of the money they spend at your salon.

Types of loyalty card

• Punch cards

Punch cards are a simple tool that are very popular in small local shops on the high street. Each time you buy a particular product the card has a uniquely shaped hole punched into it and after a set number of purchases you receive a reward. For example, if you have five manicures you get the sixth one for free.

It’s simple to understand, easy to use and as long as you make sure the rewards for customer loyalty are generous, they can bring great returns.

Pros

-Simple and easy to use.

-Relatively cheap for the salon to set up.

-Ordering the cards is simple and they are easy to explain.

Cons

-Cardboard beauty loyalty cards are often lost by customers before they are able to receive the prize.

-The loyalty card only offers the one set prize.

• Points card programs

Points card systems are often implemented digitally. When you have different treatments you get a different points value in return, such as five points for a massage and one point for a pedicure.

Because all the data is stored digitally it won’t be lost. Having a plastic and decorated card also gives the customer a sense of ownership.

Pros

-It is a low risk marketing tool. It’s only after spending a certain amount at the salon that clients receive rewards.

-Gaining a loyalty card is free, so you can get a lot more people to sign up quickly.

Cons

-The accumulation of points takes a while so customers may lose interest early on.

-Points cards are very popular so there isn’t a very big differentiation from other salons.

-It doesn’t offer as much of an incentive for occasionally visiting customers.

• Tiered loyalty programs

Creating a tiered loyalty program gives fantastic rewards to your most loyal customers. It’s an aspirational form of marketing, much like using something like bronze, silver and gold rewards. Those who spend more money and time in your salon receive greater rewards.

Providing a tangible goal to work towards creates a feeling of achievement for customers –just like video games when you defeat a new level.

Pros

• You can use the tiered system to build up brand awareness and interact with your customers.
• Create members only website pages with beauty advice, blogs and videos.
• Help customers feel acknowledged and valued by offering members only treatments.

Cons

• This method is less attractive to new or lower – tier customers
• More complex and higher effort, especially for a smaller business to manage.

Paper vs digital

Paper loyalty cards are hugely popular in high street beauty salons, but they do have their disadvantages. Easily lost by customers and offering only a singular reward once complete, a system of digital beauty loyalty cards can be more engaging.

Having your loyalty cards fashioned digitally with links to your website and social media accounts can be a great way to keep customers engaged. Digital beauty loyalty cards can also be used to communicate with clients with advertisements about new treatments being offered or new sales on your products helps keep your salon present in the customer’s mind after you leave the salon.

Varying the amount of points gained based on the price of the treatment encourages customers to spend more to earn the reward and makes the loyalty card system more interactive.

Storing and tracking loyalty points digitally, as SalonIQ allows you to do means you can have confidence in your system. The SalonIQ technology makes sure you know the points showing on the clients record card are accurate and recorded correctly with the time and stamp next to each.

Applying this in a digital form removes any human error from over applying points, giving you more reassurance your numbers are correct.

Reward customer referrals

Giving beauty loyalty cards prize points for customers who bring friends and family with them to your salon is a tried and tested method of bringing in new customers. Encouraging recommendations to visit your salon is a fantastic way to gain interest from potential customers.

Once new customers are through the door, you can let your excellent service do the talking for you.

Building trust in your brand

With the Covid 19 pandemic and the rise of internet delivery, there is less traffic on the high street than ever before, so it’s important to stand out from the crowd and keep your clients loyal.

There are probably hundreds of shops, pharmacies and beauty salons within driving distance of your beauty salon, all offering make-up and beauty products. Attracting completely new clients to your beauty salon using marketing can be very time intensive and expensive. Keeping the customers, you already have coming back is a lot more cost effective.

Beauty loyalty cards help make sure your customers feel special and appreciated.

Educating your staff

As a beauty salon, your staff are the backbone of your business and are essential to building up brand loyalty with your customers. Making sure you explain your loyalty card scheme to your staff can help the process run a lot more smoothly. Having a half an hour meeting to explain the loyalty cards and what they do, so your staff can promote the loyalty cards effectively can save a lot of time and effort.

We hope you found this guide filled with beauty loyalty card ideas useful and gained some effective ideas that will work for you. We have a lot of professional experience in marketing for beauty salons so if you need any help or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We would love to hear from you.