Signage can effectively support many initiatives within your skin care facility, from providing clients with guidance around your spa to announcing promotions. Using signs ensures that you and your team members carry out your job responsibilities as adequately as possible by taking the first step in making sure your clients’ needs are being taken care of. Signage can also be put in place to create jumping-off points for the business goals you wish to achieve. When creating and placing signs, keep the following tips in mind.
- Maintain the value of your messages by avoiding an overload of signs—too many may lead to clients being overstimulated and stressed out.
- Be sure to place your signs in spots that your clients won’t have to search for, such as the entrance, the front desk and the waiting area.
- Always keep your signs catchy and concise in order to hold your clients’ attention.
- Ensure your signage reinforces your clients’ feelings of welcome and value.
Signage is valuable, so an effective program shouldn’t be an afterthought. Following are 10 ways to use signage to benefit your clients, continually improve business processes and increase sales.
- Inform clients of return and cancellation policies. Policy signs can serve as short-and-sweet reminders for your clients to avoid misunderstandings and possible losses in spa revenue, and they even can act as a backup for you and your team members by reinforcing your policies.
- Post available daily appointments. In the skin care industry, part of what is sold is time. Clients should be aware of vacant time slots to make for easy planning and to decrease the number of appointment openings.
- Draw attention to your retail shop. By putting a spotlight on your retail area, clients who would not have noticed it otherwise may be drawn to it, leading to increased sales.
- Organize retail items. A mass of products that are all shelved together without enough purposeful arranging confuses, frustrates and turns away potential sales. Categorize your display shelves and point your clients in the right direction with elegant shelf signs.
- Notify clients of promotions and events. Announce specials your skin care facility is currently running, such as holiday sales or other retail events you may be holding.
- Pique clients’ interest. You can elicit your clients’ interest by using signage to highlight products you may be actively trying to sell or treatments you may like to perform more often. Have support materials and staff readily available to handle the curiosity.
- Promote referral programs. Actively promote your referral or VIP programs to keep clients aware of the benefits.
- Advertise gift certificates. Remind your clients that the variety of products and treatments at your skin care facility can be the solution to their gift-giving dilemmas.
- Highlight your specialties. Draw your clients’ attention to what your skin care facility is best known for. This can include treatments, or even your capability to cater to wedding parties, or bridal and baby showers. Know your talents and use signage as a platform to market them.
- Educate and promote awareness. Use signs to inform your clients about skin care, as well as to promote awareness about skin conditions that your team may be able to help them with. This may prompt a product or treatment sale that otherwise might never happen.
Leslie Lyon is president of Spas2b Inc., a full-service spa business development company based in Ontario, Canada. Involved with the health and beauty industry for more than 30 years, Lyon currently is an educator, consultant, speaker and freelance writer for spa trade publications and websites worldwide.