Should you Host events at your Salon Suite locations?

Photo: Salon SLS, VA

As the digital marketing arm of salon suite locations, we promote a lot of events. We have clients that love to throw events for their pros, and others that don't. We have clients who have built in education and event space into their locations, and others who rent out space at a near-by venue. We’ve even seen education classes being held in a large hallway, break room, or empty studio. And while we know throwing an event isn't the easiest thing to do, we do see the effect on the salon pros and the franchisees themselves.

The outcome: Better Business.

Throwing events for your salon pros, and opening these events to the salon professionals in your area, can be beneficial to your business! Hosting events, whether you do it in a dedicated space you’ve built, a current empty suite, or off-site location, has impact beyond potential monetary gain. When you host events at your locations, or sponsor events off-site, you are improving the sense of community within (and between) your locations, increasing morale through a physical demonstration of commitment to your salon pro’s careers, and thus reducing turnover rates across your territory. Additionally, if you host larger events that are open to the public (or at least other licensed beauty professionals) they can be one of the best marketing schemes in your playbook!

What type of events should you host? We’ve seen a wide variety in our years in the business - some work better than others depending on the environment of your locations, but all are steps toward building a stronger community and fuller occupancy. Here are some example of the types of events we commonly see being promoted:

Education

By far the most common type of event. These events can be put on by you and your team, you can host brand representatives to teach the pros a new service or honed a skill, or they can be thrown by a salon pro who is in one of your locations already! We’ve seen classes on all kinds of topics from learning a new service or fine tuning a skill (most common), to business operation best practices (i.e. small business finance specialist), to social media tutorials (which we host for our clients) and more. Education events can be extremely valuable to the salon pros you serve. They are designed to improve the salon pros’ businesses which in-turn strengthens your bottom line. Moreover, charging outside vendors to come and speak to your salon pros, can serve as a small supplementary revenue stream to augment other perks you offer your salon pros, like free laundry, or better snacks for the break room. So if you aren’t curating a calendar of education classes, it’s worth considering.

Salon Pro Mixers

Mixers can either be an amazing bonus for your pros, or a sad attempt at an office party. It all depends on how you organize it. These types of events come in all shapes and sizes; catered break room meetups, suite crawls, sponsored dinner outings, and more. The success of these events largely depends on the types of personalities present in your suites. Does everyone mostly keep to themselves? Maybe a more structured salon suite crawl to give everyone a chance to show off their spaces, or a sponsored happy hour to give them the opportunity to interact somewhere outside the hallway and break room. Close-knit group? Use it to your advantage and cater a break room bash! Mixers are a great way to give salon owners the opportunity to build relationships with their peers, it creates brand loyalty, and helps them feel rooted in their suite — leading to them staying longer, and feeling happier in their decision to choose your salon suite.

Vendor-sponsored product expos

These are the second most common types of events we see. They are related to the education events in that they will come to you saying they want to teach a class, but it really is a showcase for a new product they want to sell your salon pros. An alternative to the class-based event are mini product expos. These can be great ways to generate revenue from empty suites. Providing a brand a short-term rental space for your salon pros to browse at their leisure can be a win-win-win in many situations. The visiting brand gets face-time with their target market, you get to bridge an occupancy gap, and your pros have the opportunity to see the products on their time. So if you have a few empty suites, it might be time to reach out to your local brand reps!

Meet and greets with local beauty influencers

These can be fun and interesting events. The basic concept is to bring in (if they aren’t already in your salon suites) a local “heavy hitter” from the beauty industry to talk to the salon pros. These tend to be a mix of education, inspiration, and coaching events. Think Tony Robbins but for beauty (if you have a charismatic beauty pro on the level in your area). To set one of these up, we suggest surveying your clients, see who they most look up to in the area, and reach out to the most commonly mentioned industry pro to see if they would be willing to “talk shop” to your fleet of small business owners. These are the best for boosting morale in a suffering location and/or building rapport with your salon pros.

Curating and hosting events, like the ones listed above, serve as a proof point that you care about your clientele and not just the rent they pay. They demonstrate your commitment to their businesses and their dreams to be successful beauty entrepreneurs. Beyond this, events can make a huge difference in the vibe of your hallways in each location. This impact matters. While these events may happen in a single location, they don’t occur in a bubble. The salon suite operators who routinely give back to their pros in valuable ways, like hosting valuable events, build the best reputation in the beauty pro community, which helps the salon suite business grow into a more desirable place for beauty pros to start and/or continue their beauty business journeys.

What kind of events are you holding? Are you promoting these events? Does your local beauty pro community know that you’re giving back to your salon pros? We can help amplify the effects of great events through social media! To learn more about what we offer, hit the button below to get in contact with us!