Marketing Tips for Your Dog Grooming Salon
Being a groomer means juggling the day-to-day running of a business while creating perfect cuts on our furry friends. To get you on the right track, we’ve mapped out a marketing guide to help you bring in new customers and stand out from the crowd.
  
Google My Business
GMB provides you with the ability to list your business on Google maps, local search results, and voice-activated searches like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. From GMB, you can display important information about your business, like opening/closing times, contact details, and even your website if you have one.
If your customers want to find out more about your business like seasonal opening hours, reviews, health and safety protocols and much more, you can be sure that the first thing they do is Google your business name and check the right-hand panel to find the information they need.
One main benefit of GMB is that a completed listing can single-handedly improve your business’s local SEO ranking, which will help you get to the top of local searches and attract new customers. The additional Google Maps integration will also make it easier for these new customers to quickly find your business.
Marketing your salon on social media
Create great content
Creating consistent, high-quality content to share out on your feeds will highlight your work to existing and new customers and give you a platform to demonstrate your skills and experience.
1. Set up a photo section in your premises
As a groomer, you don’t have time to be worrying if your lighting is right, or how to get the best angle. Therefore, set up a photo area, with backdrops and branding that will create a consistent look in your photos. Remember, if you don’t have access to a ring light, setting this station up close to natural lighting will make your images pop.
2. You don’t need a camera
Nowadays, any modern smartphone will take high-definition images, that are of a fantastic quality. Use this along with apps such as Picsart, Canva or InShot, which all have free options, and you can improve your photo-quality and make your images stand out from the crowd.
3. Take A LOT of photos
As a groomer, most of your models will not sit still, let alone pose for photos. That’s why, when you’re taking photos of them, the best method is to tap your phone screen furiously. Then, you can scroll through the photos and find that golden image afterwards!
How to create loyal customers
A big part of marketing is bringing in new customers, but the bigger challenge is making those customers remain loyal to you. It can be hard to build a relationship instantly, so how do you stop your customers from going to another groomer? Start by creating an online community organically, so that your customers feel included in your business and want to contribute to its growing success.
- Create community-based content
Community based content is different to sharing your transformations. It’s content that makes your customers engage. The best examples of this are polls and questions. For example, you could put a story up with three different styles of cut and ask your customers what they prefer. On a simpler level, simply asking your customers to comment in your captions is an easy way of doing this, i.e., comment if you loved your last groom with us!
2. Help your customers get to know you
A big mistake on social media is often focusing on the business too much. People buy from people and most families will be unsure of handing their dog away to a stranger. That’s why you should include yourself in your social media. Whether it be a general introduction, pictures of you with clients or videos of yourself talking about some tips for pet owners, all these things will give your customers an insight into your personality and your passion for grooming.
3. Give your customers the information they need
One way to keep customers and bring new ones in, is making sure all your information is readily available. On every other post, your phone number, email or how to contact should be written, as well as having these in your Facebook business page and Instagram bio. Opening times should also be posted monthly and any free booking slots could be posted weekly too. Having this information constantly on your page keeps your customers in the loop and this will protect you from customers drawing their own conclusions about when you are open. Even small things, like posting about your hours of contact are great for protecting your mental health and burnout.
TOP TIP
Maximise Facebook advertising without breaking the bank. If you want to start doing Facebook paid advertisement, run an ad at the cost of one treatment. i.e., an ad about de-shedding would cost the same as a de-shed in your salon. If you get at least one customer from the ad, you’ve not only made your money back, but you will potentially gain a loyal happy customer.
