Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:10 Welcome to another episode of the Insync Insurance podcast. I'm your host, Dawn Cross and today with one of our very own Sarah Hatcher from the marketing team. So welcome Sarah to the podcast. How are you doing?
Speaker 2 00:00:24 I'm very good. How are you doing?
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Yeah, not too bad. So we thought it'd be best to speak today about, uh, marketing tips for your beauty slash aesthetics business. It's very hard to start your own business or even do freelance and we thought it'd be fab to give you some more tips on, um, how you can get your business out there. So Sarah, I have a question for you first. Yeah. Uh, what social media apps are the best to use in your opinion?
Speaker 2 00:00:51 So the two main ones, obviously the ones we use day to day, you know, you've got your Instagram and your Facebook. Instagram is a very like visual, um, platform. Uh, it's pretty good for showcasing your work, your portfolio. Um, the more aesthetically a pleasing profile is, uh, optimal stuff that your first impression of um, it's your customer's first impression of your business. Um, the same for your Facebook account. It should be roughly consistent with your, uh, your Instagram account, but with maybe a bit more diverse content.
Speaker 1 00:01:33 No, I completely agree. And it's especially because it's, you know, you're working on visual, you know, on faces and hair and everything else. So you know, if you can show someone you know, this is something really cool that I did the other day, they're more probably gonna come to you if they think, oh actually I'd really like a balayage and I saw that you did a balayage. It looked really pretty on Instagram. So it is just as simple as that really. You just gotta show yourself off on the more kind of image apps, I think basically, um, talk's quite a good one as well, I reckon for showing those like, you know, transformations. Everybody loves a transformation where it's like the before and after so, you know, look at this, you know, really dull hair and look, we made it all rainbow colored and it's, it's really lovely for audiences to see and you know, they'll stick in, um, you'll stick in their brains 'cause I'd be like, you know, they did that really cool cut. So if I, everyone is to try that, I know who to go to 'cause it looks fabulous and I wanna be in the toss to, and you know, audience participation on the literate sense
Speaker 2 00:02:34 <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:02:36 So how frequent do you reckon people should be posting?
Speaker 2 00:02:40 So it's really important to be quite active on social media, um, but not too active. So maybe twice a week, maybe, depending on engagement, maybe a bit more. Um, but yeah, it's very key to be present but not overly present. And finding the sweet spot will, uh, will be important for your business.
Speaker 1 00:03:03 Definitely. And I think a bit advice for anybody. I think I've tried to do this past just, you don't have to be posting every day, um, and being super active every day. 'cause at the end of the day you still gotta run your business and, and do your treatments and whatever you get up to. So don't feel like you have to be on social media like so much. 'cause also I think that would give you a bit of burnout and actually you just don't wanna do social media and it, it's not very healthy I think for anybody to be on social media like absolutely. Constantly. Unless it was your job. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:03:35 Yeah, absolutely. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:03:38 Uh, so what do you reckon as well, um, Sarah with what's key with an online presence? Obviously we're saying they should be on social media relatively regularly, but what should they be actually be doing?
Speaker 2 00:03:51 Um, you, I think, I think it's quite important to have a strong brand and a brand personality on social media. Um, 'cause your social presence will be your clients or new clients', first impressions of your business. Um, with hair and beauty 'cause it's, so it's about aesthetics and um, identity. Um, you can put out the kind of person, you know, the kind of person that you want to come to your business, the kind of looks that you can give. 'cause how of course like if you are more like a, the alternative kind of, uh, salon, you can, you know, put that persona out there. Whereas, you know, there's a lot of people who aren't gonna be looking for that and there's people who are specifically looking for that and that's just a good way to get people through the door.
Speaker 1 00:04:38 Oh definitely. And I think as well, it's good, um, just to interact with the audience as well. If there's any, uh, questions that people post on your, on your Instagram maybe or maybe you get private messages like dms and it's, it's good to also just show up because some people may just use it and then that's it. They don't really look at it again until next week. And it's always just so useful because it can make or break having another client. Even if someone's asking a question, they never get an answer. They probably don't wanna come to you because you, you didn't answer them, which is such a small thing. But sometimes it can make such a difference to your business and people can see the human side, which is you.
Speaker 2 00:05:20 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:05:23 So I reckon as well, um, what's some of the free marketing resources, uh, do you reckon would be goods? Recommend Sarah Now I've got a couple in my head.
Speaker 2 00:05:34 Um, yeah, sure. So one of the important things is when you are managing your social media profiles, it can get a bit messy. So keeping it all in one place is, uh, pretty productive. Um, so one that I use regularly is Hootsuite, um, which has different plans on there. So some are, I think some are free and um, but you can go onto paid plans. Um, alternatively you've got, uh, Agora Pulse, that's a quite a popular one. Um, there are a sea of options out there for content scheduling for social media. So it's um, it's really good to start looking around shopping around what like features are most important to your business, like whether you need multiple accounts. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:06:20 No that sounds really good. Um, I personally would recommend as well canva.com it's really good for if you wanna create infographics, if you wanna design like um, a Facebook header or even like, uh, your own um, laptop background and stuff, you can do that now as well. I see a lot of people doing that. So if you're unsure about designing and stuff, it's really simple and easy to use and it's like, not like Photoshop where some people might feel really out their depth and also can't pay the Adobe subscription. So that's what I definitely recommend. Yeah. What about for, um, emails and stuff, Sarah? Is there any good ones there?
Speaker 2 00:06:57 Oh, the, the old emails, um, you know, we got, um, MailChimps always a solid choice if you're putting together news, uh, newsletters and email campaigns your existing customers is.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 Yeah, no, that's really good. I think there's um, also a whole range of different emailing stuff as well. So if MailChimp doesn't kind of crack up to what you'd like it to be, there is other services out there bearing in mind that we're just recommend what we've used in the past. So please don't take our word for gospel, like make sure to look around and see what you find is best as well. 'cause you never know, you might find something and we're not even aware of that might be, you know, brand new and fabulous. So
Speaker 1 00:07:40 Definitely, uh, we also recommend, you know, with a lot of the Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, a lot of them do have in-app editing as well. So don't worry too much about video editing and picture editing. 'cause actually you can just use those and they're free and they're part of the social media platform map that you are using to advertise yourself anyway. So it doesn't take a lot and don't feel like you need to do crazy amount of editing unless of course you might be doing a video production business, but that's not what we're on about today. So <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:08:13 However, um, Fiverr is a really good resource, isn't it, for, um, for getting content together, graphics, things that might be a bit more ambitious.
Speaker 1 00:08:24 Yeah. And so basically just like find someone who might be able to do this for you at reasonable Price if you are feeling a bit outta your depth as well. There's literally anyone and everyone on Fiverr, you can find anyone that you need for the kind of service you need. I, I've looked on there a few times and gone wowzer.
Speaker 2 00:08:43 Yeah. We've had, I've used voice artists on there and designers and yeah, it's really surprising how fast you can just get something done
Speaker 1 00:08:53 Nice. It's
Speaker 2 00:08:53 A really good tool for small businesses and don't have to hire, um, a big graphic designer to be able to compete on the grounds of visuals.
Speaker 1 00:09:05 Definitely. And sometimes even doing the most basic, uh, tips and tricks with photographs or anything else can still put you head at a game with everybody else. It, you don't have to spend loads of money to feel like you look polished and business ready and everything else. And you know, at the end of the day you can learn a lot of these skills as well on YouTube. So, and that's for free majority of the time and that's, you know, they have a paywall <laugh>. So definitely utilize the resources that you can bind on the internet to help you in your business. Um, I think that wraps up about everything in in our little tips and tricks episode. Do you have any last minute advice?
Speaker 2 00:09:47 Just mostly utilize social media. It's one of your greatest assets in your marketing arsenal. You can put so much up on there, um, from just pictures of your work, which is just key for, um, a visual business like hair and beauty. Um, you can get people engaged with your, uh, with your staff, um, and showcase people's styles and what, what they're bringing to the business. Um, you know, rewards and competition, just anything to get people engaged, um, and excited about your business
Speaker 1 00:10:26 I think is so key to just showcase everything <laugh> and just so just some people can know you.
Speaker 2 00:10:34 Yeah. Like the experience of your salon. Mm. Like for example, yeah. Just showing what it's like to be in your salon. I think it's really, um, it's such a experience based industry that, you know, you, when you go to a new salon, you might think about what is, you know, what are the chairs like, is it gonna be nice? 'cause it's about treating yourself as well.
Speaker 1 00:10:57 Yeah. Pampering.
Speaker 2 00:10:59 Exactly. If you show off your, if you show off your, um, product and things that you'll use and like describe maybe what they smell like a bit, maybe create a, an a vision of what it's going to be like for your customers.
Speaker 1 00:11:14 Yeah. And then I think that's the whole point as well is, you know, you're, there's like an end game or like an end product you, you want them to have. And I think part of that is the experience. You know, they wanna dedicate the time and money to sit in your chair. Um, and it would be nice to see kind of, well, you know, you get treated well, you get offered a cup of tea, maybe there's like a free hand massage that's part of it that you offer. You should definitely show that, um, and advertise it. Offer champagne. Yeah. Or champagne. You know, that's always a classic one. <laugh> I think my very
Speaker 2 00:11:48 Fancy <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:11:50 I think my last piece of advice as well for this episode is, um, try to make sure to stay organized. You know, don't feel like you've gotta be, you know, uh, posting loads. You, you know, you feel all over the place. You know, having Hootsuite or something else to help kind of organize that and just make sure to set aside a certain amount of time per week for marketing social media. Whether it be, you know, more of the generic stuff like leaflets, that kind of thing. But also social media's so important nowadays, uh, to make sure that, you know, you're not burning yourself out at the end of the day. You know, you are one person you are just after to yourself and don't feel like you've got do a crazy amount to keep up with some competitors that might even have their own social media person just doing that whilst everyone else is doing the treatment. So, uh, yeah, set aside like an hour or so each week being like, you know what, I'm gonna post this, this and this and I might make, see if some clients wanna do some tos. And Bob, your Uncle <laugh> <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:12:51 Well thank you very much for coming on for this discussion. Sarah, it's been lovely to chat shop with you, <laugh>. It was lovely. Thank you for having me <laugh>. It's all right. And I hope some of the tips and tricks has helped our audience as well. Uh, you know, worst case scenario, just do some research, see what's out there. There's plenty of resources to help you get started if you're stuck. Um, and if in doubt just ask grind, um, interview your peers and be like, what do you like to see on social media? Can't go wrong 'cause that's the people you're gonna be targeting at the end of the day. Thank you to my guest today, Sarah Hatcher for sharing her insight on marketing. If you want to know more on how to market your beauty and aesthetics business, head to our website in sync insurance.co.uk where we have more on our blog with posts written by our brilliant experts. I've been your host on Cross and tune in next Wednesday for another episode. NSYNC is one of the UK's fastest growing insurance providers offering comprehensive cover for SMEs and the self-employed across the uk. Our expert team can tailor your insurance to meet your individual business needs and compare prices from our Lloyds of London approved partners.
