Social media contests and giveaways have been proven to be an excellent marketing technique for salons and spas. It can be a great tactic for gaining followers and exposure to potential new clients in your area. However, although contests and giveaways are beneficial for small businesses and consumers alike, there are things to avoid and keep in mind in order to have a return on your investment and time! In this blog, we’re going to break down how to prep for a successful salon social media giveaway so you can feel confident launching one yourself!
DETERMINE YOUR GOALS
Before you plan anything else, you need to determine what you hope to achieve with a contest or giveaway. Once you’ve established WHY you’re doing the giveaway, you can go ahead planning everything else. Here’s a few common reasons why salons and spas may do a contest or giveaway on social media:
Promote a product or service
Promote a new team member
Gain social media followers
Gain exposure to potential new clients
Cross promote with other local businesses with similar customer demographic
Receive user generated content to use on your salon’s social
RUN THE NUMBERS
Determine what the prize for your giveaway will be and what the value of it is. You don’t want your giveaway to be counterproductive by giving away a prize with a way higher investment cost than what your return might be. For example, if you promote a prize with $1500 but you only have 5 people participate in the contest, you still have to give out that prize without getting much in return. Look at these giveaways as paid advertising, you wouldn’t pay a huge amount to advertise on the radio if your ideal client didn’t listen to the radio, and you have to take the same strategic approach when planning a social media contest!
NAIL DOWN DETAILS
The contest details/rules that need to be in place include but are not limited to:
Which social platforms are you going to run the giveaway on
Start and end date
Actions for followers to take to enter contest (like, follow, tag friends, share, repost, etc)
Collaboration details if applicable.
Speaking of collaborations… we’re going to delve into things you need to consider when collaborating with other local businesses. Collabs can be beneficial for many different reasons. It can allow you to be exposed to other accounts followers as well as to increase the value and appeal of your giveaway prize. However, you’ll want to make sure that your businesses compliment each other and your prizes will appeal to everyone’s ideal client to achieve desired results. We’ve got a few suggestions for business types that line up well for giveaways with salons and spas:
Trendy local restaurants/cafes
Boutique clothing stores
Wellness studios (fitness, yoga, energy practices like reiki, etc.)
Local photographers
Other local salon professionals (with services you do not offer)
Tattoo shops
Health food stores
Local jewelry/clothing designers and makers
MARKETING STRATEGY
Now that you’ve got your details in order, you can decide how you’re going to market your contest or giveaway. If you decide to collaborate with other businesses, you’ll need to make a plan for how to brand and post giveaway so it works for all parties. Or perhaps you might decide the best way to promote your giveaway is to include a local influencer or salon guest in your plan and have them posting about the giveaway as well!
Once you’ve ironed out some of these ideas, you can plan out how you’ll continue to advertise the giveaway until the winner is chosen. A good rule of thumb to follow is to run a social media giveaway for anywhere between 6-14 days. It’s important to not run it for too long as the excitement starts to dwindle as time passes, and you want to catch people while they’re amped about it! Continue to promote the giveaway through regular story posts and depending on what you’re wanting to invest, you may even consider paying to boost the post for further reach.
If you utilize email marketing for your salon/spa, we recommend sending out an email about the contest or giveaway to your subscribers! Contest email rates have an average open rate of 8.8% which is 5.5% higher than other email campaigns.
Want to learn more about email marketing for your salon/spa? Click here!
CREATE BRANDED CONTENT
Now that you’ve got every single detail sorted and ready, you’re good to go on content creation! We absolutely love Canva for creating gorgeous, branded content to make your giveaway stand out! Again, you need to look at this as a paid advertising opportunity so take the time to make sure your content is visually appealing as well as includes all of your contest details (duration, entry rules and requirements, prize, etc). When writing your caption, make sure to include emojis and to include all of the details listed above in a clear, organized manner.
PICKING A WINNER
When it comes to picking a giveaway winner, all you need to do is link up your post to an automatic winner chooser. Here’s a few free resources for you to check out.
Looking to level up your salon’s online branding?! Give this blog post a read!
We recommend scheduling your social media posts in advance for consistency and ease. Learn more about our very own S.O.S scheduling platform here!
You’ve now got the know how on how to run a successful and rewarding social media giveaway for your salon and followers alike! We can’t wait to see the contest and giveaway ideas you dream up, make sure to tag us on Instagram @salon.s.o.s !
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok @salon.s.o.s for your daily dose of all things digital marketing.
‘Til next time,
The Team at Salon S.O.S
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