The Power of Email Marketing - Tips & Tricks for Hairstylists

Hello, friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics, a topic that is so under- underutilized, so misunderstood, and something that has completely transformed my life and my business, including Behind the Chair, and really supports my business Behind the Chair as far as my retention goes, as far as my students' retention goes, as far as more retail sales. So, I just got this Facebook message from one of my students who I've taught about, um, email marketing and automation, and she said that she's done over $30,000 in retail this past year, and over 30% of that was sold digitally from her email marketing.

That's insane. That is literally crazy. And so, you can literally be passively making money, like, through your email marketing. And we're going to be having a different episode come out, um, I think next week, on Christmas Day, um, all about how to advertise your online store and affiliate links and creative ways to do so, um, but it starts with understanding the basics and the fundamentals of email marketing first before we get there, right?

And so, um, I'm just really excited just t- to break this down for you today and talk about, like, what you should actually be writing in your emails, um, what emails get opened. Is email actually dead, right? Like, a lot of people think that email is dead and that there's no money to make in it, or that it's a waste of people's time, and quite the contrary, my friend. Email is not dead.

I, like I said, I see stylists making so much money and doing beautiful things with email, including myself and my own Behind the Chair business, and it's just, it's just a game changer when you can really tap into the power of it. So, let's get into it. Let's go. Pop the F off.

Let me guess. You are a hustling, bustling hairstylist behind the chair, working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business, even when you're not behind the chair. My name is Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies, so you can grow your business without the overwhelm, and this is the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

Kaitlyn, hi. How are you? Who are you? Hi.

Hey, how are you? Uh, my name is Kaitlyn. I am a hairstylist. I work for Hunter.

I am here to help Hunter stay on track, give him outlines, and pop in my opinion where asked for and all the good things. And yeah, that's kind of just my main thing is I'm just here to s- play, play the supportive role. Kaitlyn. Yeah.

You play more than just a supportive role. You play an integral, integral part of this operation, so thank you so much for being here. We all appreciate you very much. So, Kaitlyn, have you ever...

Did you lean into email marketing when you were Behind the Chair? I had just started the year before I stepped away from working Behind the Chair, so for like a solid year I was doing it. I didn't really know what I was doing, to be honest, but I did feel like I still had that, uh, lifeline that I could, like, connect with my clients outside of the salon, which I really, really enjoyed. Yes, I love that you called it a lifeline where you can connect with your clients.

I think that that is such a beautiful way of describing it. And so, before we get into, like, why that is the case, let's talk about what it actually is, okay? So that we're all on the same page. So, email marketing is basically just utilizing, um, s- email service providers' softwares, right, where you can mass email a entire list of people, right, of people that you have their email addresses, they have either directly or indirectly given you that email address, given you permission to email them in a promotional way.

And you're able to mass communicate with people right into their inboxes and their email, right? Every single person has an email and every single person checks their emails. Yes, email is extremely oversaturated. There's a bunch of competition, like, the, like, you are up against so many other emails in that person's inbox.

Emails are white noise a lot of the time for a lot of people. But I truly believe that you, my friend, the person who is offering such an intimate service and offering such a relational or a strong relational connection with somebody, I believe that you have a step above all of those other marketing emails from, like, like, you know, the Burlington Coat Factory or the Walmart or whatever the hell they're getting emails from, right? Um, you're not a corporation, you know? You are a, like, living hu- You're a living human being whe- who, who the person can actually connect with, right?

And so just, then, there, and alone, you know, you have such a... You have such potential to be noticed in this inbox out of all of the other noise that's in there, and you have potential to be something that is actually positive that they're excited to open up when you get into that inbox or when your client actually checks their inbox, right? And e- email marketing, I would say, works mostly when we're talking about existing clients, but it can really, really work well for new clients and converting new clients int- or new potential clients into butts into your chair as well, too. And so there's so many different angles that you can go about this, but what I really want to make clear is that it's not dead and that I know you're like, "Oh, my..."

I hate when people say, "Well, my clients say that they hate emails." It's like, they say that, but the data says that they are clicking and opening and reading them still. So I... D- d- d- doesn't matter what people say.

You, you could hear a million people say the same exact thing, but what they're a-... actions actually are at the end of the day, that's what matters. And what data is showing us as a, as an industry is that people still open up and interact with emails, and it is what it is. But your email has to be a good email in order for somebody to want to actually open it up, in order for somebody to actually want to call, uh, t- uh, click your call to action or do further business with you or follow up with whatever you're asking them to do, right?

It has to be a good email. You can't just be sending, like, the same old newsletter that you send monthly. Like, it just, it just isn't the tea, you know? Like, and, and you can't just be in there, like, selling all the time.

You have to be nurturing. You have to be giving somebody a reason to give a shit. It's my number one thing. It's my number one rule when it comes to marketing, whenever I talk to any stylist about marketing.

And even in my own business, uh, how, how we filter through what we're putting out there is, are we giving them a reason to give a shit first? Because you, nobody cares that you have these solutions unless you give them a reason to care, right? And so what I oftentimes see is people just spr- like, throw information at their clients in the, in the, in this type of channel or other channels and expect everybody to be like, "Oh," and, and, like, to, like, eat it up and be like, "Oh, hell yeah." But in reality, like, if you're not connecting that person's mi- uh, that person's state of being and where they're feeling and how they're feeling right now to the information that they're, that you're giving them, they're never gonna open it, they're never gonna read it, they're never gonna connect to it.

And you're not, you're gonna have a really hard time getting somebody to take action with you. And so this goes for caption writing, this goes for emails, et cetera, et cetera. But it's just, it's just all about making sure that you're, that you're using this platform strategically and you're really taking into consideration the consumer's experience, um, as far as what it looks like when they actually get an email in their inbox. So we're gonna be talking about, like, strategy and, like, how to make sure that you're really, um, you know, effectively doing that in multiple different ways.

And we're also gonna be talking about why email marketing is actually really, really, really important to be leaning into, especially right now with the massive shift that we are seeing in social media every single day. And in today's day and age, we- uh, the- at the time that we're recording this, like, the, I feel like it is just, like, the market is just so volatile because of how fast everything is changing and how consumers are so viscerally reacting to social media and its changes. Like, people are just so fed up. Like, we are just so fed up from our overconsumption and our addictions to social media.

And, like, and p- your consumer, like, your client is, like, sick of all of this shit and you are no longer in control of and nor have you ever been in control of the, um, what your client is actually seeing or if they're seeing your content or how they're consuming it, you know? And so what ends up happening is, right, you're on this platform, you're building your entire business on this platform. Sometimes people, I mean, uh, y'all, if you've listened to me before, then you know that I fucking, I rant about this all the time. You're using your social media platform as, like, this operational space where you're talking about, "Oh, these are my new business hours.

Oh, these are my salon policies. Oh, these are this. Oh, these are that. Oh, I have an opening."

It's like, you're, th- th- this is not the space for that. This is not the space for that. Using email marketing, that is the space for that. The in-the-chair operations, that is the space for that, right?

Where you're directly communicating to your client in a way that you are for sh- you for sure know that they're gonna get that email, right? With social media, you have no idea if somebody's going to see your post or not. It's a complete gamble. But with email, you can, you can really, really bet and count on the fact that your client is gonna get that email in one way or another, in one way or another.

Yes, spam filters are a thing. Yes, you probably will end up in the promotion folder. But you have to remember that your client is still looking through their promotion folder and they're still going to see you. And if your email, if your subject line is that, if ev- if they like hearing from you, they're gonna open up your email.

It is what it is, right? So you don't own these social platforms, and, and when it comes to your marketing, right, like, how annoying is it, how annoying is it when you've worked so hard on creating a beautiful piece of content and it doesn't do well in the algorithm and nobody sees it? The fix is build an email list and have and own these email addresses, right? Like, now you have this list of information, of contact information, that is so valuable that you can reach out to it anytime and be almost guaranteed that somebody will see the message that you're trying to send them.

So something that I want to bring up that will relate beautifully with this as well is, uh, at the time of recording this, just recently, Instagram, Meta, whatever you want to call it, like, started locking people out of their accounts. They had, like, a huge, massive glitch, and it was yet another second year in a row actually, 'cause the year prior as well, uh, uh, Facebook and Instagram both went, like, dark for, like, six hours. And those are, like, the really eye-opening moments of, like, like Hunter said, like, we don't own the platform. Like, we're on the platform, but that doesn't mean that we, like, have ...

We have no way to back it up, like, if it just goes dark like that. So this is one of the most crucial, I feel like, missed steps that we run into is that we don't have an email list or we don't have a way to, like, get ahold of our clients and stuff like that. Like, if Instagram and Facebook just, like, died and, like, was ne- ceased to exist tomorrow, like, what would you do? How would you reach your clients?

How would you, like, market to them? And I feel like it always comes back to the email list. You're right. It always comes back to the email list.

And I, you know, I ... There's stylists out there who have, who are like, "Oh, well, I'm not building my, my, uh, my clientele off of social media." And it's like, okay, that's amazing. That is so beautiful.

But the thing is, is, like, if you wanna build a really effective clientele, if you wanna build an aligned clientele that is, like, a great ideal client, then social media is the way to go about it. And we're moving into this time where people are looking you up online. People want to see your online presence. Like, for me, I know if I Googled somebody, right, or if I found a business on Google My Business, I'm gonna want to find at least one other social channel where I can see more examples of their work and their presence and, like, how they interact with humans and the community as a business.

And that can be done through your website to a certain degree, right? It can. But, like, I really wanna see, like, multiple angles of things. And so if you...

I'm just, I'm just saying, like, this i- this still applies to you. This still applies to you whether or not you're, like, crazy active on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it may be. It still applies to you because e- even Google My Business, they can do whatever the F that they want with your, with your listing. And, like, they don't have to show these ex- these pictures.

They don't have to give these people these announcements. It's like, you need some sort of way that you can guarantee that you'll communicate directly to your existing clients and have a great place to really effectively nurture new clients and turn them in- or new potential clients and turn them into existing clients too. So, that is what email marketing can really help you do. And that's why it's so important to use it, because it's just a really great guaranteed operational space.

I say it all the time, and hopefully this is not too off-topic, but, like, we don't need to be doing these operational things on our social media. It is just a turnoff to new potential clients. Like, the point of you being on social and the point of you being on your website, right, and having a website, is to convert new potential clients into existing clients. And yes, you can nurture your existing clients on your social a little bit, but there's other beautiful ways to do that with email marketing, right, and with just your excellent client experience.

So, that's my rant about why it's so important and why it's- why it can be so helpful for you and your business. So, let's talk about strategy. Let's talk about email marketing. Uh, so, like I said, next week, we're gonna be coming out with an episode, um, talking about creative ways to advertise your online store and affiliate links.

So I'm not gonna really- I'm not gonna be talking about, um, retail too much yet, because we can talk about that next week. But here's some amazing things that you can do with email marketing, and let's talk about, like, what you should be doing to make sure that it's effective and, and people actually wanna open up your email, right? So, we have open rates, and then we have click rates. Open rates is the percentage of people who actually opened up the email out of the amount of people that you sent it to.

So you sent it to 100 people and only 50 people, um, opened it, then you'd have a 50% open rate, right? And then we have click rates. So click rates are the percentage of people who actually clicked the link that you shared in your email out of the amount of people that you sent it to, right? The, the s- the success of your open rate is dependent on two things.

What do you think they are, Caitlin? I am gonna say the subject line. Boom. And probably the preview text.

Yes, preview text. You got it, you got it. Yeah, so your open, your open rate is all dependent on your subject line and your preview text. So when you're working with an email marketing, uh, software, it's going to allow you to set up what the subject line is, and it's gonna allow you to set up what your preview text is.

So if you ever notice, if you get an email, you'll see the subject line, right? But you'll also see a little description underneath the subject line of, like, what the preview of the email is. And instead of it automatically just reading what the email actually says and giving you just, like, the first sentence of the email, you're actually able to customize it with proper email marketing softwares, and you're able to make it something that would even furthermore make your client want to actually open up the email. And so, it- when you, when you want people to open up your emails, it's all about a catchy subject line and a really good preview text.

And you wanna make it so that that subject line is something that makes somebody wanna be like, "Ooh, I need to read more," or, "Ooh, this, this pertains to me. This is relevant information to me right now, and I should be opening this up." "Ooh, seems like there's a scarcity around this," or that, "There's a limited time around this, so let me open this up," right? And the preview text should just be further more convincing that person to open that email up, right?

So, a lot of the times, if you have something that l- if you have email subject lines that just, like, aren't super engaging, they sound like they're the same old thing over and over and over, or it's not anything that pertains to the client and where they're living in their brains right net- right then and there, you're gonna have a low open rate. And then, yeah, email's not gonna work for you because you're not giving anybody a reason to give a shit. It all goes back to that, right? You wanna always be giving your person a reason to give a shit when you are in your marketing and whenever you're trying to communicate and make a connection.

And so, make sure that your subject line and your preview text are always really juicy and good, like a good hook in a caption, right? Like that first little sentence that you see on an Instagram post that gets you to want to open up the caption and read more, it's the same exact thing when it comes to email, and vice versa. So make sure that you have some sort of good hook for a subject line, and also take in consideration, too, that the first couple words of that subject line are the most important, because if somebody is looking at it from a mobile view or something like that, it's gonna condense the subject line, right? And so they're only gonna be able to read the first couple words.

So you can't have this crazy long subject line, and then same goes with preview text. You have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to preview text, but there is character limits, and they, and they will be, um, condensed as well too. So make sure that your, um, your subject line and your, uh, your preview text are really dialed in to make this as effective as possible.And then we go to our click rates.

Caitlin, what makes a good click rate? I'm taking a stab in the dark here. It's kind of a, it's kind of a trick, it's a trick question kind of. Isn't it usually just having, like, some kind of call to action?

You could have a call to action, but if there's not anything that's gonna make somebody wanna click, you wanna have a fucking good email to get that click rate to be high, you know. Like, if your click rate is low, then you didn't do a good enough job of bridging the person and where they're living at right now and whatever your call to action was and putting them together, right? You didn't move somebody through enough of a journey or push somebody to decision well enough to make them want to click that button, right? And I'll share with you right now, a great click rate is like 1.

5, like that is a fantastic click rate for emails, but for us, especially when it comes to existing clients, the, it should be even a little bit higher than that. It should probably be like a 2% or above because of the intense nurtured relationship that you already have just from the nature of our business, right? So, uh, like a 1.5 or above is really what us as hairstylists want to be shooting for whenever we're speaking to our clients.

Um, but a industry average or just, like, digital world average is probably like a 1 to 1.5 is a good average, uh, click rate. And, uh, again, that all comes back to how well did you take the subject of your email and how well did you create a story or a journey or somebody to go through a path of, like, ma- re- making them really want to actually click the button. And, um, that is going to make your click rate go up and actually get people to want to take action when it comes to your emails and your calls to action, okay?

Now, couple different examples of how you can use email marketing and then we will close this puppy out, and then we'll see you next week. On Christmas Day, we'll be releasing that, um, episode, um, uh, teaching you all about how to use it to sell more retail, okay? So, um, so first off, what I teach in my programs is we do a welcome email sequence. And so, this is a really cool automated thing where you move a new potential client who, I'm sorry, a new client who has booked with you.

You put them through this introductory journey of doing business with you, right? So when a new client comes, when a new client first books with you, they're super excited, but they're also hesitant, and they also have a lot of nerves and fear about what their experience is actually going to be with you. And so, what your welcome email sequence can do and what the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth email within that welcome email sequence will do is get the person really comfortable and familiar with your business, your personality, who you are, get them really comfortable with the environment that they're gonna be walking into, and that, and you'll be establishing yourself as a comfortable expert that will connect with them, that you un- that they, that understands them, and that they're excited to come see. And so that will help so much with your new client's experience with you, even before they sit in your chair, which plants great seeds for retention in the long run and a great ver- first visit with you, and one where the client feels comfortable enough to honestly communicate with you and all of those good things, right?

So, um, a welcome email sequence is a beautiful way about going, about using email marketing, and it can be completely automated, and I teach all about that in, in my programs. So another great way to use email marketing is to nurture your clients in between the visits. I think that people overcomplicate the hell out of this and, but then also people, um, go, try to go too generic with this, right? With, like, a monthly newsletter situation.

We are so sick of the monthly newsletter situation. Your client is not gonna open that, okay? They are just, they, th- it's just not engaging enough, okay? Now, yes, you can still do an, uh, a monthly newsletter, right?

But what I don't want you to expect is it for, for you to do magic with it, right? What I would suggest, if you still wanna do a monthly newsletter and you talk about, like, your, um, your s- your promotions for the month or the quarter or the season, or you talk about maybe the openings that you have coming up, or maybe you, um, release any important announcements or reminders, whatever it may be, that's totally cool. Go ahead and do that. But what you should also be doing is sending a different email at a different time per month or something like that, that it just has one specific reason, one specific call to action, and one specific subject and topic, and one where you're not necessarily pushing for a hard sell or maybe not even having a call to action at all, and maybe just continuously reminding your client about the value that you offer them as a business in your client experience.

So a great example of how to do this is maybe your subject line and your subject and the topic of your email could be how to make the most out of your p- a client experience with me. And then talk about, uh, the different op- options that people can choose when they come to see you, the way that they can customize their experience with you, um, and, and, uh, maybe talk to them about how they can come with the most prepped and clean hair for the best results for their color or their extensions or whatever it may be, right? And just, like, give them a little nugget that is something that's super interesting for them to read and something where you're really just taking care of them and making them feel valued and excited to come back and see you again, right? It can be as simple as that.

You already have all the content that you need to come up with ideas for these emails in your day-to-day operations. You could tell stories. You could tell stories about how a client came to see you and asked this one question and it blew your mind, or something like that, right? Or how you were able to help a client go from A to Z, right, um, through a one appointment with you or something like that.

You can storytell. You can just talk about the client experience you already have and just respark the flame and the magic that your client who has been seeing you for 10 years-Um, has not, might, might have not been feeling with you for a long time because of how redundant things can get, right? And i- that can really help with your retention. And then your overall referrals because your stylist, u- or I'm sorry, your client is going to be telling their friends all about how cool their stylist is, right?

So, you can do so many things with email marketing. And I could keep going, and going, going with ideas. But I teach a lot about this in my programs and I'll be talking more about this in the next coming weeks when we get into marketing. Um, and especially next week, I'm super excited to talk about creative ways to advertise your online store and affiliate links.

We're gonna be talking about more than just email in that, but we will definitely be talking about email in there too. And so, I hope that this has inspired you and given you some insight into how to effectively use email marketing in your business. And, um, I hope that it gave you a little bit of a fire under your butt to get it poppin' and get it started. Do not use your booking system's email marketing.

It is awful. It sucks. It's not the tea. Especially, do not pay for it, okay?

What I would suggest that you do instead is that you learn how to use a really good email software provider, or email service provider, like the ones that we teach in our programs, and, and really lean into, like, what other small businesses and what Fortune 500 companies are doing using these type of ESPs to create beautiful results in their business. Because I'm telling you, girlfriend, Vagaro email marketing, GlossGenies email marketing, it's just not gonna do, it's just not cutting it for you, honey. It's just not. I apologize.

But it is. It is what it is, okay? So, that's why I am, I am passionate about empowering the industry with tools that actually work for small businesses and give you all the, um, advanced options that you want to make really cool things happen. So, if you wanna learn more about that, then you can always go to my Instagram @hairbyhunty, join the wait list for one of my programs, DM me, ask me questions.

I'd love to answer questions that you have. And, uh, continue listening to the Modern Hair Stylist podcast. So, thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate it.

Peace out, girl scout. See you in the next episode. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.