[The New Rules of Engagement]
Technology-driven changes in consumer media preferences challenge salon and spa owners to rethink their media plans
It’s official: online marketing is mainstream—in a big way. The Internet has become an indispensable part of our business and social lives, siphoning more and more consumers away from TV, radio, and magazines. Advertising dollars have followed the same path: more than $12.5 billion was spent on online ads in 2005, and that amount is predicted to double to $25 billion in just six years.
The sheer size of the online audience is dazzling, but numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. In the early days of stratospheric growth, advertisers used the most basic measures—the number of hits or unique visitors – to gauge a website’s effectiveness. That’s like saying the stylist who does 12 haircuts in one day is the most productive, without knowing when—or if —any of these 12 customers will ever return.
For the online community, the year 2005 was a turning point: for the first time, growth in visits to websites slowed considerably, and the number of new users in the United States began to plateau. Although forecasters predict another wave of new online users as high-speed access becomes less expensive, it will not be a tidal wave but a steady, incremental increase through the end of 2007.
As the Internet has matured, the old measuring tools have become obsolete. Click-throughs, hits, and the number of unique visitors don’t give a complete picture of the effectiveness of a website campaign. Advertisers realize that even more important than new Internet users are intense, involved users. In their search for the “right” measure of effectiveness—or metric, smart marketers are looking at online engagement—the most essential measure of success in any medium. Engagement speaks to a consumer’s passion, preference, and habit, and is proving to be a reliable indicator of a consumer’s long-term behavior.
But just how is engagement measured? Time spent online is one way, but as broadband access increases, users will do more online in less time. Web pages consumed per person per month, while also influenced by broadband growth, may be a more accurate measure. A good way to evaluate online engagement is to compare growth in unique visitors to growth in web pages “consumed” by a single user ??? over the same period of time.
Is the Internet on track to match the engagement quotients of TV, magazines, and radio? By any measure, the engagement quotient is rising for the online medium—in fact, this was one of the defining developments of 2005 and 2006.
Clearly, online users are becoming more and more engaged with their favorite web sites—is your site one of them?
Three Ways to Raise Your Site’s Engagement Quotient
Here are three proven ways to elevate the engagement level of visitors to your site.
1. Align Your Content with Your Clients’ Passion
You know your clients are passionate about your salon or spa because you can see it first-hand when they leave with a new sense of style and self-esteem. And while we can’t recreate your salon online, we can capture the essence of your services and entice guests to experience them. Your website should remind current clients of what they like about your salon or spa. To attract new clients, your site should feature all your products and services and include a host of keywords that make it easy for Google and other search tools to locate your site.
2. Leverage National Product Campaigns
Wouldn’t you like to have a slice of the advertising budget that major product manufacturers have? Well, as an authorized reseller of these products, you can often use the expensive images the manufacturer has invested thousands in producing on your website.
Leveraging the investments made by your product companies while preserving your salon’s brand equity is the key to marketing success, online and off. Highlighting new products or services featured in major media campaigns will enhance your salon’s image and link you with the latest industry trends. Every salon or spa owner invests heavily in the product lines they work so hard to sell at the grass roots level. You deserve every bit of help major manufacturers can offer—so don’t be afraid to ask for resources to enhance your online presence.
3. Use New Technologies to Your Advantage
Websites with a strong graphic impact, intelligent and easy navigation, and smart marketing tools (such as e-mail newsletters and web logs, or blogs) engage customers more quickly and keep them interested longer. Combined with new analytical tools, it’s easy to substantiate the effectiveness of your online campaign.
One metric that has become popular is view-through, which assesses the “indirect response” contribution of online advertising. Smarter Salon uses view-through to track the response to its Smart Mail TM e-mail promotions. Smart Mail tracks whether or not respondents click on the advertisement and/or explore the link back to the website to learn more.
We also work with some of the top developers of software for salons and spas to provide custom services such as online appointment booking linked with promotions of specific services. Smarter Salon gives you the latest techniques for capturing response over time and analyzing your websites effectiveness— from inception to delivery to response and follow-through.
Technology Changes, Human Nature Doesn’t
Remember the transistor radio? Black-and-white TV? Communication technologies come and go, but the basic reason why people use media—to get information about things that interest them—hasn’t changed. However, your customers’ changing media preferences will influence your business decisions—and ultimately, your bottom line.
Salons and spas that limit themselves to traditional media are missing opportunities to meet potential customers where they are spending more and more time—online. By joining the online environment today, salon owners have an inside track on how their customers’ media choices will affect their salon’s future sales and success.