Case Study: Salon Leverages Free Wi-Fi to Evaluate Digital Promotions
Merchant: Edges Salon & Spa
Location: Calgary, Canada
Platforms: Troglo, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter
Bottom Line: Customers can be incentivized to share information about themselves with the promise of free Wi-Fi.
Collecting customer email addresses and generating Facebook “likes” are two tasks that are at the top of virtually every small business marketer’s to-do list. At Edges Salon & Spa, Jessica Chammoury has a system in place to streamline this process and encourage customer loyalty at the same time.
For the past seven months, Edges Salon has been offering customers free Wi-Fi in exchange for the chance to learn about their behaviors and engage them on mobile.
“When our guests arrive, we inform them that we no longer have magazines, and [we] offer them an iPad … On the iPad, there is an icon that says ‘Free Wi-Fi.’ Clicking it takes them online,” explains Chammoury. “Once they’ve done that, our promotions appear and they can scroll through them. They can do the same thing on their phones through their settings.”
As the chief marketing officer and brand manager at Edges, Chammoury closely tracks the digital promotions to which her customers are responding. Chammoury also leverages her salon’s Wi-Fi to collect email addresses from guests. She does this by adding a “sign up” option to particular posts or promotions.
“Being able to physically see which posts or ads get looked at and clicked on allows me to see what types of promotions entice our guests,” she says. “I can also track sales from a particular post I’ve made using just Troglo to see its effectiveness.”
During the seven months she’s used Troglo, Chammoury has increased her salon’s Facebook followers. Chammoury also has been able to increase sales of new products by showcasing them to Wi-Fi users as soon as they arrive at the salon.
“It has helped us post our promotions in a way that we know everyone signing on is going to see. It’s not a poster that only a few people will see in a particular spot, but it’s guaranteed to be viewed in the palm of their hands,” Chammoury says. “It’s a simple way to convey information to everyone within the business.”
Chammoury was introduced to Troglo by one of her salon’s distributors, and says she was impressed by how easy it was to explain the new platform to her employees and customers.
“Because we have such a large team — 70 staff members in various departments — I need the platforms to be simple to use and explain to our guests,” she says. “Cost also is important, but we would rather pay a higher price for a simpler platform that will be well received by staff and guests.”
In evaluating the effectiveness of Troglo or any other digital marketing platform, Chammoury says the only metric that really matters to her is sales.
“If we are running a promotion on Troglo, Facebook, our website, wherever, we want to see the sales of that particular product increase,” she says. “We also run promotions to drive traffic to our Instagram, since we are such a visual industry. We offer $5 off their appointment if they post a picture of themselves here, and that is only advertised on Troglo.”
Chammoury estimates that she spends at least three hours every day interacting with people on her salon’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter pages. In addition to posting promotions, relevant videos, images, and anything else that’s trending on social media, Chammoury also ix responsible for training her staff on how to market themselves using social media.
With plans in the works to expand Edges Salon to a larger location, Chammoury says it’s more important than ever that to stay up to date with the media platforms her demographic uses. She plans to continue using Troglo, and eventually have her free Wi-Fi reach a wider area in order to inform customers at surrounding businesses about what her salon has to offer.
“There’s so much competition within the industry, and the majority of people do their research on their phones or laptops,” she says. “Whether they’re doing it at home, we want to show up at the top with the highest quality of our own content, or if they’re doing it in the area, we want to be the free Wi-Fi they choose in order to see all the great things we offer.”
Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.
