7 Booking Incentive Ideas for Salons and Spas

Are you running out of booking ideas? Salon clients often stretch out the time between two appointments, either because of their very busy schedules or because they want to cut back on their beauty-related expenses. But that is not at all good for you and your business. Every salon owner or manager wishes to maximize their clients’ visit frequency and return rate because if they don’t pay attention to those things, their salon can face a severe decline in clients, retail, services, and income.

The best chance to book a customer’s new appointment is when they’re still in your salon or spa because they often need a little extra incentive that you should give them right on the spot. So we recommend you implement a pre-booking strategy that you and your team members can follow all year long, but especially toward the end of the year. You’ve got to be secured appointment-wise when entering the new year, after all. Here are 7 booking incentive ideas to help you increase guest retention and make pre-booking a profitable part of your business!

1. Set Up a Contest

One of the 7 booking incentive ideas is assembling a lovely basket full of seasonal goodies before each major holiday and offering it to clients in a pre-booking salon drawings. Tell your guests that every time they pre-book their next appointment on-site, their names will be registered into the contest, and they will have a chance to win the basket of products valued at a certain amount of money. The prize plus the general aspiration of people to win something will motivate them to give it a try.

Try to make the basket as stunning as you can. Create a striking display on the front with a combo of signage and color. You can also use tissue paper and cute little fabric ribbons to make it more appealing. Fill it with top-selling products and accessories from your salon that are in season. In fact, you can use other salon’s and businesses’ products that you do cross-marketing with.

Hold the contest for a month or two, then draw a name. Do this as often you want, but be careful: if you don’t spice the contest up now and then, it might lose its charm, and people might lose interest.

2. Use Booking Cards

Using booking or pre-booking cards to boost visit frequency is basic yet very effective. These nifty little cards contain all the appointment information (name of client, time, date, service, and name of beautician that provides the service) that your client will need. As a rule, clients tend to return to a service provider if the appointment is set down in black and white, so this simple and cost-effective trick could increase your overall client retention rate.

As a bonus, you might offer a gift or discount to those clients who regularly use booking cards. Ask them to return every card at the beginning of their next appointment, and after 15–20 times, offer them a complimentary add-on service or a retail product that might interest them.

Ensure always to have enough cards on hand (100 per team member and 100 on the front desk should do) if your guests start to solicit them.

3. Pre-Book to Win the Grand Prize

Some clients will happily pre-book for an eyebrow waxing, but general wisdom is that the bigger the prize, the bigger the incentive to pre-book. That’s why we advise you that give away something big once or twice a year! An all-inclusive treatment, service, or gift certificate may be used both for services and retail. You’ll see your clients will get excited by this opportunity and engage in booking with you a good deal more.

4. The “Three Vases”

A slightly more specific and interactive booking incentive idea would be to place three vases on your front desk or anywhere else in your salon; that’s entirely up to you. Decorate each vase with ribbons or paint cute designs on them, whatever’s fitting for your salon’s personality. Place a card on each vase with the name of three different services that you’re willing to give away in a drawing contest.

If you run a full-service salon, you can offer, for instance, a manicure, a massage, and a body waxing – choose whatever you like. When your client is about to leave, ask them if they would like to pre-book their next appointment and participate in the drawing. If they agree, their name will be registered into the contest for the service of their choice. Ask them to fill out an entry blank, and place it in the vase with the service most attractive to them. You will pick a winner from every vase when the promotion ends.

5. Roll the Dice

The ones from Salon SOCA, a Chicago-based beauty salon, use a fun way to encourage clients to book their next appointment. Whenever clients decide to book their next appointment on the spot, they can roll 20-sided dice. The rolled number represents the percentage of the customers’ next retail purchase. This easy, fun, and interactive system allows salons to practice pre-booking, reward their clients, and raise retail sales simultaneously.

6. Holiday Drawing

Well, this isn’t exactly a pre-booking incentive idea, but rather a way of showing your appreciation toward your clients before the holidays. Give them something without asking for something in return. Create this promotion from November through December until the last day open before Christmas. Ask every client to fill out an entry blank with their name, phone number, address, and email address, then enter them into the drawing. Hold the drawing on Christmas Eve or any other day before stepping into the new year. Your clients will feel special and cared for in the holiday season, and they will show their gratitude by returning to you in the usually slower month of January. Additionally, you can upgrade your client database and contact list with all the entries and use them for marketing purposes.

7. January Mail Promo

The last on the list of 7 booking incentive ideas it to use the drawing entry data to reach out to your clients more. Send out an email or traditional letter through January in which you offer each of the customers who entered into your previous drawing a discount or a complimentary add-on service for their next appointment. These target guests are already half-committed to book with you and very likely to seize the opportunity!

Pre-booking with incentives may seem like a very time-consuming activity for a salon, and some of the ideas above certainly require a lot of attention and effort on your part. But trust us: it’ll make all the difference in the world if your salon or spa is not yet a fully-fledged business.