You’ve probably heard and read plenty about ways to grow your beauty and wellness business. But without a view of the big picture, the advice can come across as piecemeal, even scattered. For this blog post and a recent Zenoti learning session on utilization, let’s start with a helpful, overarching view of revenue growth.  

In any salon, spa, or medspa business, there are three key aspects to revenue growth:
1. optimizing your daily schedule to create the most possible appointment slots; 2. filling as many of those slots as possible (our topic here); and 3. maximizing revenue for every client visit. Each of these has a specific set of strategies to ensure success.  

In our latest webinar, our experts highlight five innovative tactics related to the second aspect of growth, and detail strategies every beauty and wellness business can utilize to “leave no slot unfilled” and maximize revenue. (Watch the video now.)

The experts:

Carly Gordineer, Executive Director of Salon Operations, Van Michael Salon. Van Michael has been an institution in the Atlanta, Georgia area for nearly 40 years, currently with 8 locations. ‍

Raj Rayru, Vice President of Product Management, Zenoti. Raj specializes in helping beauty and wellness brands maximize their revenue via guidance, software, and automation.

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5 strategies to fill as many appointment slots as possible

1. Reminding customers of incomplete bookings

The learning session starts off with an important but often overlooked tactic: reaching out to clients – or potential clients – who start the booking process online but don’t finish it.

Just like online retailers remind shoppers of their abandoned carts, beauty and wellness businesses can send automated messages to nudge clients to complete their booking. This strategy not only helps fill slots but also improves the customer experience by making the booking process more convenient.  

2. Maximizing online booking opportunities

Offering clients appointment booking via your website is essential. But if it’s their only online access point to schedule an appointment, you’re coming up short.  

This second strategy emphasizes the importance of giving your clients a multitude of places to book online at your salon or spa. Your website. Your mobile app for clients (if you have one). Google. Social media.  

Raj and Carly talk about driving up appointment numbers by integrating booking options in Google, Facebook, and Instagram, and they show detailed examples of how businesses display across a variety of Google search results, including the Google local finder and Google Maps.  

3. Leveraging gift cards

Here's an interesting fact revealed during the webinar: The fastest growing revenue channel for beauty and wellness businesses in 2023 was online gift card sales.  

Not only do gift card sales help lift revenue, but gift cards provide a proven way to fill in schedule slots with both new clients and repeat business. Another gift card fact: 25% of all gift cards used at beauty and wellness businesses in 2023 were redeemed by first-time visitors. That’s up from 21% a year earlier.  

4. Creating a referral marketing program

For the fourth strategy of the webinar, our experts discuss a programmatic approach to word-of-mouth marketing. Having a process around a referral program – simple, digital, automated – can encourage existing clients to refer new ones, growing your customer base at little to no cost, and building an advocate community that loves your brand.  

5. Using automated, digital waitlists

Offering clients an automated waitlist is one of the most effective ways to fill slots vacated by late cancellations and satisfy walk-ins. Customers are notified when a slot opens, helping you maximize booked time and ensuring higher provider utilization.  

Conclusion

A key takeaway from the above strategies is that automation is key. Adding digital solutions to drive revenue and improve your customer experience should not place additional effort and stress on your staff.  

Automated reminders, online booking, easy gift card sales, referral marketing, and automatic waitlists can be wonderfully valuable tools because they primarily work in the background, placing much of the activity in your clients’ hands – enhancing efficiency and maximizing revenue. To sum it up, the right mix of these strategies can help beauty and wellness businesses optimize their utilization and boost their bottom line efficiently.

Watch now: Growing your revenue – How to fill every available slot in your appointment book