10 Tips to Ramp up Your Business in a Shopping Centre

Are you a salon owner whose salon is within a retail shopping complex?

Regardless of how big or small it is, there are things you can do to help boost your business.

Many salon owners lament over being seemingly ‘stuck’ and complain that their business is reliant on the activities of centre management.

While that might be true to a degree, I am never one to sit back and blame other people for the level of business activity I am enjoying or not.

You have to be proactive and really take the bull by the horns and get to work here, you can’t rely on shopping centre marketing teams or your supplier to pull you out of the doldrums if that’s where you are heading.

So, here are some tips to get you thinking and the creative juices flowing to ramp up your salon activity even when times are slow.

1. Identify your captive client. Get to know her, her age, background, cultural preferences, lifestyle, what things is she looking for. What might interest her? Too often we as salon owners are marketing to the people WE want to have in our salon and are ignoring the passing traffic that might in fact be our target market.
2. Survey your existing clients. What do they really want, what are their concerns, what products have they tried and what results have they had, what are they wanting to experience from attending a salon, you get the idea.
3. Partner with other retailers in the centre to do some joint promoting with special offers. If they pass on yours, you do the same. Help each other.
4. Source your clients on social media, find out what they like and become more engaged with them. On this note review your new client form to see if you can be asking more questions to really get to know your client.
5. Find out what community events are happening in your local area and see how you can be involved. The locals love seeing local business interacting.
6. Get the marketing plan from centre management and plan ahead for what you might want to be involved in, for example, do they have school holiday events that you can capitalise on with teenage skin promotions or makeup demonstrations.
7. Check out the local kindergartens, schools and charities in your area, be involved. Another good one is golf clubs with large women memberships, they always have events and ladies days you can speak at or offer vouchers.
8. Network with local business. Observe what companies you have close by who have female employees and offer fabulous deals for women on the go. When putting these together always ask yourself is it good enough to jump in the car and make the effort to go, that’s what the girls will be thinking.
9. Join your local chamber of commerce, and see how they can help you.
10. Market your business accordingly, if the majority of shoppers in your centre are seniors, then guess what, maybe that’s who you should focus on. Seniors have family’s, daughters, and grand daughters and they are more likely to tell all their friends about you if they have a wonderful time than anyone else.

So there it is, 10 ideas you can implement immediately to help ramp up your business if you reside in a shopping centre. One thing is for sure, you are probably not in a position to relocate and have to pay rent, so don’t keep comparing your salon with the one in the centre down the road. They have their own issues, just like you, and the grass is not always greener on the other side.

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